Brace yourselves people, i'm going to attempt a comprehensive update on all things Gilchrist!

Firstly, Ed - his shoulder is healing amazingly well. He no longer has to take pain meds and is out of the sling for large portions of the day. It is still painful and stiff, but he is re-gaining movement and, once he starts physio, we are confident that he will make a full recovery.

This week, some changes have come to light within EA that will impact Ed's job. There is no immediate risk of redundancy (praise God!), but the changes might mean that rather than being able to come home in Sept next year (as we had been planning), we might need to adjust things and plan for a return to the UK the following Summer...it’s still not clear and we are praying hard about it… we SO long to be home, but equally we want to be wise about the next move for Ed and want to make sure that when we come home there is actually a job for Ed to go to! Your ongoing prayers would be appreciated!

Secondly, me (that's Nicci - Daniel is not able to type updates yet! I know, he is a miracle baby, but that would just be silly!) - i'm not sure whether I have blogged my decision to be fitted with an insulin pump... the deciding factor was that they come in pink - I felt that was guidance! Just as I was typing, the doorbell went and it was a delivery man who handed me the box containing all my pump equipment! So I now have it! I'll be trained on how to use it and run it with saline during the week of the 18th and then i'll start using it with insulin on the 25th. I am still not sure how I feel about it - I hate the idea of being attached to it 24/7, but I feel it would be silly not to try it, since everyone says that it is a life-transforming way to manage diabetes... so we'll see how it goes... day to day, I am coping pretty well with being diabetic - no major hypos or hypers to report - I just have to monitor what i'm eating and how i'm feeling fairly closely...

I am loving being a ladies bible study leader and have been blessed with a lovely group of women who all seem really hungry to grow. It's great to have that as a slightly different focus during the week rather than being 100% Mummy!

And finally, Daniel! - We had his first developmental check up today. I had been looking forward to this appointment for quite some time. The appointment lasted 2 hours - a developmental specialist and a physio put him through his paces - testing him against cognition and physical development milestones. I was hoping that on every assessment Daniel would be ahead of the curve and would be judged to have caught up with his birth date age. However, although the overwhelming take-home message was that Daniel is doing exceptionally well, he still has quite some way to go before he has caught up with his peers. Apparently, for a baby born at 24 weeks, they would be happy if he was tracking with his birth date milestones (so, at about a 4 month old level). Daniel is tracking at about 6 months cognitively and at about a 5 month old physically. So, there is LOTS to praise and thank God for!

For those of you who are continuing to pray for him (thank you!), arm strength and co-ordination are the things I have been sent home to work on with him - specifically, bringing his arms into the mid-line to reach for things when he is lying on his back. They also expect him to start babbling (rather than the cooing he is doing currently) in the next month or so.

In terms of his measurements, all those prayers 'that he would grow big and strong' are paying off! He has caught up to his birth date in terms of his length and head circumference and I was warned that I need to make sure I am not over-feeding him since he is a wee bit TOO chubby! They are not concerned, but they said that it might delay him starting to crawl if his tummy gets too heavy to lift off the ground! He might just be building up to another growth spurt!

So, all in all, we're doing well! Over and out!