Check Up and Check In's

Thursday Lily and I met with Rachel, our early intervention contact, and a preschool transition teacher of the visually impaired, Rhonda. This was our first of 4 transition meetings. This one was more telling me about the process of getting LB into the program and talking about what will be happening in the months to come before she turns 3. It was all a bit overwhelming but all I really had to do is say "I want to go forward with getting her enrolled in the preschool program."
I think the confusing part for me is that when I think of preschool I think of actually preschool where in this case, it's just a name. If she qualifies, which she should, then she can get more visual therapy, maybe some OT and PT, etc. My main reason for getting it besides the VI would be to get a IEP for when she starts school.
One of my biggest fears is having LB fall through the cracks in the public school system because she can see so well but that doesn't mean she won't have struggles. The IEP will say things like how her eyes may get fatigued earlier while reading because of her nystagmus, or that she needs to sit in the front of the class, or need more time with reading, or need supervision and help at the playground (eek) and of course, she'll need a bathroom pass. When I mentioned the last one Rhonda said she would make sure we had a nurse on our preschool team to add in things like that which made me feel a lot better.
Rhonda also said that with a vision of 20/70 (the cut off for qualification) and nystagmus, she most definitely should qualify. But, we still have to go through all the formalities.

Friday we went to the ophthalmologist for LB's eye check up. She is still measuring at 20/70. We did a lot of acuity tests because we needed to make sure she wasn't using any eye more than the other. They have to cover up each eye with a frosted glass (so it's not completely blocked but you can't see out of the eye) and Lily fights it so bad. It's really sad :-( But it also means that she's using both eyes together as best she can. She is tilting her head a bit to the right but the Dr wasn't too concerned with that and just explained that that might be her best line of sight - or where her eyes shake less.
We'll be going back in 4 months to recheck her glasses prescription, make sure she's using both eyes the same and dilate her eyes again!