Went to the paediatrician today for Holly's 6 month check up and all seemed to be in order, which was nice.
The doctor was very impressed with Holly's progress, her ability to do peek-a-boo, her sensory awareness (turning when she heard a noise, etc.), and general progress.
We discussed the hot topics that Sue and I are thinking about right now - further private intense therapy and the MMR jab debate.
While the NHS won't sanction any more than 6 sessions of additional therapy (£70/hr if your curious), we did discuss that we're prepared to pay for it ourselves after the initial "freebies".
We were told that while intense therapy is good on paper, there's a question about how effective it actually would be. If Holly is going to eventually get to 95% normalcy anyway, the therapy may only serve to get her there quicker and then there's no telling how much quicker. It most likely wouldn't serve to provide any additional help.
Regarding the MMR jab, we were regaled with horror stories of the effects of measles (which just sounded ghastly). While the jab itself may not actually cause autism or other illnesses, it may trigger any dormant neuro problems that are not yet detected and allow them to manifest themselves.
Sue and I are quite confident that Holly is a lot less "Emily-like" (for lack of a better term... "austismy"?) than Emily was at this age. A lot more engaged, verbal and alert.
Again, with the benefit of hindsight, all those people telling us we were lucky having such a lovely placid baby in Emily didn't know how utterly wrong they actually were.
We're still really skittish about the MMR jab as it's still not 100% certain that we wouldn't be signing Holly up to a lifelong disability if we did go through with it.
More sleeps and convincing required.