The cutest little blue eyed baby boy was born on this day 9 years ago and I'm lucky enough to be his mom. From birth until he was about a year old there seemed to be an issue of some sort with this little guy. First his cord was wrapped around him which caused quite a scare. Then he had so much congestion that they had to take him to the nursery and suction him out so he could breath right. I didn't get to see him for the first few hours of his life because of this. Then once we were home he became very jaundiced. He had to be wrapped in a glowing blanket which made him look like a little glow worm. Daily a nurse would come over to take blood to test his billirubin levels by taking blood from his heel. He was none too happy about this activity. All this going on around Christmas time. Next was the scare that he had club feet, off to Scottish Rite we went. My pediatrician was being overly cautious and it was only the way he was scrunched up in utero and his feet were fine. They just needed a little time to stretch out. At this same time it was also noted that his frenulum which secures his tongue to the floor of his mouth was short. It's often referred to as a tongue tie. It caused him no feeding issues so it was left alone at this time. All this and my baby was less than a week old! *whew* Exhausting while caring for a 2-1/2 year old at the same time and a baby-ass man who might as well have been a 3rd child. Next major ordeal came at less than 6 weeks old when he ran a fever higher than they 'like to see', off to Children's Hospital we go. They suspected spinal meningitis. This entailed blood draw, urine gathered via a catheter and a spinal tap. The spinal tap sent him into shock. The tech handed my baby back to me and I could have sworn he was dead. He was white as a ghost and limp. OMG! Everyone cleared the room except someone cleaning up. I immediately ordered him to get the doctor. The doctor returned and gave him fluids in his already hooked up IV (thank God). It took some time, but he returned to normal. They finally sent us home about 5am. All the results weren't back yet so they gave him some IV antibiotics just in case and sent us home as there were no beds available. *sigh* All of that for nothing...everything came back normal. But, I'd rather have tested than not and then he ended up having spinal meningitis. That was a life changing experience though. I really started looking at what was important. My job, that up to that point, I had given most of my energy to became secondary. My family was my new focus. At 3 months old this little baby would not hold his head up when he was pulled to sitting position. This was yet another alarm. We did a CAT scan and various tests to determine he had hypotonia (low muscle tone). But, prior to this diagnosis I was scared to death 'cause it could have meant so much more. Luckily 12 months of physical therapy made all the difference for him. The final major issue with him was at 14 months old he wasn't uttering a word. Upon further examination he had fluid behind his eardrum and wasn't hearing much. He had tubes put in and at the same time had his tongue tie clipped to avoid any possible speech problems. Within a week he started saying those words every mommy wants to hear, 'mama'. From then on he has just been nothing but fantastic. It was a rough first year, but now he is the brightest 9 year old around. He's also turned out to be athletic, not a sign of low muscle tone. He is also very healthy.
I have to say though, he's probably got my strange luck. Somehow a bug flew at his eye and a piece of the wing broke off and embedded itself by his iris. So today, on his 9th birthday, he had to see the opthamologist about it. She numbed his eye and removed the foreign object!!! In his courageous style he sat still and let the doctor take care of what had to be taken care of.
I'm so proud of my cute little blue eyed monkey boy :)
ETA: It may seem as if I wasn't so proud until the rough year was over. I felt it should be said, I thought he was perfect from the moment I saw him.
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