Playful Rooted

I was thinking the other day about how one year ago, I was lying in bed at night, running through the massive to-do list in my head for our trip to Hawaii. Worrying about getting our negative covid tests back in time, questioning whether I had accounted for everything the boys would need.

Another baby was not even on my radar. A year ago, I would never, ever, EVER have predicted that we’d have one right now.

And I certainly could never have imagined what we would go through to get here.

But here we are: we have a three-month-old! A beautiful little daughter. We made it through our family’s very last newborn phase! We’re all alive and well and thriving! Cue the fanfare!

I found this photo of myself recently; I’m eight weeks pregnant here with our little lady.

What would I go back and tell this person? I don’t know. Maybe, “Buckle up,” or “It’s going to be okay,” or “Doctors are wrong all the time.” I’m really not sure.

Actually, instead of words, I’d probably just show that person this picture. I think this captures everything I would need to know.

Man. What a ride.

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So! An update on our girl.

The Good

Overall, Pria is doing amazingly well. Amazingly!

She’s gone from her birth weight of 6lb, 8oz to somewhere over 11 pounds (powered by mama milk alone! Shameless props to myself because breastfeeding is a lot of work.)!

I don’t know how many inches she has grown, but it’s several. In summary, she’s growing, which is a really fab thing.

She’s met ALL of her one-, two-, and three-month milestones either on time or early. !!! Yep, you read that right.

At this point, she’s holding her head up, bearing weight on her legs, tracking objects and people with her eyes, starting to grasp toys, recognizing familiar faces and voices, and spending hours staring at her hands and feet.

She is also super smiley, which is the absolute best. It’s hard to be grumpy about waking up in the wee small hours when the tiny face greeting me is grinning so sweetly! (Sometimes I manage it though, let’s be honest.)

This little gal is also very chatty! I love listening to her babble all day long, and just recently she’s started giggling!! This is early compared to the boys; neither of them laughed until four months old, and she was laughing even before she turned three months. It’s my favorite sound in the world!

Of course, she’s still so young and there are many more milestones to meet, but it’s been a true delight watching our baby grow and thrive.

The Unknown

Pria’s kidneys were enlarged in utero, and they possibly still are. What we’ve been watching for is functionality, and she has been peeing like a champ, so functionally, her kidneys seem a-okay. We have the option to have another ultrasound done to see what the status is, but because we don’t see an immediate concern, we’re holding off on that. She had something like ten ultrasounds during the pregnancy, and that’s just a lot for a teeny tiny body. So unless something concerning crops up, we’re going to give her a break from more testing.

The Bummers

Let me say right now that these things are such SMALL POTATOES compared to what we thought we might be dealing with. Like, almost non-issues.

But! The doctors we’re working with now are not the doctors we worked with during the pregnancy, so they really have no scope of what we’ve been through with this girl. They have no idea that we thought our baby might be blind or deaf, or blind and deaf, or disabled in any number of ways. And doctors have a way of making parents feel like crap when something is going wrong, so sometimes, these potatoes feel pretty big.

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So. Issue number one is that baby girl was born with torticollis, which is basically just tightness of the muscles on one side of the neck. We didn’t know about it until her two-month checkup, and by that time, it had caused a bit of positional plagiocephaly, which just means a flat spot on the back of her head. This is VERY COMMON; one in two babies will develop some degree of plagiocephaly, and it is super fixable. You know how you see babies wearing those cute, funny helmets sometimes? Most likely, that’s a case of plagiocephaly.

Anyway. Our insurance requires a certain amount of documentation regarding skull measurements to qualify for a helmet, so just in case she needs one, I scheduled a consult a couple weeks ago for that. During that appointment, the plastic surgeon noticed that, beyond the mild plagiocephaly, girlfriend’s head shape is a little atypical. Her pediatrician had commented on this as well right after she was born; she just came out with kind of a funky head shape, but the pediatrician thought it was nothing to be concerned about. The plastic surgeon wasn’t so sure, and he was a bit worried that she might have craniosynostosis, which is where the sutures of the skull fuse too early. So, more testing: we got a full set of skull x-rays and spent one scary weekend wondering whether she would need major surgery. Luckily, we’re mostly sure that that’s ruled out at this point; time will tell for sure.

What remains of this is that we really do need to fix her torticollis, and with it, the plagiocephaly. That is going to require body work (my friend Taylor does craniofascial therapy and she has magical hands), chiropractic, and physical therapy. So it’s a bit of a road to travel, but again: tight muscles and possibly a helmet? Small potatoes.

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The other VERY trivial, not-even-a-real-issue thing is that Pria has a couple unfortunate birthmarks. They’re called hemangiomas, and they will go away! They are small and superficial and not concerning, but they’re a bit annoying to her mother right now. You can see the one on her cheek below; she has another on her chest. See how it’s really not a big deal?

She kind of hit the jackpot in terms of hemangioma risk factors: being female, caucasian, born a little early and a little small. After some fighting with her pediatrician (call it advocating), I took her to my dermatologist, and we’re now treating her marks with a topical ointment which is very safe and effective. The awesome news? They should disappear within the year.

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So again, baby girl is only three months old, and who knows what the road ahead holds for her? Because who knows what the road ahead holds for anyone? But right now, our concerns have been blessedly minor, and our delight in our perfect, one-of-a-kind daughter has been MAJOR.

Here’s to our happy, healthy, smiley, giggly, beautiful baby girl!

xo!