Monday, January 14, 2008

How we found out...

So, we wanted to start this blog, and did, but have not really done much with it. I guess it's time we start. So it's now January 14th, and our little Kaela is almost 7 months! It's crazy how time flys when your busy busy busy...and having fun :)
I'm going to do a little back tracking...to about 7 and a half months ago to give a little insight into how this all came about.
This was our second child. We already had a son, William, who brought more joy into our lives then we ever new existed. He is now 2, as of December 2nd and such a great big brother. So my pregnancy was pretty routine other then having gestational diabetes for the second time. I was taking insulin twice a day and started those lovely twice a week non stress test at 30 weeks I believe?? I also had an ultra sound with one of those non stress test, so I was able to see our little girl quite often. Something good that comes out of having to poke yourself twice a day with needles and 4 times with the sugar tester! We didn't find out we were having a girl right away either, it took a couple of ultra sounds before we knew, but we were so excited to find out we would be able to add pink to the wardrobe :)

So around 32 weeks I had an ultra sound to test the baby's weight since I had the diabetes. The babies weight was measuring a little low for the number of weeks and her long bones were measuring shorter then 'normal' (a word I really don't like using anymore). My mom was with me at this appointment. They had us in this room forever waiting to see the doctor. You know something is not right when you are waiting to see the doctor forever and their are about 7 other doctors/interns looking at her images on the computer outside the room. Once we finally saw the doctor she told us that they weren't sure what it was, it could just be that she was small, asked us if we had 'shorter' people in the family but also told us it could be a skeletal dysplasia. I had never heard this term before and didn't know what it meant. She very briefly told us that meant her bones were not developing properly and she could be a little person but lets schedule another appointment in 3 weeks to see how she is growing. I was worried but not too worried. Sure we had smaller people in the family and who would have thought? Well, 3 weeks later little Kaela hadn't grown at all...this is when they confirmed she had a skeletal dysplasia. They said they thought it was Achondroplasia but couldn't be sure until she was born or if we had an amnio to find out. We opted not to have that done since it would either say yes, she is Achon or no she isn't and we don't know what it is. About 3 weeks later Kaela was born at home. No, not on purpose! Why would you do that on purpose :) She came VERY quick...my mom caught her, my son was throwing up sick and my husband was trying to put a video on for him when my mom walked in just in time to say what the...and pretty much catch the baby! EMS got here about 3 minutes after she was born and took us all to the hospital. We knew pretty quickly she didn't have Achondroplasia because she didn't have any of the characteristics. About 2 days later they diagnosed her with Metatropic from some xrays they had taken. She was in the NICU for 2 days and in a regular room for 4 days. She had to stay there until she had an MRI to be sure her neck was stable. It was and we finally brought her back home.

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