September 2006 arrived and every day seemed an eternity. Mid September, after a chocolate muffin and a cappicino to commiserate another day passing with no sign of madam making an appearance, I had my first contraction while browsing a local department store. My friend drove me home like a bat out of hell despite my insistance it would be hours before anything real happened... I was wrong! I barely made it to the hospital and the Munchkin landed 9 minutes after being admitted! All 9lb 4oz of her was in a very big hurry to make her stage debut and this left me in shock for a few days!
We went home 12 hours later and attempted to adjust to dressing, feeding and taking care of this tiny vulnerable person who was now controlling our home with her demands and needs. Autism was not at the front of my mind in these early days as we now had another worry. Munchkin had been born with a dimple in her spine. We didn't know how deep it went as couldn't see and there was a small amount of hair growing from it. I crumbled inside thinking the worst and instantly mentally tarmaced the driveway for her wheelchair being the big pessamist! It was also noted that she had an "ear pit" which was also a neural tube defect so we went through a series of Xrays for her spine, Ultrasounds for her kidneys to see were there any missing or anything abnormal about them, hearing tests etc.... I remember standing at the hospital asking the consultant before these tests what the dimple and pit could represent and barely hearing what his answer was as the room was spinning with the words... spina bifida... kidney and renal abnormalities... deafness... I recall asking the doctor afterwards could he not have "sugar coated" it a bit for me as I was hanging on by a fine thread. Thankfully all that stress and worry was for nothing as it turned out the dimple didn't reach the spine and it hasn't effected her mobility at all (as you will see later on in the blog, I have a mountaineer lol). Her hearing was fine and her kidneys normal so we were able to put this behind us.
6 comments:
Great start Petunia.... I'm hooked! Welcome to blogland.
It's amazing when u look back at all the signs isn't it? The 2 things I was always concerned about was Downs and Autism. But, there ya go! Of course it's only now that I see our family connections.
I think it's so amazing how that 4 yr old Autistic boy came into your life.
keep posting can't wait to read more! xx Jazzy
wow! so you are one of those slippery womb mums who just squat and there's your baby huh? Me? I'm a 30 hour lass. I can see where it might be traumatic either way.
I can also see how you developed your great perspective on the whole thing. Having such worry about real health and mobility, and then the relief obviously equipped you for the next step.
Brilliant story. I would love to link you, ready?
xx
Thanks girls. I'll work on the next installment of our journey later this evening. If you want to link it Hammie go ahead and I'll try to blog part of our journey each day so we can get up to date to the happier days we have now :) xx
i'm with petunia here...i basically sneeze and it's "hey! somebody catch the baby!". My little girl Ellen has one of those dimples on her ear and i never knew why they paid so much attention to it...she's fine btw.
don't worry about moving on to the happy stuff (even tho i want to hear all of that too)...this is all just as important, if not more so
xxx
no slippery wombs here hammie - I had the out thro the sunroof option. Did you know grufalos are too posh to push lol:)
love it petunia - keep it coming xx
30 hours Hammie?? Don't know how anyone could cope that long!
Jean, glad everything was ok for Ellen too. I had wondered why my sister (paed nurse) kept pressing me to have the earpit looked at... We were back home when I discovered the sacral dimple on her spine as the hospital paed had totally missed it and the ear pit. My sister was here and she spotted the ear pit. I've since heard of two more cases where the paed missed dimples.... xx
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