To helmet or not to helmet

On Wednesday this week, I took Will to see the cranial facial center at Pittsburgh's Children's Hospital. Will has a flat spot on the back, right side of his head. The issue with this is that if it gets worse he would need a helmet. He got this flat spot for a couple reasons. First off, he is a preemie. His head is so much softer still and his skull won't calcify and start to harden until later on after a term baby's skull would. So his head is seriously soft so much so that it worries me sometimes! Another reason is because of his NICU stay. I don't blame it on his stay in the NICU but it does play a factor. We were not able to physically hold him for more than two 10 minute intervals a day until he got out of the isolette and into an open air crib. He didn't get into an open air crib until day 21 of life. So until he was 21 days old we weren't able to hold him longer than twenty minutes a day. This whole time that we weren't able to hold him, he was on his back and on the back of his head. Finally, the last reason is that he has torticollis. That's the tightness in the neck where he can't turn it all the way to one side or both. So this tightness wasn't allowing him to turn to the left resulting in the flatness on the right side.

Once I knew his head was becoming flat in the back, I called Early Intervention. With Will being preemie, the state gives us E.I. for free. This allows us to get services that he would need if something ever came up due to his prematurity, like speech or something like that. We ended up qualifying for Physical Therapy. Our PT lady, Ms. Rebecca, comes every Friday mid morning to work with Will. She gets him to roll over and stretches his neck and gives us advice on what to do with repositioning his head in the car seat and stuff like that so that he can turn his head better and work his muscles. He has come such a long way with PT and I can't say that he would have been this good on his own without it. He turns his head so well now. He tries to sit up. He tries to pull himself up and he rolls over! All of this contributes to helping him relieve this flat spot.

So per Ms. Rebecca's advice, we scheduled this appointment at Children's to check to see how severe his flat spot is and if it is severe enough he could be put into a helmet to fix it. Have you ever seen a baby in one of these helmets? It breaks my heart. It gives me anxiety thinking my son may have to be put into a helmet. It might be selfish of me, and of course I would do anything to better my son's life, however... I wouldn't leave the house. There would be no pictures of him in this thing. I wouldn't take him out with it on. We would live a miserable life if he had to be put into a helmet. The only person I ever knew to have their child in a helmet, had a flat spot because they didn't hold their son. And that's all I think about when someone says helmet or see a child in a helmet. I hold my son. I love my son. I would not put him down if I didn't have to eat, or shower, or go to the bathroom! So my preconceived thoughts going into this appointment weren't the best to say the least.

This appointment went great though. The doctor we saw was amazing and sweet. She answered all the questions and was very thorough in the evaluation. We got his weight too. He's now a whopping 13 lbs 11 oz! Holy cow my preemie little 3 and a half pound baby boy! Who knew you'd gain ten pounds in 5 months! Way to go kiddo. Getting off topic, even though weights are pretty important in this preemie life! So she did his evaluation and took all these measurements of his head with this strange ruler tool thing. The whole thing with a helmet would be that if the flat spot was affecting the front symmetry of his face we'd totally get him in a helmet because it can affect his eye socket and eye sight. She told me that it wasn't affecting it at all. The only thing that it's barely doing is that his forehead about his eye is slightly further out and so is his right ear compared to the left. Also she said it was incredibly mild, as mild as it can get. Her suggestion was to wait a month. If it gets worse then helmet him or come back to get measured again and decide from there. But for now it would be purely a cosmetic reason and she thinks it will round itself out if we continue our PT and repositioning.

So nothing is wrong with my baby boy and he's happy and healthy. He's had a cold all week and his nose has been something awful. So it's been a rough week for us here in the Spin household but other than that things are good. No helmet for now and hopefully never! Fingers crossed ;) Enjoy your weekend friends! Only one week until our March for Dimes walk and our team is "Where there's a Will" Get it?! We don't show any donations yet because we give cash the day of but if you'd like to donate to help preemies and babies who are born early, please follow our link and donate to an amazing organization that really does all they can to help these babies. Thank you!

http://www.marchforbabies.org/s_team_page.asp?seid=2046284

Milestones

I said it before and I'll say it again. When a preemie has a milestone, the world stops turning and everyone celebrates. It's one of the biggest deals of the year, that is, until the next milestone occurs. When a baby is born early, you have two ages. Their actual age and the adjusted age based off of their due date. Will is now 21 weeks old (holy sh!t) actual and 16 weeks adjusted. At his last pediatrician appointment, he got down all of his two month milestones and half of his four month. But when a preemie is born, they don't know if they'll have any delays due to being early. They could not talk until they're 2 years old or have to have physical therapy, which we already are in. They may not walk until three months later than a "typical" term baby. There's a lot of if's and a lot of patience in milestones.

Well like I said, we are in physical therapy already. We are trying to work on rolling over by starting on his side and go to his belly. He always leans back though and ends up on his back. Well Saturday night, over at grandma's house, we were having some awesome tummy time. All of a sudden, BAM! He was on his back and I screamed! I couldn't believe it. I started to get tears in my eyes. It was his first time rolling over. He may not have rolled over until he was 7 or 8 months old but here we are at 5 months and he rolled over. He rolled over, not once, but THREE TIMES! The amount of happiness and pride that I have for him is overwhelming. I could not believe that it was happening. It's such a big milestone for us! Then last night he did it again, three times in a row!

So to all you mommas out there who go crazy over milestones like I do, enjoy every second of it! Scream! Jump for joy! Go celebrate with ice cream! Do something! Don't just sit there and think okay, one more down. Embrace the amazing-ness of a milestone like rolling over. Something so simple like rolling over or holding your head up is so hard for a little baby, let alone a preemie baby, and they should be celebrated to the full extent. Don't take it for granted for some babies will never see the day that they'll roll over. Count your blessings and with every middle of the night feeding or waking up, know your little prince or princess is alive and well and home safe with you.

Baby boy, you're getting so big but I love that you're doing your milestones not that far behind your peers. I will never push you to do the same things as your peers knowing that developmentally you may still be behind but I will always, always, always, encourage what you want to do and accomplish. I cannot wait for the next milestone! I love you always <3

SAHM

I'm a stay at home mom and I'm proud. I just wrote a huge post and when I re-read it, I sounded like a complete jerk! It was awful. So I deleted it and realized that although yes I am a SAHM and yes my son does not like to sleep during the day for more than twenty minutes and I don't get anything done, but it's awesome. I get to watch my son grow up and although I get anxiety over finances every other day, I can find all these amazing things about him everyday. I feel awful to Dave having to work two jobs from 4:30am to 8:00pm and some days I don't have time to even put the laundry away.. which is definitely one of those weeks because the laundry is still sitting in the basket, all folded and just waiting for me to put it away... for about five days now (oops!).

So after all the typing and thinking and re-reading the entire post I had written, the conclusion is being a SAHM mom is kick ass. If you are able to do it, please do because seeing my son grow up is worth every cent that I'm not making by working. Sorry Dave, I will do my best to make some kind of money to help out with the household but for now, being with Will everyday is priceless.


Enjoy your day ladies and gents and make it worth while.