No, I am her mother. I make the decisions. I can and will have her best interest at heart, always. I will always be her advocate, her protector, her mama bear. If anyone should hurt her, I will scratch their eyes right out without blinking. Because it's my job. The only job that will ever really matter. Like any job, I have to learn this one, and in doing so I will undoubtedly make a ton of mistakes. I already have! I am imperfect, but my family is perfect. So, that makes us imperfectly imperfect! Thus the name of this blog...
I decided to begin a blog to record what happens here in our world when I realized the strangest things seem to unfold around here. My perfect daughter, who came out a perfect 7 pounds 2 ounces, with her beautiful little face, ten toes, ten fingers, and a smile that would make Hitler cry, needs a helmet. A helmet. A friggin helmet! The actual term is a DOC band actually. I can say DOC band until the cows come home, but in my head all that reverberates over and over again is "helmet, helmet, your kid is a helmet kid." I know it's not a full helmet- it's a band. It looks like a boxing helmet actually. Helmet- there's that word again! Maybe I should back up...
When Dani was 2 months old, our pediatrician mentioned Dani's head was a bit flat. I had noticed this as well, but I was under the impression all newborns had odd-shaped heads, and it would even out eventually as their heads are so soft and mold-able. This was around the time we moved back to Mississippi from our home in San Diego. Dave has been stationed in Mississippi for almost three years now, however when he deployed last year, I went home to San Diego to have Dani with family around. Dave returned from deployment about seven weeks after Dani was born. But I digress. When we got to Mississippi, I began seeing a Pediatrician locally. This office was never a place I liked to go, and I hated this was the place I had to take my brand new baby daughter. It was a bad experience from the first phone call to make the first appointment. What made matters worse, this office assigned us a Nurse Practitioner, instead of an actual doctor. While she is a very nice woman, she has never been helpful. This little tidbit was proved with about half a dozen appointments of me taking Dani in and asking over and over about her head.
"I think it's still too flat- it doesn't seem to be flattening out!"
"No, her head is fine. She won't need to see a specialist."
"I know you're sick of seeing me, but I just feel like her head is much too flat!"
"Nope. Ship shape!"
Over and over again, I went in there like an insane woman trying to get what I knew to be right looked at, validated, diagnosed. I was always shot down, walking away thinking this NP must know what she is talking about, she went to medical school, I'm just a neurotic first time mom, right?
Dave, Dani and I found out we would be returning to San Diego in June of this year (finally) and came home for a two week trip to look at houses. During this trip, I made an appointment for Dani at our old Pediatrician for a second opinion to see if I really was crazy. She's five months old at this point, maybe her head has grown into a shape that I can't see. Turns out, I WAS right. I was right all this time! We were immediately referred to Cranial Technologies in San Diego, and made an appointment with them as soon as we could. Since we were in town for just a few weeks, we got right in- on our wedding anniversary! A family trip to the cranial specialist. Okay, I guess this is actually happening!
Cranial Technologies was so welcoming. We didn't have to wait long in the waiting room and everyone was so nice. Someone whisked us into a room where Dani had a series of digital pictures taken. As the woman took the pictures, she put every light up musical toy in the world in front of Dani to distract her into looking right into the camera, at a wall, at the ceiling, etc. This took about 5 minutes. We were then led to another room to wait for the Physical Therapist/Occupational Therapist to tell us what they thought of her head. Dani loved to play with the new toys that were in this room. It felt nice to have an environment that didn't feel sterile.
The PT, Margie, came in to speak with the three of us. We went over the pictures and were told Dani had a combination of Plagiocephaly and Brachycephaly. Um, what? Are those words? Even as I type them, my Mac is asking me to please fix the spelling of such an absurd pair of words. Ok, well, what does this all mean? What it means is that in Dani's case, her poor little head was wedged in my pelvis for so long while I was pregnant, her head kind of grew... smooshed. Because I dropped so early, and more than once, when I was pregnant Dani's head kind of never had a chance, and was always going to need the band to help shape it correctly. The plagio (because I am never typing all that out again) is where her head kind of bulges out of one side more than the other, and in Dani's case, it bulges out the left back side and the front right side. The brachy (again, never again!) is where her head does a sort of "drop off" the back. And is flat flat flat. because of this phenomenon, her head has been growing "out" the sides. It got very technical, but with the pictures, we were really able to understand what was being explained to us. They answered my many questions, and I felt thoroughly educated about Dani's head.
I also felt thoroughly guilty. Me and my short frame- no torso to hold a baby, so her head had to develop in my pelvis. My small, short body pelvis. Margie told us her head was a result of "in utero" instead of the very prevalent "positional" plagio/brachy. She also said because we did so much tummy time to try and correct her head, it's not nearly as bad as it could have been. I think this was supposed to make us feel better. I'm not sure it did. Neither did telling us how hard she has had to work at keeping her head up. Because her head hasn't had the chance to grow out the back, and create a more balanced head to learn to control, Dani has had to work so much harder than the average baby to learn this task. The weight of her head has never been distributed properly, and because of this, tummy time really did totally suck. All I could think about was the may hours we would keep her on her tummy thinking we were doing the right thing, and how upset she was the entire time. I knew babies in general hated tummy time and protested, but looking back, were we being cruel? Was I torturing my perfect baby? I felt like a failure. I felt so awful for inflicting me on my poor unsuspecting daughter who drew me as her mother.
Then I thought, wait a minute. My daughter might have had to work harder, but it makes her tough! It makes her a fighter, someone who can achieve a difficult task put forth to her. That makes her my daughter, as I have always been a tough one as well. She got that strength from me! At six months old, my daughter taught me she can achieve anything she sets her mind to. Because let me tell you, she can hold her head up just fine! She has great gross motor skills, and as she fine tunes the fine motor skills, I am constantly amazed as how quickly she picks up a new achievement. This might be because it seems easy after working so hard to keep her head up. I'll take that any day of the week!!
I love that you are sharing your journey on a blog. We will keep you all in our prayers. Dani is an absolutely gorgeous girl and she will rock that doc band. You, my friend, are a wonderful mother because you already get how terrifying it all is!
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