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After 15 days of knowing only the hospital, baby girl will sleep in her very own cradle tonight!  Wow.  How awesome is that???  She must still tummy sleep because of the swelling in her back (which is looking better again today). God knew this ahead of time and had somebody gift us this little monitor system that goes under the baby's mattress. It can detect movement and respiration so even if she must sleep on her tummy, mommy and daddy don't have to worry about SIDS.  Plus, she's been doing super with her respiration while being monitored here at the hospital so I am not too concerned about that.

Doctor Aldona (I really love that guy!) explained to me how to check her head measurements and other signs to look for in regards to watching out for hydrocephalus. I am a fantastic worrier and only slightly less fantastic at being paranoid, so staying on top of this should be a piece of cake. In fact, if I do a good job of it, I may add "compulsively attentive to teensy little details" to the "skills" section of my resume.  :)

I was also informed that her "functional" level is L5 meaning that all her nerves up to and including that vertebra appear to function. Her sacral nerves not so much. For walking, this means she can flex her ankles up but not down as well and its that downward motion on the ball of your foot that pushes you up and forward. So she may need some ankle braces caled AFO's when the time comes. I hear they come in pink.  It also may mean trouble at potty training when that time comes too as nobody knows but her if she will be able to control the necessary muscles to go on "command". There is plenty of time to worry about all that later. (And plenty of time for the Almighty to work on mending those sacral nerves!) The random thought I keep having though is that I see bike-riding in her future. We were all read up and educated about those cool special made (and crazy expensive) hand-pedal trikes if we needed to get one, but its nice to know we can go the cheap route and get her a cute one from Wally World when the time comes for that. Is mommy a penny pincher or what??

I have spent the last two days getting her all set up with her follow up care. Since she qualifies for an early intervention program called early steps, her physical therapists will be able to come to our house to do her therapy. Which will save boku time for me as a working mom not to mention gas money! She goes for her evaluation with them the end of October. For now, there are some exercises I can do with her at home. She has one foot that due to her position in the womb, likes to turn inward and one toe that isn't in line with the others. I was taught what to do to help those go back where they should. I have selected her pediatrician and have my first appointment with him. I have a WIC appointment. Follow ups with neurosurgery, urology and orthopedics. In two months we attend our first spina bifida clinic which is like a one stop doctor shop. WOW. We are gonna be busy girls going to all these places. I still am in awe by how blessed I am to have the medicaid that gets her all this wonderful care that I could never otherwise afford. God is so good!