Moving forward

Yesterday afternoon I cleaned out the dresser in monkey's nursery. She not only started to outgrow several of the newborn and smaller 0 to 3 month onesies, but it was also time to put away things we just can't use. Mainly anything with pants. I think the hardest part of the whole thing was putting away all of her little zippered footie pajamas.  I always enjoyed putting her in a new one each evening before bed. They're all just so cute and snuggly. I took a few that she's outgrown and some that are her current size, folded them up, and put them in a drawer for me to save. Part of me hopes that we may just go to the doctor on Thursday and they say congratulations her hips are now perfect. I know that won't be the case at all. At minimum we have 6 to 10 weeks with this harness. Realistically we are looking at 12 to 20 and even maybe even longer. By then All the little footie pajamas are going to be too small.

Again it's just mourning the little things. In the meantime I'm getting more confident in handling her, and we've made some big strides. She spent a good chunk of the day in the Moby wrap and even managed to figure out breast-feeding while she's in the wrap. We also got in the mail today a Boppy newborn lounger. While she doesn't love it she doesn't hate it. I'm hoping she'll warm up to it and be able to hang out in it all around the house.  Overall though she is still a mama's girl and would prefer to be held by me. I'm more than okay with that. 

Baby wearing with a pavlik harness!

Propped up in the newborn lounger

Day 2

It's amazing the difference a day makes. Now that I'm over the initial shock and sadness, we are adjusting okay! The harness sucks - no doubt about that. Monkey seems unphased by it and she is sleeping awesome. Part of me actually wonders if that hip was bothering her in some way, and now with the harness's support she feels a bit better. That may just be something I'm making up to deal with everything, but it's working! Day 2 and we are doing okay!!

The small things

I need to give myself a chance to mourn the little things. Today I moved our baby girls bathtub down to the basement. Chances are we may not get to use the little pink bathtub again. We definitely won't be using the newborn sling included with the tub. Honestly our little monkeys probably thrilled about that. She wasn't one that really loved bath time. I love bathtime though and had hoped she would eventually find it one of her favorite activities. That's one we will have to work on down the road.

Our little girl will be in the harness 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the forseeable future. After our appointment yesterday, we still don't have a clear picture on severity of her case or the length of treatment. It turns out it depends much more on how she takes to her treatment rather than how severe her case is. If the harness does its job, we are looking at a shorter journey of maybe 10 to 12 or  weeks of full-time wear with some part-time follow-up after that. If she doesn't take to the harness we could be looking at hard casting and possibly surgery. Worst case scenario we could be dealing with this for a few years.

No matter what, she'll have to have checks up until she's probably around 9 to 10 years old just to make sure her hips fully developed the way they should. That means this paranoia that lives with me now, watching her every move, looking at her hips, listening to every creak and every squeal wondering if her body is doing what it supposed to do - will stay here for a long time.

The normal we thought we had doesn't exist anymore. This is our new normal and we will get through it no matter what. In the meantime I just need to mourn the little things.

And it begins - day one

Harness is on. We go back in a week to see if it is helping. If it's not, we do something else. I don't have many words at the moment. Just so sad. I haven't cried like this since my high school boyfriend dumped me. Trust me - that's some seriously embarrassing crying.

Making the best of it

My awesome friend Megan came over on Sunday for a craft night. It was her idea to make Mira's diagnosis and treatment as cute as possible! 

She brought over a bunch of clearance socks from Target, and now we have several pairs of awesome baby legs to use with Mira's brace!

Thank goodness for awesome friends!

Not sure what's going on

I think our little monkey can sense my stress level. It seems like in the past week or so if she's awake she's crying. I want to apologize and advance for my lack of punctuation in this post. I'm using the voice record feature on my phone since I only have one hand free. The other one is supporting this little girl sleeping on my chest. 

Anyway as I was saying it seems like anymore there's a lot more crying. From her and from me. It took 6 1/2 weeks to get there but yesterday for the first time I broke down in tears during one of her fits. All she could do was scream and there was nothing I could do to stop her. I don't know if it's just her stage of development or if she starting to feel all of the fear that I have in me right now.

During our night feedings I sit here on my phone and read everything I can about hip dysplasia. I read the stories of success the kids who were only in a brace for 6 to 10 weeks and ended up with an ultrasound that read perfectly. I read the stories of the kids who the brace did nothing for, ended up in a cast, then surgery then years later reporting success but only after heart breaking wretchedly long journey. I have no idea where we are going to fall in that spectrum.

No matter where we fall in it we will get through it. But the not knowing just has me terrified. I'm trying to relish and enjoy this time where little monkey wants to be attached to me. I try to put her in her crib her bouncy seat her rock n play but the only place she'll sleep during the day is on my chest. Don't get me wrong I love the look down and see this little face but I would like to get up and walk occasionally.

We just had a failed experiment with a new Moby wrap hold so it doesn't look like that one's going to be working for a little bit. I had hoped we would be able to get out and do a lot of walks during the beautiful fall weather but it doesn't look like that's going to be the case. The car seat might as well be a torture device to our little monkey. Pair that with not wanting to use the Moby now either and we're stuck inside.

The current view of my chest

Still dealing with the news - DDH

We just got the news on Tuesday that Monkey has DDH.  After a clicky hip at her first ped appt (less than 1 week old), we had an ultrasound at six weeks to check on the status of her hips.  Unfortunately we got the call the day afterwards that Monkey's hip was indeed dislocated. All we know right now is that the main issue is the left hip.  The right hip is "immature" but will correct itself in time.  The left one, however, needs extra help.

That means this coming Thursday we will be heading to Nationwide Children's hospital to meet with our orthapedic surgeon.  Our ped told us she will be put in a Pavlik harness and to expect it on as long as 4-6 months.  This is where the internet becomes a problem.  There is, unfortunately, not a ton of information about this condition to be found. And when you do find it, there tend to be some pretty extreme cases out there.  I'm hoping the lack of info I am finding about DDH in newborns is because it becomes such a non-issue to the family that they don't document it or have to reach out for bigger answers.

So far I have found a board on babycenter and a website for a hip dysplasia institute.  Both have been helpful so far, but I wanted a place to document our journey as it happens.  I'm hoping that our journey will maybe help other families down the line, and it will also serve as a journal for our family as we embark on this process.

I'm scared.  And I'm sad.  I know that on the spectrum of "things that can go wrong with your child," that this isn't "big."  DDH is curable and it was caught early with Monkey.  We have all reason to believe that we will have 100% success in fixing that messed up hip. But the idea of my little girl in a weird victorian era looking contraption, unable to wear most of the cute baby clothes stockpiled in her nursery - the idea breaks my heart,  Her movements changed, our ability to snuggle different.  Our patterns broken, our ideas of a "normal" newborn phase shattered.

As a good friend said to us though, what is "normal"?  Everyone has issues with their child one way or another - it's all just an issue of scale.  This will be our normal.  It's not what I expected, and it's terribly scary at this point in time.

Monkey at 1 Month