The Checkered Flag

As we got closer and closer to the arrival of Buckshot, the fact that we were I was using racing terminology to describe the pregnancy became more and more fitting. Follow along for the full recap:

Last post, I discussed how different Sarah's two pregnancies had been. That was only the beginning. (If you want to reread what happened with Mackenzie, click here.) After our dreams of a 2012 tax break disappeared, we focused on just having a baby whenever little Buckshot was ready to emerge. On Saturday evening, we went to Arvada for Sarah's aunt's 50th birthday party. Besides being completely uncomfortable, there was nothing out of the ordinary happening with Sarah. After we got home, Sarah and Mackenzie hit the hay while I wandered downstairs to get some work done. (After the holidays, I was starting to stress a little bit about all the work that I needed to get done before I took a few weeks off.) At about 11:30, I heard Mackenzie get out of bed. Sarah was in our bedroom with the dogs behind the baby gate. She did not enjoy either stepping over the gate or taking the gate down. I guess being that pregnant really inhibits movement or something? I rolled upstairs and put Mackenzie back in her bed. Since I was up there, I popped my head into our room. Sarah was laying on her side, looking at her phone. I asked how she was doing. It was pretty obvious that she was having a contraction. I stepped over the baby gate and laughed when I saw that she was using a contraction app on her phone. Who would have thought that there were apps for contractions? It is actually an amazing little app. When her contraction ended, she told me that this was the real deal and I should call her mom to come stay with Mackenzie so we could go to the hospital. GAME ON!!

As we waited for Linda, Sarah kept track of her contractions. From the first contraction of the night, they were spaced pretty evenly at five minutes apart, lasting about a minute. I put the last few things in the car and we were ready to go. Linda hadn't been in our house more than a minute before Sarah and I were in the car and on our way downtown. 

We got to the hospital and parked in the two-hour maternity parking lot. We left everything in the car except Sarah's purse. I figured we would get in a room and then I could come grab the remaining bags. We made it about 10 feet before Sarah had another contraction. I just stood in the parking lot with her purse. You know, what ballers do. When that bad boy finally stopped, we rang the bell and went into the hospital. It was about 1:15 AM. The nurses in the labor and delivery wing checked us in and took us to a triage room. Sarah informed them that she was at four plus centimeters and 70% effaced at her last appointment on Thursday (Sunday was 39 weeks and 2 days). We were both a bit confused as to why we were put in the triage area. This baby was coming. In the triage room, they did the usual activities of putting the heart rate monitor and contraction monitor and getting the registration information from us. The nurse FINALLY decided to see where Sarah was at. Of course, she was at six plus centimeters and we were moving to a delivery room. It was a little before 2:00 AM. 

When we got into the delivery room, things started getting a little crazy. The nurses tried to set the IV in every vein in Sarah's body. They finally got a working IV by the fourth try. They ordered the epidural for her right away, since she was already at six centimeters, but she needed to get a full bag of fluid into her system before they could do the epidural. Sticking her four times in order to set the IV did not hurry up this process. By about 2:10 or so, the nurse checked her again and she was at 9.5 centimeters. Little man was coming quickly. The nurse called for the aide to set up the delivery table and called for a doctor. At this point, the anesthesiologist had entered. He asked Sarah if he was going to be able to get the epidural in. No way. He took his cart and got the heck out of there. It was just Sarah, the nurse aide, and me. Sarah told the aide that he was coming. The aide told her, "Don't push. Blow out the candles. I don't want to be the only one in here when he comes!" Sarah said, "I'm not pushing, HE'S COMING!" The aide ran to the phone, urgently called for a doctor and the nurses, and ran back to her table. The nurses started rolling in and got Sarah on her back and her feet got into the stirrups. The resident ran into the room and straight into her surgical gown, which the aide was holding out before the door even started opening. Little man was crowning as the resident approached Sarah. This wasn't just NASCAR fast, this was restrictor-plate-racing-at-Talledega fast. At 2:18 AM, Buckshot was born at 8 lbs, 4 oz and 19.75".

For those of you keeping score at home:

11:30 PM - Contractions start

1:15 AM - Check in at hospital

1:55 AM - Move to delivery room

2:18 AM - Have a baby

Efficiency in action!

Unlike last time where Sarah lost all that blood and was fading in and out, there were not complications with Mama. No stitches, regular blood loss, coherent mom. She was quite ecstatic to remember everything that happened for the hours following the birth! Sarah did about an hour of skin-to-skin contact with the little guy. He was bruised everywhere because of the quick delivery. His face was purple, his head was purple, and there was a purple strip running all the way down his spinal cord. Thanks a lot for that, Mom! We still hadn't decided on a name, so we used this quiet time to talk about it and come up with the end result: Carson Michael. Mackenzie had been calling him this for months and Sarah had liked it for a while. I was the one that needed to be convinced and I finally caved. 

At no point during all of this did I have the opportunity to get back out to the car to grab the camera bag. Luckily for us, Sarah had a point-and-shoot hidden in one of her Mary Poppins pockets of her purse. We were able to snap a few pictures on the camera and on our phones of Carson on the warming bed and as he got his first bath. He latched like a pro and ate like a little boy. At around 4:30 AM, we were moved into the mommy/baby room. As we were walking in, the room location seemed familiar and Sarah noticed the door sign. It was the same room that we were in with Mackenzie - Room 223 with the Ram door sign! Our kids are destined for greatness. As Sarah and Carson rested, I was finally able to get the car moved from the short term parking and get our bags. I had not slept, just had a lightning fast delivery of my second child, and wandered around a maze of a hospital. I ended up on the north end of the hospital at the emergency entrance. The Xterra was on the south end. I figured I would walk around, but chose the side that was completely blocked due to the new hospital construction. Getting the car and the bags was the only slow thing in this whole process. 

The following day, Linda brought Mackenzie to the hospital and dropped her off. That allowed the four of us to hang out for the first time as a family. She was excited to see me when Linda pulled up at the front entrance to the hospital. She was even more excited to see Sarah when we got back to our room. When I showed her little Carson, she said exactly what we thought she might say, "He's so cute!" She held him with Sarah in the bed and when he started fussing, she sang him a lullaby (apparently Linda practiced this with her on the car ride to the hospital). It was awesome to see them interact.

Sunday was filled with guests coming to see the little guy. After she dropped of Mackenzie, Linda had run home to pick up Grandma and come back to the hospital. While they were visiting, Randy showed up. Linda and Grandma left and took Mackenzie to their house until we were ready to go home. Randy was still there when my parents came. Then we had a steady stream of guests the rest of the day: Sara and John, Natalie, Katie and Jorge, Augie and Noel, John and Vicki. On Sunday night, we were finally able to get some rest. 

Monday was a date of resting. Carson had his hearing test at 3:00 in the morning, which he referred (meaning did not pass). The nurses thought that his rapid delivery caused amniotic fluid to remain in his ears, which was causing the issue. Tests can only be run every 6 hours, so we had to wait until 9:00 for him to be tested again. He promptly referred that test as well.  Robert stopped by on his lunch break and brought us food. Carson finally passed his hearing test at 3:00 in the afternoon and we were heading home.

We got home around 4:30 on Monday. Linda brought dinner and Mackenzie down after she got off work. We had dinner with Linda and then she took off. 

And thus began our lives as a family of four.

Until the next post,

Mikey

It's the Final Countdown. Dadadadum. Dadadadadum.

Last Friday, we hit 37 weeks. Thirty-seven freaking weeks. For those of you who are kid-free (or pregnancy ignorant), 40 weeks is end goal. That means that we are less than a month away from our house transitioning from a 2:1 to 1:1 adult to kid ratio. That is slightly daunting. The one kid is wearing us out!! Our baby training camp has consisted of watching our friends with multiple kids to get a better understanding of what this second kid will do to us. Just like watching our friends with a single kid prior to having Mackenzie, I am not convinced that watching others gives you any indication of what your life will be like when a change of this magnitude occurs. We are in a whole world of who knows what is going to happen when little man comes out to say hello. A coworker of mine had a great analogy for the the difference between kid #1 and kid #2. When you have kid number one, you essentially add an extra activity or hobby to your life. The second kid is like picking up a second job. I can't wait for that second job, to be honest. I anticipate enjoying this job more than my first job (although the pay is terrible!).

One of the mysteries of human nature is that the same thing can happen to a person multiple times and be absolutely nothing alike. Pregnancies are one of this strange things - the differences between the CASH pregnancy and the Buckshot pregnancy have been ridiculous. Sarah's been the beneficiary of one of these differences (no nausea this time) and the victim of another (anemia leading to ridiculous fatigue). However, both of us agree that the biggest difference between the pregnancies has been the perceived amount of time that it has taken. With Mackenzie, it seemed to take forever. The anticipation of that first child, the preparation that takes place, and the mystery of the future make those months feel like years. Compare that to little Buckshot, where I feel like we just found out that we were pregnant last week. Possibly two weeks ago, max. Despite how quick this pregnancy has felt, we were on top of things fairly early. His room is ready, the baby stuff is out of storage, our bags are packed for the hospital, and Sarah's telling him that his reservation is over. Let's do this, little buddy!!

One last point - we have been prepping Mackenzie (as best as we can) for this slight variation from her normal routine that is oh-so close. She is starting to understand that a little brother will be coming. The other day we asked her if she was ready for her brother to come and she said, "Baby brother is going to POP out of Mama's belly." If only it were that easy, buddy. Someday, she might learn the error of that statement!!

The next time you hear from me, I hope that I am proudly displaying pages and pages of pictures of a happy and healthy little boy!

Until the next post,
Mike

Buckshot Jones

August of 2011?!! August of 2011?!! AUGUST OF TWO THOUSAND ELEVEN?!!

There are a few things that have happened since that post from a over a year ago. The obvious news is that little Baby C.A.S.H. (we tend to call her Mackenzie) is now over two years old. The less obvious news is that come early to mid January, Mackenzie will have a little brother. And his name will be Buckshot Jones. Naturally.

For those of you who don't know, having a baby is not easy at all. Not one iota. Still, for every one-night-stand baby and oops! baby and we-weren't-really-trying baby, there are hundreds of people who desperately want kids try for months and months and years and even more years. Our attempts at baby #1 followed the formula of the latter. Baby #2 decided to move closer to the former. During May and June, we were attending a few big parties that would require liver functions (Steph and Dan wedding in Costa Rica, Katie and Jorge wedding/boda/is that correct Spanish?). Because of the upcoming nuptials, we decided to postpone the arrival of our next little bundle. Naturally, right before we left for Costa Rica is when we found out Sarah was pregnant.

The trip to Costa Rica consisted of countless virgin drinks masquerading as spirited. Numerous glasses of wine miraculously jumped across the table from in front of Sarah to in front of me while empty wine glasses did the maneuver in reverse. I complained about this arrangement frequently (never).

Katie and Jorge's wedding involved a trip to the bar when the line to imbibe had disappeared. A quick conversation with the bartender, a little Sprite and cranberry juice in a rocks glass, and we were in business.

After our second appointment, we began to spread the news. You may have received a phone call or visit in person. More likely, you saw a nice picture of some feet on a Costa Rican beach with the simple text, "January 11" and the hand of a little person pointing at the date. Our odd family of three was scheduled to even out to four.

Because of some family history (and just like we did during Mackenzie's time in-utero), baby #2 got the privilege of undergoing some additional screening. This happened at the 18 to 19 week mark. During that super long ultrasound, it was determined that baby #2 was in fact a baby Buckshot. This was exciting in a couple ways. It is cool to have a boy to complement our little girl. Even more importantly, the Flick part of the Flick family tree has narrowed significantly. My dad is the oldest of eleven living siblings. Of the eleven, four are boys and seven are girls. Of the four boys, there are only three Flick males able to pass on the name to the next generation - my brother, my cousin Evan, and me. That is it. Since I am the oldest of the three, the only one married, and the only one that is open to children at this exact moment, I had the first attempts at transferring the name down to the next branch. Hearing from the doctor that the Flick name will continue to the next generations of corny-joke-telling-gentlepeople was awesome. Realizing that all those pink onesies and sweaters and dresses weren't going to cut it was not as awesome. (Sidenote - babies are expensive little buggers!)

Last week, Sarah had a routine appointment. During this appointment, the little guy decided to display an irregular regular heartbeat. Maybe it was a regular irregular heartbeat. One of the two. Regardless, the heartbeat was not normal, but it was repeating itself each time. Because of the potential issues that could derive from such a symptom, an additional ultrasound was completed. In the span of two weeks we had more ultrasound time than most women experience in an entire pregnancy. This second in-depth ultrasound focused mostly on the heart. Fortunately, everything looked normal and healthy. The irregularity of the heartbeat with the Doppler could have been the result of many different factors. My guess it was caused by the three 5-Hour Energy bottles that Sarah chugged before the appointment. (Jokes, people.)

So after an incredibly quick recap, here we are today. We will be at 22 weeks on Friday. Forty weeks is on January 11, 2013, but our tax returns are hoping for a couple weeks early. Sarah and baby are doing great. She is being a trooper, as always. Unlike the first pregnancy where each morning she did her best impression of a rushing freshman frat boy, this pregnancy has shied away from nausea. Instead, her issue has been fatigue. I don't think I have ever seen her this tired this often. The little man is kicking the energy right out of her. We have started moving the kids rooms around, shifting my clothes into the basement guest bedroom, moving Mackenzie into her big bed in the upstairs guest bedroom, and getting Mackenzie's old room ready for another newborn. The walls may have to be painted. . .

Lastly, we do not have a name picked out for the little guy. And no, we are not just saying that so we can keep the name close to the vest. Most likely, the name thing will come down to the day of the birth, just like our little ginger. When it all is said and done, I don't think there will be another option that outshines my original suggestion. He'd be destined for greatness at that point.

Until the next post,
Mikey

Daddy Duty: A One-Year Retrospective

In typical Flick blogging tradition, I started typing some thoughts up at her actual year mark. Mackenzie turned 14 months this past week. Seems to be fairly standard operating procedure around here these days - time freaking flies.

When you enter a serious relationship (in my case, this one that led to rings, a mortgage, and a baby), you broaden your primary focus in life to include that other person. They become a deciding factor in everything - where you live, what you do professionally, how you spend your time, where your money goes. You grow up together. However, that person is a fully grown and (hopefully) mature adult. They can take care of themselves, even without you in the picture. When we decided it was time to start having kids, a similar type of transformation took place, but in a much grander magnitude. Growing up started that instant, a person's life depended on it.

I remember the day that Sarah took her first positive pregnancy test. Feelings of pure elation were met with worries, concerns, and fear of the unknown. Babies have always been a part of my life and I have always wanted to have kids, even when I couldn't even buy a date in high school. I am six years older than my brother. I am one of the oldest of my 50+ first cousins. I babysat little kids in my neighborhood. Yet, none of these little peeps were ultimately my responsibility. Yeah, I changed a diaper here and there. Yeah, I made sure they were eating and sleeping under my watch. Not the same. It was up to Sarah and I to make sure this little child was fed, healthy, happy, growing, and learning. HOLY SHIT.

When Mackenzie came over to this side, it was one of the most memorable, stressful, confusing, and fantastic days I have ever had in my life. It was the perfect combination of chaos and order - what I perceived as absolute chaos in the hospital was an efficient, organized staff. People were flying in and out of our room, doing their piece of the birth puzzle. After all the insanity, I got to meet my little girl for the first time. She was small and wrinkled and wiggly and perfect. Not gonna lie - I cried. How could you not? I knew that my life as I had known it to that point was no longer. I was a dad.

Since that day, she has done what all little kids do - she has grown into a little person, full of personality, activity, and fun. In the last few months, we have seen the little flower start to open up. She is mobile and talking, two things that blatantly reveal characteristics of who Mackenzie is becoming. She is fearless, leaning way too far (my estimation) over the edge of the bed to swat at the dogs. She is happy, only crying or getting upset when she is getting overly tired or hungry. She is chatty and loud, which she definitely did not learn from her father. She is smart, as her vocabulary is outstanding and expanding. She is cuddly, as her favorite spot is nestled in up against her mommy. She is energetic, as we can't keep her contained in one area. She is a stick of dynamite, we call her the human wrecking ball. No amount of cleanliness is safe within her sphere of influence. As Grandpa Mustache has learned, if you build a tower of cups, she will knock them down. She is my little girl.

Time since June 18th of last year has refused to maintain its prior methodical pace. It could be that the notion of time quickens with each passing year. It could be that my work life has been very busy since last summer. It could be that my formerly-free hours are now occupied with other commitments. Regardless the reason, this past year plus has been breathtakingly fast and wonderfully enjoyable. I can't wait to see what the next year has in store.

Mike

Free Kenzie! Free Kenzie!

Man we are terrible about keeping this thing updated. A lot has happened in the last two months. Here is a quick recap:

At the end of February, we went in for Kenzie's second arthrogram. The doctor was pleased with the progression of her hip. Mackenzie handled the anesthesia much better than the first time. She wasn't teething the days following the procedure. After the procedure, the update was basically the status quo - one more month of the brace, 23.5 hours per day, hope that things continue to improve. The way the doctor was talking, she was confident that by the next appointment (which thankfully only needed to be an xray and not an arthrogram), we could reduce her brace time to just when she was sleeping. All it all, it went much better than round one.

Fast forward to this past Tuesday (March 29th), when we went into the doctor's office yet again to check on Kenzie's hip. The xray showed even more correct development of the hip socket and the femoral head. We could free Kenzie from her stupid restrictive brace!!! False. Apparently, the progress was good but not enough for the doctor to give us sleep-only restrictions on the brace. Instead, she is allowed to be out of the brace for 6 hours a day (three 2-hour stints with at least 2 hours of brace time in between). Although it is not ideal, it is still 12 times the amount of freedom she had the last couple months.

Starting on Tuesday, we have been getting her out of her brace for a while. She is normally a happy baby, when the brace comes off, she gets even happier. It is amazing. We think that crawling is going to happen soon. She scoots backwards and kind of rocks forwards. She can go from a crawling position to a sitting position with no problems. When you only get a few hours a day to practice, it just might take a little longer.

On the positive side, the rest of her development is going extremely well. She says several words in context, including mama, dada, baby, dog, hi, and bye. She has also said a few other words randomly that surprised Sarah and I or Grandma when they came out of her mouth. The other day, she was watching Grandma's dog walk around the room when she clearly said, "Nikki". Sarah and Grandma both heard it and were amazed. Pretty neat stuff. She loves to read books and is finally learning that books are not for eating. We took her to her first music class this weekend and she was slightly intimidated, but we think she will grow to love it. She loves music and will dance like crazy when the tunes are on. She has her two bottom teeth that she has had for a while now and her top ones are about to pop through.

She is also getting a little sassy. The other day, her grandma Linda stopped by Grandma's to have lunch with her granddaughters (Jaiden was there, too). Jaiden was hungry, so Linda took her into the kitchen to get some food. Kenzie did not like the fact that (a) her grandma had left her in the living room and (b) that she was talking to Jaiden and not her. Grandma picked her up to take her to the kitchen to see Linda. The refrigerator door was open and Kenzie grabbed a bottle of hot sauce and threw it on the floor. That will teach Linda to ignore her ever again! And it really means that Sarah and I are in big, big trouble. Attitude at 9 months? Crap!!

As you can see, things are going well for the most part. We can't wait for the day that we can toss the stupid brace to the side for good. I'm just thankful that Sarah caught it early enough that it wasn't worse.

Until the next post,
Mikey

If Your Child Is In Surgery, You Will Forget Your Keys

Today was the big day for Kenzie as her arthrogram was scheduled to take place. We were supposed to show up at the Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Hospital at 9:15 to check in. Since Sarah is irritated by late patients every damn day, we were to PSL by 8:45. You might call us punctual. We wandered into the hospital and found the Pediatric Surgery wing. It was easy to distinguish as it was the only part of the building that had any color whatsoever. It is a brand new $130M facility on the edge of the existing hospital. It was gorgeous. We check in at the front desk, wait for a little bit before we are ushered back to her pre-op room. We waited there until the doctor, her PA, and the anesthesiologist had finished their first case of the day and were ready to work on Kenzie. As we waited, Linda, Grandma, Randy, and my mom all showed up to offer their moral support. A little after 11:00, they finally took Mackenzie to the operating room and we migrated out to meet our family in the waiting area.

About a half an hour into our waiting (maybe not even that long), the doctor came out to show us an arthrogram. They had started the procedure how they normally do - they put her under, give her an IV, inject the dye into her healthy hip socket, then inject dye into her displaced hip socket. The dye allows the imaging process to clearly show the conditions of the still-developing bones. When they were able to get a better picture of her condition, they had some good news to share with us. She brought an image out for us to see that her left hip was, in fact, not dislocated. But it was not developing correctly and was in danger of coming out as she grew. I like to think of her hip socket as a trailer hitch, with the hip socket being the hitch and the femur being the ball. Right now, her hip has not moved the lever to a locked position. We need it to be locked so that she doesn't lose her trailer going 80 down I-70. Or something like that.

The result of our little chat was that she was not going to need to be in a cast. The doctor said that the goal of putting her in the cast for that first month was to get her leg to exactly where she was now. Instead of doing a cast for a month, instead she is going to be in a brace. The brace will hold her in the same position as the cast, it is just less work for us and less rigidity for her. She can still move her legs below the knees, where the cast would completely have restricted movement below the waist. We are still scheduled to come back in four weeks to do a second arthrogram to check the progress. Hopefully, the brace will allow for better hip development and we can do another month of the brace followed by a third arthrogram and a third month of the brace. If there is not an improvement with the brace this month, she will get casted next time for a month, then a third arthrogram and another month of casting. Regardless of what happens, we are probably looking at three months of the brace and/or casting and four arthrograms. We are not out of the woods yet, but things are definitely looking better now than they were even 24 hours ago.

I will admit that the time when they first took Kenzie away from us to go to the operating room was tough. We are so used to being the ones who are ultimately responsible for her health and safety that is was completely foreign to rely on anyone else for an unknown length of time. Once she was in her procedure, Sarah and I commandeered an empty pre-op room so that she could pump. When we were in there, there was a beeping noise coming from the hallway. In my naivety, I just ignored it. Sarah informed me it was a code. Talk about having your stomach drop - my daughter is currently going under general anesthesia and we are hearing a code. Stressful.

A few of Sarah's coworkers stopped by to see how we were doing and to drop off a big bag of diapers and a stuffed sheep. Apparently they don't frequent that side of PSL, because they were just as lost as we were!

When she came out of the procedure, she was awake before we could even get to the recovery room. She was not a happy camper. We tried getting her some breast milk, some Pedialite, a binky, her thumb. She wasn't taking anything. Once Sarah finally got her calmed down, I went downstairs to give our family an update and to move some stuff to the car. Since it was going to be a while before she was discharged, Linda, Grandma, and Randy said they were going to leave. My mom waited around long enough for me to get back from dropping stuff off at the car and moving it over to a closer parking spot. Randy offered to take me and my two bags over to our car since we were parked in Africa. He dropped me off, I climbed the stairs to our car. As I walked to the tailgate, I realized that I had left my keys in the diaper bag, which was sitting next to my mom on the other side of the hospital. Randy was already gone, so I lugged the bags I was carrying back to where my mom was sitting, grabbed my keys, and hiked back to the car. Like I said before, if your child is just out of surgery, you WILL forget your keys. After a quick move of the car, we were just waiting on Kenzie's discharge. We were out of there by 2:30 or so. The rest of the day was spent lounging at our house trying to get used to this new contraption on our daughter. The brace can only be removed for diaper changes and baths. Naturally, this afternoon, Kenzie decided that she was going to unleash a furious chain of bowel movements. We are already quite proficient at getting the brace on and off. Way to be a good teacher, Kenzie.

Lastly, I wanted to thank all of our friends and family for their incredible support as we embarked on this latest adventure in parenting. The outpouring of prayers and thoughts and well wishes the last week or so has been astounding. We truly appreciate having you all in our lives. It is times like this that remind us why we associate ourselves with you all. If you were jerks, we would have kicked you to the curb years ago!!

I'm sure there will be more information coming from us as this adventure continues. It is already a huge adjustment to our lives, but we try to remind ourselves that we are doing this to make her quality of life better.

Thanks again.

Mike (and Sarah)

Arthrogram Update and Doctor Ranting

Kenzie's Schedule:
Today we finally talked to the scheduler for the pediatric orthopedic surgeon. We are all set for the procedure to take place on Monday morning. We haven't received all the details, but it sounds like this is the general timeline:

7:30 - Kenzie has to stop eating breast milk.
9:30 - Kenzie has to stop all clear liquids.
10:00 - Check in at the Children's Hospital at Presbyterian/St. Luke's.
11:30 - Kenzie goes under general anesthesia and the procedure starts.
1:30 - The latest that Kenzie should be under general anesthesia.
?? - We take the little casted beauty back to our home.

Obviously Monday is a big day for the three of us. Please just say a quick little prayer for us before you head to work that morning. Here's hoping for a successful procedure and a quick recovery.

Mikey's Rageahol:
Clearly, receiving the news that your daughter has hip dysplasia is not an easy piece of information to swallow. The way we heard it made it much harder for Sarah and me. The first chance to catch this was during our stay at the hospital those first few days of her life. Nothing. The next opportunity came at her three day appointment in our home. The nurse practitioner who saw Sarah and Mackenzie did not catch it. Because of some concerns with Mackenzie's weight loss that first week, the nurse practitioner made a second visit to our house for a checkup at five days. Again, not caught. Our next appointment was with a doctor at two weeks. Looking back, this was our most disappointing appointment. The doctor did a terrible well-child check. It was so bad, he didn't even do a check on her hips. When we left the appointment, Sarah commented on how much of a joke the checkup was. Terribleness. When a baby is two weeks old, the tendons and ligaments in the hips are so loose that feeling for a dislocated hip is much easier. It would have been the perfect time to find the problem. Our next appointment was at two months. Here we saw our main pediatrician. As poorly as the last appointment went, we were most definitely not returning to the first doctor we saw. This doctor did a check of her hips, but at two months, the ligaments and tendons have tightened enough that diagnosing hip dysplasia is a bit harder (not to say that it shouldn't have been caught at this point).

Before Kenzie's four month appointment, Sarah had noticed that the fat rolls on her legs were different than each other. Uneven fat rolls is a sign of hip dysplasia. We also had noticed that she was only jumping on one of her legs when she was in her jumper. When we got to the appointment, we were asked if we were willing to see another doctor as our normal doctor was running very late. We agreed and saw our fourth provider. During the appointment, we brought up our concerns. The doctor took a quick look at her and informed us that it was only a developmental thing. She told us to keep an eye on it and check it again at her six month appointment. So we did. At our six month appointment, we saw our primary pediatrician again. Her fat rolls were still uneven. She was still favoring one of her legs. That doctor agreed with the previous doctor that it was a developmental issue. Thankfully, Sarah did not accept that answer. She demanded that some sort of check be implemented. After a bit of haggling, the doctor finally agreed to do an xray of her hips. Obviously the xrays showed what we had already believed   - she had a hip dysplasia.

For those of you who are playing along, let's recount. There were not one, not two, not three, four, or five, not even six, but seven different opportunities for them to find the issue. It finally took an aggressive physician's assistant and a belief in something wrong for the doctors to do something. That is where our anger comes from. Let's go through the same scenario, but instead of a medically trained mother, let's assume that the parents are Joe Blow and Jane Doe. They might not have noticed the difference in the fat rolls. They might not have noticed the jumping on one leg. They might not have pointed it out to the doctor at the four month appointment. And they definitely would not have pressed the issue at the six month appointment. They would have gone along with the "expert" opinions. They would have wondered why their child was not walking or why her walk had a significant limp in it. At that point, the most likely fix is surgery to get the femoral head into the hip socket.

Thhhhhhatt's not all, folks!! There are four characteristics that are commonly associated with hip dysplasia:
1) Genetics
2) The breech position at some point during the pregnancy
3) First born child
4) Female

Again, for those of you keeping score at home, let's go through these one by one.

1) Genetics - there is no history in either of our families, could not have been foreseen. (0 for 1)
2) Kenzie was breech during our 18 week ultrasound. (1-2)
3) First born - obviously she fits this criteria. (2-3)
4) Female - um, yes. (3-4)

As a baseball numbers geek, it is easy to see that she was hitting 0.750. Those are some great numbers in favor of her hips being all jacked up. Great work doctors.

Now you can see why Sarah and I have been so upset about this situation. Instead of diagnosing the dysplasia at two weeks and being strapped up the first few months of her life, now she will be forced to be immobile during formative developmental months. She will not be crawling on schedule. She will not be walking on schedule. In a year or so, this will probably all be behind us. It is just be a small bump in an incredible life of an incredible girl. It just sucks during the present.

Thanks for all the support, all the love, and all the prayers we have received over the last few weeks.
Mike (and Sarah)