Bring on the Scholarships

When we went for Simon's first ultrasound back in December, we were so excited to see our little baby. We expected everything to be ticky-boo and all I could think about was getting good pictures to put on my fridge. Things started out okay and then the ultrasound tech left and brought a colleague in. After a lot of whispers and conversations in the hall, both techs called in a doctor to come and see our baby. Trevor and I are pretty positive people but, it was starting to dawn on us that this was not the ordinary ultrasound experience. I had to go back 2 more times that week before the doctor could assess what was going on with Simon.

First, Simon has club feet. This is a pretty common birth defect and is easily correctable. Simon is currently wearing his first set of casts. Every week, we go a see a doctor who re-casts Simon's legs. Eventually, his feet will be just fine. The casts are a bit of a pain but, we're really glad that we were able to get them on him so soon. This won't affect his life much beyond the weeks to months that he has to be in the casts.

Second, Simon has a deformed left hand. While in utero, Simon had something called Amniotic Band Syndrome. This affects 1-2% of babies. It's a fluke of nature. The fibrous bands that fuse together to create the aminiotic sac didn't line up quite right. This left some bands free. Their whole job is to adhere to whatever is there. Unfortunately, this was Simon's left hand. This means that Simon is missing his pinkie finger (a band wrapped around it and slowly amputated it) and wrapped around his other fingers stunting them.

At first, we were really sad and upset for Simon. I still feel incredibly guilty that this all happened to him while he was inside of me. It is a fluke of nature and there was nothing that I did that caused it and nothing I could have done to prevent it. However, it's an awful feeling to know that your baby's been hurt.

It took some time but, Trevor and I began to realize how fortunate Simon actually is. After doing a lot of research on Amniotic Band Syndrome, Simon is quite a little survivor. Some babies have much more serious complications due to the banding.

Now, it's really irrelevant to us. We know that Simon will be able to do what he wants. We have a great plastic surgeon who will give Simon as much mobility and "normalcy" with his hand. It will be considered a minor disability but, we don't expect it to "disable" our son in any way. He's already had his first surgery (yikes... surgery at 8 days old) and he's a tough little guy. We aren't looking for sympathy for us or for Simon. We're done being sad. We're ready to embrace the challenge that Simon's been given and we're prepared to see him wow us with his adaptability.