All about her

It's October!  And that means it's Sunshine's birthday month!  In fact, her birthday is in five days...

Since we're gearing up to celebrate her, I'm gonna spend a little bit of time today elaborating on her issues (since they come up occasionally).

First, I should mention, she's my fifth pregnancy.  Preceding her are her nine-year-old brother, a brother who died when I was 36ish weeks pregnant, a 12 week miscarriage, and an 8 week miscarriage.  She was high-risk from the beginning, and they gave me a due date of October 22.  On October 7, 2009, I had an appointment with my high-risk doctor, and after a few minutes of measuring her, he calmly told me to go home, pack a bag, and return to the hospital ASAP.  He told me she was measuring third percentile for size, and that meant that something may go terribly, terribly wrong if they didn't get her.  NOW.

I panicked and followed instructions.  Six hours later, I was waking up from surgery and they handed me a little seven-pound girl.  Guess she wasn't undersize after all.

Two years ago, she had a quick little eye exam at preschool.  It didn't go too thoroughly in depth, but they pretty much told us she isn't colorblind.  Since the odds weren't in her favor as far as needing glasses goes (all of us wear them), we took her to our family optician.

Family optician identified a nystagmus (her eyes are constantly moving) and referred us to a pediatric ophthalmologist, who ordered an MRI to make sure there weren't any other causes for her nystagmus. They found optic gliomas (small tumors growing on her optic nerves), an aneurysm in the middle of her brain, and moyamoya (which is a too-narrow artery running along her brain).

I probably don't have to tell you, I didn't handle it well.

But we are blessed to live near an outstanding children's hospital, particularly in the area of neurology, and she's receiving outstanding care and the doctors are keeping a close watch on everything.  So far, everything has remained stable, and I'm grateful.  She's been cleared for air travel, she still loves to dance, she still loves to read, and she's still shining like a star in Kindergarten.

Pictures coming Saturday, after her birthday party.  If I can manage that...