Then and Now

During our pregnancy with Kamden, we faced some scary things as well.  At about 18 weeks, we had an ultrasound and my OB discovered that he had what looked like the beginnings of hydrocephalus.  We elected to have an amniocentesis at about 21 weeks in order to rule out spina biffida (which my quad screening had shown I was at higher risk for) and to see if we could find some definitive answers about the increased fluid levels in his brain.  Two extremely long weeks later, we got back our results.  There was no spina biffida present and no definitive answers about his "brain anomaly".  We met with geneticists and were told that it was extremely possible that he would be extremely delayed because the fluid was pooling into the part of his brain that dealt with cognitive development.  We were also told that he could easily have severe learning disabilities.  Once he was here, we found out just how wrong doctors could be.  While he did take a little longer to sit up and walk than most, by the time he was 2 years old, he had a vocabulary more than 3x the average for his age.  A MRI was done just before his first birthday and showed that the top level ventricles had not grown as they would in a normal brain, but that they contained the exact amount of fluid as they would in a normal brain.  What did this mean?  No hydrocefalus.  No cognitive development delay. Seemingly, no learning disability.  In fact, when we went for a follow up after moving back to Texas and met with his new neurologist, we were told that he had a "normally abnormal brain" and quite frankly the neurologist wasn't sure why we'd even come to see him.

I share all of this for two reasons.  Firstly, to remind myself of the awesomeness of our God.  To remind myself that there is nothing out of His sight or concern.  He loves my children even more than I do and wants the best for them even more than I do.  Secondly, to help myself remember I've gone through scary times before and survived.  It's hard to remember that we can in fact make it when we are in the middle of the storm.  Eventually though, we will get to the point that we can start seeing the light at the edge of the storm clouds and know that we're close to making it through.