The road to our child. Part 6.

Harper, a few hours old.

This is the last post, I promise :).

Harper was born at 6:50pm on August 15, 2010 at 37+6 weeks gestation (give or take) she weighed in at 2.4kg. Harper was in an odd position for birth, sunny side up and on a slight angle, with every contraction I had she would turn her head (trying to position herself better perhaps), which the midwives say lead to the stop/start labour and the slow dilation. I believe a big part of it was my emotional unease at meeting her that lead to the length of time between first contraction and birth, by the end I had let go, I was ready and so was she. Her APGAR scores were 10 & 10, not only was she alive, but she was PERFECT. She was born with a large birth mark on top of her head, the birth mark has incredibly dark thick hair over it, the rest of her hair is blonde, this is no relations to the Hygroma. After Harper was born 3 different Paediatricians (with different hierarchy in the hospital) performed detailed checks on her, not one could fault her. Our daughter is that 1 child out of 100,000, our daughter is healthy.

We are still being told by the professionals that there could be problems that present themselves in the future, that it is still a waiting game to see her mental capabilities and growth as she ages. But, to them I say, a big ole pfffffffffffttttt....She is now 8 months old, she is sitting, standing and crawling, she is normal. She is still small, only 5.4kg, she has numerous allergies including CMPA (cows milk protein allergy),severe reflux and has been hospitalised twice for failure to thrive. None of these issues she is having can be traced back to the Cystic Hygroma, if we had never scanned and had never known, she would of been, for all intensive purposes a 'normal' pregnancy.  I am so glad that we decided either way, she is our child. If she was not born 'normal' (as the doctors say) my feelings would not differ, we would still be happy. We would be happy for the opportunity of knowing her and carrying her, we came to that realisation a while ago and it helped us through the what-ifs.

We took her to a chiropractor to try to help with the reflux, he was concerned about her, saying her trunk was shorter than the top half of her (she was out of proportion), and the back of her neck was shorter and wider than what he considers normal range, he was unable to do any work on that part because he could not even access it due to how short it was.  He ended by stating  that he was not a paediatrician of any kind but in his honest professional opinion she looks like she has some sort of 'genetic abnormality'.  We took this news back to our paediatrics, who assured us he could see nothing wrong with her structure. Paediatricians and Chiropractors aren't always on the same page and I wonder if the doctor had thought something was off with Harper but since she was seemingly doing well it was no cause for concern. I really don't know what to think of what the the Chiropractor said and quite honestly I don't care, I may be choosing to be blind, but my daughter is happy and that all that concerns me right now.

Looking back now, there are numerous things I would of done differently, even though the Hygroma wasn't picked up through routine testing, if we decide to have further children we will graciously decline them. What will be, will be and we are happy with that. I will not lose another pregnancy to facts, figures and worry. If you are experiencing a high risk pregnancy I tell you now, there is hope, medical advancements are wonderful, but not always accurate. Sometimes the ending is not so sweet, but my child beat the odds, there is no harm in hope. We were scared to hope, even told not to, they bombarded us with stories of failure and heartbreak, I am here to share a real story proving that there is a chance.

I lived in fear when Harper was younger, I thought we were too lucky, I feared constantly that she would be taken from us, that she would die, that this is all too good to be true and I've had some rough patches with post traumatic stress. I am relaxed now, we deserve this, we deserve a healthy child and Harper is here, time to stop dwelling and do some living.

Harper with her big brother Mason.