Thinking back....

When Colt was born a little over 6 months ago he had a little trouble coming into the world, after 1 hour and 40 minutes of pushing he finally arrived with a HUGE cone head. Well the cone head went down but he continued to have a large bruise on the left side of his head that was swelled to about the size of a baseball (probably a little larger than that), they called it a calcified hematoma and said its not all that uncommon in babies, especially those with larger heads. We were assured that it would go back to normal by the time he was about a month old. After two months he still had a decent size bump so at his two month check up his pediatrician suggested that we do an x-ray just to be sure that all it was is a calcified hematoma. Well the x-ray tech said that by looking at the x-ray he could not determine that it was just a calcified hematoma and he really thought we should get an MRI to rule out anything more serious. At the time he thought there might be something going on with his brain. Well as many of you mothers know the thought of something being wrong with your child is too scary to even think about. Dave and I did a lot of praying during the next week as we had to wait over a week to get his MRI done. The other problem was that you have to lay perfectly still for an MRI which is no big deal for us older people but a little more difficult for a baby. We were hoping he would sleep through all of it so they did not have to sedate him, we tried everything that morning to keep him awake so he would just crash at the MRI, as we walked into the hospital he was dozing off in Dave's arms and the minute we get back into the room he is wide-awake looking at everything. The technician was great, he put blankets all around him to keep him warm and then Dave had an idea to hold the bottle in his mouth so he would not move his head. Dave held the bottle, Colt stared at Dave and they got all the pictures they needed. Two days later our pediatrician called to let us know that it was just a calcified hematoma, and there was nothing wrong with Colt's brain. Praise God!! However, due to its large size it could take up to a year to completely be unoticeable. I am sure when I have Colt out and about that people wonder what is wrong with his head:) Since winter is here I usually keep a warm hat on him at all times when we are going to be outside. I wish I would have taken a better picture of his head when he was smaller so you could really tell the difference but the picture above does a pretty good job of showing "what's left" of his bump. Those days waiting for the MRI and the results were long and very scary. Dave and I chose not to tell anyone but our immediate family as we did not want anyone else to worry about something that we hoped was really nothing. I can not imagine what mother's go through who have sick children and have to deal with hospitals and unknowns on a daily basis. We are so blessed to have the situation turn out as it did.