1 Year Old

Melody Then ..........

and Melody now! What a difference a year makes. Happy First Birthday, Melody. We love you!

One year ago today our precious Melody was born. I was in an operating room with a wonderful anethesiologist, a very eccentric OB and a bunch of other people. Melody was taken via c-section and I was only given a fraction of a second to see her before she was wisked away. She was through the "window" to the waiting neo-natal intensive care team before she even began to cry. My ears were straining to hear that sound and the feeling of relief was great when I heard her little cry for the first time.

We were finally able to hold her late the same afternoon she was born and she was stable enough for her spine closure surgery the morning after she was born. I'll never forget looking at her spinal lesion and asking the doctor what exactly we were looking at. When he said "that is her spinal cord" and I realized there was very little covering it, I was filled with greatfulness that her SB was discovered before birth and more damage was not done.

Melody came through her first surgery with flying colors and then fluid started backing up on her brain, which was a high possibility for SB. So, 6 days after she was born she had surgery to have a ventricular shunt placed. A second surgery which she handled very well. Then, 9 days after she was born we were able to take our little bundle of joy home. That was a wonderful day.

It is hard to believe Melody is a year old. We haven't been back to the emergency even once. Our only trips to the hospital have been for Melody's routine kidney ultrasounds and her hip ultrasounds. She has been to Spina Bifida clinic 3 times and lots of other checkups, but nothing urgent. I have talked with parents whose children have had up to 12 shunt revisions in the first year of life, so we are very thankful. It was possible this year would have been filled with hospital stays, we are thankful it wasn't.

Melody is such a joy to our entire family and we might just be accused of spoiling her. She is generally happy and content. She does have a piercing cry which she uses to be heard above the hubbub that is constant in our home. I want to sleep or eat are generally her complaints. We give her the "Sharpie Solution" when she is fussy in the car as a permanent marker pacifies her. We may just be gluing the lid onto one, soon. The whole family sings the "Melody" song to calm her. It is one we made up, "Mel-o-dee, Mel - o-dee, Mel-o, Mel-o, dee, dee. . ." sung to the tune of "Adelweiss" from the Sound of Music.