as the leaves turn {continued}

There was quite a group of people in our living room to take care of Hazel today. We met with her case manager, physical therapist and physical therapy assistant, all from the Northwest Kansas Educational Service Center. I was going to write an update about all that, but have decided to wait till I receive Hazel's IFSP (Individualized Family Service Plan) so I can make sure I understood everything correctly. She will have weekly physical therapy sessions at our house starting next Monday. Well... weekly with the physical therapist, but daily with me. :)

So for now, here are a few more photos... :)

 On Friday, Nyla, Hazel and I spent about two hours pretend picnicking in the front yard. The weather was soooo nice and all three of us were more content to be outside. Tyler joined in on the fun when he got home from work.

 Hazel's first time sitting in the Bumbo... This will be helpful for her neck (although I need to prop her up in it a little better till she gets bigger).

 Content and relaxed...

 

This is the first picture taken of the three of us girls together. I actually thought it was pretty good. :)

 Hazel is looking off into the distance again, but another good one nonetheless. Now we just need to get a picture with all four of us in it at the same time. Can't believe we haven't done that yet!

as the leaves turn

This is just a hodge podge picture update so here goes...

"Forget the pacifier, I want my thumb!"

I had forgotten what exactly the color of this truck is.

It's actually kinda pretty once you get to see it. ;)

Bath time...

Nyla obviously enjoyed this more than Hazel.

Before Quinter's Homecoming Parade... You would not believe how many pictures I tried to take of them and this is probably the best one.

After the parade... Only the third time in her entire life she has fallen asleep on the floor. I have a picture of every time - once when she was sick, once on Christmas Eve, and this time.
 

Levi, Tyler and Karl covered up at the football game with their manly pastel quilt.

This could have been cute if it was clear. Nyla was having a good ole time putting on a show for everyone while dancing to the Quinter Pep Band  in the background.

Not a good picture at all, but it's the best I've got right now!

Zuri Jayne, wearing Nyla's boots, and Nyla Jane, wearing my boots.

One of Nyla's favorite pals over the last year or so has been Maddox, Zuri's older brother. But I think it's going to be Zuri and Nyla that are buddies as they get older. :)

This is nothing special except that it's a record for how long I have kept a pot of flowers alive. Normally about mid-July when it starts getting hot, I am done with them. However, the secret to this pot is that what little bit of rain we've gotten here or there has been enough to keep them going for almost the last 3 months. The last time they were watered was when my mom was here when Hazel was born! I'll definitely be getting this kind of flower again next year if someone can remind me again what they are. :)

the twisted neck

If you glance back at previous postings, you'll notice that the older Hazel gets, the more likely she is to be looking to the right in most every picture. The only time she is looking to the left in a picture is when she is laying on her tummy, which helps hold her head into position.  This is because of a neck problem she has called congenital muscular torticollis. 

What is torticollis?
Torticollis, also called "twisted neck," is a condition in which a baby's head is tilted due to the tightness and shortening of one of the two strap muscles that connect the breastbone, head and neck. Most commonly, the chin points to one shoulder, while the head tilts toward the opposite shoulder. Oftentimes a lump is found in the muscle that gradually goes away as it heals. 

A short, tight neck muscle means Hazel has trouble turning her head. When she sleeps, her head naturally rotates to the right, pressing the right side of the back of her head flat, which then leads to her head lying more comfortably facing that direction due to its misshapenness (plagiocephaly), which makes the neck problem worse and the two issues continue to perpetuate each other. 

Plagiocephaly, which means "oblique head," and torticollis are quite often associated with each other. Treatment is necessary to prevent her face and skull from growing unevenly and for her head and neck to gain full range of motion.

This is a picture of Nyla (what a little sumo wrestler she was!) showing her head position when she had torticollis. Hers was worse than Hazel's because her head always seemed to be stuck like this. Hazel will look straight ahead and when she's not flat on her back she will turn to the left some. Nyla would never look straightforward and couldn't really look to the left even if you'd tried to force her head that way.

This is not Hazel, but it provides a good illustration of what her head shape is doing. It's hard for me to get a good picture and this shows it better because it's a little more extreme than what Hazel's is at this point. But it's amazing how quickly you can get to this if you don't get on top of the issue right away. I watched for this problem starting when Hazel was born (since Nyla had it) and was pretty certain she didn't even have a problem, until a few weeks ago. 

How common is this condition?

The most frequent statistic I found reported that about 1 in 250 infants is born with torticollis (0.4%). But in the Breeden household, we are 2 for 2!

Due to the "Back to Sleep" campaign, which recommends that infants sleep on their back to reduce the occurrence of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), there is a significant increase in the number of torticollis cases that must be treated. Although the significant decrease in SIDS cases (approximately 40%) is well worth it, it has increased torticollis cases that must be treated by 84% and plagiocephaly by 48%.

What causes infants to be born with torticollis?
The most common causes are inutero positioning, lack of space inutero, a traumatic birth and low amniotic fluid inutero.

How do you treat it?

The first thing is physical therapy. In conjunction with that parents and caretakers should do purposeful repositioning, which includes things like placing all objects of interest on the opposite side of the flat spot (encouraging baby to turn her head that direction) and lots of tummy time when awake (gives opportunity to build strength in neck). They should also limit time in car seats, swings and bouncy seats, and if the baby is in these things for long periods of time, roll up a wash cloth and place it next to her head so it helps her to look in the opposite direction than the one she prefers.

That's all it took for Nyla (I think physical therapy lasted about 8 weeks) and hopefully that's all it will take for Hazel. And with Nyla the correction of the torticollis automatically resulted in her head getting the chance to reshape itself (I was amazed at how perfectly and quickly her head rounded out on its own once her neck was fixed and she quit favoring the one side). If for some reason Hazel's head doesn't round out on its own, then it will be custom made helmet time. 

Following is a short video I took over a month ago where it looks (and sounds) like Hazel is making a concerted effort to turn to the left, but you can see her head keeps wanting to flop back to the right. It's kind of sad to watch her struggle, but at least she is still making an effort to try so we know it's not as tight as it could be yet.

~ Click here to view the video ~

Fortunately it will not affect her chances of getting into college ;), and if she ends up having to wear a helmet, she'll be too young to remember it. :)

ten weeks old

Hazel is growing like a weed. Right at 2 months old when she got sick and was admitted to the hospital, she weighed 9 lbs. 6 oz. Yesterday at her hospital follow up appointment and 2 month well baby check (we were late getting it done since she was in the hospital when we originally scheduled), she weighed 10 lbs. 4 oz. She is 21 3/4 inches long so that puts her in the 25th percentile for both height and weight. When she was born she was in the 25th percentile for height and the 5th percentile for weight so she is getting chubbier. :) Nyla started out the same way and was about 85% in both categories by the time she was 1 year old. (Now, at 3 years old she's 39 inches tall and 39 lbs. which puts her at almost 90% for height and 98% for weight.)

Hazel in her car seat at 6 days old...

Hazel in her car seat at just over 9 weeks old. I think it's time to take out the green insert. :)

Both girls wore their cowboy boots and dresses to church on Sunday. :)

This weekend the toddler bed was converted back into a crib (you can see Nyla's teeth marks from when she was a baby). Up till now Hazel has slept in a bassinet in our bedroom so that Nyla doesn't have to share a room with her till Hazel is sleeping better at night.

Also in new news this week, Hazel started daycare yesterday and I started back to my normal work schedule, which is Monday through Thursday, 8am to 5pm. We are excited that Jeannie, who took care of Nyla as a baby, will be helping take care of Hazel as well. And I am already feeling uplifted from my couple days back to a normal routine.

Tomorrow hopefully I'll get a chance to write about torticollis and plagiocephaly, diagnoses that both of our daughters had as newborns.  If you've never heard of them, the names sound much worse than the conditions are.

pretty in pink

Children are a gift from the Lord; babies are a reward. Psalm 127:3

I'm no photographer, but I took these just for fun. If I was getting Hazel's picture taken right now, this is one of the ensembles I'd put her in.

A sweet friend got both the skirt and the headband for her, along with a bunch of other girly things.

Again she looks like someone in this picture, but I'm not sure who.

Looks like a totally different baby without the headband.

So happy and smiley these days. :)

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift. 2 Corinthians 9:15

home sweet home {again}

We're home!

We ended up having to stay at the hospital again yesterday (4 nights), but we were able to go home today.

Hazel looks like someone in this picture, but I'm not sure who. Tyler? Nyla? Tyler says Uncle Ken, which is kinda random. :)  She looks feminine in some pictures, like a little old man in others and like a baby boy in this one. (By the way, I still cannot believe people give birth to babies as big as this! She is 9 1/2 pounds.)

This was yesterday when she was giving everyone smiles for the first time since last Tuesday or Wednesday. Most everything made her cry up until yesterday.

 Getting some sunlight with Grandma Debby

 She has finally lost her newborn baby tan.

 Smiling at her sister

 And happy to be home

She seems like her old self off and on, but I can tell she's not quite 100%. The antibiotics are giving her tummy trouble so that is part of it. She is remaining fever free, but tonight I did notice that the soft spot on top of her head is sunken. I kept trying to smooth over her hair till I finally realized it was the shape of her skull showing more that made it look funny. A sunken soft spot is a sign of dehydration so that worries me slightly.

Tomorrow was suppose to be my first full day back to work and Hazel's first day at daycare. Needless to say, that isn't quite going to happen. The doctor said she needs to stay home for the rest of this week, which I completely understand. But I am oh-so-ready to be a productive employee again and get back to some sort of normal routine.

After we got home, Hazel and I took a nap while Tyler and Nyla had a fun afternoon together washing Tyler's truck and doing other "big girl" stuff in this beautiful weather. Pictures of that to come in the future. :)

saturday night fever

If you aren’t on Facebook, you may or may not have heard about Hazel being in the hospital. I took her to the clinic on Thursday for a fever that started Wednesday night. The doctor found somewhat red ears and we did some blood work that came out fine so since she was still eating well, we headed back home. However the day went downhill (lots of crying, not eating as much and a higher fever) so Hazel was admitted Thursday night about 9:00 pm. They’ve done various tests and most everything points to a virus so we are basically just pushing fluids, monitoring her closely and waiting it out.

At home and the first day here her fever was always between 100.5 and about 103.2, with or without Tylenol and Motrin, but now we can keep it down mostly with the meds. As they wear off it starts to come back.

When her fever finally broke for the first time, she looked pretty much normal and fine and happy (besides the IV coming from her head).

She’s 2 months old and still fits in the isolette. :) She weighs about 9 lbs. 8 oz.

She was acting much better whenever her fever would go down but now I think she’s pretty much fed up with all the needle sticks and poking and prodding, and the antibiotics she's getting (in case of some sort of bacteria we haven't discovered) have upset her digestive tract, so she’s pretty irritable.

This is the look we are getting for the most part…

Her IV came out yesterday so there was some drama with that – blood pouring out of her head (at least that’s the way it looked from my perspective!) and peeling tape off her head that I seriously thought was going to tear her scalp open. But this time they were able to get the IV into her ankle, which makes it much easier and comfortable to maneuver her around. And I brought the swing in today, which should be helpful at least somewhat.

Overall I think she's better than she was yesterday, but we may or may not get to go home tomorrow. We appreciate the prayers.