Rosie was due around Valentine's day but my babies are notoriously latecomers. Sooo due to the fact that I usually deliver quickly and we now live very far away from the hospital I decided to be induced on February 26th. I got to the hospital early and was receiving pitocin and having contractions by noon. I got an epidural early so I was actually feeling really good most of the day. I had lots of people there, my mom, my sister, my cousin, and most of my kids. We talked and played Scrabble while I was in labor. By 5:30 I was ready to push and Madison Rose was born at 6:01 pm, she weighed 7lbs 4 oz. She had big chocolate brown eyes and lots of dark hair. She was perfect.
Although Rosie seemed healthy I knew that she didn't look quite like my other babies (who all looked alike) and she wasn't nursing like I expected her to. I wasn't surprised when the pediatrician came from the nursery to tell me that she had a cleft palate that would need to be repaired. The hospital gave me almost no information and sent us home the next day with a baby who wasn't eating. Once we were home I knew right away that she wasn't able to nurse and she couldn't suck from a bottle. Babies with a cleft have no suction. I cut a large hole into the nipple on a bottle and squeezed expressed milk into her mouth. We went home on the weekend and as soon as I could I made an appointment to take her the craniofacial team at our closest children's hospital. It was a long few days. She was hungry, she had a stomach ache from swallowing a lot of air, and she couldn't lay flat on her back and still breathe well.
Rosie's cleft palate team turned out to be great. They explained that her jaw was very recessed which probably caused the palate not to close properly (pierre-robin sequence) although we would have to do genetic testing to rule out some possible syndromes. The small jaw and cleft caused her tongue to block her airway, affected her ears drainage and kept her from sucking. They gave us special bottles (Haberman feeders) to feed her which was our immediate concern.
Over a year's treatment Rosie had jaw distraction surgery to lengthen her jaw and improve her breathing, ear tube surgery, distraction removal and jaw stabilization surgery, and a cleft palate repair. She was on a high calorie formula to help with her slow weight gain. She now has speech therapy.
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| Rosie with her distractors in place |
Rosie was and is the best natured baby I have ever seen,.She is very laid back and happy, she rarely cries. She has a very smart sense of humor and she loves to do silly things. She loves her baby dolls and her paci and she has a great imagination. She often pretends things like a much older child.
Rosie loves to sleep, if she's tired in the mornings she'll ask to go back to bed. She likes to arrange her crib just right with certain animals and all of her little blankets.
Rosie is a joy to have around, she loves to be entertaining. She has a great little grin, a cute dimple in her chin and the MOST gorgeous hair I've ever seen.
Nicknames we call our little girl:
Maddy
Maddy bug
Rosie
Rosie posie
Pebbles
Being Silly
Happy Girl
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