The last two weeks have been torture. Let me preface by saying that everyone is fine, but we have been following a medical issue for Corbin. It’s been HELL! We are not quite on the other end of this yet, but we will be soon. Again, I say that everything is fine.

See? Perfect baby boy in every way!

So rewind to February at the four month checkup… Dr. mentions that Corbin has a rather large head, and she wants to follow his growth closely. Measures Dad’s head, it’s off the charts. The End. We thought….. a month later, I take him in because he hasn’t been eating well, has a mean diaper rash, and I saw a speck of blood in his diaper. All of that turned out fine, but the drs measured his head again. It’s grown 1 1/2 cm since one month ago, and it should only grow a 1/2 cm. Cue freak out. Thoughts of the previous appt. come back, and we start googling this disease his dr. mentioned that she wanted to watch for, hydrocephalus. It’s a devastating disease, and she says if Corbin’s head continues to grow rapidly,we need to do an ultrasound, but they would measure again at the 6 month checkup.

So another week goes by, and I have to take the twins in to get the last round of RSV shots. They measured his freaking head AGAIN! It was only a week later. Of course, it grew another 1/2 cm. Now, we really start to get anxious. Derrick and I discussed it, and we didn’t want to wait until the checkup, which was 3 weeks away, worrying, so we requested the ultrasound. We get it done. They tell us he needs an MRI and maybe a CT scan because they think they see something. WTF!!!! And he has to be given anesthesia for it!

My poor baby was scared and hungry.

Fast forward…. get the MRI, which was horrible, and I had to convince them to let me take Corbin back because he was scared. Seeing him put under was the worst experience of my life thus far. They also ended up doing a CT as well, and a couple hours later we learn that Corbin has benign extra axial fluid and a subdural hematoma. He has no pressure on his brain, and he has no developmental delays. Goodie! But not so fast…. this extra fluid could spontaneously have caused that hematoma, or it could be a result of nonaccidental trauma, fancy term for child abuse. <insert shocked face here> We went off. No way has Corbin been shaken or abused by us or anyone in our families. He’s never been with a babysitter. He hasn’t ever fallen or bumped his head hard.

So, even though suspicions are low, he’s sent to a neurologist and has to see an eye dr. to make sure that he has no bleeding behind his eyes (this would occur if he had been shaken). And a sketelal x-ray is ordered to look for fractures. All of this told to us on a Friday. We panicked all weekend, not because we had something to feel guilty about, but because we felt like our intentions to do right by Corbin and get ahead of this big head (haha) had back fired, and now, they think we abuse him? The neuro guy told us that he was not impressed by the size of the hematoma, and basically sent us on our way, saying that since there is no pressure and he has no delays, this wasn’t something he needed to be seeing Corbin for. His pedi could just follow his head growth. WHAT?? And he would grow out of this by age 2 most likely. We see the eye dr., and she also says, he’s fine. No blood behind the eyes. Duh. So all of this is good news, and I used this to get out of subjecting Corbin to an hour of radiation while they x-rayed his tiny body to look for something that isn’t there.

Now, here we are. We have the 6 month checkup in two days, and we still have to get some blood drawn to check for blood disorders that would’ve caused the hematoma. They don’t think they’ll find any, but I still have to take my baby boy to get poked and drained. All of this has been a complete waste of time and thousands of dollars and totally ridiculous. We should’ve waited, no we should’ve been told that his dr. wasn’t ready to explore this. She did apologize for not making it more clear, but as new parents, and of preemies at increased risks on top of that, we are extremely nervous about these things. Our hearts have been ripped out, we feel like we did this to Corbin, and I just don’t know how to forgive myself.