Our First Entry

Hello Everyone,

Its hard to know where to start!! Josiah is our beautiful son, wonderfully made in the image of his Creator God. He is a loving little boy who was diagnosed prenatally with a rare form of Hydrocephalus called Unilateral Hydrocephalus. We went for our very first ultrasound, with video camera in hand, excited to see our little life moving in my belly. What an awesome experience that is!  We were at our local small town hospital, where videotaping the whole process was permitted....and that turned out to be a huge blessing in the waiting period that followed! 
   The ultrasound tech said that she had difficutly measuring the head, as he was too low, and asked us to come back after the weekend for a second ultrasound. At that point, we were curious, but not doubting her assurance that everything was ok.  When we returned on Monday, they got good measurements of his head, and sent us on our way. We were contacted later that day by our doctor, and informed that they had found something unusual on the ultrasound, but couldn't provide much information about it, as neither the doctors nor the ultrasound techs had ever seen it before. We were then referred to the High Risk clinic of a hospital in a nearby city.  This is where the videotaped ultrasound became a valuable piece of information, for our internet searches, as we could compare all the measurements of Josiah's head to those of a normal scan on the internet.  By the time we had our first appointment with the High Risk Unit 2 weeks later, thanks to Caleb's diligant internet reading into the wee hours of the morning, we had a pretty good idea going into it, what the doctors would tell us, and could comprehend better their explanations.. What the doctors diagnosed him with after our first meeting was Unilateral Hydrocephalus. As I mentioned before, it is a rare form of the more common (1 in 1000 live births) Hydrocephalus. Hydrocephalus is a condition in which there is an abnormal build up of CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) in the cavities (ventricles) of the brain. The buildup is often caused by an obstruction which prevents proper fluid drainage. The fluid buildup can raise intracranial pressure inside the skull which compresses surrounding brain tissue, possibly causing progressive enlargement of the head, convulsions, and brain damage. In Josiah's case, the buildup has occured in only one of his ventricles instead of two. His left lateral ventricle was enlarged, and in normal Hydrocephalus, both would be enlarged. The initial measurement we got at the High risk unit was 18mm, where normal is under 10. In the following weeks, we met with a Pediatric Neurologist, Neurosurgeon, the Genetics department at the Childrens Hosptial, the Neonatalogist,  and a wonderful team of High Risk doctors and nurses. Our official diagnoses came around 20weeks into my pregnancy, and over the next few weeks, the ventricle continued to grow an an uncomfortable pace. We were having ultrasounds at the high risk unit every two weeks, and at appointments were there was a significant amount of growth from the previous Ultrasound, they would request another apointment in a week. It continued like this until December 1, 2009, where the ultrasound revealed that the left ventricle had grown at an alarming pace. They referred us to the high risk unit of a hospital across the city, which is attached to the childrens hospital. At that point, I was 25 weeks pregnant, and they were planning to deliver by Cesarean at 30 weeks. I remember praying daily from the time we learned of his condition, that God would bring this baby as far along in my womb as he could, and that if we could only make it to 25 weeks, I would be greatful, because all our reading revealed he would stand a fighting chance of surviving at that point.  When we met our new doctor at the 2nd hospital, she requested another fetal MRI, and reconsulted with the Neurologist, and Neurosurgeon. Together, they decided that the would wait until the next ultrasound, and see the growth at that point, as they too, wanted Josiah to have as much time in the womb as possible. Thanks to the prayers of family, friends, and complete strangers who responded to our plea, the next ultrasound showed a stablized ventricle. It remained unchanged, or with minimal changes until 36 weeks into our pregnancy.  Josiah was delivered by ceserean at 38 weeks by the best team that hospital had to offer, and responded instantly to his daddys voice. We were warned by the doctors that Josiah may have an enlarged head, due to the ventricles, and although it was larger than a normal newborns, we can proudly say he did amazing. He spent the first 48 hours in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the same hospital he was delivered in, which in itself is a miracle, because they had expected they would need to transfer him to the childrens hospital NICU next door. But, he was doing so wonderfuly, we were blessed, and able to keep him just down the hall from us. Caleb spent the next two days visiting his firstborn son, and coming back to see me, and then when I was able, wheeling me to and from our little gift. He was delivered Monday morning, and by Tuesday night, he was moved out of the NICU, and into our room. He had an ultrasound on his head in the hospital, which gave them satisfactory results, and apart from the regular bloodwork, had a relaxing time for the remainder of our stay. Considering when we were admitted to the hospital to deliver Josiah, we all assumed he would need to have a shunt surgery shortly after birth to relieve the pressure on his brain, it was a Godgiven miracle to see how beautifuly he was doing. I will post again to let you know all the goings on since he has been brought home, but know that we thank Jesus daily for the amazing gift we have in Josaih, and and for the constant reminder the HE is always with us.
God Bless,

Caleb and Natasha