On August 18, 2009, at the 'advanced maternal age' of 41, I discovered that I was pregnant. I was thrilled but also afraid. My son was in his senior year of high school and my daughter had been saying for a while that she didn't think she wanted another brother or sister. However, as Corbin and Carrington are my children from a previous marriage, Braden had no children of his own, and we did not think it was possible to have a child together, I was overjoyed. Braden was too, obviously. I did not want to tell anyone immediately, not even Corbin and Carrington, in case something happened. I wanted testing done and wanted to be out of my first trimester, just to be cautious and not worry anyone else. We made the first appointment to see my OB. I never knew that being over the age of 35 meant SO much more to a pregnancy. We had genetic counseling and genetic testing done. All tests came back completely normal. I had never been more relieved. I never gave any type of birth defect much thought after that. Sure, things pop into your mind once in a while, but not the 'serious' things.
Into my second trimester, I was getting ready for work one morning and was home alone as everyone else had already gone off to work and school. I made the usual trip to the restroom and realized that I was bleeding...a lot. I started to panic and just kept begging outloud, "no, no, please no". I called Braden and he came home immediately. We drove the OB and she confirmed what I knew...I was bleeding from my womb. I just knew that I was losing the baby. She sent us for an ultrasound and, to our amazement, everything looked fine. My placenta was intact and the baby looked great. I had to be put on bed rest for two weeks since they could never determine what the source of the bleeding was. They finally chalked it up to one of the many, many fibroid tumors I happen to have, possibly 'dying', which would cause pain and bleeding.
During this ultrasound they also happened to notice that at least one of the baby's feet looked clubbed. Since this can be related to other conditions and/or syndromes, this little discovery began an endless schedule of ultrasounds...one at every visit. Our baby did not want to cooperate with those though. He was determined to be sitting crossed-legged during every ultrasound. I don't even remember how many I had, but at each one, other than his feet, everything seemed to be going just as it should. He gained weight and size, his heart, lungs, liver, bladder, bones, spine, eyes, ears, mouth head, brain...everything seemed to be 'normal'. The ultrasounds continued. Sometimes, I wonder if I should have just said, stop it already...he is fine except for little crooked feet and those can be fixed to no more ultrasounds if you don't mind. I didn't say that, however.
At about 32 weeks, into my third trimester, we went for another appointment and, yet another, ultrasound. This would be the beginning of the end for our family's 'normal'. The ultrasound tech performed the test as usual. They never say a whole lot, but rather, wait for the doctor to come back in to look at it and talk to you. This tech did tell us she saw an area in our baby's brain that she was not sure about so she wanted the doctor to take a look and talk to us. So, in comes the doctor. She talks about what they have seen. The are in the front part of his brain (which we now know as the septum pellucidum) did not appear to have formed. Of course, it could just be imaging, etc. We asked what this part of the brain controlled and what are the possible outcomes if this were missing or damaged in some way. She told us that it was related to a condition called 'Septo-optic dysplasia', and that children with this condition can show no signs of anything wrong all the way up to blindness.
Of course, we were devastated, as you never want ANYTHING to be wrong with your child, but we were thinking, well, at worst he could be blind, but I still cried my eyes out in the doctor's office. However, I left still thinking, it could be worse. I went back home and immediately started my search on this condition that I had never heard of. Braden did as well. When we saw the possible outcomes of children with this conditions, we were heart-broken. I think we must have cried on each other for over an hour that night...maybe longer, wondering what we could do for a child with these types of handicaps in the small town where we live...what kind of resources were here? Would we have to move to give him a decent life? How could we afford it? What would his future hold? My mind is like a movie that never stops as it is, so you name and I thought of it. We decided that it didn't matter. We would expect the worst and hope for the best, as they say, and we would love our little boy no matter what. We would do whatever we needed to do and that was that.
I continued through the rest of my pregancy with more ultrasounds as they wanted to see if any new abnormalities developed and if the area of the septum pellucidum got any worse. Nothing else ever developed and the area remained the same. This had to be a good thing.
At about 38 weeks, I stopped working. I was out of work for three days when my water broke and I went into labor. I called Braden and he came straight home. I was lolly-gagging (as we say here in the South) around getting things ready to take to the hospital, taking a shower, getting the old polish off my toenails (for which I am still teased about to this day!). Braden kept trying to rush me and I kept telling him we had plenty of time. I was in labor for an entire day with Corbin and with Carrington, it took me nearly twelve hours to have her after my water broke and two rounds of Pitocin! We had PLENTY of time. Well, I tried to hurry for his sanity but did notice that the pains seemed to be coming closer together and were much worse this early on than with the other two. By the time we got to the hospital (about 45 minutes away), I was thinking I had waited too late for pain meds. Note: I had pain meds at the very last minute with Corbin and had none with Carrington, so I definitely wanted an epidural this time around. I was there for about two and half or three hours before I finally got an epidural. It only worked on one side at first, but they got me fixed up and just in time. Caius Brendan Uriah Guzman (as we had all finally decided on a name) was born after only five and a half hours of labor. He was 7 lbs, 1 oz, had APGAR scores of 8 and 9, and looked absolutely perfect except for his little crooked feet...:). Of course, amid the joy, we silently wondered about his eyesight. My wonderful friend, Tonia, was in the delivery room with Braden and I, taking video and photos. For one of the first photos of Caius, she stepped kind of to the side and behind us. As soon as she snapped the photo (with flash), Caius immediately tiltled his little head all the way back and around to try to see where this light was coming from. We knew from that second that he was not blind. We knew the MRI was scheduled for the next day. We expected it to be better than predicted since we knew he could see and we were thrilled.
