Leah's Story

I had a completly normal pregnancy. No complications, no problems--other then nausea! My delivery was fairly uncomplicated. Leah came 10 days late after an induced labor and 18 hours! During delivery her heart rate kept dropping during every contraction, but it never got to the point where the doctor was concerned. My beautiful baby girl was born healthy at 6lbs 2 oz. Leah went through her first 3 months of life completly healthy, she slept great and she ate great. Around 3.5 months I noticed that she was grabbing and reaching for things with her right hand but not her left. I didn't think too much of it, I thought she was going to be right-handed. At her 4 month check up I decided to ask the pedi about it. He said he saw that she definitly prefers the right hand, but that he didn't think anything of it. None the less, he said we should go have her evaluated by an OT and a PT. We went the next week, where they didn't tell me much, but basically told me something was up. I then read and read and read everything I could on the internet--I basically scared myself out of my mind. I thought the worst. I would read something and think oh my gosh, this explains Leah completely. It was WAY off base. I did stumble upon Hemiparesis and thought it sounded like what she had. After the OT and PT eval they suggested we go see a Neurologist. The Neurologist confirmed my thought of Hemiparesis and referred us for a CT scan. After the CT scan, we found that Leah had a stroke sometime during the third trimester. Leah had tons of blood work done and some of it came back abnormal. We then were refered to a pedatric hematologist, where we went recently. The hematolgist basically said that Leah's chance of having another stroke is between 2% and 3%, he also said that there is nothing to do about the abnormal blood tests. There may be something later on in life, but for now it is no harm. We are very fortunate that Leah's case is very mild. She has hit all of her milestones thus far. She is 7.5 months now and crawling all over the place. I know that as she gets older things may be harder for her, but she improves so much everyday. She goes to OT twice a week, PT eval once a month (her leg is MUCH less effected). I'm so proud of Leah, she one determined little girl and she is just the sweetest!

This is a picture of Leah...brand new! She was about 10 minutes old here.