A year ago today Stephanie and I looked at each other and said, "are we ready for this?" It's a little more relaxed birth experience when you have a planned c-section, not the crazed drive to the hospital you see in movies. We arrived at the hospital at 5:30am and by 9:59am we met Rowan. It's been a year of great joy for us. We love Rowan very much and have enjoyed every minute of this past year coming to know him more and more. A newborn Rowan seems so long ago at this point. In preparation for his birthday party we printed out his monthly pictures. He looks the same to us but its rather amazing to see in photos how he has changed over this year. He's three times the boy from when he was born. Last week we weighed him at 20.5 lbs compared to the 6lbs 8 ounces at birth.
The past year has been marked by many milestones for Rowan but yet many more challenges ahead. He has already been under general anesthesia more times in his first year than Stephanie and I have been in our lives combined. He continues to work on his muscle strength with physical therapy. We will be visiting spina bifida clinic in January and he will be fitted for braces and likely some sort of walker. For the past few months Rowan has been wearing a hip brace because he has slight dysplasia in his left hip. We will see a new x-ray to see if the brace has helped form his socket to be deeper. Rowan has been taking ditropan, a muscle relaxer, for the last few months as well. He has an overactive bladder and the ditropan relaxes the bladder so it fills more fully. These issues all seem to be rather consistent in children with spina bifida.
As he approaches his first birthday we are asked frequently if he's walking, crawling all over, causing trouble at home and well he's not. A one year old should start to walk and Rowan isn't even close. He is becoming stronger and working hard but is certainly on his own timeline. We continue to pray for Rowan to experience healing and for his body to grow in amazing ways. Rowan is a very happy boy and loves to laugh. It took him a while to take a liking to food but he's really into it now. He enjoyed everything on Thanksgiving, especially sweet potato casserole. Just this week he has started drinking whole milk and he's quite the milk monster.
We are very excited for his next year and look forward to seeing Rowan grow and develop. We ask for continued prayer for his health. In January we will have more information on his bladder and hip and hope to hear positive news for both. Merry Christmas!
Blessings,
Kyle, Steph & Rowan
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| It's been real cold in Colorado so we've been sledding inside |
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| Rockin' the hip brace |
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| Working hard with dad at PT |
