Happy 3rd Birthday Irelyn!

Today my Little China Doll turns 3! At 1:29pm Irelyn came into this world as a tiny beautiful little girl. She weighed in at a whopping 6lbs 9oz (and while that is tiny she was bigger then what her big sister was) and was blessed with a head of very dark hair. She was also unfortunately born with many fracture – 13 to be exact. And of those 13, 0 were detected while we were still in the hospital.

It wasn’t until she was 5 weeks old, while I was nursing her, that somehow her arm broke (the humerus). I knew right away something had happened as I heard a popping noise followed then by her screaming. I called my hubby into the room and frantically told him what had happened, so we unswaddled her and looked her over trying to figure out what had happened. During all of this I had called my mom and was on the phone with her telling her what happened and how I thin she broke something. At this point I noticed that her left arm wasn’t moving, so I told my mom that I think its her arm that's broken, to which my mom replied “baby's cant break bones Devon.” oh to know then what we know now.

Anyways, she then told me to put my finger in her hand to check her grip reflex and it was then when she didn't close her hand around mine that I knew something very serious had happened. We called her pediatrician and told them what happened and that we were taking her to the ER of our local hospital. Upon arrival at the ER we were given the third degree by the nurses – as was to be expected, after all how often does a 5 week old sustain such a serious injury without there being some form of abuse involved (hence the reason we called our pediatrician prior to going to the ER – we were anticipating there being some type of confrontation). 

The whole ordeal was a complete nightmare – everything from listening to her tiny screams as she was x-rayed to having the on-call ER doctor give us his diagnosis of Osteogenesis Imperfecta.  It was at that time that I myself was also told that I have OI. OI is typically a genetic disease wherein the body does not make enough collagen and as a result one of the primary affects of this is that the bones in the body become extremely thin and brittle, thus fracturing very easily. This explained alot for my own physical ailments as well as my physical feature, including one of the primary “tell-tale signs” of OI – blue sclera (the white part of the eye – in OI patients the white is in fact blue).

After the initial diagnosis we made a trip to a geneticist at Hershey Medical Center where the diagnosis was confirmed with an insanely expensive blood test ($4000), and then a full body x-ray was done where the initial 13 fractures were identified – 2 of which happened while I was still pregnant with her!

Irelyn’s first year of life  was a blur of doctors, specialists, hospitalizations, treatments, fractures, fears, and faith. The next year of life consisted of a bit of the same with many more fractures having occurred. I am praying that this third year will give her and us the peace we’ve all been seeking. No fractures this year – that is our prayer. 30 is more then enough for any person, let alone a 3 year old to ever have to endure.

Aside from all of that, today is my little girls birthday. Happy Birthday Irelyn!