The Faulk Family

Throughout my pregnancy, I had a TON of ultrasounds and 2 MRIs.  There have been MANY pictures taken of Cedar prior to her arrival.  Throughout all of these, doctors and ultrasound techs assured me that Cedar did not have clubfeet.  Many kids with spina bifida are also born with clubfeet--just one of those things.  I was relieved to find out that she did NOT have clubfeet, since that would just be one more thing to deal with. At these ultrasounds, many doctors also mentioned that she was in breech position (the entire pregnancy), and often commented on how her feet were up by her head, like she was folded in half.  We all laughed at her flexibility and moved on.  Regarding her breech position, doctors would often say, "Well luckily you are having a c-section, so we don't have to worry that she is breech!"  That is all anyone said. When Cedar was born, we were quite shocked when we saw her feet.  As you read in his account of Cedar's birth, Daniel cried.  When he

I never imagined I would have a baby that needed to be in the NICU.  I thought that was something that happened to "other people."  Suddenly, there I was, learning to navigate what felt like an entirely different world!  The first few days Cedar was in the NICU, I was still a patient in the hospital.  This made it easy to go see her whenever I could. The NICU nurses would call down to my room when they thought she might be willing to breastfeed, and I would get wheeled down there, sometimes in the middle of the night.  It was definitely difficult to feel like I was recovering when I was getting little sleep, but I was happy to do what I could to help transition her to all oral feeding.  This was one of the requirements for her to leave the NICU.  She would also have to be weaned off oxygen, which took a few days.  I knew we could go home with oxygen if we needed to, but I REALLY did not want to do that.  Daniel was supposed to take that first week off of work, but when w