Anthony Jr.- The Beginning

I'm am not sure, but I sense that there are many friends and family out there that have questions about what we have gone through/ are going through with Anthony Jr over the past year. The truth is, we still have so many questions left unanswered but I want my friends and family to know that if I can answer a question, I would be happy to! Here is a snapshot of what has gone on since our journey began...

At Anthony's 2 month check up the pediatrician (not ours, but someone filling in that day) asked me the generic questions they always do. When she got to the question about whether Anthony was smiling, I said that he was but that it took real effort to get him to smile and he was only doing it about once a day. Then she asked me is he was cooing and I said that he really wasn't. She responded, "is he a little?" I felt uncomfortable and nervous...thought maybe I was missing something...so I responded "I guess..." It was then that I started to have a whisper of concern. Around the same time, I began to see pictures and videos on some people's Facebook pages who ironically had babies within 2 weeks or so as I did. One is particular was a video of a baby who was playing under her gym mat...kicking, squealing, babbling. I looked at Anthony Sr. in a slight panic. Our baby wasn't doing any of that. This particular baby seemed advanced (as our Gianna was!) but he was even close to this.

I stored my worry away...my mother-in-law sadly passed away so it was easy to do. While we were in Florida for the arrangements, he cried constantly, continued to have feeding issues (he had had them pretty much since birth), and was "tongue thrusting" habitually. I thought he was just a bit fussy, maybe teething...our family thought he was colicky. My pediatric nurse practitioner sister-in-law had a feeling it was something more and gave me some subtle advice to speak to the pediatrician when we returned home.

At the three month check up we voiced my concerns to our pediatrician. I told him he wasn't smiling much, making any noises, or visualy tracking. He said that with such a wide range of what's "typical" for a 3-month old he wasn't overly concerned. Then he looked at Anthony's head and said it looked a bit small so he wanted to measure it. It measured very small. He decided to refer us to an infant neurologist for a "screening".

Thanks to my wonderful sister-in-law and her connections...we were able to schedule an appointment within a couple of weeks. She was also sweet enough to accompany me to that meeting. We met with Dr. Andre Duplessis on April 22, 2009. At that appointment it was confirmed that there was "definatley something going on" with my baby boy. Dr. Duplessis noticed that Anthony muscle tone was increased, along with his other symptoms. He told me that he would do whatever it took to get to the bottom of the situation and that no matter the road that lie ahead, he would be right there walking it with me. What equally comforting yet haunting words for a mother to hear. I walked out of that appointment knowing that whatever we were dealing with, it wasn't something that he was going to "grow out of". Many challenging days were ahead of us....