Yes, I know, that's what babies do!!! But if you have read my previous posts you know that our Gabbie has had her share of struggles in that department. Crawling is difficult for her because of the position of her feet, or more specifically because she can't flex them, so it may really hurt to crawl. But she finally realized that crawling is more effective than dragging her body on the floor. The first day we saw her doing that was in the first days of October, so a little before 11 months. My husband and I kept staring at each other, as if not believing what we were watching. It may seem very silly but we both had tears in our eyes, we realized we were both crying, it was a very emotional moment. It is interesting how we take certain things for granted and then we realize that they are not granted, we did not know until that moment if she was ever going to be able to crawl. Babies can't exactly tell us these things, and as the doctor at Shriners told us in the last appointment, it was up to her now, there is no way to know what she will be capable of. Then the next days she decided she didn't want to do it any more. But a couple of days later she tried again and now she goes everywhere crawling. This picture was taken at Halloween (wasn't she a cute little duck?). Notice the position of the foot when she crawls.
Once in a while she still tries the army crawling/dragging crawl, but she know it is better the "right" way. And now she is trying to stand. She still has no strength at all on the lower legs, so technically she can't, but she wants to. We thought timing was great because we would have our next appointment at Shriners the following weeks. The doctor had said that once she is trying to stand, he would give her braces, to force the feet down a little more and give her some leg support. We had such high hopes that she was ready for that, and that the following week we would be getting them. But then the day for the appointment came and I was so nervous! We had to wait for so long. We finally saw the doctor, and unfortunately he didn't tell us anything different than what he had told us 3 months before. Now he said to wait until she is 18 months, because technically babies usually walk anywhere between 9 and 16 months, so she is still within that range. I was so frustrated!!!! She is trying so hard! And she is getting frustrated too, because now she is more aware of things and gets frustrated. We left that appointment so sad, so many questions that no one can answer for us. They want to do another EMG, this time on the quadriceps, because they think they are equally weak. We will go back in 3 months for that but they won't see her for braces for another 6 months. This wait is horrible!
In addition, we have been doing a lot of research, trying to find out what is wrong, what caused that on her. As the doctor at Shriners said, she is a normal baby from the waist up. He said he has to treat her as a spina bifida baby, but she is not. So what is it? We came across some rare chromosomal deletions, specifically one called 10q26, and the more we read about it, the more we think it may be a possibility, so we asked the doctor at Shriners to test for it, and his answer was "your baby is normal, she does not have a genetic condition". What doctors sometimes fail to recognize is that depending on where in the leg of the chromosome the breakage is, symptoms can be very mild, and sometimes adults don't even know they have it. But we haven't lost our hopes yet. We will try to talk to her pediatrician on her 12 month appointment and see if he will do it!
Other than that, she continues to be the happiest baby I know, always smiling, very playful, just a happy kid, which also bring tears to my eyes every time I say or write about that, because that in itself is a lesson for us. She only gets upset for a very short period of time, and forgets about it quickly. What a happy baby!
