Mindy's Birth Story

Mindy was born 17 years ago! She is a cheerful, chatty, and conscientious member of our family. Here is her birth story:

Mindy was due on August 25. I was mildly worried about her growth before she was born because it felt like the baby was actually getting smaller. I measured small at my last few appointments and the midwife wanted me to get an ultrasound at the hospital. However, I was a busy mom with 7 children and when there were concerns before with Susanna, everything had been totally fine. So I suppressed my concerns and kept working on the long list of things I wanted to get done before her birth.

The night before she was born, Scott and I took my grandma Ellen to my cousin's reception in Salt Lake. My grandma told me about a different cousin who was pregnant and had an ultrasound that showed her baby having a lump on her spine. That sounded worrisome. This turned out to be a weird foreshadowing for us (and my cousin's baby was fine).

A few hours after I went to bed, I woke up because Everett's alarm clock went off at 1am. After I turned off the alarm, I laid down and started having strong contractions. I guess I was in denial because I didn't wake up Scott until 2:45am--I didn't want to wake him up on his birthday and I had never delivered this early.

We went to the hospital--fortunately close by--and Mindy was born at 3:15am. Unfortunately, there were some problems. The first problem was that she was quite small, just 4.5 pounds and 17" long. The doctor didn't know why. They called it IUGR--Intra-Uterine Growth Retardation. The second problem was that she had a problem at the base of her spine, a somewhat large red bump. The pediatrician thought it might be Spina bifida although her legs seemed to work fine. He recommended moving her to Primary Children's Hospital right away. Her lungs also worked fine:

This was very stressful for us, the first time one of our children had had a significant medical issue besides a broken arm or stitches. The ambulance came and took Mindy up to Salt Lake. Scott followed shortly after. My father also went up and they were able to give Mindy a blessing during which my father said he had a really good feeling. It was hard for me not to be able to hold my baby and I felt very alone in the hospital. Fortunately I was in good physical shape so after I got released from the hospital that afternoon, Scott took me up to see Mindy, dropping the children off at his mother's house.

The doctors had ordered an MRI and determined that she did not have Spina bifida but had a "sacrococcygeal teratoma," otherwise known as a tumor on her tailbone. They said she would need to get it removed right away before it turned cancerous.

She got it removed two days later in a four hour surgery done by Dr. Downey, who later did some surgeries for Camille. The recovery was agonizingly slow. I went up to visit her every day. She had to be constantly on her stomach or on her side to let her tailbone area heal. Fortunately the tumor was benign but she had to get blood work done periodically for a couple of years to make sure it wasn't growing back.

After three weeks they said she could go home but then she started throwing up and couldn't keep anything down, despite being on a lot of reflux meds. The doctors determined she had a relatively common newborn condition called pyloric stenosis which is a blockage between your stomach and intestines. Fortunately the remedy was a straightforward laparoscopic surgery and it was a very quick recovery.

After 4 weeks, we finally brought her home, weighing just 4 lbs 12 oz. I was so happy to have my baby home. I had to use a shield to breastfeed her because she had gotten used to a bottle which meant I had to nurse her constantly so she could get enough. Eventually she stopped needing that. She was still quite small so it wasn't hard to carry her around. After that rough start, she grew slowly and I worried about that for the next 15 years! Her weight was at the bottom of the chart forever after--she weighed 37 pounds at age 8 which seems hard to believe.

We had one more medical problem to get over. When she was a few months old, I started noticing this bony lump on the back of her head and worried it was another tumor. I ended up taking her to a pediatric plastic surgeon who said it was probably just extra bone. An MRI confirmed that; fortunately we didn't need to do anything about it.

We are glad that none of Mindy's problems ended up being too serious! The experience helped me be a little more prepared for the challenges of Camille's birth.

Happy birthday, Mindy! We're glad you are in our family!

Pictures from May, 2005, Mindy, age 8 months: