Chapter 2 - The First Three Months

Cyann was born with nearly an inch of dark, thick hair, which already set her apart from the other babies in the nursery. Good thing, too...we were told that her head size was larger than average newborns. So all that hair was covering up her large head, which really wasn't noticeable unless she was put up next to other babies her age. The doctors still did more tests on her head, but she still checked out ok. In fact, she seemed to be healthy all over.

At her very first doctor's appt., we noticed she looked a little yellowish. We were told she may have a touch of jaundice, and to move her bassinet over by the window to get sunshine during the day. We did that for a couple of days, and she looked fine after that. She was drinking regular formula, and at about 3 weeks old, we noticed how fussy she seemed. We asked the doctor if we should change formulas, but he advised that we give her a little Karo syrup in water to see if that helped. That did seem to relieve her constipation, but she still seemed like a "sour puss". We used to make jokes about how 'happy, smiley babies' are overrated, thinking that Cyann was developing a serious kind of demeanor.

At around her 2 month checkup, that's when little concerns started cropping up. First, the doctor thought he heard a heart murmur. But sometimes he would, sometimes he wouldn't. I don't know how he ever heard anything with Cyann screaming at the top of her lungs, as she usually did during her doctor visits. So he sent us to have an EKG done. We also noticed that when Cyann would cry, we could feel this rather large bump behind her right ear, but then if she wasn't crying, it wasn't noticeable. So on the same day we went for the EKG, we also had an ultrasound done on her head. The EKG came back fine, and the bump turned out to be a vein. Another issue associated with her inherited head size, I imagine. Poor girl.

It was towards the end of her 3rd month that we started noticing how her belly looked a little like a spider's body. Kind of full, but not from fat; more like inflated, sort of. We mentioned it to the doctor, and he kind of just brushed it off as infants growing at different rates, or something. He wasn't alarmed or showed any concern over it at that point.