As an infant....

Emmie was on April 10th in Landstuhl, Germany. There were no pregnancy complications, other than the fact we moved overseas in my 7 month, and no delivery complications (labor was only 13 minutes). She was 6 pounds and 7 ozs and the tiniest little girl I had ever seen. When Emmie was a newborn, she didn't sleep. I know parents say that, but trust me from the time she was born until she was about a year old, she didn't sleep and all she did was cry! We lived on the second story of a old German apartment with hard wood floors. I can remember on more than one occasion laying in the floor with her. We would lay blankets down and she would snuggle next to me. One way to soothe her was to put some sort of music on that, believe it or not, had a lot of bass. My husband enjoyed Enimen from time to time, so I would put in the cd on low, and in the floor we would lay where she was able to feel the vibrations. Just one of those quirks of our new addition. After all, ever child is different. She was breastfed and never once had a bottle or pacifier. At 8 months, she was diagnosed with Raynaud's syndrome, a disease that affects the blood vessels. Basically, her hands and feet would turn blue for no apparent reason. It actually runs in my husband's family, so again, no reason to be alarmed that our child was different. She just needed warm socks more often! No childhood ear infections and other than a common cold from time to time, she was the typical newborn. The toddler years were no different. As soon as she could hold a pencil, she was scribbling. She also seemed to lean more towards the art geared activities, finding joy in finger paints, smearing yogurt everywhere, or picking the perfect crayon. She played with baby dolls and her siblings. She crawled, babbled, and walked just like any other kid. She seemed to outgrow the Raynaud's in her toddler years, although even today she tends to get colder before anyone else and her little hands are typically ice cubes but no blue fingers! Her toddler time brought on a new illness, Vesicoureteral Reflux or VUR. Her VUR was a grade 3 out of 5, bilateral. This meant when her kidney's would empty to the bladder, some of the urine would not completely empty and would reverse back into her kidney's. We contemplated surgery, but the Urologist and I both decided she was young and we could stick it out and pray she would outgrow it. A few hospitals visits, overnight stays, and VCUG's later she did outgrow this as well with little scar tissue in her kidneys.



Overall, Emmie was the typical child. A move to California began the days of Kindergarten....then I began to feel like my child wasn't typical. There was certainly something special about her!