OT- AnnMarie &

[Guest guest]

Hi AnnMarie!

Happy Valentines Day Nope, never been to Tacoma, the closest to WA I've been would probably be my honeymoon to Vancouver and Alaska!! I'm here in drizzling south Florida, 30 minutes south of Miami and about 2.5 hours north of Key West.

I had concerns at 8 months with no fetal movement for a day, and talked with the Doctor. She also checked the heart rate and all was well. I had concerns about his size because even at 6 mnths, they were saying he was measuring large, and my string bean husband was a whopping 11lbs. at birth- go figure-, and I was seriously worried about this potentially large baby!! They had me get an ultrasound the week he was due, and he was supposedly 8 lbs. ?? oz. and she assured me he was not "freakishly big". When I asked about induction, she said she wanted me to wait a week longer!! If I ever have another child, this will be addressed differently to say the least!

At first I felt like your husband, and thought, well, she knew my concerns about his size, and still had me wait, so I felt there was some negligence there, because he was so cramped up and didn't have any more room to grow- hence the stunted muscle. Then with the delivery, also vacuum was used- after 23 hours of labor and 2 failed epidurals. (well, the first one worked for the "easy" part of my labor- then fell apart when I needed it- so I HAD to have another epidural put in during the contractions from hell!).

It's funny you ask about the lump, because I had told someone about his hematoma at the tort group and she thought I was lying or something because she blasted me by saying, NO ONE knows what causes these lumps. Well, in ' case, specifically, it was a hematoma, and I was told that first by the radiologist reading his MRI- at the appt., I pressed him for info and he caved- saying he couldn't say more (legally) except it was trauma related- the Doc would have to tell me. Then the nuero confirmed that the lump was in deed a hematoma and so did my ped and it was trauma related. I was mad, but I know that childbirth is not easy, and even though I broke down and cried, I WANT A C!- they wouldn't let me as I had come THAT far!!

So I was mad too when I put it all together, especially when his arm was pulled and muscle torn....but my flower girl was also delivered (by another Doc) that way and they severed her nerves too the point she almost didn't have use of her arm if it wasn't for pt (the Doc told her mom she'd never use it- but she took her to pt, and still does at age 7 and she's got almost full use)! So, I felt lucky in a sense too.

As for the lump, I thought, well, can't we just drain the blood, but no, they said its like a bruise and it has to be reabsorbed into the system. Now, I think that other tort kids may get a different kind of lump, but I'm not sure and I'm not speculating on that. I just know that in our case, it was a hematoma, and when my husband recounts how he was delivered, it all adds up. He was stuck, they used the vaccuum, then they pulled his arm, the muscle was too tight from not being able to grow and being stuck in the same position, so it tore when he was pulled. It was a HUGE lump, and it didn't show up until 2 weeks after he was born (which I am told is common for the lump). It was a big mass and it took sometime to release its stranglehold on the muscle. Thank God it finally went!

So I can relate to your husband's anger, but after all that I was just too consumed with how to get my son to have a happy, healthy life, and it was a lot of work there so the rest kind of faded into the background- like you said- water under the bridge now. I don't know where we would have been if I couldn't bounce things off of experienced parents at the start of our journey- what a big relief!

Hope I didn't give you a headache with all this reading Hope this helps! Good luck to you also and I hope you have found as much info and support as I have through this group and the tort group! Please email me anytime- its great to talk with someone that can relate to me (how unusual

' Mom