Colton Anthony was born on September 3, 2013 via a scheduled c-section.  We found out he was breech at my 37 week appointment.  My first son was as healthy as could be and this pregnancy had gone relatively well (borderline gestational diabetes, but really nothing to worry about).  Colton was born a healthy 8 pounds 11 ounces.  He was the best baby from the second he was born.  We used to always say that our 2nd would be a wild child since our first was so sweet, calm and a relatively easy baby.  But this kid made our older seem “wild” compared to how mellow he was!  We felt so lucky.  Our first and second month appointments went great and Colton had no issues. So at our routine 4 month appointment we expected another glowing report on our sweet baby. Instead, we saw panic in our pediatrician’s eyes as he could not locate our son’s soft spot that had been there just 2 months ago.  He sent us over for an x-ray immediately.  The x-ray confirmed the doctor’s fear….Colton had Sagittal Craniosynostosis. I immediately started googling the internet which sent me into even more panic.  Our pediatrician recommended an amazing surgeon at Lutheran General Hospital, Dr. John Ruge.  We had an appointment set for 2 weeks out and made a 2nd appointment with another neurosurgeon as well for a 2nd opinion.  At our appointment with Dr. Ruge, we were expecting him to tell us he wanted to wait to operate.  Instead he told us he wanted to get Colton in within 2 weeks.  We were panicked.  But we also loved our surgeon and he gave us a lot of comfort and support.  So we scheduled the surgery.  We met with the 2nd doctor but just didn’t get that same things that we loved about our surgeon with the other one so we decided to go forward with the scheduled surgery.  Colton got a bad ear infection a couple days after meeting with Dr. Ruge and on the day prior we still weren’t sure he would have the surgery since he had to be healthy.  We got clearance the day before the surgery. Colton had surgery on February 5, 2014.  We were expecting him to be in there for hours and his surgeon was done and came out just a little over an hour after we had gotten the call that surgery had started. We were told the skull was fused pretty badly but the procedure went very well.  This just confirmed we had made the right decision.  Colton got 100 stitches! He did well the first day and even wanted to nurse about 2 hours after surgery.  He had always been a good eater and even a little cranio surgery wasn’t going to keep him down!  Later that evening was rough as the swelling had really set in.  Then he had a horrible reaction to the anesthesia and over the next day the swelling got worse and he was throwing up often.  It was awful to watch him feeling like this but we made sure to stay on top of his pain meds and he was really a trooper.  We were sent home Friday afternoon (only 2.5 days in the hospital!).  While thrilled to be going home, we were also scared about bringing him home and also how this would affect our 3 year old son.  We definitely had good days and bad days but eventually his head healed and now he has so much hair that you can barely even see the scar.  Our older son still thinks that it is “so cool” that baby Colton has “train tracks” on his head as he calls them. Colton is just over 4 months past surgery and is still the happiest baby around!  You wouldn’t even know he went through all of this just looking at him.  This site helped me so much especially in the time leading up to the surgery and for all the families out there going through this now, just remember that soon this will all be a distant memory and your child will have a better life thanks to the tough decision that you had to make!  I had a fellow Cranio Mom who helped me through this journey and I only hope that I can pay it forward and help other families going through the same thing.  Please feel free to contact me at msugirl1578@yahoo.com. I am in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago and would love to be a support to anyone that needs it!  This experience will help you to see how strong you really are…but don’t forget to lean on those around you!!!