On February 24th, 2013 my husband Bryan and I welcomed our 2nd child Parker Steven into this world. He was healthy and perfect! We were over the moon excited and so in love! On February 25th (the next day) we were told that it looked like Parker might have something called Craniosynostosis. The pediatrician said it looked like Parker’s sagittal suture in his skull prematurely fused together causing his head to be long and narrow and not round. We were told …that the only fix for this would be surgery and we should see a pediatric neurosurgeon. Once I heard the word neurosurgeon I burst into tears. How could this be happening? He was perfect in our eyes! The good news was he was healthy and this was considered a cosmetic surgery. A couple weeks later I took Parker to Children’s Hospital to get a CT scan on his skull. The neurosurgeon confirmed it, Parker’s sagittal suture of his skull was fused.

On Monday April 22 at 7:30am, Parker, at only 8 week and 1 day old went into surgery at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis. Dr. Mahmoud G. Nagib was his pediatric neurosurgeon, we were told that he was the best. The surgery lasted about 2 1/2 hours and was a complete success! When they finally let us go back and see Parker, Bryan and I were amazed at how great he looked. They had him pretty medicated still and were transferring him up to the PICU. Even with his head all wrapped up we noticed it looked so perfect and round. I just wanted to pick him up and hold him forever and take all his pain away. Words cannot even describe the range of emotions I had that day, I wish that feeling on no one. The rest of the day Parker did great, they had him on morphine to help with pain control so he slept most of the time. I’m so thankful that the nurses at Children’s were amazing, they took such good care of Parker. Tuesday, day 2, was the day of “the swelling” and my poor little guy could not even open his little eyes and the morphine that they were giving him for pain control was making his face itch. After begging all morning to hold him the nurses granted my wish! For the next hour I sang and rocked my baby in my arms, it was an amazing feeling. Everyone kept telling me that the swelling would keep getting worse and that he had to heal and this could take days. But to everyone’s surprise on Wednesday morning, day 3, around 6:00 am Parker (my tough little cookie) had his eyes open and the swelling was going down!! Amen, the power of prayer and the determination of this strong willed little boy was absolutely amazing. He even gave me a little smile, and for the first time I rejoiced and cried tears of joy. Between Bryan and I we never left his side at Children’s and on Thursday April 25th around 11:00 am only 72 hours after surgery, Parker was released!!

Two weeks after his surgery the stitches were taken out and the surgeon told us that he looked wonderful! Four weeks after that, we had another appointment and we were told again that his head looked amazing. Best news ever!! We have another check up the end of October of 2013. We pray for good results!