Sydney Born and 1st cast removal for club foot (July/August 2011 - 0/1 month old)

Sydney was born on July 21st at 6:56 am.  She was 6 lbs even and 19 1/2 inches long.  She's growing really well and is already almost 7 lbs.

One proud daddy!

So tiny!

Getting ready to leave the hospital!

When she was born, she had a club foot.  You can find info on a club foot on Wikipedia. You can kind of see it in this picture:

It's her right foot, and it just looks turned..can you see it?

Well, just yesterday, Joel and I took little Sydney to the pediatric orthopedic in Salt Lake to have it checked out.  They already got her in a cast to start correcting it.

I looked on Wikipedia and it sounds like they're using the Ponseti method for correcting her club foot.  They could do a surgery, but apparently the casting method works better in the long run.  The Dr said that although the surgery corrects the foot in appearance and it looks really nice, it unfortunately leaves scar tissue that often causes the foot to be stiff and they have mobility problems with it when they get older.

Caught her smiling..lol what a cutie!

The Dr said that she will need to come in once a week for 4 weeks to change out the cast, and then after that she will have to wear this "shoe thing"(I'll work on finding out the technical term for it..) for24 hours straight for 3 months.  I found a picture that was similar to the "shoe thing" the Dr showed us:






I can't remember when, but I think it's during the casting process, they will have to cut her Achilles tendon(YUCK!), but it apparently grows back on it's own a little longer, and they don't even have to stitch it back together.

After 3 months, she will only have to wear the "shoe thing" at night and during long naps, but unfortunately she'll have to do that for 3 years! kinda crazy huh? Poor little girl! But better to get it fixed now than to have problems with it forever!

So anyway! That's our update for this week! I'll try and post with every Dr's visit. Have a great day!

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Adding another blog post here... lots of info to blog about to catch up!!

We had visit #2 at the Doctor's today. Let's just say that it was a little nerve wrecking (see the pictures of the saw). Every week Sydney has to have the cast replaced for the first month or so. We found out today that around the 4th week, they will cut her Achilles's tendon and then cast it again for about 3 weeks to let it grow back. After that, she will begin the 2 shoe brace for 3 months all day. Then it will be on for another 3 years to fully correct her foot. We will also have X-Rays done around 6 months to see how her leg is developing and whether or not it will grow at the same rate as her other leg. We got some good information today.

To remove the cast today they used this crazy saw/vacuum thing. Check it out.

The Doctor said her foot looks really good so far. It's already so much straighter! So cool!

Here's the old cast and the new one getting put on.

We are just so glad that it is getting fixed while she is still so small and it won't affect her hardly at all throughout her life. What a blessing. More updates to come!!