At our 19 week ultrasound they found that our baby girl has hydrocephalus. Throughout the pregnancy we had many ultrasounds and an MRI and they couldn't find any cause for it and her ventricles stayed the same. They induced labor on her due date and I didn't have to have a c-section. She didn't have to have a shunt right away, at first it appeared that she didn't need it. She was still in the hospital because of feeding problems and 2 weeks after she was born she had a seizure and her head size got bigger at the same time so she had the shunt surgery the next day. She had to be in the hospital for a whole month after she was born because of feeding problems. She finally had to get a g-tube in order to go home. After being home for 2 weeks she went back to the hospital for another 3 weeks with an infection in her shunt and g-tube but they fought it off with antibiotics and she didn't have her shunt redone. They also found that she had glaucoma in her right eye and she had surgery for it when she was three months old. She is 6 months old now and has the same shunt. There is no other known cause than aquaductal stenosis. Mostly we have a lot of "I don't knows" and just have to wait and see. She is a "low tone baby" and at six months old now doesn't have head control. She is developmentally delayed, early intervention told me their goal for her at one year old would be to be able to sit up, but over the summer we have her physical therapy at a hospital and they said they don't see her being able to do that by one year old. But they do expect that she will be able to walk and move, it just will take longer. She also has small optic nerves and possibly septo-optic dysplasia. They didn't want to do anymore surgeries for glaucoma if she was already blind so yesterday they did a vep eye test and it showed that as of now her vision is like a newborn, which is very little vision. But with septo optic dysplasia they often have delayed eye development so the doctor hopes that in the next year her vision could develop more, but his best hope for her is 20/200 vision. They don't intend to do anymore surgeries for the glaucoma. She still has feeding problems and needs her g-tube because of reflux problems. The other issues of being low tone, feeding problems and septo optic dysplasia aren't necessarily related to the hydrocephalus but I think it's worth mentioning because while I was pregnant I read all of these stories and never read anything like this so it was a real surprise to me. But she is a beautiful, sweet baby. She sometimes seems like she sees, she doesn't smile a lot, but when she does and when she laughs she laughs so hard and it's really cute. We also have an older son, they are 18 months apart, and he has had no problems and shows no sign of having hydrocephalus.
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