MR...Ugh

First of all, there really is no question of Max's parentage is there? Second, look at the heads on those babies. Just LOOK at them.

These photos have been on our refrigerator for the last month to help keep me from losing my mind. You see, Max has a big head. An above the 99th percentile head. And until he was 7 months old, it wasn't a concern as he was following the curve. (For the childless, thats the curve on the graph of kids' head sizes. Yes, really.) Then his head grew a half an inch in 6 weeks. Teetering at nearly 19 inches (to give some perspective, the average head size of a year old baby is 18 inches), Max's head growth was now off the charts. I received a phone call from his pediatrician that went something like this:

Ped: "I'm a little concerned. His head growth should be leveling off and its not. We have a couple options. CAT scan or MRI. I prefer the MRI, because there's no radiation exposure, though babies do have to be sedated for the procedure. The risks of sedation are less than the risks of NOT doing the test though, in my opinion. This isn't something I feel comfortable waiting more than a few weeks to do. If there's something wrong, the sooner we know, the better...."

Me: **crying**

Cut to almost 3 weeks of waiting. Waiting for insurance to approve the test. Waiting for the pediatrician's office to coordinate and schedule with the hospital. Waiting to go down to Green Bay for the appointment. Waiting for the results to come back. Waiting, waiting, waiting, with a lead ball in my stomach. Now I know I'm a worrier. Worry is my forte. And for the most part I worry about NOTHING. None of the potential things that could be wrong with a baby's head are "nothing" however. They're all terrible. Hydrocephalus and brain tumors. Brain surgery. Staples in the head. Shunts. Terrible, terrible, and more terrible.


Not to mention the MRI itself. I scour the ingredient list of every single thing I give my child to ingest. We try not to give him too much baby Tylenol or Advil for god's sake. And now he's going to go under IV sedation.

We were reassured over and over again that the test was a precaution. Likely he just has a big head because his parents have big heads and the rapid growth was just a growth spurt. I will not tell you the dark, sad, sick-to-my-stomach places my mind went to upon having my beautiful, joyful little boy's health called into question because those feelings are too intimate and vulnerable. I will just tell you it was terrible.


The scan was scheduled for 10 a.m. but we had to be there at 7:45 for registration, an exam etc. Thank God he's breastfed, because he could nurse up to 4 hours before. At first he was a trooper, flirting with the nurses, playing with all the equipment and toys in the room. Then he got hungry and tired and very very upset when they couldn't find a vein for the IV. Every mom in the world knows how upsetting vaccinations are. This was that times a million. He screamed and screamed and screamed until he was hoarse and gasping. There was this teenage volunteer to there "distract" him, who kept waving a screen playing cartoons in his face, frantically repeating, "Look at the horsey! Look at the sheepy! Look at the doggy!".

I wanted to punch her.

He worked himself into such a state they suggested an anti-anxiety drug. I was like, "yeah, definitely, and can you give something to Max too?"....ba-dump-bum.

Seriously though, it was awful. Watching him go under the anesthetic was awful. Walking with him knocked out, hooked up to things on a hospital bed down to the MRI room was awful. Passing a closed door with a sign that said "chemo in progress" in the pediatric ICU was awful. Leaving and sitting in the waiting room for 45 minutes was awful. Waiting for him to wake up was awful. Waiting for the results was awful.

Me being the psycho that I am, I stared at the anesthesia doctor's inscrutable face as I asked how the scan looked. He claimed no knowledge; "My focus is totally on your child's vital signs blah blah blah". Right.

I called the pediatrician's office immediately after we left the hospital telling them they must call me that day. None of this waiting until tomorrow. Tomorrow?! Are you kidding me...after all this waiting, we were not waiting another 24 hours with those results out there, looming, potentially changing our whole lives. I was giving them 4 hours. Call me dramatic, but psychosis gets results. I heard from the pediatrician by 2:30, a mere 2 1/2 hours after walking out of the hospital. Diagnosis?

Our baby has familial macrocephaly.

Or in plain english, a big head due to genetics.