And so it begins....

When Tommy was 4 days old, he had his first pediatrician visit.  We have been seeing this pediatrician for 8+ years and LOVE her.  We expected the normal new baby weigh in visit complete with lots of oohing and ahhing about how cute he is and amazement over how big he is.  We had also brought one of our older daughter's (who was home sick that day) and our doctor was concerned about her cold and was examining her!  Just as our pediatrician was walking out the door, she stopped and said "Wait, I have to check his eyes!"  She later told me that something just 'clicked in her brain' that she needed to do it again, as she thought she had already checked.  She had no reason to be concerned as the report from the hospital pediatricians was completely clear, perfectly healthy baby.  She looked in his eyes, then she casually asked "Did anyone say anyone at the hospital say anything about his eyes?".  Nope.  "Hmm, do you have a family history of congential cataracts?"  Again, No.  She then turned out the lights and examined again.  Now, we have known this doctor for a long time, we have a decent relationship and we could tell there was something wrong.  Without really panicking... she was a little rattled.  She told us that she could not see the red reflex in his eye.  The pediatrician left the room, promising to be right back.  His dad and I are both pharmacists who are relatively intelligent, I even work with kids, but this did not trigger any alarm in us, especially in our sleep-deprived state.  So, we waited.  She came back telling us that we needed to see an ophthalmologist very soon and she was working on getting us an appointment (not an easy feat at 4:30pm on a Friday afternoon.)  Ok, now we started to worry a little... but still no big alarms, after all, I had lazy eye as a kid and was doing just fine now.  When she came back with the appointment, we asked what would happen if it was a cataract, couldn't they just remove it and everything would be OK?  After all, older adults have cataract surgery all the time... right?  She was hesitant in her reply and evaded my question with a "Well, I don't really know, this isn't my specialty, that's why we have to get you to an ophthalmologist."  This is when I started to worry a LOT... this pediatrician was pretty smart, and I could tell she was trying NOT to go through all the worst-case scenarios with us.  So, we took her at her word and left.  Of course, in my sleep-deprived, hormonal state, I was weepy, but still was thinking it couldn't be THAT bad. 
When we got to the car, we agreed to not obsess about this and to not look things up on the internet.  You see, we can be our own worst-nightmares.  First, much of the information on ANY medical condition on the internet is crap and some of it is just plain dumb.  Second, we know just enough as pharmacists to understand some of the information, but not enough to make complete sense of everything (especially relating to the eye!)  How long do you think our resolve lasted?

Tommy arrives!

Tommy (or Thomas Jacob) is our 4th child (yes, fourth).  We have 3 beautiful little girls who are ages 8, 6, and 3.  We were SHOCKED when we found out we were having a boy... we thought we only made girls!  After that shock wore off the entire family (although admittedly, part of me wondered if they were wrong, despite 3 ultrasounds telling us otherwise) we looked forward to a little boy to balance out the girl-heavy house.  Dad was happy to not be the only human male in the house (we do have a male dog and cat.)

Tommy was born 4 agonizing days late (anyone who has had children understands why this was agonizing).  After a long labor (which ended in a surprise c-section), Tommy entered the world at a whopping 10 pounds 15 ounces and was 22 inches long.  All was well and we brought Tommy home on a Wednesday to our crazy house- we welcomed him home to our crazy house of 3 sick kids (it was February after all, I guess I should have expected that) complete with high fevers (105.1 F) and vomiting.  We felt very fortunate that newborns have an incredible immune system from mom and he did not join the sick bay.