The beginning

Sophie Mae and Elliana Isabel were born at 35 weeks and 2 days at 4 lbs. 13 ozs. and 4 pds. 11 ozs. on September 29, 2011.  Although they were early, they were perfectly healthy.  Once the girls were brought to my hospital room, the nurse and I immediately noticed that Sophie's left eye seemed a little swollen on one side.  Just to rule anything out, they ordered an x-ray.  The x-ray came back normal and we were told that it was probably because she was a little smushed inside the womb; after all, there's not much room in there when you're sharing space with your identical sister!  We were happy to hear of it and didn't think much of it after that.

Fast forward to our 2 month WBV.  Our pediatrician noticed that the "smushing" was still there and her eyebrow was not forming completely.  We could also see that she had a fair amount of facial asymmetry on her left side, mainly her eye and nose.  It was very much exaggerated when you looked at her through a mirror.  Still, he thought that it was positional and could take up to a year to even out.  This was an easy way for us to tell the girls apart and because it didn't seem like too much of an issue, we didn't worry about it much.  I should also add that she has been developing normally and is completely neurologically intact.  She is so smart and is eager to say hi to everyone she meets!  Elli and her are starting to create their own language.  It is the cutest thing to watch.  My little Sophie has the most amazing personality and is the sweetest little girl you could have.

At the babies 6 month WBV, our pediatrician wanted to be on the safe side and set us up with Dr. St. Hilaire, a craniofacial doctor and plastic surgeon at Children's Hospital.  That visit was a long wait, but a quick meeting.  He is a father of triplets himself and also agreed that it was likely to be a positional issue within the womb and should clear up on his own.  He also remarked on how beautifully her head was shaped; this ruled out craniosynostosis (phew!)  We were to see him again in 6 months time, when she turned a year old.  We were also sent to a pediatric eye doctor to make sure that all was good with her vision.  Dr. Balkan said that her eyes looked great, but remarked that he wanted to see us again in 6 months because she had a blocked tear duct in that left eye.  If it wasn't cleared by then, he would like to do a quick surgical procedure to see if he could fix it.

Six months later, we went back to Dr. St. Hilaire.  I mentioned to him that Dr. Balkan was concerned about Sophie's tear duct.  With more talking, Dr. St. Hilaire said that it would probably be a good idea to get a CT scan to make sure that everything looked good.  He expected it to turn out to be what we were told all along, but since our pediatrician hadn't seen much/if any improvement yet, it would be a good idea.

 Elli & Sophie

 Elli and Sophie

 Sophie

 Elli & Sophie

 Sophie & Auntie

 Elli & Sophie

 Sophie

 Tyce, Sophie & Elli

 Sophie & Elli

 Sophie

 Sophie