What's that pink thing on her head?

When Baby M was 6 months old she had to wear a helmet due to the flatness of the back of her head. We wore it for 6 weeks, and at that 6 week appointment the doctor looked at me and said, "Are you happy with the shape of your daughter's head?" I had actually never been unhappy with the shape of her head, so the obvious answer was yes. The doctor then looked me in the eye and told me that her head would remain this shape and would not flatten again.

Damn do I wish I had that in writing.

It has been almost 3 months since she took off her helmet and her head is once again flat in the back, and wider than it is deep. To be honest I don't care what the shape of her head is, I think she is beautiful and perfect, but I had been getting comments from other people about it (and my mom mentions it every time I see her) so I figured I should go back and just see what the doctor said about it.

This past Thursday I went back to Children's hospital to see Dr. Rogers, the orthopedic/plastic surgeon we had been seeing. He took one look at her head and was dumbfounded. He told me that he never sees cranial regression like Baby M has had...that she was "1 in a million." Well, I knew she was 1 in a million already, but not because of her rapidly changing head shape! He recommended we go back to the helmet again, for an undetermined amount of time. My heart sank.



Of course the first thing I asked him was, "Will it regress and become flat again after this round with the helmet?" He told me he couldn't tell us, but it is worth a shot. He also mentioned that we would probably have to get a new helmet and that insurance might not cover it (as it did the first time). Turns out he was right about insurance so now we are haggling with them to see if we can get some sort of help with the $2,000 cost of this apparatus. Since she is 1 in a million case we are hoping that they will consider us a special case. Stay tuned for the outcome...

So now we are wearing the old helmet while we can, and it is a pain in my ass. In the grand scheme of things it isn't really a big deal and it actually doesn't seem to bother her in the least bit, but it drives me crazy. I have to take it off and on every time I change her shirt. It is constantly knocking me in the nose. I can't kiss my child's head. I can't see her face but from directly in front of her. I also feel like people are staring at us when we go out a whole lot more than they did before and I find myself having to explain it everywhere I go.

When we were in Gymboree on Friday, baby M was sitting so contently in her little umbrella stroller, with her pink helmet on, and this young girl comes over to me and says "what is that pink thing on her head?"

"It is a helmet to help make her head round because it is flat in the back now."

"Why is her head flat? My head isn't flat"

"No, your head is perfect sweetheart. You are lucky."