Spina Bifida Awareness: Meet Collin!

Today we get to meet Collin!

My name is Jessie Kickery. I am the very proud mommy of a very active 16 month old baby boy named Collin who has Spina Bifida!

Today I want to start off with when I found out about the Spina Bifida. I felt scared as I had no idea what they where talking about but they made it sound very bad. I also felt  lucky I found out with the blood test they do at 5 months pregnant so I had a chance to go to a specialist every 3 weeks for ultra sounds. Yay, I got to see my little boy every 3 weeks and that made me so happy. Even though I had no idea what Spina Bifida was we had great support from an organization and his daddy's mother and my mother.

His birth was the hardest thing I'll ever do. Not getting to hold him for 16 days, but touching him was great. I remember after 16 days they rolled him and I got to hold him and all I could do was cry because he was so beautiful and so strong.

He was born May 23rd 2010 and went home with us June 9th. It was a big day for us, "YAY!! We are going home!!!" All I could do was hold him (Big mistake, lol).

When the the doctors appointments started, I was scared every time we went. I was scarred that they would find something wrong as we had many scares in the NICU of fluid build up on CT scans.We got in to Physical therapy right away and  he has had a few kidney issues but it seems now that it has taken care of it's self.

The first year went by so fast and don't really think about Spina Bifida until it's talked about. Other the his AFOs he is very normal. We have been working with PT still and he is now trying to stand by his self and trying to walk. He has little to no feeling in his ankles so he does have to wear his AFOs as much as we can. I guess those make all the difference because he has a lot more balance and stability. He looks so amazing standing when we were told he may never stand. He is just an amazing kid full of surprises!

Thank you Jessie for sharing Colin with us!