Lila Rae

Greetings!

I truly believe that the universe only gives you what you can handle. Every soul on this earth is destined to experience a certain amount of challenges and struggles in their life, but I believe it is based on what you are programmed to be able to handle. After what I have been through since becoming a mother, I believe this more than ever.

My daughter was born on November 23, 2010 and 8:30 in the morning. She weighed 5 lbs 13 oz, which wasn't a surprise because I only gained about 18 pounds during my pregnancy. The day she was born, the pediatrician in the hospital did the routine eye exam, and noticed that she didn't have a "red reflex" in her left eye. That means when she shined a light in her eye, she wasn't getting the red glare reflected back, like you see for example in pictures taken with a flash. 

The next day the eye doctor came to our hospital room, and gave her a closer exam. It turned out she had a congenital cataract in her left eye. This is a gray mass that was blocking her vision in that eye. The doctor said it was not genetic, and not due to trauma, just one of those random things. Huh. He also said that she would have to have surgery to remove the cataract within the next month. 

So when my baby was 10 days old, we went to the hospital, where they gave her general anesthesia that knocked her out, and she had cataract surgery to remove the cataract. After about an hour and a half of waiting, I got to see her in the recovery room, where she had a shield over her eye. Thankfully the surgery went well, and the cataract was removed successfully. She had to wear the shield for a couple weeks after the surgery, and we had to give her three eyedrops four times a day. 

After about a month, when her eye was completely healed, we had to start patching her right eye, the good eye, to encourage the left eye to get stronger. Even though the cataract is removed, she will have a tendency to favor her right eye, so we have to put a patch over her right eye for one hour every day. She also has a tiny contact lense in her left eye, which makes up for the lense in her eye that was removed during the surgery.

If this isn't all random enough, my Mom just happens to work as a nurse in the pediatric eye clinic, and has been there for over 35 years! So she knows all the doctors and knows the procedure for this kind of thing inside and out. How ironic is that! I feel really lucky though, that we have someone so close who can answer all those questions and make sure Lila gets treated like the VIP that she is!

So now Lila is 10 weeks old, and I have to give her one eyedrop twice a day, and patch her right eye for one hour a day. considering she often isn't awake for a whole hour at a time, this can be tricky. But I try not to get discouraged because I know it is important for her vision, and it is my responsibility!

She always gets cranky when we put the patch on at first, obviously because she can't see as well...

Then usually she gets drowsy and falls asleep...

We just went to the eye doctor last week, and Lila got her vision tested and they said that everything was right on track! So I am very thankful for that. Phew.