Our Angel's Journey

I always wondered what it was like to be a mum. Don’t really know why. Probably because I was the 5th child in a very busy family and I always saw my mum so busy and so devoted to us. I thought that was going to be big shoes to fill. Moreover, I never really felt that “maternal instinct”. What I had was the urge to travel, to see the world and have success within the career that I chose; which was working in the Hospitality Management field.

However, everything changed when I finally met the love of my life; we married and settled down in New Zealand. A beautiful country that open their doors to us. Like many any other people, making the move to live overseas, it takes time to settle down. We felt we still had plenty of time to think about babies. By the time that I was seriously considering the question, I was already 36 years old and pregnancy was not coming as easy as I expected. After several attempts with different mainstream treatments, a doctor placed me in the IVF program in Auckland. After a miscarriage, I finally got the pregnancy confirmation by end of October 2009 and we were over the moon! It was an eagerly awaited pregnancy and all the fears of being good enough for the role or having the right instincts were gone and out the window. All I could think of was how she was going to look, when I could hold her body and her hands in my hands. We were so eager and ready to meet our baby.

After all the regular ultrasound scans and tests to rule out a possible Down syndrome diagnosis (I was 39 by then) everything came back negative. There were only few concerns after we did a 3D scan, first being, one of her kidneys was not draining properly and the other being, one of the ventricles of the brain was a bit enlarged (which is not that rare but they said they’re things that need to be monitored). Towards the 6th month, my GP finally said that most likely there was nothing to really worry about; to enjoy my pregnancy and my baby.

My pregnancy was uneventful and even without morning sickness, which was a great thing in my view as I saw so many others women having so many different problems and I only gained 11 kilos (24.2 pounds) on top of my weight so I considered myself very lucky.

Angela decided that it was time to come to the world 3 weeks early, just as I finished my work and started my maternity leave. She came to this world on a very cold and rainy morning in Auckland. Contractions started at 8pm and thankfully labor was not that long! She was given an Apgar of 9.

After she was given the Vitamin K shot she seemed a bit lethargic but the hospital nurses checked her and they said everything was well. By Monday morning, we were discharged. However, by Monday afternoon, our baby was not waking up, was a bit yellowish and not breastfeeding properly. She lost an astounding 40% of body weight, developed a difficult breathing sound and I was then, a very worried mummy! After the midwife visited us Monday around 4pm she sent us back to the hospital and even told them off on the phone on, for releasing us so quickly without checking the baby Angela’s weight and breastfeeding pattern.

I requested our pediatrician and general practitioner for a scan just to check how the brain was doing but he said it was not necessary but did want to check her kidney and ordered a scan for that. Her kidney was taking some time to release the urine but at that point, all they could do is to monitor it.

We followed the well health visits and vaccination schedule however, we noticed that she will curve in pain after feeding and after taking her to the doctor again, they said she had reflux and gave medication for it.

In October that year, I decided to travel to my home country to visit my parents and the rest of my family. Our GP in Auckland said Angela was doing fine and gave us the green light to travel. However, when I took her for the usual pediatric visit the pediatrician told me that her head circumference was way off charts! Shocked, the pediatrician questioned why the GP in New Zealand did not warn me of that…of course, I was clueless! All I noticed is that, none of the cute hats for girls her age was fitting; but my only thought was, “well she has a bigger head than most other babies.”

They sent us for a scan, then for an MRI. The doctors noticed that she had a lot of fluid accumulated in between her skull and her brain and they were unsure why. They said it could be a hydrocephalus (a condition characterized by head enlargement and fluid build-up in the brain.) or macrocephaly (when the head circumference is greater than the 98th percentile-It’s not a condition in itself, but a symptom of other conditions). Either way, it had to be checked and followed up on; as it could affect her cognition, impair vision, development, etc. Quickly the month and a half that I thought I was going to spend relaxing with family and friends, turned into endless tests, hospital visits, and even a surgical procedure to alleviate pressure from her brain. I was in shock! I could not believe this was happening, especially when I was reassured in New Zealand that everything was fine.

She was ok after the surgery but the time to return to New Zealand came and we had to say goodbye to our family there in early January 2011, hoping to follow up closely with doctors in New Zealand for future advice.

What we encountered left us dumbfounded! A neurologist at the Children’s Hospital in Auckland said: Oh you did that procedure in Panama, well, all we can do now is wait and see. However, by the time she was 9 months old she was not crawling, she was not rolling over, she still had problems lifting up her head, and although smiley she could not reply to us or look at us many times. She was born with a head circumference of 38 centimeters but it was 49 centimeters by then and we were concerned her head was going to keep growing more. It certainly slowed down after the procedure done in Panama and we started to go to a great osteopath and chiropractor recommended by friends in Auckland. After only a month of treatment, she started to crawl and we were delighted!

Nevertheless, her development was very slow and what was so easy for so many kids her age to do, she would struggle a lot – often, she wouldn’t even attempt it.

I grew increasingly dissatisfied with the local health system as she had a physio and speech therapist visit once every month and although they were very good, I knew our daughter was going to need more help to develop properly.

One day while at the library, I found a book called Naturally Better Kids written by Kristen Morrison, a woman living in Melbourne that tells her personal story about discovering natural approaches to health, to assist her son born with Down syndrome. She documented everything so well, with pictures and more. The changes were so dramatic that my heart once again was full of hope for my daughter’s future.

However, given the fact that many of the therapies we wanted to try were in Melbourne, we then started to cook a plan to move to Australia to help our daughter. Everyone was saying that she had mild delays so I thought perhaps we just go and live there a couple of years and when she had overcome some of the delays and showed real improvement, we move back.

However, life has a way of its own. What once we thought to be mild delays, turned out to be more acute than initially thought. The neurologist at the Royal’s Children Hospital in Melbourne however disregarded the hydrocephalus diagnosis after doing another procedure on her brain to check her brain pressure. After that procedure, she lost all the Spanish words that she had learned, like the alphabet, numbers, and it was like she regressed more. We were highly disappointed.

We were desperate to find answers! Finally we were able to assist a seminar done by the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, although based in Philadelphia, United States and thanks to the Grow Foundation; the Achievement of Human Potential was coming to do some lectures here in Melbourne.

Doing that course changed our life and it gave us new hope. Although, the costs and doing all that it implied was very full on. We could hardly keep up as I was alone the whole day with her while my husband was working 50-60 hours per week (from 1pm to 2 or 3am daily), just to keep up with the cost of detox, supplements, organic foods, tests and so many other protocols. However our efforts paid off and after 30 months she started to walk. From there, slowly having control of her hands to eat and hold a glass to drink water, showing affection, paying more attention and finally starting to say more words.

It seems like many years have passed; more than 7 years that she has been with us and although the journey has been perhaps the biggest test of our lives, she fills our hearts with so much love, happiness and affection. We are beyond blessed because of it. She has inspired us to reach for new heights and definitely, we are better people thanks to her.