For the past month or so, Jenn and I (and many of you) have been somewhere between panicked and anxious about Grace’s noggin. Here is the short version, I will work on a longer one later.
Noticing a ridge on the top of her head at the edge of her soft spot, one of the nurses that follows her preemie-ness suggested we ask our pediatrician. The pediatrician said “Hmmm, this may have gotten worse in the past few weeks. Let’s have it looked at.” Now, 5-6 weeks later, after a laser measurement, a CT scan (under anesthesia), much wringing of hands and a clinic visit to Stanford, we are breathing a sigh of relief. What we thought might be a Craniosynostosis (an early fusion of her skull sutures that sometimes requires skull surgery) is just a simple metopic ridge that happened when the suture fused on schedule (according to the plastic surgeon). 30% of people have some sort of ridge and it is considered “a variant of normal”.
There is much to explain here but the upshot is that nothing needs to be done, watched, broken, cracked, stapled or otherwise worried about. We are left with a cute baby, a sense of relief and some cool pictures of her skull and brain. More to come.