Clubbed Feet (Tobias's Journey)

When we went in for our 20 week ultrasound to find the sex of our baby, we found out Tobias had clubbed feet.  His dad and I had never heard of that before, so being the worrier I am, I automatically freaked out.  It took me a couple days to digest the news.  Researching it helped me a lot because I found out it was a long, but easy fix.  

The first time I saw his clubbed feet, I thought they were the cutest things I had ever seen.  Up to that point, his dad and I had excepted the fact that he was going to have crooked ankles and feet, so it did not bother us one bit. 

Tobias was 1 1/2 days old when he got his first pair of casts.  He was given Tylenol to help with the pain, but other than that he did great!  At first I felt awkward holding him, but that quickly went away and him having casts became the new norm for us. 

                         

While were were in the NICU, Tobias wore the same casts that entire time.  Once we got home I made the appointment for his next set of casts.  After that, he had to have weekly casts changes for the following two months.  

This is what his feet looked like after his 3rd casts were taken off:

                                                            

And this was after his 6th casting:

                                                        

We were so pleased with his progress.  Each week, his feet were getting straighter.  Once his feet were in normal position, the doctors had to overcorrect his feet using the casts.  Those appointments were not the funnest...

                                             

He wore overcorrected casts for a couple of weeks to ensure his feet would not rebound to their clubbed position. 

      

Through the entire casting process, his skin got really sore and wrinkly. 

                                              

Once the doctors were pleased with the placement of his feet, they decided it was time for his brace and bars.  That was such an exciting day for us because I was so eager to give an normal bath instead of just wiping him down with wash cloths.  

               

This was the first day in his BNBs.  He did fairly well, except when it came to sleeping.  The first week was really hard.  Tobias woke up every 30 minutes.  But just like any other obstacle he has faced, be eventually adjusted.  

Tobias has to wear these for 23 hours a day until he starts standing and having only 1 hour of free time until he's 3...at least that is his doctor's plan. Being the over-thinker and researcher that I am, I have learned that this is the old way of treating clubbed feet.  My research has shown that the new way of treating them is called the Ponseti Method.  That method has them going from 23 hours a day to 18 hours to 16 hours then so on until they are down to 12 hour wear at night.  I even went as far as to call the genius Dr. Dobbs who is the man who created the bar Tobias wears.  He is very well known in the clubbed foot world. 

I am currently getting a second opinion on this and am looking forward to meeting a new doctor in September.  I would just love to be able to see his cute little toes more that just 1 hour a day until he is 3 years old.  But until now, our little man gets to rock his fancy hardware.