Up Side Down Baby

"So how was it?" asked my nurse midwife. She had done almost all of my prenatal care but had retired from birthing and let the rest of the team take over in the hospital. "Ok," I replied, "but I had crazy back labor because he came "OP."" "Mmhmm," she said smiling but her face changed to surprise when she continued reading my chart. "Oh! He actually presented OP! Usually they flip around right at the end and birth normally..." At the time I chuckled like a proud mother and said to myself, "yep, my son is special." I had no idea how true that sentiment would turn out to be.

Birthing OP means two things. First, instead of facing down toward your spine the child faces toward your belly button. Secondly, it means presenting the forehead and the widest part of the head to birth instead of presenting the narrow crown. For me, well, I'm lucky that he was three weeks premature so his head was smaller than it could have been. It means something different for him...from the moment of birth, Mikey has ALWAYS had trouble processing sensory information.

In those first days and weeks of parenthood Mikey's sensory processing disorder wasn't terribly apparent. How could it be? We spent hours snuggling skin to skin, nursing, and trying to figure out how days should be different from nights. But the more he grew and the more time he spent awake the more we learned about what soothed him. He quickly acquired a nickname "up side down baby" because he sought out that position. When we held him he would arch his back and neck so his head could be up side down. We got the most big smiles when we rocked him with a gentle but firm rhythm into a full layout.

Mikey also liked bouncing. My husband would sit on an exercise ball, hold Mikey, and bounce (more vigorously than we expected he would need). Mikey would arch away and relax. So he was our bouncing up side down baby...and quickly being identified by his downhill skiing, mountain biking, rock climbing parents as an adrenaline junky. We had in our arms the next TGR star.

It has been four years and Mikey still seeks to be up side down and/or bouncing to regulate himself. He is still an adrenaline junky. And despite his new diagnoses and my new perspective on understanding best parenting practices he remains and always will be our up side down kid...Mikey.