Her first "graduation"

Morgan has officially graduated from wearing her helmet! They showed us the before and after pictures. Quite a difference!

They gave us the helmet and the head mold to keep. Matt said we should pull that out on her first date to embarrass her. :)

Home stretch

Morgan is in the home stretch with her helmet-wearing. Yay!

We have one more appointment in 2 weeks where they take the exit pictures and do the final adjustment. If she still fits in the helmet at that appointment, they said we can let her wear it for an additional 2 weeks (if we want).

Every appointment they compare her head now to what it was using a mold they took at the beginning. It's nice to be able to see the difference. Things we didn't notice about her before are very apparent now. Like where her ears are placed on her head and the symmetry of her features.

Once that helmet is off, she's going to have to get used to falling and rolling around without it. When it's off now, sometimes she'll smack into the closet door or fall hard on the ground and not realize that it's going to hurt. I bet Avery will be sad to see the helmet go, too. Grabbing that thing has been such a great way to antagonize her sister!

Fixin' my melon

She doesn't seem too bothered by it!

Morgan is sporting a new accessory these days... the DOC Band.

When she was born, we noticed she would only turn her head in one direction. She also liked to sleep on that side of her head. We worked on getting her neck so that she could turn it both ways, but the damage was already done. She ended up with a flat spot on her head.

Over the past few months, it has gotten less noticeable, but nowhere near normal. At her 6 month check-up, the doctor said we should get her evaluated by a specialist. Our doctor's opinion was that Morgan's head would not get completely better on it's own. She said if we waited until Morgan was 9 months old to see how it looked then (her next check-up), we take the risk that she'll have to wear the helmet longer than if we started the process now. It works by shaping the head as it grows. There is space in the helmet in the area where we want her head to fill out as it gets larger and no space in the other side. You want to have them in it when they are growing the fastest (= less time wearing it).

So, we decided to go ahead and get the process started now instead of waiting. We want her to be in it the least amount of time as possible.

Morgan has surprised us with how easily she's adapted to wearing it. She actually fell asleep in the doctor's office 10 minutes after they first put it on her. She has to wear it 23 hours a day for about 12 weeks depending on how fast she grows. Here's hoping for a major growth spurt in the next month! We go for check-ups every two weeks to see the progress and to get it adjusted.

Now the question is... should I decorate this thing and how??? We didn't have a choice of color; they are only offered in white. Most people decorate them with paints or stickers or the baby's name, so they don't look so "medical". They gave us a handout on which paints are safe to use. If you put stickers on it, you have to seal them on with mod podge, so the stickers don't become a choking hazard. They gave us a calendar with all these adorably decorated DOC bands for inspiration and of course, there's a ton of ideas on Pinterest. I am NOT artsy or creative at all, so who knows what we'll end up with. It may just stay white!