My Boston Children’s Hospital Story with my Daughter

On July 9th, 2013 my daughter Victoria was born. As you can imagine, after having 4 sons, a little girl was very special to me. The second I saw her, my heart melted. She immediately was my everything… this perfect little package all wrapped up in a bow and pink blanket.

Hemangioma

Pretty quickly after Victoria’s birth, one of the doctor’s at the hospital I delivered at asked me if I had noticed the little bruise on Victoria’s right forehead. In all honesty, I was so out of it after my c-section, I hadn’t – but my husband had. The doctor told us he was going to keep an eye on it because he thought it might be something called a hemangioma. Throughout the course of our week stay at the hospital while I recovered, the “little” bruise on Victoria’s head started to turn more pink and get a little bigger. As we were leaving to head home, the doctor who had mentioned to us that it might be a hemangioma told us to make sure we had our pediatrician keep an eye on it. I’ll never forget the words that truly made me scared, she said… “The life cycle of a hemangioma is usually around 12 months. They will get bigger and redder and then after 12 months start to regress.” I was worried about my daughter. I was worried that something might be wrong with her internally, too because it was right on her head. I was just scared as can be, this was all so new to us and I just didn’t want anything to be wrong with our little angel.

Victoria’s hemangioma did get very red and grow very quickly. It went from being the size of a nickel to the size of a ½ dollar pretty quickly. The toughest part was making sure she was OK. People asking us every single day about it didn’t bother me so much (just when people were rude), I got used to the questions very quickly.

Baby Hemangioma

When Victoria was 3 months old, I was emotionally in a very difficult place. Everyone had an opinion about what to do and everyone had no problem telling us. Our family doctor suggested I reach out to Boston Children’s Hospital because their VAC (Anomalies Center) is regarded as the premier center in the world for these disorders. Vascular anomalies are vessel abnormalities that can affect the capillaries, veins, arteries and lymphatics, either individually or in combination. This is exactly what Victoria had with her hemangioma. As you can tell, it started to protrude out, too.

Baby Hemangioma

Our 1st appointment with BCH was in October of 2013. We were assigned to Dr. Greene there and we instantly just fell in love with him and his staff. They let me be scared and afraid and ask a million questions. Every other specialist we had gone to prior had wanted to take an extreme approach with Victoria… in my heart and in my gut, I never felt that was right to do with her. Dr. Greene suggested we do the less extreme approach and we would have follow-ups with him and his team every 3 months during Victoria’s 1st year. In November Victoria’s hemangioma started to form ulcers all over it and it started to bleed frequently. Dr. Greene’s team was there for us and they were incredible. They emailed me to check in… they called to see how Victoria was doing and they got us in whenever we needed to be seen. Victoria had to be on special creams (and wear a protective net with gauze for 8 weeks!) throughout while the ulcers were being treated and they were right there with us.

Screen Shot 2015-11-30 at 2.55.05 PM

Boston Children’s Hospital was there for us when we needed them the most. They cared about my daughter. They cared about us. They let us bring the boys and explained to them all about her hemangioma, too. On her year check-up… we were told she didn’t need to be seen until she was 3 years old. Walking out of the hospital with the boys was incredible. I felt like she was in the best hands possible.

Screen Shot 2015-11-30 at 2.55.40 PM

It’s been 2 ½ years now and our Victoria is doing great! As they told me what would happen, over time – the hemangioma – in essence starts to die off and shrink.

Screen Shot 2015-11-30 at 2.56.16 PM

It definitely has done that over time. Dr. Greene informed us that if Victoria wants to do plastic surgery someday – because there will always be a mark as to where her hemangioma was – she can do that with him. BCH took care of our family and will continue to do so. They were the perfect choice for us and I highly recommend BCH to any parent who needs answers for their child. Our children are our life. Their health is the most important thing to us and I couldn’t have felt in better hands than at BCH and will continue to do so!

If you have a BCH story to share, share it! It’s so important for parents to stick together and give each other comfort and support and hope. Get inspired and read some of the amazing stories parents have shared over at the bostonchildrens.org/parent page. It will bring you a smile and comfort, I promise.

And thank you to all the doctors and nurses and staff who take the best care of our children.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored posting with Boston Children’s Hospital.

About Audrey

Audrey McClelland has been a digital influencer since 2005. She’s a mom of 5 and shares tips on her three favorite things: parenting, fashion and beauty. She’s also a Contemporary Romance Author.

Sign Up To The Ultimate Style Newsletter for Moms

Categories

ShopStyle “List” Of all Things I Like and Blog About

Pinterest