Alora Denee Born 10 wks early due to PROM after a difficult pregnancy.
Alora was born on Dec. 17, 1991.  She came 10 wks early after a difficult pregnancy. My water broke early, then after lying in a bed at the hospital for hours they decided to induce labor rather than put me in the hospital for several weeks and hope labor didn't happen for a while.  I had already had one 30 weeker, chances were...labor wasn't far off.
    My labor was fairly fast, only about 4 1/2 hrs.  They gave me Demerol less than 30 min before she was born.  Shortly after doing so she went into distress with her heart rate dropping (and staying) in the 20s.  After the nurse finally tracked down a dr, they stretched my cervix out enough to allow her to be born.   My husband helped wheel me to the delivery room then was booted out "Just in case they need to use forceps."  He is still mad about that.  Her apgars were 5 & 9.  Pretty high actually.  At 8 min old she stopped breathing though.  They rushed her out and took her to NICU.
    She spent her first several days hooked to a ventilator because she couldn't breathe on her own.  Later came the bili  lights and gavage feedings.  For the most part we thought she only had the standard setbacks, apnea, bradycardia, jaundice, etc that was to be expected in the NICU.
    We were told the day we came to take her home that shortly after her birth she had a grade IV brain bleed.  (There are discrepancies in both when we were told and what grade the bleed was in her records.)  We were warned that she may not be able to do anything more than exist.  That was absolutely devastating.  No one is really sure what happened to cause the bleed.
    Later when she was around a year old, an MRI showed her to have Cystic PVL where the bleed was originally. We brought her home in a haze of confusion and did our best to forget what the Dr told us.  She was tiny.  When she came home she weighed 4.5 lbs.  Well below the standard weight they let preemies come home at.  We were allowed to take her home then because I had already had experience with preemies and my older son was thriving. She was too small for even preemie clothes to fit her right.  We ended up buying Premature (and/or newborn) Cabbage Patch Kids clothes for her to wear.  They were cute, and they fit.  Plus they were a heck of a lot cheaper than standard preemie outfits. Her preemie outfits we bought finally fit her when she was 2 mo old.
    We put the Dr's words about her in the back of our minds for quite some time. She was doing well.  She rolled over at 6 wks and was trying to "creep", actually it was "combat crawling" at 3 mo.  We were thrilled. Her pediatrician was amazed at how well she was doing.  She was even saying several words (understandably to others besides me and dad) regularly by 6 mo old.  But she stopped there.  She didn't sit up until she was 13 mo old and couldn't move her legs when crawling until she was almost 15 mo. Actually, she started pulling herself up before learning to sit up.   She was just under 1 yr when she managed to pull herself up on the couch.  Eventually she did begin to show problems.  She started getting so tight in the legs that I couldn't carry her on my hip.  Her legs just wouldn't spread that far.  Changing diapers got to be interesting, trying to wiggle her diaper up between her legs when they were so close together you couldn't see light
between them.
    When she was 15 mo we got her official diagnosis of Spastic CP. After being dxed she was put into PT and OT thru our local school district and
later in a children's hospital.  Her sessions have ranged from 5 days a week, 3 hrs at a time to one hour per week.  Right now she is taking a hiatus from therapy for the summer.  She's not had any surgeries as of yet, but that will more than likely change soon as her Dr's are once again discussing doing a heel cord clip on her.  She has had botox injections with serial casting done.  The first time we had incredible results that lasted about 1 yr.  The second time her results were nowhere near as good.  She received her first walker when she was 21 mo old.  She loved it.  Finally she could be mobile in an
upright position.  She really took off well with it.  When she was 2 yr 9 mo old she stood independently for the first time.  It took another 15 mo for her to walk on her own.  She can't do what her peers can do, but she does pretty good.  When she needs to, she adjusts things for herself to make it easier.
    Most of the kids in her class last year were very accepting of her and helped her when she needed it.  Matter of fact, there was only one child who caused her problems.  (Trust me, she got the better of that poor girl many times *s*.) She's intelligent, creative, hard headed and sometimes a vengeful child.   (She must get it from Dad *s*)   Last summer she received a special bike that she loves to ride anytime she gets a chance.  It's called an AmTryke, it's specially built for children with disabilities.  ****NOTE:  This bike is made and distributed by a group called Ambucs. They give them to children, hospitals, and schools for free.  Their homepage is
 http://www.ambucs.com ****  This bike allows her to be more like her peers in that she can do something most kids love.....Get outside and ride a bicycle.   She's figuring out she can't always keep up with other kids.  I think that's probably harder on me than on her.  I want to go make them slow down so she can keep up.  I can't though.  She is getting pretty good at figuring out ways to be a part of the group during activities she can't quite
keep up with them on.   All in all she's a wonderful, bright, caring child.  She just happens to have CP.  Since it doesn't keep her from accomplishing her goals at this point, I don't think it really ever will.  She'll do just fine.  She's happy and basically healthy, That's really all that matters.

Alora's Story written by Dawn Mitchell, Alora's mom.
Dawn can be reached through her own web site Freebyrds Nest