I had taken the day off to accompany my wife and son to a sonogram. My wife was in the seventh month of pregnancy with our second child. This was our second sonogram, a follow-up to the first one done at eighteen weeks. Everything appeared fine at the first sonogram except the baby was small relative to the estimated gestation date. The second sonogram was scheduled to pinpoint the due date, check the baby's' weight, etc.
Every parent knows when doctors see a problem.
They stare at the screen a little too long, squint or crease their forehead, and then begin speaking about an octave lower than their normal tone. In our case, the problem was Dandy-Walker Syndrome. Within hours of the initial diagnosis, we met with a team of pre-natal specialists at the Children's Hospital of Buffalo. Minimally, children with DWS have problems with the development of their gross motor skills because the so called Dandy-Walker cyst inhibits development of the cerebellum. I then thought about our son.