Tag Archives: prenatal alcohol exposure

Two Months of Hell

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Obviously my stress levels were through the roof at this point. We waited and waited for new photographs of our daughter’s biological sister, hoping they would shed light on the prognosis of damage from prenatal alcohol exposure. My reading about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Alcohol Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder stressed that children with this disorder needed highly structured lives and predictable routines. I had to admit that we are just not that kind of family. We do a lot of really interesting things together, but organization and routine are not our strong points, to put it mildly. Still, I had been … Continue reading →

A Perilous Path to a Prognosis

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There are some weird twists and turns to the following story. (This is the fourth blog in the most personal series I’ve ever written—the agony of learning our daughter’s birth sister had suffered significant prenatal alcohol exposure , then our subsequent confusion, then our search for a diagnosis. ) I need to begin by stating that 1) this was several years ago, research on fetal alcohol exposure was fairly new and is changing all the time and 2) I was talking with several specialists and reading a lot of information and it is possible I misunderstood some things or mixed … Continue reading →

Path to a Prognosis—Part One

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This is the third part of my story of the One Thing I Said I’d Never Do,namely, adopting a child with known prenatal alcohol exposure. We were stunned to learn that our daughter’s biological sister had been heavily exposed (find this second blog here). The baby in question being Meg’s sister complicated things considerably. How could we not at least consider it? We sent Regina’s medical record, measurements, and photos to the adoption and fetal medicine clinics at our local university medical center, which happens to be the university where much of the initial identification of and research on Fetal … Continue reading →