Rigley's big day

Rigley had his first appointment today with Dr. Dobbs at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Dr. Dobbs and his staff are WONDERFUL!!!! As you may know, our pediatrician had referred us to University Hospital in Columbia where Rigley got his first set of casts put on. The doctor there put him completely under with anesthesia to do the casting and had planned on doing that every week for 5-6 weeks. The way the doctor explained it to us made it sound like that was just standard procedure. Rigley had such a difficult time coming out from the anesthesia and I started doing more research on clubfoot and treatments. Through my research I found a support group for parents of children with clubfoot and found out that putting a baby completely out to cast was NOT standard procedure. In fact, no one else had ever heard of such a thing. Through this group we also found out that one of the world's premier clubfoot clinics was in St. Louis. Dr. Dobbs has done (& is doing) extensive research on clubfoot.
So, we set about trying to get an appointment with him. His nurse actually contacted me through the support group message board to help. Praise God - we talked to our insurance and they will cover Dr. Dobbs as in network!! Everything at the clinic today made me feel so at ease. First off, St. Louis Children's Hospital is a beautiful facility and everyone is very helpful. The staff at the Orthopedic Clinic was also great. I feel so good knowing that Rigley's feet are being corrected by one of the top clubfoot doctors in the world.
The casting took very little time and Rigley hardly even fussed. They gave me a bag full of toys to distract him with and it worked beautifully. He was so hungry when we finished that he held his own bottle! Yes, he actually held his own bottle - not like the pictures we took of Brighton where his hand was on the bottle, but we cropped where it showed our hand actually holding the bottle! :)


Rigley also had his first real tears today. We were about 30 miles from home and he was done riding in the car seat! Granted, he had been in the car for over 6 hours at that point of the day.


Here are his new casts.