What happens when your child is born with 12 fingers?

Kind of an odd circumstance, isn't it? During pregnancy, I never imagined I would be giving birth to a baby girl with polydactyly-the medical term for having extra digits. Right after my c-section, I remember the doctor coming up and handing us the most beautiful little 9lb 3oz bundle of chubby newborn I had ever seen. They told me she was doing great and looked perfect..oh, and she has 2 extra fingers!

Wait. What?

I was going on 30 hours of being awake, not eating and a little exhausted from that labor stuff, so you can imagine my brain was having some trouble processing everything. I just remember being so happy and elated she was here that I didn't even acknowledge what the whole "polydactyly" thing was about.

Later, we were able to assess her digits and gain a better understanding of what we needed to do. Each of Ari's hands had an extra little finger. They weren't fully formed fingers- just little "nubbins" of a partially-grown finger connected to her hands by a small string of tissue. They were kind of like pom-poms. Her digits even had little fingernails. From my understanding, about half the time these extra digits are detected on ultrasounds early on, but hers were not. Sometimes digits are more formed than hers were and some are connected to the hand with bone. We were told polydactyly was not super uncommon; it is more common for African American babies to be born with them and it is usually hereditary.

How did the extra digits affect my child's life? Early on, they didn't really change anything. She usually held her little digits in her hand. We had to be a bit more careful when putting on her clothing, just so we didn't accidentally tug on the digit. The digits did grow over time, as did the fingernails. The piece of skin that connected her fingers to her hand, however, was stretching out a little at a time. It got to the point where we noticed it might be bothering her -and to be honest I was scared she was going to eat them off- so we decided it was time for removal.

The removal process for fingers with bones are much more intense, so thankfully Ari's were only connected by tissue. At the hospital, we were told our pediatrician would just tie them off, so they would lose circulation and fall off. This mortified me. We were also told that letting them fall off may leave a bump which could irritate her later on like when she starts writing. However, we found out our pediatrician doesn't even treat polydactyly, so we were directed to a specialty pediatric clinic. Though polydactyl is considered somewhat common, I certainly think it is uncommon in this area because no one really seemed to know what to do. The pediatric clinic said they could just slice them off with a scalpel and stitch it up so that there's no bump leftover.

We decided to wait until Ari was 5 months old to schedule something.

About a week before she was to get them removed, I noticed that one of the digits was turning blue. Then it started swelling. After a day, it was huge, dark blue (pictured) and leaking something nasty from the connecting tissue. I waited a week--probably a little too long-- to finally call the doctor about it and got in to see him the next day. Long story short, her digit got twisted and it was getting ready to fall off -which was not something I was about to deal with-so we went in to get them removed early. She did have to have an IV and afterward she had to wear huge casts over her hands for a few days (pictured below), but it was a pretty smooth process overall.

When I was first told about Ari's digits, I searched for information from other moms who experienced the same thing. I didn't find much, which was my main purpose for writing this. Ari's surgery went well, she recovered fine and there was nothing to worry about. We are blessed with a healthy girl and that's something I am thankful for everyday.

Plus she'll have a cool story to tell at parties one day.