Nubbins!

This is the best picture I could get of Kyla's nubbins.  Not that detailed, but it'll work.  You can see that on the little nubbins she has three tiny bumps.  These are just soft cartlidge feeling things that are on the end of the limb.  She also has dimpling on the very end and one other bump close to the dimpling (indent at end of limb).  When Kyla was born and I held her and looked at her for the first time, I looked at her little arm while laying in my hospital bed and was just checking it out...of course it was a surprise to me and I wanted to look at everything on my baby.  I noticed that one of the nubbins had a tiny little nail attached to it and it was super small, looking at it from the eye you could barely see it, but when I felt her nubbins I could feel the nail sticking out.  One of the three tiny bumps on the nubbins looks very similiar to a finger nail, you can see at the end what looks like a nail bed and was where her nail was coming from.  I pulled the finger nail off and Kyla didn't even notice so it didn't hurt her at all.  Several months later when she was probably 4 months or so it grew back, so I pulled it off again and it hasn't grown back since.  To me, the fact that she has three bumps on the nubbins and one indent and one little bump right next to the indent makes me think that this is what would've been her hand and five fingers - 3 tiny bumps on the nubbins, one dimpling (possibly thumb) and one tiny bump next to the dimpling (4th finger).  I'm not positive but the fact that one bump grew a nail twice and has what looks to be a nail bed on it, makes me about 90% sure.  This to me is weird considering that they say ABS is caused by a band that simply amputates the entire limb.  So if it completely amputates, then why is there nubbins?  As far as I know, nubbins are present on everyone who was born with a limb amputation.  The two other little girls that we met up in Seattle both have nubbins but from what I can remember they were less noticeable than Kyla's are.  Kyla's stick out a little more.  I know Kyla has feeling in her nubbins because she typically puts herself to sleep by rubbing them against the corner of her blanket.  The doctors told us that at some point Kyla may choose to have them removed, because they might get caught up on things (they thought it might be an issue once she started crawling - that they would get rubbed on the carpet/floor and would become raw, but that was never an issue).  Kyla did what we called the "tripod shuffle" (this was her Daddy's word for it) and never used her little arm to crawl, she used her legs and her one hand and scooted on her butt; basically digging her heels into the floor, putting her one hand down on the carpet and scooting; and she was FAST too, I remember running around in circles around her when she first started crawling and she was trying to catch me and laughing hysterically at the same time.  I can tell you, Kyla's little arm has not slowed her down at all....there is honestly nothing I can think of other than her getting something sticky stuck to her hand where she kind of for a second has to think about how she is going to get it off.  At some point Kyla may decide that for visual purposes only she might want to have them removed and if she is old enough to make an informed decision about that and she has no use for them, then of course we will support her in that decision.  From what I have read it sounds like ABS usually happens before the 18th week of gestation, so because of this I am curious if the limb actually tries to re-grow what part was amputated.  Since 18 weeks is approximately the1st trimester, the baby is still growing and developing for 6 more months.  A lady I work with said that she had gone to Lincoln City, Oregon for vacation and saw a lady in a gift shop with a complete limb amputation and she said she was flipping through clothes like crazy, just like a normal person would, but using her little arm and then she asked me what the things are on the end of the arm, so I explained nubbins to her.  I have never posted on them, so I thought I would discuss them here.   

Today we were outside working on the house and Kyla was out playing in the sun.  We also had a birthday party to attend at a bowling alley and Kyla had fun, her first time "bowling" or just pushing the ball down the lane.  After she pushed the ball she wanted to try to chase after it and then also kept pointing to the pins and wanted to go get those as well.  There were a lot of kids there and she was wishing she could bowl and like they were.  She wanted the "ball."  She kept saying "ball, ball."  :)  She passed out in the car on the way home.  I took a picture of her but the room was dark and I had to put it in manual focus and so it somewhat blurry, still I love her sweet face.