Health

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For the first month of Riley Dempster’s life, her dad — Chicago Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster — was with her just five days. Not only was the new dad suffering through a prolonged absence from his family as he traveled with his team, he was also dealing with the added stress of Riley’s diagnosis with DiGeorge Syndrome. Born without the ability to swallow and digest food, Riley — now 10 weeks — has undergone numerous procedures to correct the condition. “Has it been rough? Yes, it’s been rougher than anything I can imagine,” Ryan, who also has a toddler son named Brady with wife Jenny, admits in a new interview with the Chicago Tribune.

“April was as miserable as I’ve ever been, being away from my wife, my son, and my daughter’s in a hospital and she’s never seen the outside of anything except an ambulance ride to and from the airport to get medically transported from Arizona to Childrens in Chicago.”

Riley currently has a feeding tube in place as she continues to undergo treatment, which involves having her glands injected with a drug that stops the production of excess secretions. “Right now she has to be suctioned, in 24-hour care,” Ryan, 32, shares. “Even when we get her home, we’re going to have nurses 24 hours a day. But it’ll be nice to have her home to see her. You don’t have to go to the hospital, and it’ll be nice for Brady to have his sister home.”

Despite the obstacles Riley will need to overcome, the Dempsters consider themselves lucky. A neonatologist in Arizona suggested that Jenny’s preterm labor was brought on by polyhydramnios, leading doctors to order a DNA test which revealed the existence of the condition. “Some kids’ parents don’t find out till they’re two years old, and they’re making up for lost ground, whereas with us, we can take the early steps to help do whatever we can for Riley’s future,” Ryan notes. “By the time she is two, hopefully she’s as normal as any other kid.”

“Thank God she’s ours. We’re fortunate, both financially and professionally, where we can make an impact on her life, and hopefully the lives of others, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

If all goes well, Riley should be home with her family by June 22nd.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Thanks to CBB reader Colleen.

– Missy

Adrian Varnedoe/Pacific Coast News

Like father, like daughter! The old adage rings true for Dancing With the Stars finalist Gilles Marini and his 2 ½-year-old daughter Juliana. Gilles needs surgery in the near future to repair a separated shoulder he suffered during the reality show, and is getting nervous as his appointment with the surgeon approaches.

“As the procedure is “getting closer … I’m getting a little bit antsy,” the actor admits. “I’m like, ‘Ok, what’s going to happen?’” It turns out that Gilles’ nervousness isn’t only for himself — Juliana needs an undisclosed form of surgery herself, as well.

“My daughter needs a little surgery too, so we’re going to have one room. We’re having surgery the same day — that way we can actually stay together.”

Juliana is Gilles’ daughter with wife Carole. The pair are also parents to son Georges, 9 ½. Watch Gilles and his partner Cheryl Burke compete in the finals of Dancing With the Stars, starting tonight on ABC.

Source: Entertainment Tonight

– Angela

Roger Wong/INF

Shortly after welcoming fraternal twins Maximilian David and Emme Maribel, now 14 months, singers Jennifer Lopez and her husband Marc Anthony were in seventh heaven, enjoying life as a family. However, their happiness almost came to a screeching halt as the two were faced with a parent’s worst nightmare: the couple found a lump on then 3-week old Emme’s head.

Opening up about the scare at a Noche de Niños gala benefit for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), the memory is one that is hard to erase from Jennifer’s mind. “We both got very nervous, very very nervous, and I just remember my heart sinking to my feet,” she recalls.

“I looked at [Marc] and I said, ‘You know if anything happens, I’m not going to be OK, you know that, right?’”

Immediately the couple rushed their daughter to the hospital where doctors reacted quickly, running a long list of tests — among them an MRI. Fortunately, Jennifer and Marc consider themselves among the lucky ones as baby Emme “turned out fine.” The incident, however, finished with a happy ending in more ways than one. “I started to wonder, what if I couldn’t afford a doctor or receive the medicines, the procedures?” says Jennifer.

As a result, Jennifer has teamed up with CHLA to jointly form the Maribel Foundation, an organization that will assist in providing pediatric medical services to struggling families.

Source: E!

– Anya

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Parents and actors Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Ari Parker recently opened up in PEOPLE magazine about their 4-year-old daughter Sophie’s battle with spina bifida, and now the couple has talked with CBB as well! We spoke to the couple just before the R Baby Mother’s Day Run/Walk in Central Park.

Living with Sophie’s spina bifida has opened Nicole and Boris’ eyes to what all parents need to know about emergency rooms because, “we’ve spent a great deal of time in the ER with Sophie and now understand that all ERs are not created equal. We support R Baby in their work to improve the quality of pediatric emergency medicine and to educate parents about the full range of issues surrounding children and emergency rooms.”

They talked to us in-depth about caring for Sophie’s health issues, their foundation Sophie’s Voice’s three-tiered approach to spina bifida, and of course, CBB reader questions!

Click to continue reading »

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Liev Schreiber had a good reason for missing Tuesday’s Los Angeles premiere of X-Men Origins: Wolverine: His 21-month-old son, Alexander ‘Sasha’ Pete, was sick, PEOPLE has learned exclusively.

Liev, who plays Sabretooth in the film, immediately flew from L.A. to New York to be with his partner, Naomi Watts, and their two children.

Sasha, who was hospitalized overnight for respiratory issues, was released Wednesday morning.

“Sasha got home today and is feeling much better after being hospitalized on Tuesday night with respiratory problems,” Liev’s rep Ina Treciokas tells PEOPLE.

Naomi and Liev are also parents to Samuel Kai, 4 months.

Source: PEOPLE

– Elizabeth Leonard

Eamonn McCormack/WireImage

In the days leading up to the London Marathon, Katie ‘Jordan’ Price told The Mirror that she planned to use her son Harvey Daniel, 6 ½, for motivation. “Every time I feel tired or feel like giving up, I’ll look down and see my Harvey’s face,” she said. Literally! Katie ran with a picture of Harvey across her chest.

Together with husband Peter André, the 30-year-old model and author ran the 26.2 mile course on Saturday to benefit The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children as well as Vision Charity; Harvey is blind, having suffered from septo-optic dysplasia since birth. “It’s going to be really hard but I know we’re doing it for a reason, so I don’t want to give up,” Katie explains.

“If everyone who has pledged to donate gives us the money they promised, we should raise about £250,000 ($367,500) which will make a massive difference to the charities. It’s that thought, and the thought of my kids that will keep me and Pete going.”

Katie and Peter are also parents to Junior Savva, 3 ½, and Princess Tiáamii Crystal Esther, 22-months.

Source: Mirror

– Missy

Eamonn McCormack/WireImage

Looking to put your life in check? Log on to Facebook, says model Katie ‘Jordan’ Price! Having recently become a member only to find out that the smartest kids from her school days “don’t do nothing,” the 30-year-old mother of three explains that education isn’t everything. That said, Katie and her husband Peter André feel strongly that their 21-month-old daughter Princess Tiáamii still receive an education — among other possible career plans!

“Pete wants her to be a nun. I’m like, ‘She’ll be doing Page 3.’ I’m only winding him up. She wouldn’t be allowed. Pete’s family are Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

When it comes to their family of five, Katie tells Times Online that she approaches parenthood with hopes to raise her children in as normal environment as possible. For Princess, Junior Savva, 3 ½, and Harvey, 6 ½, that often means time-outs on the naughty step, public schools, and having their parents all to themselves at night, as the couple have yet to hire any live-in help.

Determined to be involved parents, Katie gladly steps up to the plate when it comes to facing Harvey’s medical issues. “He’s not a chore; He’s my son,” she says. “I still reckon he has Prader-Willi Syndrome [which makes a sufferer eat compulsively]. If you put a loaf of bread or a chocolate cake in front of him, he’d eat it all.” Unable to judge when he is feeling full, Katie admits that she often receives the wrath for indulging her little boy in sweet treats, but has trouble saying no.

“Pete is always telling me off for buying him chocolate muffins. But I like to do it. Every time he gets a cake he sings Happy Birthday to himself.”

With predictions placing Harvey at 6 ft, 4 in as an adult, the couple continue to work with him, teaching their son to control his fits of anger. Despite setting up a tent where he is able to retreat and re-group, Katie reveals that the road to helping her son has been tough. “If he doesn’t like what’s on, he gets angry and he’ll throw the TV and break it,” she shares. “He’s very strong. He goes, ‘Oh broken.’ He doesn’t understand.”

While Katie has a list of names she is quick to use for Harvey’s biological father Dwight Yorke, she admits that the separation between father and son most likely boils down to embarrassment. “Harvey is such a fun little kid, you just have to know how to deal with him,” she shares. “I mean, there’s a way you talk to Harvey. It’s like Harvey language.”

Source: Times Online

– Anya

Eliot Press/Bauer Griffin

Although she delivered her first son — Sonny, 5  — by emergency C-section due to pre-eclampsia, Sophie Ellis-Bextor says she was caught off-guard when earlier this year she again developed the life threatening condition, this time during her pregnancy with son Kit Valentine, 11-weeks. In fact, the 30-year-old songstress blogs for Shloer sparkling water that she discovered her medical emergency “almost … by accident.” Scheduled to play a gig in Moscow, a 31-weeks-pregnant Sophie visited with her consultant to obtain a note granting her permission her to fly; It soon became apparent that travel was out of the question, however. “She was concerned as I was displaying some classic signs of pre-eclampsia; mainly very high blood pressure and swollen ankles — very glamorous,” Sophie recalls. “She told me I wasn’t going anywhere, not even out of my house, and was sent home to rest.”

Informed that she would be lucky to carry her son for even one more week, the dire prediction proved to be prophetic, for Kit was born just six days later. Sophie and her husband Richard Jones were unable to hold their new son at first, for baby boy was confined to an incubator. Although she’d already been through such a scenario with Sonny, Sophie said the experience was “traumatic” nonetheless.

“Richard and I got through it by telling ourselves that if Kit wasn’t in hospital then I’d still be pregnant with him. Knowing there wasn’t any way that he’d be home with us no matter how things had gone made it easier so we just tried to go with the slight feeling of limbo and tried to be patient as he started to get well enough to come home.”

Given his unexpected early arrival the couple “didn’t have anything ready” for Kit, but his five-week hospital stay gave them plenty of time to “get things sorted,” and they even ”managed to have the nursery ready by the time he came home,” Sophie says. Kit and Sonny share an “uncanny” resemblance to one another, down to their red hair, and Sophie admits that neither boy take after their mom. Noting that her sons “are going to look so sweet running around together,” she adds:

“Although it’s still very new, we just love him being around and he is really enjoying finding out what it is to be part of our family and the world that he is now a part of.”

Source: Sparkling Pregnancy

– Missy

Sara Jaye Weiss/Startraks

Although well aware that carrying her fraternal twins any longer would have put Brooke Mueller Sheen “in serious jeopardy,” — she battled preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and cholestasis — there was no preparing the nervous mama and her husband Charlie Sheen for seeing their baby boys for the first time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. “I went to the NICU to see [Bob and Max] and words can’t express how amazing and shocking to see two human beings that came out of me,” Brooke recalls.

“I was scared. Our babies had so many tubes on them, it was frightening.”

Reiterating that Max’s extended stay in the hospital was due to nothing other than low weight, Charlie explains that the circulating rumors of Max’s alleged heart condition derived from his diagnosis of ejection fraction. “It’s the volume at which the heart pumps and how much blood the heart can pump,” he says. “There wasn’t anything that any other premature child, especially a twin, doesn’t normally go through.”

With Bob and Max “gradually going toward normal” and the Mueller-Sheens settling down as a family of seven — including Charlie’s three daughters — Brooke is beginning to wonder whether her sons inherited any of her traits at all. “They are complete Sheens,” she says of her boys. “I’m like, ‘Can I at least have an ear?!’” As baby Bob is a clone of his father — noted by everyone in the NICU who lovingly referred to the baby as Charlie — Max seems to be taking after his grandfather, Martin Sheen.

As for 5-year-old Sam and 3 ½-year-old Lola, the big sisters are simply in heaven with the newest additions! “I think they think they might be dolls,” Brooke laughs. And while Charlie is happy to be a father for the fourth and fifth time around, he jokes that any maternal feelings stirring in his older daughter Cassandra Jade, 24, need to be ignored … for now!

“With her it’s more like, ‘Don’t get any ideas!’ At 43, I’m not ready for that label [of Grandpa].”

Source: Entertainment Tonight via OK!

– Anya

Sara Jaye Weiss/Startraks

Update: Max, having met the weight requirement, was released from the hospital recently — reportedly on Friday. Charlie’s rep tells PEOPLE,

“It’s frustrating to be a parent and not have your family home with you. This is the last week of Two and a Half Men [which is going on hiatus], so Charlie and Brooke will be able to spend some quality time with their kids.”

Originally posted April 2nd: In a statement issued this afternoon a rep for Charlie Sheen confirmed reports that the Two and a Half Men star’s 2 ½-week-old son Max remains hospitalized. The reason behind his extended stay is not a heart condition as had been rumored, however, but is instead because he has not gained enough weight to be safely discharged.

“Max is expected to reach the weight requirement shortly and will join his brother at home. The Sheens appreciate the outpouring of concern but have assured everyone that both Bob and Max are fine.”

Charlie noted that difficulty gaining weight “is very common among infants who were born before reaching full term;” Max and his fraternal twin Bob were born six weeks prematurely on March 14th. The 43-year-old actor went on to joke,

“I know a lot of people are not fond of hospital food. I just didn’t realize they that started so young.”

Max and Bob are the first children together for Charlie and his wife Brooke Mueller Sheen. Charlie is already dad to Sam, 5 and Lola Rose, 3 ½, with ex-wife Denise Richards, and 24-year-old Cassandra from a previous relationship.

Source: PEOPLE

– Missy