But What If I Fall Off A Roof??!

As any pregnant woman will tell you, a lot of the crappy part of pregnancy is the worrying. There are the major worries of course, which I don't even need to mention because honestly, if you haven't thought of them yet I don't want to remind you about them. There are also the "I read too much of the baby book and now anything can happen" worries. You freak out over deli-meat and soft cheeses, and whether all the wine you drank before you found out you were pregnant is going to mean low SAT scores for your baby genius.  Are you getting too fat, or too thin?  Am I "prone to stretch marks"?  What if I sleep on my right side instead of my left? What if you vomit during your glucose test because that juice is disgusting?  What if my water breaks while I'm in the bathtub and I don't even notice?!  What if, what if, what if...

On one hand, I've noticed the worrying decreases significantly with a second pregnancy.  Specifically, those irrational worries.  For example... I'm hungry. Give me that Subway sandwich before I rip your face off, bacteria be damned!    Oh and look, I'd forgotten about those stretch marks until now, I guess they're back...

I've mentioned before I adore my OB, and he spends every minute of our seven minute monthly visit entertaining all of my questions - from the serious to the truly ridiculous.  I leave feeling confident and pleased that my baby is healthy and I am apparently amazing. 

There is one worry that I can't shake though, and no matter how many times I rephrase the same question I can't seem to get a satisfying answer.  It reminds me of the scene in the Tim Allen movie "The Santa Clause" where he is talking to his elves in the workshop.  To enlighten those of you who need a refresher on this 1994 classic - he's being walked through all the new developments the elves have made throughout the year to ensure his ultimate safety as the new Santa Claus.  A new flame retardant suit, a fancy communication system, jetpacks... he's ready for his first season as the Claus.  Except, poor Scott Calvin wants to know what happens if he falls off a roof?!  After all, that is what got him here in the first place, and why he's so worried about safety to begin with... so why isn't anyone working on something that will keep him from falling off a roof?  The elves shrug off the worry and the problem is never really solved.

That story sums up how I feel every time I go into a doctor's office.  I know that my doctors have done every test possible to try and discover why Little Man was born full-term with a brain hemorrhage that they normally only see in preemies.  They've checked me down to the genes, and they've given Baby Vegas extra long and detailed ultrasounds.  But there is no answer to why things happened the way they did for Little Man, and so there is no way of predicting if it could happen again to Baby Vegas.  The best answer to my fears is "It probably won't happen again."  Little Man was most likely a lightening strike, a one-in-a-million.  They told me in the NICU that he was only the 2nd full term baby they'd seen with a Grade IV IVH.  Ever.  At one of the best hospitals in the nation.  That same hospital told me they simply have no answers for "why?"  It just happened.

So... there is no way to prepare for it to happen again.  I simply have to go through this pregnancy, terrified that I will "fall off the roof". I can pray, I can hope, I can take all the tests and eat my vitamins.  That is all I can do. Odds are good that I will finish this pregnancy with a healthy and happy baby.  I appreciate every doctor and friend who has reassured me with positive feedback about my pregnancy so far.    But if you ever see the crazy, panicked look in my eyes, it's probably because I'm desperately wishing that anyone could reassure me that I'm never going to fall off a roof again.

This Is Very Suspicious...

I seem to have picked up a cold, in the middle of beautiful May weather.  Where could this cold have come from?  I need to do some detective work...

Well, Little Man does seem out of sorts...

So maybe I got it from him when he insisted on me giving him bites of my raisin bread for breakfast, despite that he had a fistful of his own bread.

Or maybe when he came over to where I was minding my own business reading blogs just to give me a snuggle... and then wiped his runny nose all across my jeans.

Or maybe when he saw my Dunkin Donuts smoothie sitting on the table and he slobbered all over the straw trying to get a sip.  And then I decided that I might as well drink it anyways, because it was a full smoothie dammit and they're expensive!!

What about that time that he was sitting on my laugh and I made him laugh so hard he couldn't stop coughing directly into my face?

Or the time he sneezed on me so violently that I had to sponge off my arms.

There is the fact that I have been chasing him around the house begging him to let me aspirate his nose or for the love of Pete let me wipe the snot off you before you rub it all over the furniture like an angry snail!!!



But... this has to be a different cold than what Little Man has, I'm sure of it.  Because he's running around the house like a kid on speed, pausing only to make more snail trails or beg for more orange juice and gummy vitamins.  And I am laid up on the couch, drinking tea and trying to convince myself that pizza for dinner for the 3rd time in 5 days isn't a terrible idea...

Just a Bottle Full of Sugar...

Ugh.  I cannot express in words how much I hate the glucose test you have to take for gestational diabetes.  I already have a horrible gag reflex - combine that with not eating my usual carb-filled lunch and a thick fruit punch flavored sugary syrup and you've got a recipe for dry heaving.

The rest of the appointment went quickly.  At 25 weeks 3 days, I'm up +9 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight, and the baby's heartbeat is nice and strong.  I only get one more monthly visit and then we're on to the every-other-week and weekly ones.  They freaked me out today and scheduled appointments all the way til 3 days after my due date, which made me shudder a little thinking of how doooooone with pregnancy I'll feel then.

After the glucose test I got tacos and root beer as my reward for a job well done.  Somehow Hubs got a taco too, I guess as a reward for dealing with my freaking out all day winning personality.  Hmmm.  Someone got the better end of the deal there.

Shortly after this picture was taken, the Old Navy flip flops were retired.  May they RIP.

The last few days we've been trying to figure out what is wrong with Little Man.  He woke up on Thursday and Friday nights screaming bloody murder and nothing could console him for over an hour.  The last time he did something like that (Sept 2011) we ended up taking him to the ER and finding out a week later it was a shunt malfunction, so of course I was terrified that we were in for a repeat.  Luckily (Erm. I guess?) on Sunday morning he woke up with a runny nose and cough, so it is looking like maybe he just hadn't been feeling too hot and it is gonna be a bad cold.  Ex took him for a day visit on Sunday anyways though, since it had been ten weeks since he last saw Little Man.  Then that night he came home and puked all over his bed in his sleep.  Gross, but at least then I could attribute the crankiness and late night wakeups to something more concrete - he felt yuck.  So now we're just in the stuffy/runny nose and sleeping late stage of the cold, and Little Man never complains when he doesn't feel well so it is pretty much business as usual with a side of Boogie Wipes.  I hate that every illness immediately has me jumping to "Ohmygod, is this an ER visit?", but since the symptoms of shunt malfunction are nearly identical to those of a bad flu, that's life for the next few years and/or until he can talk and tell us his head hurts.

In case I don't see you... Happy Mother's Day weekend to all the mothers out there!  If you're thinking gifts, I enjoy a good cinnamon bun, bubble baths, and tulips are my favorite flower.

Snuggling Into My *Organized* Nest

I get a serious high every time I walk into my old office and see how clean and organized it all is... over the last few days I've been just wandering in and turning on the lights for no reason.  Hubs is tolerating this little burst of crazy with surprising good humor, considering how loudly I squeal every time and how I make him oooh and ahhh with me if he's nearby.

All of the cleaning and organizing we've been up to has inspired me to try to be organized in other parts of our lives lately.  I've finally finished Little Man's medical binder after oh... about four years of thinking about having one.  It is a 3 inch binder completely filled with information on every doctor's visit, therapy session, medical bill, and referral we've had over the last nearly five years.  Ideally I think I want to streamline it a little more and get rid of some of the older reports that are less important to be dragging from place to place, but for now it is done and going to be a huge help in scheduling and keeping track of what needs to happen and when.

I've also been being much better about our menu-planning and grocery shopping.  Every Tuesday night for the last month I've been sitting down (with Hubs if he's around) and cross-checking coupons and sales at our local grocery store.  Then with those in mind, I make a weekly meal plan and shop accordingly on Wednesday afternoon when all the sales start.  With our switch to more clean-eating and less processed food, we'd been slacking a lot with our couponing and we'd seen a rise in our monthly grocery spending.  Now that I'm taking the time to plan and do some basic couponing the night before each trip, we've managed to get our weekly bill down to the same amount of spending we'd been doing when we couponed, plus we're eating much healthier and I'd say about 80% clean.

Between all that and managing to get several of Little Man's major appointments scheduled and/or completed, I've been feeling like a champ lately.  I'm trying to savor this flood of energy while I have it, because I know myself and I know how easily I fall into a lazy rut if I let myself.  Plus, I vaguely remember being a complete couch-potato during my third trimester last pregnancy, and I'm not sure how much of that was laziness or necessity.  Back to work!!

Still in the pre-pregnancy jeans.  Gotta love "super-low rise" pants!

 

Pre-Baby To-Do List Update!

The last two weekends have been fairly uneventful ones.  Usually as the weather gets warmer my first instinct is to SCHEDULE ALL THE FUN!!! and book us solid til the end of summer.  But between being pregnant and the fact that it has been over 9 weeks since Little Man has gone on a visit to Ex's house, we haven't been going activity crazy like we usually do.

We've actually spent the last two weekends cleaning house and organizing our lives.  It has been a tedious and exhausting few projects, but the results are making my inner-Martha Stewart ridiculously happy!  Our linen closets have been cleaned out and organized, bathrooms cleaned and decluttered, basement emptied, pantry moved and restocked, bookshelves built, and my office cleared to make headway on turning it into a guestroom.  Whew!  Typing all that reminds me that we have gotten so much more done than I even hoped we could have in just a few weekends.

There are still several projects we want to get done, but it is looking like we'll be able to finish the last of the cleaning and organizing in one or two more weekends at home.  Then it is on to decorating and organizing the nursery, which I can't wait to get to!!

A Typical Appointment With Little Man

Last week was hellish.  I over-scheduled the HECK out of the Little Man, and almost gave myself a nervous breakdown.  We had two in-home PT visits, a visit from our caseworker, a dentist visit an hour away, and then an orthopedic appointment that was two hours away.

Anyways, the dentist appointment was 15 minutes long, and his teeth are all fine.  I'm shocked that he hadn't worn his teeth down to little nubs, but the dentist assured me his teeth are stronger than I think they are.  But no cleanings until we are cleared by a medical doctor, since he has a shunt sometimes they are required to give him an antibiotic before a cleaning and I had never heard of that before.  So really I just helped the doctors hold his arms and legs down to count his teeth while he screamed bloody murder.

Between the screaming and the 2 hours of driving, I came home with a massive headache.  Hubs had not originally committed to coming to the ortho visit with me the next day, but one look at my face (and maybe a little pleading) had him changing his mind.

You see, I knew the ortho appointment would be especially painful because I was guilted into accepting a 9 AM appointment time after the receptionist informed me I was about 12 months late for our follow-up.  Whoops. Ugh.  So this meant that I was going to have to get Little Man up and out of the house by no later than 6:30 AM, because OH WAIT if you have a 9 AM appointment you are supposed to be checked in by 8:30.  Ugh ugh ugh.

Of course, the morning of the appointment there was a rainstorm and traffic that meant we didn't get to the appointment til 9:15, despite having left so early.  We got there and Little Man was weighed and measured, which meant that he had to start screaming and crying immediately.  They asked if maybe they could check his blood pressure and I just laughed.   (My standard answer is - "You can try whatever you like, but just know that he will continue to do this until you walk away and leave him alone.)  (They did not get his blood pressure.)

We waited in an exam room until the very, very old doctor came in.  He said nothing, just sat at his computer for about ten minutes reading the charts.  So of course... we said nothing.  Hubs kept looking at me like I was going to do something magical to get the appointment started, but he's a novice at these things.  I kept my mouth shut and the kid amused until the doctor finally turned to us to begin the torture...er... appointment.

He had Little Man lay on his back and then stomach, manipulating his legs and feet like he was made of rubber.  Cue the screams.  The exam room has a giant bed for this sort of thing, so I flopped on my belly with the DVD player and held it above Little Man's head hoping it would distract him from the man-handling his legs were getting.  Hubs got the best job (ha. ha. ha.) of holding the flailing upper limbs.  Then we had to take off his pants and let him run around the room while the doctor and a therapist observed his walk.

More silence and chart consulting.  Of course, this was a little different kind of silence as we were busy trying to calm Little Man, who was apparently convinced that screaming til he was hoarse would mean we might leave soon.

Hubs then got to take Little Man down to x-ray for more pinning down and screaming (thanks for getting me out of that one Baby Vegas!), and I got to wait in the room with the doctor while he thought really hard and mumbled ideas to the therapist.  I took this time to show them that both his hip abduction brace and his nighttime leg-brace were destroyed and he hadn't been wearing them.  Because of the teeth.  He ripped the metal screws out of the brace with his teeth, and then chewed up the foam and rubber.  You think I'm kidding?

Nom nom nom!  Look closely for teeth marks and missing screws... :)

There.  Proof.  I exaggerate not.

So after the x-ray showed that his hips had shifted thanks to whatever limited wear he'd gotten out of that brace, they decided that he would no longer have a nighttime brace for his leg.  He'd wear a day brace and that would hopefully keep him from chewing it apart when I'm not looking.  We shall see how that goes, but I think it is honestly the only option for him right now besides "no brace."

Unfortunately this meant we'd need to cast his leg for the new brace.

If you're picturing a 38 pound four year old with incredible leg strength screaming and twisting in absolute terror while his dad pins him down in his lap and his mother holds back his arms... you're close to imagining the casting.  Just add a really strange (but very nice) man who is frantically trying to wrap quick-drying plaster onto one of the kicking legs and hold the foot flat while it set.  Oh and a freaking razor when it was time to cut the cast off the still-kicking leg.

Mother of pearl, it was not a good time for any of us.

By the time we left at almost noon, Little Man had screamed himself hoarse and eaten four packs of fruit snacks as "reward" for not climbing up the walls.  But it was over, and we were alive.  Hubs reminded me to make sure to schedule the follow-up appointment at a reasonable hour since I was no longer wracked with guilt.  Turns out, really old doctors can set their own schedules.  This guy only works from 9 AM - 11 AM twice a week.  *Sigh*  Til next time then.

This post is dedicated to Hubs... because seriously... there is no way I would have made it through that appointment without bursting into tears if I was there by myself.  Sometimes (rarely) I forget how awesome it is not to be a single parent anymore, and then crazy shit like this reminds me.

I made him some muffins the next day.  Muffins are always a great way to say "Thanks for willingly going through torture for us.  We love you too."

Bed Wars - (And Forgive Me, I Have No Idea What Number This Is)

Little Man is a couple months away from his fifth birthday, and it is time to really, really, take away the crutch that is his crib.  We tried once before to take away the crib, but it just resulted in a few nights of terrified wakeups by Little Man when he discovered he was in his room but not in his crib.  Screams of terror at 3 AM for a week = parents relenting and putting the crib back in the room.

To recap the last few months of Bed-Wars... We attempted to make it harder for LM to get out of the crib by removing the springs that held up the mattress, and placing the mattress directly on the floor with the crib around it.  That didn't help at all.  A few months ago he perfected his tuck and roll technique and now can escape the crib in less than 30 seconds.  A shove on the baby gate and he was downstairs in the morning waiting to greet me with a smile on his face and destruction all over the living room.

So finally we resorted to what I really hadn't wanted to try - locking the door.  And when he figured out that he could use his teeth to unlock the door, we flipped the doorknob around and now it locks from the outside.  Which is actually safer anyways, so I'm not too upset about that, its just the whole "Little Man can unlock doors with his teeth" thing that makes me nervous.  His therapist was actually pleased to find out that Little Man is such a "problem solver", as it is a very nice developmental milestone.  But back to the bed...

As of Monday night, Little Man officially transitioned with relative ease into his "big boy bed".

Thomas Themed sheets for maximum awesomeness.

The bed looks cute and everything, and the white pads cover up the worst of the teeth marks on the sides as an added bonus.  But practical?  Not even close.  The only thing this bed is good for is a good starting spot for laying Little Man's head at night.  It is not going to prevent wandering in the morning, it isn't going to prevent him from getting up during the night and playing with the blinds and his latest obsession - the closet door.  [We're actually getting a lock for that door too, because all the safety knobs in the world haven't been able to prevent him from opening his closet.]

His case worker is now giving us doom-and-gloom speeches about how slowly government assistance works, and trying to convince me that I need to look into other alternatives to the Monroe bed that we have been working towards for almost a year.  I got a call from her after her latest visit this Tuesday for a follow-up regarding the bed, and had I not been playing Candy Crush to relax after a long day of therapies and home visits, she would have seen me fly into a blind rage.

What set me off was when she recommended that I look into the Nickel Bed, which I have known about since July of 2012 when we started this whole process.  Apparently while looking around the internet after our home visit a few hours prior she found out about the Nickel and was trying to sell me on how great the bed would work for Little Man.  So when I said I was willing to try the Nickel [which during my research back then I had realized would probably be too weak for Little Man's teething and ripping issue], I asked how long it would take the state to approve funds for this less expensive option vs. the $2k+ Monroe bed.

"Oh but THIS bed is ONLY $159, plus shipping.  So you can just get that one."

I'm sorry but what?  Maybe I'm overreacting here, but since when is $159 just spare change that a family of a special needs child with a baby on the way has lying around??  I know that you are doing a home visit, and things look nice and clean and my husband has a job while I stay home.  But how do you have the nerve to act like I can just drop that kind of money on a bed that I'm not even convinced will be a viable solution?  You don't think if I had thought we could afford to experiment with a "cheap" bed tent that we would have done that ten months ago???

While I know that she is trying to be helpful, I can't help but be angry.  I want to shake her and show her how hard we work every day to keep Little Man safe and happy, how much we actually have to spend to accommodate his needs that we can't get through any kind of insurance or assistance.  This was the one thing we knew we needed help with, the one thing we'd asked for help for - and to be just blithely told that we should buy the bed ourselves and move forward is so frustrating.  I wouldn't have jumped through the ridiculous hoops to get into this program if it wasn't for this damn bed, and now it feels like it has all been for nothing.  

Instead of flipping out and screaming in frustration at my cell phone, I calmly said we would not be purchasing a Nickel bed and we would continue to wait for the Monroe that may never come.  She seemed slightly taken aback by my not immediately jumping for joy at her plan, but then backtracked into discussing other things.

To be fair, it wasn't really just her assuming that we have money to throw around that had me angry.  Ex and I had a very intense talk last weekend about the same thing, and so it was already a sore spot for me when this came up.  In the time it has taken me to edit and post this, re-reading my frustration with her really is like reading a list about my frustrations lately with the Ex.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still annoyed with her.  But after some distance from the phone call and a good nights sleep, I am simply annoyed and not "raging" (as my Facebook status had indicated immediately after the call.)

So that is the latest bed update.  I'm getting up the energy to write about our latest couple of appointments, which were basically hell on Earth.  For now though, I'm off to watch the ten-thousandth episode of "Super Why", the latest household obsession.  Also a kind of hell on Earth.  :)