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Monday, November 27, 2006
Mr. W just got an amazing promotion this afternoon. Things are looking pretty damned good in the W household right about now.
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Thursday, November 23, 2006
Gobble, gobble!
Baby W patiently waits for Turkey Time!
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Wednesday, November 22, 2006
I haven't had a spare moment to write the promised post. Actually, if I'm honest, I haven't really had time to think about it much. The lowercase and I are still working on the sleep issues. We're going to Gymboree. We're preparing for Thanksgiving dinner and the grandparents' imminent arrival. We're wrapping Christmas gifts and planning how we'll decorate the house. (Alright...that's what I'm doing -- but he's there and making me smile through all of it)
And most of all I'm looking at my beautiful son and I'm being thankful. I have so many things to be thankful for this year. My wonderful parents. My husband who loves both me and his son with such intensity. The opportunities that lay ahead for us (some of you know what I'm talking about) and the choices that we have to make -- hard as they are to make, they are choices not something being thrust upon us against our will.
But of course that which I am most thankful for: My son. On this date last year he weighed just 2 lbs 14 oz. He was so very small and frail. He didn't yet cry. He wasn't even allowed to wear clothing yet. He still lived in his isolette, 22 days after his birth, with the temperature set at high levels in order for him to maintain his body temperature. When I held him, he curled up on my chest so that his head was tucked under my chin and his feet ended just below my breasts. I could pick him up easily in one hand and fully support his entire body.
This year, he has grown from 13 1/4 inches to 30 inches tall! His weight has balooned from his 2 lb 11 oz birth weight to a whopping 19 1/2 lbs! He crawls everywhere. He pulls himself up to stand. If he has something to hold onto (a couch, a parents' hand, the coffee table, his walk'n'ride toy) he can walk. He's had his first haircut. He smiles and laughs and talks. When asked, he'll make a turkey sound (ok, his version sounds nothing like a turkey but then, neither does mine!). He holds his hands up in the air when asked how tall he is (he is after all "Soooo big!"). He plays his own games. He looks at books and somehow knows to look at each page and turns his head from left to right several times per page before turning to the next. He can say mama and dada and grandpa (he just laughs when you ask him to say grandma -- one of his games...he doesn't like to do everything for everyone. Some things are secrets and that's the way he likes it). He likes to brush his teeth.
I could go on forever. In short, he is the light of my life. He is the reason I am here. I used to think my life had meaning -- that the work I did as a teacher was my calling. Now I know better. My "work" as his mother is. And I thank God every day for letting me have this child. For allowing him to survive when others born at his gestation, his size (or those born later and larger for that matter) did not. I can't remember my life before. And for that, I am truly thankful.
Happy Thanksgiving. (And to the Canadians [I'm talking to you Lala!] -- HAPPY THURSDAY!)
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Thursday, November 16, 2006
Is it wrong?
Lately there has been a lot of talk among my friends and family about so-and-so's next baby and when they will have a second (or third). Because Mr. W and I have been through so much and were so adament in the beginning that we were done, we are never the topics of those conversations, which, you know, fine by me!
But I've been thinking about it. Those of you who have been reading for a while know that. I've always wanted at least two children, preferably more.
My lowercase was born 10.5 weeks prematurely. I knew it was a possibility that he would be, but I feel that I wasn't given all the facts regarding what that meant. I was told "30 weekers are just fine" by the RE who told me to give it another shot and that there was nothing he could do to assist me since the problem has always been maintaining a pregnancy.
During delivery and the appointments after, the perinatologist who did my C-section informed us that having held my uterus in his hands, he could assure us that I would not be able to carry a full-term baby. Any future pregnancies, he said, would end up in a premature delivery at roughly the same point (give or take a couple of weeks in either direction). My uterus simply isn't big enough and a 2 lb 11 oz baby was such a tight squeeze that the doctor had trouble getting his hands inside to pull him out -- such trouble that he used a vertical rather than horizontal incision into the uterus (read: labor will make my uterus rupture, absolutely ZERO chance of VBAC).
Knowing what I know now...what a 29.5-weeker really goes through, what the real risks are, how much care is required and how long the NICU stay is likely to be...assuming of course the best case scenario which God knows is rare and quite honestly, if we had it once I'm inclined to think we would *not* a second time. (Wow...run-on much?)
Knowing all of that, is it wrong to become pregnant again? (FYI, this is purely because I'm interested in your opinions. The Mr. and I are not considering this any time in the near future -- kind of hard to have the energy to even think about the activity involved in making one, which we do not given the current state of sleep in our home)
I just wonder...if you knew you would have a preemie...If you knew the risks that baby would face both for survival and then developmentally...what would you do? Is it morally right to attempt to have a child you know would be premature?
I will attempt to post my thoughts on the subject in a day or two -- once I figure out how to keep my son from throwing envelopes all over the floor and how to keep him from getting the scissors out of the box they are stored in in my desk.
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Monday, November 13, 2006
Knxzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Things have gone from wonderful, to bad, to OHMYGODMAKEITSTOP around here. I am exhausted. Mr. W is exhausted. And our son is the fucking energizer bunny.
The lowercase came home from the NICU and slept in a cradle beside my bed part-time. The rest of the time he slept in my arms or cuddled against me in our bed. Then we transitioned to the pack'n'play in our room for a bit (with the same part-time co-sleeping arrangement). And then I finally got the guts up to put him in his crib in his own room. For a few days I slept in the guest bed in his room to be sure he was alright. Things were wonderful. He slept well. He loved his bed. And then...
Like a month ago my son had a cold. He couldn't sleep lying flat, he cried, he was sick, it was bad. And so I slept propped up in the guest bed in his room holding and cuddling him. And then he had that damned sebaceous nevus removed. And so I brought him back down the hall to my room where he slept between me and Mr. W. Then we had guests staying with us for his birthday, so he continued to sleep with us.
Suddenly he became the kid who sprawls out and sleeps sideways in a bed -- something that doesn't work in a queen size bed when one of the adults is built like a linebacker (I'll leave it to you to figure out whether the linebacker is Mr. W or me). So we tried putting him back in the pack'n'play with moderate success. He'd sleep for an indeterminate amount of time and then wake up and cry. I'd pick him up, he'd stop crying. I'd sit down on my bed, he'd crawl out of my arms to his spot in the middle of the bed and instantly sleep. So that became routine -- get him to sleep, put him in the pack'n'play, at first peep pick him up and pull him into our bed to sleep through the rest of the night.
And then last week hit.
Near the end of last week, he began waking up and crawling all over whatever bed he was in anywhere between 4am and 6am. He was in full-on play mode. If he awoke before 6 am, the two of us would head to the living room where he would get put in his exersaucer, the tv would be turned to something child-friendly (generally Noggin...it actually got so bad that I recorded shows that he seemed to like on the DVR so they could play in a loop during this "playtime" -- and this from a child who has *never* watched TV beyond the occasional play and clap and sing with mommy while a baby einstein video is on) and I would curl up on the couch with one hand on the tray of the exersaucer and doze while he played. He would play for an hour or two and then cry for me. I would pick him up, curl up on the couch with him in my arms and we would both sleep for a couple more hours. (Wakings at 6am or after were counted as the start of the day and he would eat breakfast -- his normal waketime is 7 - 7:30.)
And then Saturday night happened. We had been out and he fell asleep in the car. We got home and at just before 10 I tried to change his diaper and get his pajamas on. He screamed and screamed and cried and cried and arched his back and threw a HUGE fit. It took me 45 minutes (with the last 10 being assisted by the Mr.) to change a damn diaper and put pajamas on. And then we got his bedtime bottles ready -- one ounce of prune juice, 5 ounces of milk. I fed him, he went to sleep before finishing the second bottle. I started carrying him down the hall...wide awake and screaming. I fed him another bottle and again...asleep. I laid him down in his bed and the screaming...oh...the screaming! At 1 am he was finally asleep and in his bed. At some point, and I'm not sure when, but Mr. W thinks it was around 2:30, he cried to be pulled into bed with us. Which of course I did. And he slept until 9am!
I managed somehow to get him back on his regular schedule for Sunday with the usual 2 naps of appropriate (for him) length. I thought things were good.
9:30 last night he's ready for bed, bottles made. I feed him, asleep before finishing milk. It's now 9:45. I let him sleep in my arms until I'm sure he's in a deep enough sleep that my movements won't wake him. At 10:15, we begin walking toward the bedroom. Two steps from the door, his eyes pop open and he's wide awake. I get another bottle, and he drinks another 5 ounces of milk, still wide awake. We get a third bottle of milk, he takes one ounce and is asleep. Until his body touches his bed. At which point he's standing up screaming "Mamamamamamamamamamamamamama" as he looks over the rail at me, not 2 feet away from him. I pick him up, bring him into my bed, where he is crawling and going nuts. I give him to Mr. W who is still up working on a project. He holds him a while and continues working until the lowercase tries to escape him. He then crawls around the floor playing for a while. I get up and try to rock him to sleep. It works. I put him in his crib, his body touches the bed, awake and screaming. I pick him up, I rock him, I sing to him, I do everything I can to get the kid to sleep and finally he does. At this point, I'm exhausted. I've been trying to put the baby to bed for THREE hours, so I just put him in bed beside me -- no waking up this time. He slept until 8:30 this morning in my bed...mostly sideways between the Mr. and I. As a result, the child is Mr. Activity today and the two adults in the house are zombies.
Help.
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