Michael and I have been working very hard on sleeping!! It has been a rough few days getting him on track but I think he is finally there!! I could kick myself for letting him get away with falling asleep on my chest for those few weeks! It was hard to convince him that he can sooth himself still. It's great to have my happy, social bug back!!! Hopefully he keeps progressing with his soothing himself! In 2 weeks we will be driving from here in CO to San Diego... YIKES!! We are breaking it up into 3 days... but they will be 6 hour stretches. Hopefully by then he will be willing to sleep in his carseat..... if not, it's gonna be LONG trip!

CT scan

Today took forever to come! Of course Michael didn't feel like participating like I wanted. My plan seemed great! Wake him up at 730 for a bottle and a bath. We would head to the hospital at 830, check in, have another bottle and take a nap right in time to be asleep during the CT scan. HHA. I should have known better. He slept in the car, which was fine because he is in a good mood after his naps! We got all the way through the registration and back to the room before he became grump face. Once it was time for him to sit still for a few min he began WAILING! Poor kid! He was not impressed by having someone hold his head still. There was too much movement in the images so they had to re-shoot the images. I gave him a bottle and they shot the images with him sucking. The technician did not think the images were going to work but he sent them to th doc and we headed to the doc's office. The neurosurgeon's office is so great. It's very kid friendly and very relaxing. The Doc took us to a viewing room. The images were so neat!! His brain was very interesting. The neurosurgeon said his brain looked normal, all the parts were there and in the right place! HAHa. Then we got to see the 3-d image of his skull. Much to everyone's suprise- all the sutures were there! It was great! The doc said she was incredibly suprised. She was pretty certain he had fused. She said it was nice to give a family good news; as that rarely happens! So she said his head is just goofy looking! so great!!!

strength

I definitely feel like God is testing my strength. There have been only a few times in my life that I have ever dropped to my knees and cried mercy. I am close to that now. With everything going on my life, I'm getting to that boiling point. Trust me, I do know it can always be worse. I am thankful that Michael is alive and healthy. I am thankful that he is healthy enough to withstand anesthesia. I think that my medical knowledge is bad when it comes to my son. I know what can go wrong. I know what anesthesia is and how it effects the body. I know how easy it is for things to go wrong. I am terrified. I am terrified that I caused this. I am terrified that I am going to lose the most important thing in the world. I am terrified that Michael is going to pay for all the horrible sins I have committed in my life. This precious, innocent boy is the most amazing person I have ever had the privileged of knowing. What if he needs the surgery and mess up and he's not him anymore. I have had to stop researching. I am a researcher. Someone gives me a problem, I research every option, every outcome until I cant research anymore. I researched for 10 min and had to stop. I have never been so scared in my life. CT scan in 7 days, 156 hours, 9360 minutes. In 9360 minutes, my son will go under anesthesia for the first time in his life. I am going to spend the next 9360 minutes loving my son. Hopefully God doesn't want Michael as one of his Angel's yet.

The Best First Mother's Day

Well, I must say that I feel so blessed to be a mother. It is hard work, but so rewarding! I had such an amazing weekend thanks to my family!!! Chad helped me put together the backyard! I have always wanted a garden and now that I have time, Chad and I put one in!! Our backyard is less then ideal for a garden so we had to make do with the space we had! We were lucky enough to be able to go "shopping" at my parents house! They have a ton of wood and lattice and fencing so we were able to get the supplies for FREE!!! We only had to purchase the dirt and veggie plants and seeds! They also gave us an old outdoor table and chairs that they had so we sanded them down and re-stained them! They are amazing!! On Sunday I got to sleep in and then go to brunch with my Husband, Son and Parents!! I woke up to a beautiful bouquet of flowers. At brunch we went to the hotel that Chad and I got married at and last year we also did Mother's Day brunch there. Last year at Mother's Day brunch is when we told our families that we were expecting! Michael got me a beautiful frame with a picture of him in it! My parents got me a mother's necklace with Michael's birthstone in it and a frame with Michael's finger paintings in it! After brunch we went to a local garden store where we got our veggie plants, seeds and a plant for behind the waterfall! It's been so much fun to play in my garden while Michael is napping!!!

Michael's 4 month check up

Michael had his 4 month check up today! He was very brave until right before the shots came! He weighs 15 pounds 1 oz and is 24.75 inches long! He has a tooth that is breaking through his gum and looks great! The doctor is very please with how far along he is and the milestones he has already hit! He is having us thicken his formula up with rice cereal to see if that will help his spitting up. He thinks his sphincter is still immature and that his feedings are too close together. Hopefully with some more calories he wont be so hungry so quick and with it being thicker, it'll stay down!

He did give us something to stress about... The doc is concerned that M's skull is fusing. He felt his head and such and called a pediatric neurosurgeon. The surgeon isn't worried. She thinks its just the shape of his skull but we are still meeting with her just to make sure. Everyone please pray that his skull isn't fusing. If it is then he will have to have surgery on his skull, which is less then ideal.

Teeth

Such an interesting day it was yesterday. I had been thinking that maybe Michael was starting to teeth, as he sticks EVERYTHING in his mouth and DROOLS non-stop. Finally yesterday I searched his mouth! And as I suspected, a bump with a white spot was staring at me on the bottom of his mouth! I think he is going to be kind of wimpy like his mother, although I don't recall the pain of getting teeth, I just know I'm wimpy!

Poor little man. 330 this morning Chad and I hear this awful wailing! Michael was awake, angry and in pain! Thank goodness the baby Tylenol helped, and a bottle. He kept rolling himself around his crib! Chad could just tell he was not comfortable! Finally, much to Chad's liking, Michael fell back asleep and is still asleep. He didn't nap much yesterday. My mom and I ran some errands with him and he just was into the whole napping on the road thing and didn't want to stop sucking his hand for a moment!

Well, no one said parenthood would be easy. I am just so thankful and blessed that Michael is a healthy, strong boy!

Michael's new toys!

We received our tax money this week!! Michael, of course, has been in need of some new items since he is growing up! About a week ago we got a bouncer that he ADORES! His favorite thing to do is watch Madagascar 2 and bounce around!


Chad and I went with Michael to Babies-r-us today! It's always a dangerous thing! I love to shop and especially enjoy shopping for Michael!!! Here are some of the fun new things we got him!!!!!

Michael's new chair! He enjoys sitting so much but he falls over when we sit him against the black pillow

Michael has been drooling a ton and sticking everything in his mouth so we got him a few teethers! He really enjoyed this one! When he bites on the purple part the toy vibrates! The other ones are in the freezer cooling down!

Michael's uncle Matthew plays soccer so we got some socks with soccer ball rattles on them. These definitely peaked Michael's interest!

All in all we had a fun time!! Michael and I went shopping at Target a few days ago and got some fun outfits!! I am so excited for some warm weather! It is snowing like crazy right now.... Isn't it April?!?! This weather better be gone by next week! I have a race on the 26 and I would really enjoy running in some warm weather!!!

Well blogging about my anger helped sooo much! I feel so great again! YAYAYAYYA Maybe this will teach me not to bottle things up ;)

Trying to get over the anger...

I realized a few days ago that I am super angry and I'm having a hard time getting over it. I'm so angry that my foal died. It was a year ago April 5th. I am also so angry over my emergency c-section. I know I'm not ready to deal with the anger over Adored. I don't really know when I will be ready to deal with it. I think about it and I get a knot in my stomach and can feel my tears starting. It's gotten so bad that I get angry at clients talking about their pregnant mares foaling. I hope soon I can talk about that awful day. I am ready to get over the anger over Michael's birth. I am hoping that by writing this, it will ease my heart. And maybe, just maybe I can let go of the anger I have towards myself.... it's a start!

Well, it was Christmas morning! 4 am and I had to pee. When I climbed back into bed I was a little excited because there was still quite a bit of pressure like I still needed to pee. my water broke! I hollered to Chad that it was time. He jumped right outta bed and rushed to get clothes on! I had to remind him to grab me a towel! The house was around 58 degrees and I was soaking wet and the fan was going. I called my Ob and let her know my water had broken, but I wasn’t having any significant contractions. I showered and felt the wonderful pain of true contractions. We called our families and were off to the hospital!! Lucky for me, we only live 5 minutes from our hospital! When we arrived, we walked to the elevators were more water came gushing out for the poor kid waxing the floor to see! I was so upset and had to have Chad help re-dress me. We arrived to the Labor and Delivery secured unit and the hooked me up to all the wonderful monitors and then checked to see how far along I was. “2cm, 80% effaced and membranes were ruptured!” the nurse let me know… You have got to be freaking kidding me! I thought I was going to die and I was only 2cm!! She asked if I wanted an epidural and I said yes. I fealt so whimpy but geeze! Those contractions were uncomfortable. The nurse thought it would be another 12 hours before pushing and I couldn't imagine that pain for 12 more hours! She let me know it was gonna be a bit because there was another lady in labor that they were getting ready to put an epidural in. She offered me some iv drugs which I declined. About 20 min later the Anesthesiologist came in to do my epidural. Chad was able to stay but my parents had to leave the room. I had a lot of edema along my back from laying down sleeping all night (I had high blood pressure and a lot of swelling the last 2 weeks). The anesthesiologist had a heck of a time getting my epidural in. She would get close and then I would have an awful pain in my left hip. On the 7^th time she decided to go a little higher and got the epidural in. She pushed the Mericaine into my catheter and let me know what to watch out for. My legs were numb and I could no longer feel contractions!! Sweet!! Then slowly I didn’t feel right. I said something to the nurse.. the feeling then turned into feeling like I was going to pass out…I need to vomit.. Chad and the nurse lay me onto the bed, I fell over like a sack of potatoes… Im numb from my shoulders down and cant breath…. All of a sudden my blood pressure drops to 60/40 and my heart rate jumps up… there was a rush of people into the room… the nurse asked me to squeeze her hand.. I couldn’t… Chad was holding the fetal monitor on my belly trying to find the baby… I panic!! “Help me!” I tried to scream but only came out in a wisper. “Hows my baby?” All I could do was gasp for air, my breathing muscles weren’t working, luckily I had an oxygen mask on so the breaths I was taking kept my PulseOx at 98%. They decided to put a monitor on the baby’s head to make sure he was okay. I then go unresponsive- I could hear everyone and feel pressure but I couldn’t respond. I could feel it coming on.. They were about to intubate me when I came to. I was feeling a little better, still couldn’t breath but was better. The nurse told me the baby was looking great so they wanted to let the maricaine were off (it would take about 30-45 min) and let me deliver vaginally. I liked the idea of vaginal delivery but panicked at the thought of 30-45 more min of gasping for air. My blood pressure dropped again, this time affecting the baby. His heart rate dropped to 60 and the nurse said c-section time. I looked at Chad and wanted to tell him I loved him because I didn’t know if I was going to make it. I couldn’t say it because it made my panic increase. They rush me to the OR taking me off the oxygen but keeping the ambu-bag on my face. I start to feel claustrophobic, I didn’t think I could breath. We get to the room and they hoist me onto the surgery table. I wasn’t much help because I was a limp noodle. When I look up, I see this male RN. I tried to get the ambu bag off my face because I was certain this was the reason I couldn’t breath. I looked at him and said “help me” one more time and then I was asleep. We later found out that I went into respiratory arrest and was blue lipped. Once they intubated me I was fine. It was my inability to breath. I then woke up as they wheeled me to the room. The nurse and put pillows all around my arms so I could hold my son Michael. He let me know all that happened while I was out. He wasn’t allowed in the room during the initial portion, but once Michael was out he was able to come in and get him. They let him re-cut the umbilical cord. He took him and showed him off to the family. They had to keep me asleep because it was a crash c-section so they couldn’t waste time by counting lap sponges and instruments so they had to ultrasound me and take xrays. Once they knew there were no things left in me they were able to wake me up! From the time Michael started going down hill and c-section was decided to the time he was out was 10 min! It’s quite amazing to think about! Michael was born at 7:53am Christmas morning. He weighed 7 pounds 9 oz and was 20.5 inches long. He was perfect!! I got a spinal headache in the hospital. They say it’s because I had a slow leak of spinal fluid, a leak faster then my body could replace. My brain wasn’t floating! They fixed this by putting a blood patch in my back. They had to put an epidural into my back. All in all, I had 10 needles in my spine, and lots of holes in my arms where they got the blood from. 6 holes in my left forearm, 2 in my right, a catheter in my left arm and a right, and blood work from my right. I was a pin cushion for 4 days! My hospital stay was 4 days, 3 nights. In the end I am blessed. Michael is healthy, I am healthy. So why am I still dwelling on that day. On the fact that I didnt hear my son cry for the first time. That I didnt see him first. Why can't I let it go?

Ode to Motherhood

I finally got my computer back and decided that my life is in enough order now that I can actually update this regularly!!

Well, I must say, the ride of Motherhood is insane. There are so many ups and downs and I'm just getting started!! I have been blessed with such an AMAZING child! He sleeps around 12 hours a night and is on a great routine. He is up for about 2 hours and then naps! He does not like napping though. He would much rather be awake and screaming with me then asleep in his crib! I should take this as a compliment, it's nice to know my son loves my company; but the screaming is EXHAUSTING! The only time he cries is when it's time to nap. I have the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" and it tells me that he is crying because he is over tired. I put him to bed sooner, he wont sleep and he ends up crying himself to sleep in his crib! It's frustrating. Today was a great day for naps! He didn't cry for any of his naps or for his bed time, but I put him to sleep with a bottle.... Does that make me a bad mom? Stick a 2oz bottle in his mouth with a slow flow nipple and he falls asleep in 10 min! Again, I know that I'm lucky. This is really the only problem I am having! Well, him spitting up a ton, but that has gotten better now that we are using the VentAire bottles. It still happens, but only right after he eats instead of all the time.