May 14th - 24th - entry 22

This post covers from May 14 to May 24 - Nathan's Daily Diary entry 22

It has been a long long time since I updated Nathan’s DD … it’s been a combo of being so busy with him and not having the time to write, to being so far behind. I have to start writing it through the day, or sit down and write it at the end of the day – it’s the only way it’s going to get done on a daily basis again. So NOW I get to try to cover the last 10 days in one entry (oh how fun!) …

I know that the 14^th through…. I’m not sure when, maybe the 20^th? … we were having medication issues. I’m not sure if it’s the combo or what but he has been acting as though he’s had a constant headache again – and so we sorta drew back on his migraine prevention meds – and then picked it back up. There were a couple days we only gave him one dose and then did two and sorta left it there. He really seems to do best on only 2 doses of the meds instead of 3 – and it seemed to start about the time we started the thyroid meds … which by the way, about a week ago, Dennis decided to just try to put the half a pill in his mouth – without crushing it. Nathan chewed it a tad but he kept it in his mouth (had started to reject the frosting) … and so we’ve just been doing that and he has been doing GREAT like that!!

So he’s taking his pill by mouth – whole, and is doing best on 2 doses of the migraine prevention meds – so we are leaving him there and will be talking to his neurologist about it – I have to call tomorrow (the 26^th) to get it re-filled, we’re running out.

He is currently on my lap with my typing around him – it’s a good thing I am an expert typer!! He has a pen and is writing ALL OVER my calendar! LOL… good thing it’s the end of the month… ha ha

So I had talked about his weights and how AMAZING his weight gain has been over the last month – but I couldn’t find his growth chart from the nurse (cuz it’s always the same scale, and pretty consistent.) So she came on the 15^th and I wrote down his weights for the last year so you can understand better just how amazing this is!!

They are as follows:

April 19, 2007 – he was born at 3lbs 4oz and was 15 3/4 inches …

A year of weights though the age of one…

May 6, 2008 – 12 lbs 3 1/2 oz (no height)

June 5, 2008 – 12 lbs 11 1/2 oz and 26 1/4 inches …. A weight gain of 8 oz – that’s about 2 oz a week …

June 26, 2008 – 12 lbs 15oz … 3 oz in 21 days .. so about an ounce a week

August 1, 2008 – 13 lbs 3oz ….. 5 oz in about 5 weeks, again about an ounce a week

Nathan becomes a big brother on 9-9-08

September 15, 2008 – 13lbs 10 1/2 oz …. 7 1/2 oz in about 6 weeks, so a little over an ounce a week

October 14, 2008 – 13lbs 14 oz and 27 1/4 inches … about 3 1/2 oz in 4 weeks – a little less then an ounce a week

December 8, 2008 - 14 lbs 2oz …. 5 ounces in almost 8 weeks, a little more then half an ounce a week (if I remember correctly, he had been sick during this time, this is about the time his migraines started, he wasn’t eating well, and he was grouchy as all get out … and had a strep infection on his bottom.)

January 6, 2009 – 14 lbs 11oz and 27 1/2 inches … 9 oz in 4 weeks … we blame this GREAT gain (which you have to admit, a little over 2 oz a week IS a great gain for him) on Christmas Cookies!!

February 13, 2009 – 15 lbs 3 1/2 oz and 27 3/4 inches … 8 1/2 oz in 5 weeks, almost 2 oz a week … we kept going with the Christmas Cookies (seriously!)

March 17, 2009 – 15 lbs 5 oz and 28 3/4 inches …. 2 oz in 4 1/2 weeks … he gained an inch though and realized his growing had been THERE – but after gaining almost 2 oz a week for the last several weeks, it was a blow to my heart!!

Nathan turns TWO on April 19, 2009

May 15, 2009 – 16lbs 14 oz and 29 3/4 inches …. In 8 weeks he gained 1 lb 9 oz!!! OMG !!! OMG !!! Seriously – I feel like shouting from the roof tops right now! AND another INCH!!! WOWZERS!!! Suddenly since starting all the meds, he’s a GROWING MACHINE!!! It’s a little over 3 ounces a week but STILL … amazing!

So now you can understand a little more why I was so excited about this great weight gain he’s got going on!! I can only HOPE that it continues!!! In the meantime – the same day (May 15) his baby brother was weighted and he was 19lbs and 2 inches shorter… at 8 months. Love that fat healthy baby, but it’s not right that little brother is out-growing big brother! Pretty soon big brother is going to start looking like the little brother. Regardless, I’m proud of both boys!

So now that I’ve really shared that …

Nathan has been having rough nights again. He either has been having a hard time falling asleep, or he’s waking up in the middle of the night… for the last several nights he’s been waking up around 1 or 2 am just CRYING and it’s hard to get him to settle down. I would almost think it was Night Terrors since Calahan had them, but it’s not the same thing. He’s not waking up in blood curdling screams – it’s gradual whining/crying and if you don’t respond he gets up. Dennis thinks he’s having nightmares. Either way, it’s not fun. For any of us. There was one day where he woke up at 4:30 and didn’t fall back to sleep until 6am, JUST as it was time for me to get Cal up for school, and then Noah up, get Cal off on his bus and then Noah off on his bus, in the meantime – Kaedyn woke up and then Nathan woke back up … I mean, seriously – no sleep for Mom that day! Especially considering that I hadn’t gone to bed until 1am the night before.

Eating wise, Nathan is doing well. I won’t go to “great’ yet. He is still picky eating, but he is CONSTANTLY eating. Either he’s snacking or eating off what we’re having, or snacking some more… he even has started to go and get his snack stuff (low enough for him to get) and bringing it to us. He has started to sign EAT more, and a lot more at that… he will sign EAT and then point towards the kitchen. Which is WONDERFUL considering he does not pick up on signing well.

Seriously – his ST can work on signing with him and he’ll humor her. I work on it with him at least once a day, and he looks at me like I just grew another head. As if to say “Please woman, I am above communication, who needs to communicate?” He HAS been picking up more words. Now mind you – they are NOT clear but Dennis and I are recognizing them. He still hums A LOT… but he’s starting. It’s baby steps right? Maybe once we get this next hearing test done, and he fails again like I have no doubt he will, we can get on the route of getting tubes in his ears (again have no doubt that is his next step) … MAYBE just MAYBE we can find out then if it’s just the fluid, or if it’s an actual hearing loss. I *still* say it’s an actual hearing loss, but I realize that the fluid isn’t helping, at all. Noah had massive amounts of fluid in his ears too, and when the ENT removed the fluid and placed the tubes, he said it was like trying to pull nightcrawlers out of the ground his fluid was SO THICK. And Noah was talking at 8 months, they weren’t clear but if I told you what he was saying, you could pick it up. Nathan just doesn’t even really try – or actually – is only NOW just starting to try at the age of 2.

Speaking of that…. I FINALLY finished his Autism paper work, it’s not easy answering questions like that … especially when you don’t know how to answer the speech ones! I mean – when it says “Can SAY Hi and Bye” … what do you put? He doesn’t SAY Hi or Bye, but he vocalizes it … he hums it… he signs it… does that count? I have no idea. I was actually going to call them and ask them, but then I decided I would go with my gut and just put NO cuz he doesn’t SAY them. I don’t know what the right answer was and apparently I’ll find out when we have the clinic evaluation. I mean he CLEARLY has signs of a higher functioning social sort of spectrum disorder, but who knows if he actually does. I was told most likely, they will do the eval on him now, and wait some sort of time period and re-evaluate him because it’s not going to be so cut and dry with him.

I am going to start working on homeschooling him too. I figure, most likely – after Head Start – I’ll be pulling him out of the public school system and homeschooling him. If things continue the way that they are, then I think homeschooling him would probably be best, but figure since I love the Head Start teacher, and he’ll be put in there for about a month after he turns 3 … (Birth to 3 Early Intervention stops AT the age of 3 and they are automatically put into Pre-school in the school systems here – the teacher that Nathan would be going to is the same one that had Noah from the time he was 3 to when he went into Kindergarten. I love her, she’s great!) … I figure I’ll see how that goes, and go from there.

It’s sad (to me) to think he has less then a year of his therapists coming to the house. But I’m sure we’ll be continuing to see them at times.

Anyway … now that he’s starting to feel better and he’s not so clingy since re-adjusting his meds again, I have a little bit more time to sit at the computer and get done what I need to. Provided… not MUCH more time… but enough.

May 14th

His morning QUAD of Meds ... migraine meds, allergy meds (pink), Ibuprofen (orange) and his pill on frosting before we just started to give him the pill ... it still amazes me, looks like so much med compared to a little guy...

Eating his O-R-E-O ... he loves cookies...
We were having lunch and I noticed that he was taking his chicken from his plate, putting them all in his cup holder, and then back on his plate, then repeat. And when he noticed that I was watching him, he would take them and throw them on the floor. Yes he was eating while he was doing it... but .... I've realized he does that A LOT while he eats

May 17th

The day of the Orange Balloon... lol... We got him an orange balloon and tied it to his overalls. We realized (while playing outside that day) that it was GREAT for keeping track of him! He's so little that we just had to look for the orange balloon in the air and know where he was. LOL... we may start doing this everytime we go to the park or something.

May 19th

LOOK!!!! I ACTUALLY GOT A RARE SMILE ON THE CAMERA!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was a horribly hot day (I think it got to 90 that day) and we didn't have the A/C units in the windows or anything, so by that night it was still so hot in the house, Nathan and Noah couldn't sleep. Noah was up in his room until after 1am. And around 11 Nathan woke back up and I ended up bringing him back out in the living room thinking he might be more comfortable in his nappy spot on the couch. Well, he kept throwing himself on the floor. So after the third time of putting him up there only to have him throw himself back down, I gave up, and left him. He was fast asleep on the floor in about 5 minutes - it was cooler down there I guess, and that's what he wanted.

May 20th

Yes his undershirt looks dirty but only cuz he insists on letting his milk seep out of his mouth when he drinks. For example if you sit there and pull his cup out of his mouth cuz it's just hanging there, all this fluid he'll have stored in his mouth without swollowing will just seep out after it... the cup is like a dam. (rolling eyes) ... so I decided I am not changing him 100 times a day because he does this. He does it if we pull it out, he does it when HE pulls it out - he finds it funny to tag the furniture, floor, whatever with milk and play in it.
Here is Nathan waiting to see if his boy Kris won Idol or not - he was cheering him on since early on - everytime Kris would sing he would clap and clap... course he clapped for my boy Danny too but we all know how that turned out! (Third place, grumble grumble)

May 21st

Those two paragraphs were ALL I had left to do, a couple of the bubbles that I couldn't decide HOW to answer and double checking everything (Autism Clinic paperwork)
Doing BUBBLES in the bedroom for over an hour! There is NOTHING like blowing bubbles for an hour.. lol..

My bad attempt to get a picture of all four boys for the The 4 Brothers Ranch Homeschooling Blog... lol...

May 22nd

Trying on his BIG BROTHER'S shoes ... lol... this is just too adorable!

May 23rd

GET THAT CAMERA OUT OF MY FACE!!!!!!! Seriously woman!
Going bye-bye to the library and other errands!!!
Nathan's crocky boo-boo.... After our errands we had gotten home, I changed into my PJ's which involved me going into my room and changing, Nathan followed me... something happened and I left the room without making sure Nathan followed me, and then my mom called so we were talking for awhile (not real long) when I realized - I didn't see Nathan. So I asked where he was, and Dennis didn't know... I checked the kitchen, the hallway... Noah's room... now mind you he has this habit of going into rooms and shutting doors behind him - then knocking the door and whining like YOU did it TO him and not him doing it himself, it's a way fro him to get attention. LOL.... so I opened the bathroom door with a sudden fear of hoping no one left the toilet seat up and he jumped in (shivers) but alas, no one in there... wasn't in Noah's room, or his room, both doors were open, so I look at the end of the hall to MY room.... door is shut, I know I didn't close it behind me... so I go down there and open it up, and sure enough, there is Nathan sitting on the floor, but he's playing with a needle nose plyers - doing the whole crocidile thing with them (opening and closing them) ... and as I'm reaching for them to take them away, he catches his leg - OWIE!!!!!!!! Yeah, that hurt.... so it's his Crocky boo-boo...

May 24th

I apparently didn't take any photos yesterday .... bad me. I usually try to get a picture of him every day - regardless. Buuuuut I don't have ANY pictures from yesterday. (or a couple other days ...

I hope every one has a happy Memorial Day today - please remember those service men and women who have served our country and died for our freedome. It's not just a day of BBQ's.

Stay tuned for today's installment of Nathan's Daily Diary (to be posted tonight after he goes to bed)

Calahan's Pregnancy & Birth Story ...and beyond!

Calahan's Pregnancy & Birth Story

~ Pregnancy ~

My Ex and I knew we wanted kids. And after we got engaged, we started "trying" for them. Even though we were both 18 & 19. It didn't take long at all. We were engaged February 19th, 1995. That month we were disappointed when we found out we weren't pregnant. But understood. March, I knew I was pregnant. Suddenly things started changing, and I just knew. The end of March, something happened, and I went through one of the most difficult things of my life, my first miscarriage. The horrible cramping, unbelievably painful, the heavy bleeding, I knew .. I knew I was losing my baby. I had My Ex call me into work, and tell them that I had food poisoning. I was too much of an emotional mess, and in too much pain to even attempt to work.
The end of April, I felt weird. The pregnancy symptoms never went away. I didn't know what to do, so I went back into the DR. They did another pregnancy test (after numerous negatives at home from March to then) and I still remember the moment.... I was sitting in the little waiting room across from the lab. One of the lab techs, a woman with blonde hair, came in and said "Annissa?" and I said "Yes." She said "It's definitely positive. Congratulations." And told me to make my first OB appointment on my way out. I was in shock. My Ex and my Mom were out in the main waiting area waiting for me. When I came out - I can't begin to imagine what they saw on my face as I walked up to the appointment counter and made my first OB appointment. I was in pure shock... I was pregnant.
A week later, I found out that I had been right. I was about 8 weeks along, and it had been twins. Counting back to the miscarriage was 4 weeks, it had been twins that I had been carrying and I had lost one of my precious babies. But I also knew that I was a little further along then they thought, by a week or alittle more. They didn't seem to want to listen to me, I'm sure they just saw me as a "kid" who didn't know anything and had gotten herself into trouble.
In May I had a horrible scare, It was about 2 weeks before our wedding, maybe a little less, and I started having horrible pains. I thought for sure it was going to happen again... I was going to lose this baby too. I was so scared, and all alone. I called the DR and they told me to lay down on my side and sip on some 7-Up, and if it didn't go away, to call back. I called my Mom, I was so scared. Woke her up. She ended up going to get me 7-up and coming down for a little while. Then she went home but told me if I needed her again, to call. She lived 5 minutes away. It was a little while before My Ex came home, and he got as worried as I was. He held me on the couch, and we watched movies, until the pains finally went away. All I could think of, was thank goodness they had gone away.
June 9th, the day before our wedding, we heard our baby’s heartbeat for the first time. What a wonderful wedding gift from our baby.
June 10th, our wedding day. It rained all morning, and we were having an outdoor wedding. The weather man promised it would clear up late morning, and possibly come back late evening. Our wedding was at 3pm. It was cloudy and overcast all day, sprinkling on and off. I remember being nervous, not knowing what we were doing, because we hadn't had a rehearsal. We swung it rather well, not knowing exactly. And when I stepped out, infront of everyone, the clouds parted and the sun suddenly came out. God was blessing us, our marriage, our family. The sun stayed out for the wedding, and for most of the pictures. After we went inside and sat down for the dinner, it started raining again. It was a wonderful night. Even though we tried to keep it small and cheap - I wouldn't trade that for a bigger wedding. After the dance, we headed over to my G'ma and Mom's apartment to drop of the gifts for the gift opening the following day. I was not feeling well. We got home, to our little apartment, and starting that night, came the morning "all day" sickness. I was 12 weeks pregnant, and for the next month, I was throwing up 2 to 10 times a day, everyday. And it magically disappeared 4 weeks later.
August - we felt our first movements. Flutters, like butterflies - or bubbles popping.
The first time I felt a REAL kick was not too long after. I was walking in the mall with my best friend, Casandra, and Cyndi. We were sitting down, having pretzels the first time it happened. It felt like someone had come over and poked me in the belly.. but no one was around. I didn't know what it was, so I just brushed it off. Then as we were walking, I remember I was a few feet behind them, it happened again. It felt like someone had poked me in the stomach. I stopped, and so did they. Confused, I said to Casandra, did you just poke me in the belly? She looked at me funny, and told me no. Then it dawned on me, it felt like it was from the inside out... and I realized, that was the first hard kicks.
It was soon after that, that I started getting really sick. I was so dizzy all the time, my vision was blurring, I had no energy, and so many other things. I ended up at the DR and found out my blood pressure was shooting sky high, and I was scared. Turned out I had something called Pre-eclampsia. I was only considered borderline though, because I didn't have the protein in my urine. But I had all the other symptoms, including the rapid weight gain (by the end of the pregnancy, I gained almost 70lbs). For the rest of the pregnancy, I was on and off bed rest, in and out of the DRs a lot, and considered High Risk. I just wanted everything to be ok, I just wanted my baby to be healthy.
We hit December... the month we were due. Due December 25th, Christmas Day. I was at the point where I just wanted to see our baby. I spent December literally jumping up and down, trying to get something going. I was already almost 2 cm dilated and 90% effaced... and being told "any day now"... I wanted my baby. The only thing I managed to do, was to get my water to leak, and end up in L&D 4 different times with them telling me "No, it didn't break, and there's no signs of it leaking." Yeah, well, I know it was leaking.
Our due date came and went ... and so did the New Year. January 4th I went in for an ultrasound. DR wanted the baby's size checked. So we went in... saw our baby again. We were going to go in and be induced on Jan. 8th, just a few more days until we got to see our baby. Until we saw the tech's face change a little, and she asked us to wait in the waiting room until she was able to speak with the DR.
We sat there for about a half hour, then we were told that the DR would call us at Home. So we went straight home from the hospital. When the DR had finally called us at home, she told us that the baby had very little fluid surrounding it... and we needed to go into the hospital that night and be induces, or we'd be risking a dry birth. We needed to be there 6pm.

~ The Birth ~

My Ex tried to get some sleep, and I was too wired to do much of anything. I checked my bags, made sure we had the carseat and diaper bag. And waited, it seemed endless. We got to the hospital at about 5:30 and went through all the initial stuff. They got the IV going (after poking me 4 times trying to do it) and things got going. They put pitocin suppositories (that's what they told me) into me, next to my cervix. They put one in there, and things started happening almost right away. They put me on monitors and had fluids coming through my IV, were basically were just hanging out. My Ex, his Mom, & my Mom were all there.
I wanted to get up and walk around, and kept being told no. But I was rather insistent on doing it, and so finally they took me of the monitors so I could walk for a little while. My Ex and I walked around. The contractions started hurting, and that just made me happy, because I knew things were going along.
At about midnight things started getting painful, where I was having trouble handling the pain. They put a shot of something into my IV, saying it would help take the edge off. It did and it didn't. I got up and moved to the chair - and My Ex laid on the bed for a little while. I was still at the point where I could handle the contractions - I didn't want an epi or anything else. But they gave me another shot of the stuff to take the edge off the contractions. It just wasn't working... but somehow, around 1:30 or 2am I managed to fall asleep. I remember being in the chair, sorta in and out of sleep, and I remember hearing the nurse come in, and check the tapes from the monitor, tell my family that my contractions had completely stopped, and that they'd let me sleep for a little while, and re-induce me when I woke up, or in the morning. After hearing that, I just went back to sleep.
My Mom says that as I was sleeping, My Ex's Mom decided she wanted to go take a walk (have a smoke) and asked My Ex to go with her. So he did. Mom says they couldn't have even been at the elevator when it happened. Suddenly I woke up - my eyes wider then wide - and I grabbed my stomach. I just remember waking up to this horrible squeezing in my belly, it hurt sooooooo bad!! My mom was immediately at my side asking me what was wrong, she buzzed the nurse, and they managed to get me back into the bed. I had went from nothing, to hard labor. I started shaking, and throwing up with each contraction. I was scared, and I was in shock and pain. It was too much for me and I started asking for an epi - only to be told it was too late now.
My Ex and his Mom got back up and were shocked to find me the way I was. They had only been gone for a few minutes. My Ex had told me before hand that he didn't think he'd cry, but the only thing that could make him cry, he thought, was seeing me in pain. And sure enough, when he saw me in pain, he started crying. He just wanted to see it over, he didn't like seeing me in pain.
I labored like that for a few hours... ice chips, wet wash clothes, throwing up and shaking so bad that 3 nurses and my Mom couldn't hold me still. But at about 5:30 I was told to let them know if I felt like pushing. It was shortly after that, that I realized I was pushing with the contractions. So I told my mom, and she got the nurse. I was told I was complete, and could start pushing. It was 6am. It felt sooooooooo good to push. It put my mind on something other then the pain.
I pushed, and pushed and pushed through the first hour and a half. Finally the baby's head was crowning and the end was near. My Ex was by my side, and I couldn't keep him from looking. He thought it was so interesting, watching our baby come into the world. At about 7:50 I pushed and the baby's head was coming out, but didn't come all the way out. I was told his head was out - and the contraction stopped, so I stopped pushing.... then I heard the slurping sound. I looked around and said "What was THAT?" and the DR said "It was the baby's head going back in." I was sitting there - thinking - EXCUSE ME??? It's NOT supposed to DO THAT!!! And when the next contraction started, I pushed and pushed - and his head came out, they told me the contraction stopped I could stop pushing. I said "No way!" and kept right one pushing and pushing until he was out. No way was he going back in again that time. The baby slid out at 7:56am, January 5th 1996.
The DR yelled "It's a BOY!" and we wanted a girl. I sat there, in shock a moment, and though, put it back until it turns into a girl - then saw my baby, my little baby boy. My Ex says I didn't even hesitate... I grabbed him and he was mine, there was no way I was gonna let anyone else at him. He was crying - and pink - and he was ours.
It took another half hour to deliver the placenta, which the DR slowly tugged and I eventually had to push out. And get stitched up, because I didn't give the DR a chance to cut me - and I tore badly. But I didn't feel any of it - I was too busy watching (and taping) my ex husband give our son his first bath.
Calahan Joseph was 8lbs 7oz and 20 1/2 inches long. He was healthy - and amazingly beautiful. He was such a peaceful baby. Quite and looking around, always wide eyed and taking in the world around him. He lifted his head for the first time the day after he was born. He just amazed me from day one.

Calahan was circumcised and there were issues getting the bleeding to stop. This meant nothing to me until later in his life...
When Calahan was 6 months old, I took a bad fall with him, and he injured his shoulders. Because of that, we found out that he had broken his shoulder, during birth, and we had never known. That still bothers me a lot, to this day. Thankfully it had healed correctly - but it still bothers me that we had no idea.
But I was just thankful to have my baby boy :)

Years down the road.... after he started to suffer from Night Terrors (which are completely different then Nightmares), and started to have bloody noses excessively, on top of bruising from the moment he could walk... at 2 1/2 he got multiple nose bleeds in a day and I took him into the ER. They finally got it to stop, did some lab work, told us to go in see his Ped, after bleeding time tests that he failed, blood tests that were not right... his Ped referred us to Oncology in Rodchester, MN ... Mayo Clinic.. after going down and talking with them, I felt a little better.. they thought he might have some bleeding disorder, or nothing... so more bleeding time tests, more blood tests... and then we went home... the next day I went to work and was about to experience one of the worse days of my life. The day that I was told, via a phone call from My Ex ... that the DRs called and thought our 2 year old son had Leukemia... they wanted us to make the 4 hour drive, again, the very next day to get a bone marrow test. His white cells and red cells were off, he had odd cells, his bleeding time test had exceeded the 15 minutes... both times it was done... they thought there was such a high probability based on his tests, they wanted us there NOW. So - we went... and went through the tests, the bone marrow test in his hip... the excessive tests ... he was traumatized very suddenly... would scream whenever a DR would come near.... but luckily (sigh of relief) his tests came back fine...

...... still had no clue what he DID have though...

At the age of 4, and some very violent behavior - he was diagnoised with ADHD & ODD... he started on medication at the age of 5 - and I was VERY anti-meds... but I have to say, they help him out SO MUCH!!! It's amazing how he is two different kids on and off the meds.

And finally, we found out he does have a bleeding disorder called ITP ... Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura ... We recently found out I have a Qualitative Platelet Disorder myself, which is what ITP is....