Here's the Scoop...Or Some Of It....

Well another long hiatus from blogger land and I'm truly sorry. It's not that I haven't been checking in, I have, I just am up to my eyeballs in crap again and haven't had time to sit and do anything. Not that having 4 kids under the age of 6 helps with this either :p.

The crap is kids! I know they cause all types of problems but really I'm tired of the sick kid thing now.

So we were back in the hospital with Natasha in March for yet another 10 days. Our surgeon panicked and had us admitted for"observation". Now I'm not too worried about the whole "observation" thing as long as they actually do something while we are there. So we had a chest xray and waited 2 entire days for a consult with GI for, of all things, a g-tube insertion!!! I am so not happy about that prospect and have vetoed it until they can come to us with concrete evidence that it is in her best intrest to have one done. Of course that means that she needs to have the fundo as well. It defeats the purpose of having her tube fed if the reflux issue isn't dealt with as well.  We had a swallowing study done with mixed results.  Turns out she has a crappy suck reflex, which I knew about, and wasn't taking in large bolus' of formula at a time. It made it incredibly tough to watch the very small amounts go down and see where it went. We managed to piss her off royally when they changed the thickness of the formula and then the nipple on the bottle. She managed to get a bit in but easily got frustrated with it. They called it off when she got to the nectar thickened and sent us back up. Results in, she is micro aspirating the formula at thin and 1/2 nectar so we are to continue with nectar thick feeds and follow up with her tube feeds if she shows signs of distress. Nothing I wasn't already doing but it means that we can feed her by bottle while in the hosp. They put her NPO or nothing by mouth Thursday morning and by 8pm she was cranky not being able to calm and feed that way. She doesn't mind the soother but isn't too fascinated with it.

I was asked by the GI fellow that came up to assess Natasha what it is we want out of all of this. It struck me a very complicated question. What do we want? healthy kids obviously, but more to the point what is it that we are actually willing to do to get there? We have already done so much of this with Leigha that it seems very deja vu ish. I'm trying to keep them separate in my head since they have the same types of symptoms but they are two different kids. The cyanosis, reflux and feeding issues are the same in both but they both have different reactions to it. I don't think having Natasha get a g-tube is going to solve the issues at hand and from previous experience with Leigha we noted that once that tube went in everyone backed off and we are still fighting to have anything further done. They are both still refluxing up and that is therefore bypassing the cleft and into their lungs, so how is it helping? I talked to the original Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) I saw on the very first visit to the Stollery we had with Leigha all those years ago, she recommended a genetic consult and another opinion in regards to the repair of the cleft. So I managed to get the consult with genetics set up and plan on asking our pediatrician if she thinks our ENT is actually serious about fixing this or if we should look to someone else for the repair. I'm trying to be practical and I know that he may say no but I'd at least like to offer him the option to fix it before we go to someone else. He knows the girls, knows show they react to the surgeries.

Talking to everyone yesterday I discovered that they really have no grasp on where to start. Our ENT and pediatrician are following a possible allergy issue called Eosinophillic Esophagitis but the GI guy came in and said that she's too young to be considered for it. The GI guy is looking at the reflux as the only cause of the grey spells but my gut says, and has been saying, that they are missing something.

I feel like standing in the hallways and just yelling at the top of my voice for them to "JUST DO SOMETHING ALREADY!!" .

So they sent us home and we have been going about our lives here at home pretty much as we were before. I'm not tube feeding Natasha, for the most part I use the Ng tube for her meds (it keeps her from refluxing all day, very odd but it works) and we have finally found a bottle with a nipple shape she likes ( thank you Platex ortodontic!) and we have to swaddle her at bedtime :o Back and forth it seems every second day for appointments, almost like I live there some days, maybe they'll give me a parking pass!!

The Long and Short of it All

So I thought I'd try and summarize the last 3 months without boring everyone to death with long babbles...There's really only one big thing....

I am no longer pregnant!! I know, about time to say something ( honestly with 4 kids it is very difficult to get anywhere near an actual computer for any length of time without chaos ensuing) As I type they are currently trapping each other in the toy box and knocking on it making the dog go retarded thinking someone is at the door. So I had said baby on Oct 27th....a GIRL!!

Meet Natasha Lynn born at 804 am :) 7lb 7oz and 19inches long. She is now 8 weeks old, man how the time flies, and changing every day. The best part is that she is finally chunking up a bit, she has little rolls on her thighs :o

The transition of going from 3 to 4 kids was surprisingly easy other than the fact that Neil has been working out of town for the last 7 weeks ( do the math...means he left a week after smurf arrived :o ). Trying to get everyone where they need to be on a weekly basis has proven to be very trying at times with only the in laws around to help out. The smartest thing I did was have my girlfriend clean my house every 2 weeks for me...one less thing to worry about :)

With Christmas charging up on me on Saturday I find myself completely unprepared and honestly not to worried about it :p Things will get done no matter what and we will have a wonderful day despite being dis-organised.

I am sleep deprived and haven't done anything useful this week....and I don't care :) I am looking so forward to Neil being home tonight for a few weeks (he goes back out Jan 3rd ) and the help he can provide. Today it seems I have done nothing but yell at them to smarten up since about noon. But after tonight I will have a partner to help out, and I can have a nap!

I'm going to make a true effort to get back into blogging. It's good for me. Putting it out into cyber world means I don't have to blackberry it to Neil all the time when I have some random thought :p

I'm going to be Pregnant FOREVER!!

Or at least that's how I feel this week. 38 weeks as of yesterday and I'm huge, waddling when I walk and feel very grouchy. I haven't gone this far in a pregnancy since Nathaniel in 2004 and I'm feeling the discomfort.

I saw my OBG yesterday and him being no such help had nothing useful other than "you'll be having this baby by your due date" ...really! like I never figured but since I have been induced all 3 times due to my headaches and that awful thing that has been inside my brain ( I refer here to the posterior brain cyst that I have had for about 5 years now that seems to be of no concern to anyone but me..it is my head you know) for so many years. That and the headaches are getting out of control, I am popping Tylenol #3's like chicklets and no one seems concerned by this?  It seems I'm on this frigging roller coaster heading for a c-section and he is all "La La La" about it. I'm not a happy momma right now to say the least.

Contractions since Thursday last week about every 10-15 mins consistantly and I'm not progressing and haven't in over a month...still the same measurements. But the smurf is growing like a frigging weed and I measure 40+ weeks already. This is not going to end well I fear.

Send me some labor vibes people!!

Pfft!!

About 6 weeks beforeNeil   and I were married in 2003 I was seeing a gyne for follow-up after some problems I had been having for years. It was on that day he told me in very quiet words that it would most likely be impossible to have children naturally on my own. I didn't have female hormones in my body and when I did create them suddenly my lovely body went haywire causing a multitude of issues to lengthy to get into here.

So I left that appoinment heart broken. i ploughed on not too concerned at the time about starting a family. I mean we had just bought our first home, were geting married in a little less than 2 months. I had lots to keep me occupied.

Our wedding day came and passed in a flurry of activity and it wasn't until about a month later I began to wonder about the doctor's "talk". I talked with Neil and we decided that in December of that year I would go back and see him and discuss where to "go from here".
I found t sort of odd about October when I began to feel VERY ill. I took a plunge and did a home test( well 3 actually Neil didn't trust the first 2) and nearly fell over on my face when it was positive in about 6 seconds. VERY positive. We spent about a week me in shock and Neil asking " are you sure" every 30 seconds.

It seems that when it came to science and my body someone else was clearly in charge and it wasn't me.

So in August 2004 we welcomed Nathaniel into our home. Two years later following about the same pattern Ryan arrived June 2006 and after a heartbreaking misscarry in February 2007 we discovered I was pregnant with Leigha August 2007, the week of my brother and sister in laws wedding in Canmore.

And so here I am again expecting another shrimp (tho this one currently has no nickname. Nathaniel was Bubba, Ryan is Magoo and Leigha has always been Smidget). It was a totally unexpected thing and very much the surprise of a lifetime when that stick turned again. I mean after a bit I should be expecting it....right??

So...I am currently 16 weeks pregnant Due October 26th (move it up 3 weeks, I have never had a full term baby) and feel like dirt. I remember being tired but honestly this is insane. I actually fell asleep in the car driving (passenger before you all panic) and since I have terrible motion sickness it wasn't the best thing to do.

And so we are scrambling to gather all the baby type things that I have gotten rid of over the years. If this is a boy I'm screwed totally as I have nothing until 18months. Buying new car seats and doing the kid shuffle to fit everyone into the van (the dogs soooo don't fit anymore). Looking for bigger strollers and making sure I have a infant carrier that isn't expired, the diapers have started to be bought and I am looking into new bottles so we don't have issues with Leigha. Just stocking up on formula (I'm being organised unlike last time where we were moving int he midst of me 8 months pregnant) and the little stuff and I sould be able to calm down sometime in September or so.

But I have the chance to do a VBAC and I'm going to try and breast feed this time with hopefully more success than the last few times ( I actually bought a breast pump :p). who knows it may turn out all right. I mean if it is a boy it wouldn't be the first one to wear pink....at least not in my family :p