First day a'school! First day a'school!

On Monday, we started back to school for the '09-'10 school year. Each of the kids had their own reaction and preparation for this epic event.

I had my own.

Actually, mine has been brewing for a couple of months. It all started with me keeping up better on the laundry. It no longer migrates from the dryer to the couch for an endless period of time. I actually fold it when it comes OUT OF THE DRYER. Don't be jealous. Get all crazy...trying to be awesome like me with this mad skill...oh wait. that's right. You're already a grown up and this concept isn't new to you.

Anyway!!!!

I noticed a couple of months ago that the smallest's pants have gotten to be about the size that require the tri-fold and the middle guy? his pants have moved all the way to the quad fold.

THEN! On Sunday, I was over a friend's house and Mr. Middle walked up to me and I realized that I was almost looking up to him. Umm...WHAT?

Of course, in a tactical and completely grown-up move, we measured each other ON THE SPOT.

He's about exactly one inch shorter than me. I'm giving him about 3 weeks and he'll pass me for sure. *sigh* I'm not ready for this. :-) Meanwhile, I am equally, completely excited about this.

It's a pretty cool feeling as a mom to watch the babies grow up and become big and awesome. The Big and Awesome that Mr. Middle is bringing to the table right now is pretty much putting a HUGE smile in the deepest parts of my heart.

Rant

I'm really not much of a ranter, but I'm just about at the end of my rope with a particular situation. This situation is with that of the transportation department in the school district where I live.

Seriously? Unbelievable. Completely unacceptable. TOTALLY frustrating. GAH!!!!!

whew...okay, I feel better now.

How's about a little Grace?

So, while it's not 5 things, it's one really funny thing that made me very very happy to have a special kid.

We ate at a friend's house the other night. They served Rice and Beans as well as pork steak of one part or another of some poor pig's shoulder. After the meal, I asked the lady of the house what kind of beans she used. "Are they just red beans?" "No," she replied, "they're pinto beans, I believe." Middle Mann, sitting quietly across the table piped up and said, "Pinto, huh? I thought they were Porkn!"

Wait! I think that is 5 things!!!

1. Food I didn't have to prepare.

2. Friends with gracious, sharing hearts.

3. Relationship time after a meal with talking in real sentences.

4. My Middle Mann

5. Beans!!!!!!!! Even if they're not pork n beans

...the rest of the story

From where I left off:

After the CT scan and the x-rays, a couple of things were determined. It did appear that his ventricals were a bit dialated and it also appeared that the tube for his shunt that runs down from his head to his tummy was broken. They weren't 100% convinced that his shunt was failing so they decided to do a little procedure to determine for sure if that was the problem. When they initially did the tap, his pressure measured 18 mmHg. After they did some draining and lowered his pressure to about 10, he started perking up. It was good to see him coming around. They drained his pressure down to about 3 and he was definitely feeling better. He was given permission to eat until midnight and it looked as though he'd be able to hold down the first food in more than 24 hours.

I called one of the awesome ladies we go to church with and asked if she could come to the hospital to hang with him while I ran home to get a change of clothes and pick up some dinner for the boy. She came with a friend and hung out with him. I completely appreciated her willingness and availability to relieve me for a little bit.

I got back to the hospital and he chowed down on the food I brought him. He ate until he was FULL. The ladies left and the anesthesiologist came to do his intake for the surgery. He'd just finished asking all of his questions and got ready to start his exam. It'd been about 2 1/2 hours since the shunt was tapped and just as he got ready to check my boy's vitals, Dude got a look on his face that sent me grabbing for the bucket. Lo and behold, he lost every bit of his dinner and started to feel the head pain again.

Within another hour, he was in a room in the PICU and hooked up to some serious monitors. Very quickly, it became quite clear that the shunt malfunction was very detrimental to his basic functions. His pulse was in the low 40's and his blood pressure had dropped into the very low range (70/35). She called for a neurosurgeon to come and check on him as well as to review the admission orders since no pain meds were noted on his orders.

Two residents arrived in short order and once again began to tap his shunt. They drew off about 5cc's of CSF. At that point, the resident began to struggle with the draw. He started manuevering around inside the shunt valve trying to get more fluid off, to no avail. At that point, my little guy said in perfect form, "uh...ya know...my head would probably feel better if you'd quit digging in my brain..." It was the Classic Middle Mann sort of comment and the residents stopped trying. His vitals recovered nicely with even the minimal release of extra fluid.

It was recommended that I get some sleep while I could. It was about 2:30 in the morning.

Around 5:00 am, his alarms started going off. His breathing had begun to slow to the point where he wasn't taking a breath once every 25 seconds. The monitor is hard coded to sound at that point. I think the sound of the alarm is intended to either wake the patient or the parent. Once I was woken, I sat up quickly and touched him - recommending he take a breath. He did and we slept this way for about 30 minutes with a reminder to breathe every couple of minutes or so. The nurse came in with some pain meds for him to try and take off the edge since he was really starting to get uncomfortable with the headaches again by this time.

Neurosurgery came through for rounds around 6:00 and examined him. His vitals were scary low and the shunt tapping was only relieving his symptoms for about 3 hours. He was scheduled for surgery at 1:00 pm which would have meant 2 additional taps before surgery. After their exam, the team met to discuss the plan. It was decided that because of his condition, it was in the best interest of everyone that the entire surgery schedule be shuffled and he was taken to surgery first at 7:00 am instead of last at 1:00 pm.

He made it through surgery with flying colors. It ended up that they only needed to replace the tube from the valve to his tummy, where the break had been seen on x-ray. This was the best possible outcome with the least risk for additional complications.

Because there hadn't been any invasion of his brain during surgery, the only requirement for his discharge was that he needed to pee. This turned out to be quite a struggle for the sweet, post surgical boy. He tried and tried and tried some more. Around 10:00 pm, the nursing staff finally agreed that he'd tried enough and they "went in" to relieve him. Just as the catheter passed through the place where success is no longer an option, he announced, "Whoa! It's gonna work!" We stayed that night, and apparently, while I was sleeping, the nurse came in the middle of the night and accompanied him to the toilet for his first successful pee since before surgery.

Upon waking, breakfast was served and discharge commenced. Wahoo!! We got to go home!!!!

My mom had arrived on Tuesday evening and greeted us nearly rested when we got to the house. She's definitely been a huge help and I'm so glad she was able to come and help me during this time.

Does Twitter count?

Whew! What a few days it's been.

I came home from New York last Thursday and on Friday, my middle mann came home from school and said he had a pretty bad headache. He rested and took some ibuprofen and felt better, but then he felt worse again...we cycled through this all day Saturday and Sunday, but on Sunday at church, he started with the throwing up. Although, he reported that his head felt better following the puking, (doesn't that sound just like a migraine?!) when he asked for some food, he threw that up too! (doh! hrmmm?)

When he woke up Monday and threw up just because he greeted the day, and then snuggled with me for an hour and threw up just because the minute changed...I had a sneaking suspicion that we were dealing with a little more than a cluster migraine.

I took him to the pediatrician. He threw up there a couple of times and they sent us off to the University hospital. He was very well cared for and after a few hours in the ER, a CT scan, and a couple of x-rays, they decided that indeed he would probably feel a lot better if his shunt was working. He was scheduled for surgery on Tuesday morning and admitted.

There's a little bit more detail to the whole surgery story, but I'll end this post by saying, he's MUCH better. Its failure was the best sort of failure a person could hope for and the surgeons didn't need to go into his brain at all. They were able to replace just the tube that runs from the shunt valve down his chest and into his tummy.

We came home this morning and he's nearly back to 100%.

I hope I get NaBloPoMo points for Twitter. :-)

What are the real words to that song?

Tonight, I was in the car with my boys listening to this song and my Middle Mann started singing along...though he seemed to be giving tribute to his sister and their mama.

His voice has definitely been deepening and he raps right along with the man on the song, but when it comes to the girl part, he says, "She got it from our Mama!"

Here's a little snippet of the song, in case you don't want to risk a RickRoll on the above link

What languages can you speak?

We're sitting here enjoying our not-tomato free, not vegetarian lasagna and Mini Mann is miserably watching us while he's not currently being fed...hahahaha! We're so mean to him.

So, apparently, when he's bored, it's time for all of us to talk about the different languages we know.

Middle Mann then asks, "Uh, Mom? Can you speak FrAAAnch? Whoops! Sorry 'bout that."

Then Sweetie says, "Yeah, pardon his Fraanch!"

My Middle Mann - Part VI

From where I left off...

....His development was pretty boring for the next couple of years. Honestly, he didn't change much.

Until about 3 months before his 2nd birthday.

He got a little sick one day. A little more uncomfortable than usual. He never seemed completely comfortable, but this was definitely different. He couldn't keep anything down. Actually, it was so bad that I couldn't even wipe his face with a damp cloth without him throwing up.

I was completely at a loss for what to do.

So we went to the doctor.

He was diagnosed with extreme dehydration and admitted to the hospital for fluids and observation. It was the strangest thing to me. Strange, because when they admitted him, they ordered a CT scan of his head. I really didn't understand that, but the lack of clarity only lasted a short time.

His shunt had failed.

There was no reason for this. It just happened. I'd been warned that it may, though I had no idea what to look for. But in a few short hours, I learned what his symptoms may look like if it ever happened again.

He had a second brain surgery, though he didn't look nearly as alienesque as the first time. He didn't have any physically altering symptoms, specifically head swelling. He did have a complete shutdown of his systems. There was the obvious digestional shut down, accompanied by a loss of visual function. He was completely dehydrated. In fact, when they tried to use a catheter to get a urine specimen, his little bladder was completely empty.

He came through surgery flawlessly. Woke up and acted mostly like the little man I'd come to know, and life just went on.

Did I mention that I knew what it might look like if it happened again? Yeah, it did. 2 months later.

Apparently, the first time, it got plugged up because the pressure valve that was originally used enabled for significant decompression of the ventricles. So much so that the brain tissue was able to, over a period of two years, completely block the shunt's flow. It was gradual, but when the blockage was complete, the disintegration of function was hasty.

The second time it failed, I discovered it was because during the first replacement, he suffered an additional bleed in his brain. The shunt grabbed some of that blood and since it's not a native internal object, the body didn't do the work of cleaning up the blood inside the shunt.

The really great thing about the 2nd replacement is that when my dude woke up, he really woke up! The doctor - who walked out of every surgery completely free of wrinkles (something that makes him just delicious in my mind) - decided to use a different pressure valve in this shunt. It was a higher pressure valve, so there would be marginally more pressure inside the kiddo's head so that the brain tissue wouldn't be impacted and the possibility of another bleed caused by the shunt would be reduced.

BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO MY BABY!! EVER!!!!

He tore the dressing off his head within 12 hours after surgery. He started sitting up. Scooting around on his butt. And within a year, he was walking! Granted, it was only when he was holding my hand, but the 2nd day he did the walking thing, we went to the mall, and he walked the WHOLE way around. He was ready to meet the world and the world needed to watch out! (check out that run on sentence...)

About the time he was upright and walking, he started going to school by way of the short bus. He was 3 little tiny years old and he started riding the bus the same day as Sweetie started Kindergarten.

We had IEP meetings and goals were set. He was suddenly so big and I learned things about him I hadn't known before. Things like he could put his shirt on all by himself. It's strange how when you have a special kid, other people can make them do more than they'll you'll let them do.

As a mommy of a special boy, I do everything I ever did for him. Once he went to school, there was an unknown about him there. The teacher and the assistants and the therapists didn't know that he couldn't do what I knew he couldn't do. So, they just expected that he could. And actually, they were right!

He has continued to blow my mind with his development. He can walk and talk and eat and grow and think and read and add and subtract. The reality hits me from time to time that when he was 4 months old, I was asked to sign a DNR.

I talked to his pediatrician, who left private practice to work exclusively with kids like mine, about 6 years later. He told me things I never knew. Those things have stayed with me in a special place that I go to when I need a little encouragement. At the times when I'm convinced I'll never be able to die because of my baby's need for me.

That doctor told me that when we were at his office nearly every day, he was as certain as the morning comes, that I would ask him to take my baby from me. He was certain that my baby wouldn't make it very long. He was certain that my baby would never really function.

His certainty was so significantly rocked as a result of my baby's life, that he had to re-write his conclusions about what could happen with babies like mine.

Now, my little baby is nearly 14 years old.

He loves NASCAR. He loves people. He loves music - singing and playing and listening. He adds 2 digit numbers and subtracts without borrowing. He reads at a high 1st grade level. He can't wait to cheer on anyone and everyone he can. He's competed in Special Olympics and taken the Gold!

He is an amazing creation. I can't take credit for his awesomeness anymore than I can for Sweetie's. God is so good and has blessed me through my kiddos.

My Middle Mann - Part V

It's going to take me forever to get through the story of my dude this way, but with this post, I'll try and get pretty close to present day.

Buckle up. This could be a long post!

When he was about 4 months old, he started occupational therapy. His first goal was to be able to tolerate 10 minutes of handling (basically being held) without screaming and then crashing into sleep for the rest of his session. It took him about 6 months to reach that goal.

One day, while I was buying groceries, I noticed a baby, younger than my own, facing me in the shopping cart ahead of me in line. That baby looked at me. Right in the eyes. I didn't notice before, but my baby boy hadn't done that. Ever.

I mentioned this to the neurologist and the pediatrician. It was so hard to convince them that I meant it when I said that I didn't think my baby could see. They tried repeatedly to dissuade me from calling him blind, but can I just tell you this? A mother knows. No matter what. A Mother Really Knows her kid.

There is actually a test they can do when someone is asleep that can tell how much signal gets into the brain through the eyes. My baby failed that test.

When he was 4 months old, we had a follow up appointment with the neurologist. During that appointment, the doctor noted that he seemed to spit up quite a lot. He was a runny faced kid, no doubt, but I didn't think it was too much. He didn't drool ever, but he did give back a lot of his lunch no matter what meal it was.

The neurologist recommended seeing a gastroenterologist and the gastro's recommendation was to start my dude on some Zantac. For real. The same stuff they make for grown ups, only this was for babies.

After one day on the new medicine, his life changed. He didn't scream anymore. Even when he wasn't in his swing.

My baby's tummy was hurting all that time. Ugh! It broke my heart to realize that I didn't notice his reflux. I just thought he spit up a lot. I was able to get over the guilt of that when I realized that while he was on Zantac, he didn't poop. So, they started him on another medicine to help him poop. That was good, though it was a difficult drug to find. It had to be compounded every single refill. If you know me, you know I really stink at the pre-planning crap. So, he'd go a few days without pooping and I'd realize that I should probably get a refill on that magic drug. I would, and he would poop. Amazing!

He started to demonstrate a little bit of a personality during this time and we noted that he was happy. For the first time in his life!

A couple of months later, he started to be fussy again, so I worked with his OT to teach him a couple of signs. He learned 'more' and 'all done' and that met his needs for the next few months. Who would have thought that a developmentally delayed kid would want to communicate at 6 months?? But he did. He really did!

I learned during this time that doctors practice their job and I, as a mother, am expected to actually do mine. I learned that doctors would respect me if I told them 'what for' in a respectful manner. That if I presented my case effectively, they would listen. AND maybe they weren't right at first and that it was my JOB to make sure they kept investigating to find the real answer to my boy's realities.

From the time he was born, lots and lots of prayers were raised asking for healing. Honestly, I was kinda tired of asking God to heal my baby. I had begun to understand and accept that God has until Heaven to heal my baby fully. He will be whole in the end and that's really enough for me.

No matter, there was a healing service at my parents church when my middle (though not yet middle) mann was about a year old. My parents really wanted me to go. They wanted him to be prayed for again. Again. Seriously? I was okay with the fact that my baby wasn't whole here. Since that was very much my plan - to be fine with a baby that was broken - I went to the service. About 5 minutes before it was over, I really needed to get my little boy.

I brought him from the nursery into the service itself and before all was said and done, the pastor prayed with him.

I gotta tell you, I was skeptical at best.

But, my baby was happy the next day and he seriously rolled to a toy. He saw the toy and rolled over to it.

Life was never the same.

Also, the seizures stopped after he was about a month old. It took the better part of a year to get him off meds for it, but I did it. Also, I had the vision test re-done after he rolled to that toy and he passed the second time. That, apparently, isn't supposed to happen.

His development was slow at best. There were therapists that came to our house. There was therapies that we went to about 3 times a week. There was still a lot of fussing and he didn't eat solid food like normal babies. He only nursed. For one and a half years.

Thanksgiving always brought some gift to me from him. His first year, it was a friend we took to the hospital instead of him. The second year? He ate stuffing and drank egg nog! FIRST SOLID FOOD EVER!!!! YAAAY! Unfortunately, Thanksgiving food isn't available all year long. I made egg nog from scratch for a while, but then I just got tired of it and nursed him until he was about 3 years old.

Eventually, he figured out the cup and food. Although, the texture of stuffing remains his favorite.

His development was pretty boring for the next couple of years. Honestly, he didn't change much.

Alas, I did not get really close to his current age, but we're about the 3 years old. That's some progress comparatively! Hopefully, I'll be all caught up in Part VI!

My Middle Mann - Part IV

I brought him home and began the arduous task of trying to understand what all was really going on with my baby. He had doctor's appointments just about every day to follow up with neurologists, developmental pediatricians, and neurosurgeons. When he didn't go to the doctor because of some preventative reason, he was at the doctor trying to figure out why he was so fussy.

He cried all the time. Not a normal, baby needs to cry, kind of cry but the kind of cry that makes even the least affected person want to throw whatever is closest in an effort to make it stop. If he wasn't nursing, he was screaming. Sleep didn't seem to happen for this little guy. Just screaming and eating. Eating and screaming. Hour after hour after hour. Week upon week upon week.

The doctors didn't have any idea why, except that he had such significant brain damage from the bleed in his brain he'd suffered about 4 weeks before he was born.

His massive brain injury occurred while I was pregnant.

I'd been garage sale-ing one warm Saturday afternoon in May in the neighborhood next to my parents. I was walking along with my mom and my Sweetie when suddenly, I dropped to the ground in pain. It took a couple minutes for me to catch my breath. When I was able to stand and then walk again, the baby had dropped and I suddenly had more room to breathe. Something wasn't quite right the rest of the pregnancy. It was terribly uncomfortable. It actually felt like the baby was crooked in there. And the hiccups? Oh how I wished they would stop, but they were pretty constant for the whole last 4 weeks.

I talked to the nurse and the doctor about it and they both told me not to worry. That everything was different with every pregnancy and just because it didn't happen last time doesn't mean it's not perfectly normal this time.

After about 6 weeks of the constant screaming and the daily trips to the pediatrician, I was given a new medication for my little guy. It was to help him sleep. So that he could rest and grow and so that I could a little too. I found out about 7 years later that it was a terribly outdated form of sedation and also that there is no reversal agent for it. Good thing he kept waking up screaming!

I gave him the meds about 3 times a day so he could sleep about 12 hours. It worked that well for about 3 days. Then the number of sleeping hours decreased slowly until he was only sleeping about 4 hours a day. I took him in for some developmental testing when he was about 10 weeks old and they suggested I get a swing for him. One of the sweet battery operated ones.

We went through 3 sets of 4D cell, 100 hour batteries a week for a few months. I know. It's a lot...But! He was able to spend some time awake and not scream during the day and that hadn't happened at all before then. It was a MAJOR improvement. He swung day and night. He would sleep there during the night for a couple of hours at a time. I slept on the couch right next to the swing so I could grab him and try and soothe him as soon as he would wake.

It was a nice change to have the start of a schedule. I was so glad to be living with my family during this time. They helped me so much with my Sweetie and she came with me to all of her brother's appointments, everyday, and was always perfectly behaved. I honestly thought that was normal behavior for a 2 1/2 year old. Little did I know, she was already going on 30 even at that young age.

My Middle Mann - Part III

In those 4 days, his head size increased nearly a full inch and all of it was fluid. It was already huge to start with. During the MRI, the tech let me sit and watch the screen as the images were taken. There was so much about the pictures I was seeing that didn't make sense. Large areas of black. The expected midline was virtually non-existent. I asked tons of questions, but the tech wasn't able to tell me anything. I hadn't seen an MRI before, but I'd read plenty of A&P books in my days to know that much wasn't right.

He was admitted into the NICU and prepped for surgery. All the risks were explained (so I thought) and I signed all the consent forms.

It took about an hour once they took him back.

The creature that was wheeled out of the operating room looked nothing like the baby I gave them. His head was terribly deformed and he looked more like a looney toon than a baby. His forehead was small, but from about the middle of his head back was HUGE! and his cheeks were equally fat. I knew he was mine since the same people brought him out as took him and his arm band said it was him, but oh my, I was physically nauseated at the sight of him. I had bad dreams all that night about how he looked. Even now, I can remember that feeling.

Fear came screaming at me and there was no way to hold it back.

He was plugged in to just about every monitor I knew about and in the NICU, I had to scrub in like a surgeon just to be allowed into his area. Since I've always wanted to be a doctor, the scrubbing in was sorta cool. My hands were terribly dry after a day or so. All in all, his recovery was splendid and on his 7th day, most everything had been disconnected. He was breathing on his own and was nursing. He didn't even have an IV and was discharged to the Special Care nursery in anticipation of discharge from the hospital the following day.

Once in the Special Care nursery, I was responsible to provide him with all of his primary care needs. It was a nice transitional place where skilled support was available if I needed help, but for the most part the job was mine.

He started with some hiccups. I'd had a baby before and I thought maybe feeding him would help the hiccups to stop. It didn't help. He had the hiccups for about 30 minutes before I mentioned it to the nurse. She listened, but really didn't think much of it. She told me to keep an eye on it and let her know if it continued.

Well, it continued for about 4 hours. I reported back to her about every 15 minutes and once she finally stood still long enough to confirm the behavior, she called down to the NICU and let them know about it. I honestly had so little idea about what would become the life of my little boy and was seriously taking in information faster than I knew how to handle. Clarity would elude me for months.

After a couple more confirmed episodes the nurse and I took my baby back to the NICU so they could confirm or deny the existence of the strange hiccups.

There was a new flurry of activity and people wanted me to settle him down and try to get him to sleep and stop moving so much. I tried to convey to them that newborns don't work like that and I was doing my best, but if the arguing directly next to me would move away, it might be easier for me to do what they wanted.

At that point, the neonatologist stepped over to try and break up the argument when I spotted the hiccups again. He took my dude and worked him through that episode of hiccups and said that it was impressive. He ordered up a bunch of meds and looked at me and told me that we wouldn't be going home the next day.

Middle Mann needed to get a new IV placed so they could give him a loading dose of seizure medicine. Getting a new IV in him would prove to be the first of many many procedures where he was simply too strong for 4 adults to hold down. Once they'd tried more than 10 times, I had to leave. They ended up putting a tube down his throat and gave him the meds that way. And he promptly threw most of it up.

And then he slept. For a few days.

About a day after he woke up, they checked his oxygen saturation and hooked him up in the carseat so that he'd have good sats all the way home and we left on day 10 of his life.

My Middle Mann - Part II

The next day that the doctor was open, I got a call from his nurse. She indicated somehow the doctor had noticed that I'd spent some time in the ER and was worried that with so much rejection, I might not come in again until it was too late. She had an appointment waiting for me in about 45 minutes.

My dad took me and the doctor took me back promptly. He confirmed that (SHOCKING) my water had actually broken and I was going to have a baby. Then he directed me to a different room in his office where he had an ultrasound machine. He wanted to make sure the baby was in a good position for delivery and so he started to perform an ultrasound.

He confirmed that the baby was head down and rear facing which was very good. Then he said two words you never really think doctors say. Uh-Oh.

To be clear, doctors shouldn't ever say that. Ever.

He started spouting off a bunch of words I had never heard before and said the whole plan needed to change. I would be going to a different hospital because they were more equipped to handle the baby with the issues that were present and I needed to get there now. It was about 11:30 in the morning.

I didn't even know where that other hospital was or what was really going on. I was scared and unnervingly calm at the same time. I went out into the waiting room and explained to my dad what little I understood. Luckily he knew where the other hospital was and brought both me and Sweetie there.

Having babies involves a lot of hurry up and wait. About 2 hours after we got there, my mom and the rest of my family got there and I was wheeled up for another, official ultrasound where more diagnostics could be assertained.

We learned it was a boy and I told my dad a secret that I had been keeping only from him. I wanted to name my boy after his dad. It was a much better option than Zeek which I'd been toying with outloud and he was very proud.

We also learned that his head was huge and filled with fluid. The doctor promised me that if he had one reason to take the baby cesarean, he would. I met some of the staff from the NICU and was informed that as soon as the baby was born, he would be taken away to the NICU and depending on his state, might be returned to me. This was not a part of the plan in my mind ever, but alas, I did not ultimately have much control over the plan. (a lesson I wish I could remember more often)

They pushed Pitocin through an IV so quickly that my whole arm got super cold and finally at about 7:00 it was time to push and the doctor was out for dinner. Nice. It always works like that, right?

I was moved into a delivery room and encouraged to do my best to wait. Thankfully, I did not have to wait very long. My sister and my mom were in the room with me helping me out. The doctor arrived and I pushed 6 times. On the 6th push, they helped out with a little suction, and then the doctor gave me my baby. My quiet, heavy baby. I held him for about 2 minutes before the nurses scooped him up and I was wheeled back into my room. The hospital staff kept me busy with all sorts of questions and I sent my dad to Taco Bell for dinner.

Eventually, they brought my little guy back to me and said he could stay with me through the night. He was stable and looked pretty healthy. I'd meet with the neurosurgeon in the morning and we'd go from there.

I learned so many words during the next 24 hours and I found out that I knew a bunch of stuff already. Namely, that this little baby was the most stubborn feeder I'd ever met. I tried nursing him for about 3 hours before I started crying in earnest and asked my mom for help. She took the little guy and gave me a break for about an hour. I tried nursing him again and it finally worked a little. Nothing like Sweetie, but he was trying. In hindsight, his struggle to figure it out is quite clear.

The rest of my time in the hospital was very uneventful. In fact, he was discharged with me less than 24 hours after delivery. I was able to bring him home right away. He had an MRI on day 3 and brain surgery was scheduled for day 4. He had hydrocephalous and would need to have an appliance surgically implanted in order to address the significant amount of fluid up there.

My middle mann - Part I

Back in October I wrote a little something something about my Sweetie and I think it's about time to tell y'all a little something about the Middle Mann. There's certainly plenty to talk about when it comes to him, and well, I need to think about something other than what's in my own head right now.

There is a preamble to getting to know my now big-ish dude. I'll spare most of the narsty details and just say that there was a genetic donor who shall remain free of any credit for the awesomeness that is my boy. This procreative participant was in the Army and served in Kuwait following the Desert Storm conflict participating primarily in the clean up following the conflict itself. It is of note, though not scientifically proven, that the kids of those vets have a significantly higher chance of having some sort of impact during the maternal cooking time. (vague enough?)

The whole being pregnant thing sucked just as much the second time as the first less all the morning (who am I kidding? it was all freaking day) sickness. I had other stuff to deal with while I was pregnant, namely finding a new church, moving out of an apartment I couldn't afford, separating my belongings from the jerk donor, obtaining a restraining order to ensure I would not continue to be physically hurt, paying down the $600 phone bill that was racked up during a 60 day deployment to Somalia, and admitting to my family that everything I'd been telling them for the preceeding nearly 2 years was a lie and that I needed help and love and safety.

My family was shocked by all this revelation, but amazingly stepped right back into my life; the life I had completely shut them out of, and they loved all over me without fail or question.

The last six months of my pregnancy proceeded with me living in my parents' house with my 2 1/2 year old Sweetie. I worked hard in my parents house and paid some rent and bought our food. I was on public assistance for the time being, but I only planned on taking about 6 weeks off after I delivered.

Labor eluded me. I learned how it feels to have an irritable uterus. Dehydration was the order of the day. Dehydration which led to cramps and contractions that did little more than tire me out. The weekend before I delivered him, I spent 2 nights at the hospital trying to convince them that my water had broken. To no avail.

Below you will find the most excellent picture of an x-ray I've ever taken. I drew in some cute little red arrows that point so the most amazing fracture in a humerus that I've ever seen.

The only really sad thing is that this fine looking fracture is currently living inside the arm of my 13-year-old little boy. The amazing thing, is that this fracture didn't stop him from enjoying the race at Daytona. Although he fell at school the Thursday before the race, he didn't really get too miserable until Sunday night. Even at that, the pain he experienced still had to be mostly inferred since he didn't actually say, "uuhhh....my arm is pretty sore. sure would be nice if it would feel...uuuhhh...better or somefin'."

He never complained of pain, but the picture shows that there was probably some pretty significant pain inside his little body.

Good news, though! He didn't need any surgery and today, just 2 weeks afterward, he was swinging on a swing without his sling on and he had a great time! He'll wear a sling for about 4 more weeks and then everything should be all healed up.

he made it to daytona!