the no good, very bad week: a tale in three parts

Crisis #1.

Last Sunday was going along pretty normally. It's typically Laundry Day around here, so we buzz around the house, doing chores, watching movies and eating snacks. That afternoon Sam was having just such a snack while The Husband and Lydia were entertaining themselves with a book or somesuch in her room when suddenly . . .

Ka-doosh! The entire contents of Sam's dinner comes right back out of him and up onto me. Keep in mind I'm still nursing this child, so I was at point blank range. It came up through his nose and mouth. He looked as shocked as I was. He also looked NOT DONE.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed, hopping him up in my lap just in time for another wave to hit as The Husband came running in to see what all the hubbub was about. EVERYTHING came up, all the milk that he had consumed that day. It was downright freaky to see an infant throw up like that. Lydia never did this with us. This . . . this was new.

After we all got cleaned up Sam seemed a bit exhausted from his little event so he napped in my arms for a while. I tentatively let him nurse again a bit later and he kept it down then slept some more. Maybe it was a one-time thing.

Oh, alas. After his next feeding, he threw up again as Lydia shouted, "Eww! Milk! Messy!" We knew I would be calling the doctor the next day. Something seemed to be amiss.

Monday came around and Sam seemed like my normal baby boy again. He kept down breakfast and when I spoke to his doctor's office on the phone they said just to watch him to make sure he was wetting diapers and bring him in if he throws up anymore. There was none of that, however, and we sat on the couch, watching documentaries and episodes of Mythbusters.

Crisis #2

Back at work on Tuesday, I was glad to be getting back to my normal routine and ready for a calmer week. That evening The Husband was planning on going out to dinner with some co-workers from his office so it was going to be just me and the kids. Near the end of the day I was mentally planning dinner in my head while heading toward the front office to leave when a co-worker told me I had a call waiting.

And it was The Daycare. Uh oh. Lydia fell . . . I hear "Lydia fell" a few times and I remember waiting for the other shoe to drop -- I thought her arm was going to be broken. Lydia fell and busted her head on the floor . . . she's okay . . . she might need a stitch. A stitch. Stitches. STITCHES.

As my mental gears shifted into Child Recovery Mode my first few drafts of the afternoon actually involved just me getting the kids, then the stitches, then home so The Husband could still have his night out. Then I realized that might be silly and after I got everything worked out, I had an appointment in hand for Lydia at Children's Hospital, The Husband would meet us there along with his mother so she could take the now non-barfing Sam home.

Off I go to The Daycare and there is Lydia right in the front office, happy as a clam from eating all the M&M's she wants and a small gash of sorts on her forehead. To tell the truth, it looked worse to me when I saw it than what I imagined over the phone. I mean, yikes.

Children are gathered, Lydia gets a temporary Band-Aid, and up we go to Children's off of Acton Road, where I first run by a McDonald's since a hungry Lydia is an extremely ornery Lydia.

Being two years old, Lydia is only so willing to cooperate with ordeals like this. Thankfully there were awesome toys in the waiting room, and Wi-Fi for The Husband. Once we entered The Room Of Serious Business, however, there are no toys and Lydia ups the uncooperativeness level. Even the Spongebobs on the wall cease to amuse her.





Lydia ends up receiving three stitches. How do you give a two-year-old three stitches, you ask? Why, you strap her down to a papoose board! Ohh, can you just hear the screaming? My poor sweet baby girl, she was just beside herself with fear. It was horrible. The Husband and I both tried to talk to her and sooth her the best we could but the situation was just too alien and Lydia was just too young to truly understand. It took between ten to twenty minutes to stitch her up, but to all of us (the doctor and nurse included) it felt like an hour.

Once Lydia received her Badge of Honor and was unstrapped she was much happier in The Husband's arms while eating some Teddy Grahams and apple juice. I was mentally shot and was using the rest of my strength to keep from dissolving into tears. Can you believe my first thought was to go through this by myself with Sam in tow??

"What a horrible day," I mumbled to The Husband as I crawled into bed beside him that night.



Crisis #3

Remember Sam and the throwing up? Okay, good. Just checking.

It's Friday, I'm at work, finishing up my lunch at 11:00 a.m. because I'm starving. I get a call; it's The Daycare -- Sam's teacher. Sam's throwing up, continuously, everything came up, and now he is dry heaving. I call the doctor and set up an appointment for 4:00 p.m. and head off to get Sam.

When I arrive, his teacher's in the process of changing him out of his third outfit of the day, and he is PALE. I have never seen someone so ghastly pale, and here is my son, my baby four-month-old son, white as a sheet. I scoop him up and hold him in my arms. He is limp; absolutely exhausted from heaving, but five minutes later he has another wave of dry heaves.

I am pretty worried, and I'm also thinking that 1) I'm not waiting until a 4:00 appointment, and 2) I can't drive the 30 minutes to his pediatrician alone with him in the backseat, worried that he will have another wave of dry heaves and start to choke on the bile he's forcing up.

I call The Husband and ask him to meet me at The Daycare so we can ride together to the doctor, then call the doctor again to explain how Sam looks and they say I can head right up there.

It takes The Husband a good 30 minutes to get there and it's a long 30 minutes indeed. Sam looks worse and worse while I'm there waiting, and I amend my plan again for us to head to a closer satellite office of the pediatrician once The Husband arrives.

He finally gets there and we zoom to the satellite office with me in the back, perched oddly on Lydia's carseat monitoring Sam.

At the satellite office they check Sam over to make sure he's responsive and has good oxygen levels, and a nurse talks to our regular office to make sure we can be brought to our pediatrician as soon as we arrive there.

Off we head to our regular doctor's office and are immediately brought back into a waiting room. Finally, after a few hours of poking, blood-taking, and a urine sample (obtained via sticky baggie), we had a diagnosis: a urinary tract infection. He most likely has had it all week, poor baby.

We head home with a prescription for an antibiotic in hand and a happier outlook ahead. Diagnosis made! Problem solved! All's well that ends well . . . right?

The entire family eventually gathers back at the house and it's decided that Lydia can still go to the Fall festival that The Daycare is holding that night along with The Husband and his mom. That way The Husband can retrieve his car that was left there earlier in the day, and I will stay home with poor Sam.

Our first attempt to give Sam his medicine fails miserably -- he barfs it right back up before The Husband even finishes giving it to him. Well, I can't blame him too much. He still must be feeling quite unsettled and the medicine didn't come in breastmilk flavor. Off go Lydia (dressed as Frankenstein, of course), The Husband, and Grandma to the festival while I figure I'll attempt the medicine again along with a milk chaser.

On the second attempt of the medicine, the addition of the milk to help make it go down did no good at all. Everything just came right back up and Sam looked miserable again. Well, this was doomed to failure. I called the after hours nurse, who agreed that this just wasn't going to work, and I quickly found myself for the second time this week heading up to Children's Hospital.



The Husband met me there (Lydia went home for the night with her grandparents) with a now-wailing Sam. His vitals were taken and we were given some Pedialyte to give him, but he would have none of that. After a bit, they asked us to try some milk, which Sam was much more willing to gulp down. More blood was taken, this time a whole mess of blood via a vein in his arm; and another urine sample was retrieved, this time by a catheter. Poor Sam was starting to look a little distrustful of us.

These tests told us again what we already knew; they were just trying to figure out whether or not they wanted to admit him into the hospital. By the time the urine test came back Sam had eaten a few times so it was decided that if he did not throw up any more, they would give him a shot of a decently potent antibiotic to bypass his unsettled stomach and we would go for a checkup in the morning. Thankfully, Sam kept everything down, so the shot was received and we finally left a bit before midnight.

We all slept in a bit the next morning, even Sam, before finally dredging ourselves out of bed for one last doctor's visit. Sam already looked ten times better and the doctor was pleased with how he was doing. We finally left to gather Lydia and head over to my father's house to have a normal, football-watchin' afternoon.



Epilogue

And if I ever see a doctor's office again, it'll be too soon, right? Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean we don't have any plans to go back.

Though Lydia's stitches are dissolvable, we go back next Tuesday to have them removed in order to decrease any scarring for her. She probably will always have some sort of scar there, however. The way she's been tripping and running into walls this weekend, I also suspect they won't be her last set of stitches, too.

As for Sam, it is apparently rare enough for a young child to get a UTI so that when it happens, they have to go in later for additional testing to see what, if anything, caused the infection. In many cases, there is a congenital reason that causes the urine to back up into the kidneys, creating the UTI. So, in about a month or so, Sam will find himself back at Children's Hospital, undergoing some testing of his renal system to see if there was any specific cause of his infection. If there is, then we shall cross that bridge when we get to it. I can't worry much more about it now.

As for today, I am just thankful that my children are happy, healthy (or getting there), and cute.

sputnik; three months in orbit

Sam is now three months old; a quarter of a year! When you're eating and sleeping, time can really fly by.



Poor Sam, he's definitely the Second Child. This month I really began comparing him to Lydia and her Awesomeness of Sleeping Through The Night At TEN WEEKS OLD. She started one night at ten weeks and never looked back. Sleeps through hurricanes, that one.

Sam is a trickster and likes to mess with my mind. The ten week mark came. It went. Sam was still popping up promptly at 2:00 a.m. for that bleary-eyed feeding. I began to wonder if I'll find myself up at 2:00 a.m. until he goes off to college.



Into his 13th week he slept through the night in the sense that he didn't require a feeding. A bit of cuddling was needed but, hey! a step in the right direction. The next night, however, he decided cuddling just doesn't cut it and back to 2:00 a.m. we went.

A week later, Sam did his trick again, but only for a night. It was not until his 16th week he started sleeping consistently through the night, and that's only been eight or nine days in a row now, so let's not jinx this too much yet. Even now I wonder: will I get a full night's sleep tonight??



Another sibling difference is in the paci department. Lydia was (is) a paci kinda girl. We've whittled her down to naps and nighttime, but God help us when she was a bit younger and we found ourselves out and about and the Paci Cannot Be Found.

Sam is incredibly fond of his left thumb, a habit I'm trying vainly to break him of. It's one thing to wean him off a paci in a few years, but you can't tell him to put his thumb "night-night" when he wakes up in the morning. I will admit, though, it does help during the night. He can't lose his thumb like Lydia did her paci. I have found myself on my hands and knees in the dead of night many a time hunting for that little treasure, her piercing cries cutting through the dark.



His smiles have broken out in full force this month. He coos away at me in the morning while I do my multitude of things in the morning before we all haul off to our respective places. Sam seems to be a morning person like Lydia (you just can't help but compare the two all the time, it seems) and he prefers to be where the people are. That seems to suit Lydia just fine, who was positively thrilled when Sam had some tummy time on the floor with her.



The past few days the weather has decided to bless us with a slight decrease in humidity -- it's September and football is approaching. Sam is spiffed up in his Auburn finest and looking a bit like his Uncle Jason. It took me a while to be able to get his picture without his sister in the frame.

sputnik; two months in orbit

Today Sam turns two months old, but he looks about the size of Lydia at four months old. During this past month we have found out that Sam likes to EAT. Holy moly, he can put it away. Even now I can hear him beginning to wake up behind me, smacking his lips in anticipation of his next meal. He has already doubled his birth weight -- he did that a few weeks ago. His next goal is to surpass Lydia's weight.



Due to all the growing, he's quickly busting out of a lot of clothes. Just yesterday it took me three tries to get an outfit on him; the first two wouldn't go over his head. Anything smaller than 3 months just isn't going to cut it, and the 3 month sleepers won't last long. We'll be shopping in 6Ts before Christmas.

Sam has been more awake this month but, as with Lydia, he isn't sure what to do with himself when he's awake but not necessarily hungry, so he defaults to fussy. This time, The Husband and I are from the Been There Done That Club and early in the month we preemptively ditched the swaddling for footie jammies at nighttime, which has resulted in much less screaming.



Don't get me wrong, there have been some wonderful gassy episodes, but they don't seem to last as long as Lydia's did (*knock on wood*). Sam's gassy times will consist of ten to fifteen minutes of crying, followed by a fart and more whimpering into sleep, then he'll start up with some crying again to repeat the cycle, which goes for about an hour or two.

Last week Sam started attending daycare with his sister. Everyone there was excited to finally have him. So far Sam seems fine with it -- he especially loves all the fantastic swings they have. I usually find him conked out in one when I come to pick him up.

Lydia is loving him more and more. When she hears him fuss she goes a-running, she hands him his paci and his blanket whether he needs it or not, and if we're about to go home from a visit with someone she becomes quite insistent that Sam must be put in his carseat RIGHT NOW and she'd rather do it herself if we would let her.



Sam isn't going to care so much about the cats or even rely on The Husband and I to entertain him when he's older. He's only going to have eyes for Lydia.

the launch of Sputnik, part I (countdown)

Wednesday, May 26th, started out as a typically normal day. The only difference was the noticeable pain I felt when I got up that morning. It wasn't a come-and-go contract-y pain, just a constant, aching pain that a long sleep usually would chase away. Oh well. We get ready for the morning, I rouse Lydia, drop her off at daycare, and head in to work.

By mid-morning, I knew I would be calling my OB at some point in the day because I was finding myself gripping the side of my desk. I wasn't having contractions other than the occasional Braxton-Hicks -- this was a constant pain encompassing my entire abdomen and back. I waited before calling, though, because I was afraid I was just being a wussy and I had work stuff to do.

I finally called and left a message at the nurses' station around lunch, horrified with myself to hear my voice breaking when I tried to describe the pain. Come on, Carrie, it's not that bad! Wuss. I continued about my day and waited for the call, figuring they would tell me to cool it for the rest of the day and come in for my regularly scheduled appointment tomorrow.

When the nurse called me back (while I was on the phone with an extremely talkative customer, of course) they actually wanted me to come in so they could make sure I was not in labor. They asked if I was close by and I said, "No, I'm in Pelham," but she insisted that was fine and to come on in.

I finished up what I could at work and drove up to the doctor's office, where I supposed they would check me out, tell me to take it easy, and send me home. Only they didn't. They wanted to see if I was having back labor pains, and if I was in labor, my OB said she'd let me labor since I was at 36 weeks. Apparently she'd been busy that day -- she'd delivered four babies already (all 34 weekers) and she delivered at least one more before the day was out. The full moon was in effect.

So down to Labor and Delivery I went. Time to tell The Husband. I sent him a quick text to let him know they were just monitoring me for a couple of hours but he needed to pick up The Girlie. I wasn't getting clear information on how long I'd be there (could be a few hours, could be overnight, could be in labor) so I wasn't sure what to plan for here.

Now I must make a confession. The Husband and I were planning on being all secretive about Sputnik's launch just the same as Lydia's arrival. I know, I know -- I'm horrible, simply horrible. A beast, even. I was conniving with my sister on the What To Do With Lydia end of things. Of course, all this was based on how Lydia's birth went down -- totally planned, no hitches, no surprises, nada. Finding myself in L&D 36 weeks in was not in the plan.

Once they started hooking me up to IVs and had me signing papers related to birthin' babies, I knew there was a big chance the cat could be out of the bag and that was just the end of it. The Husband and I thought we had another three weeks to a month and so much was yet to be done. Right after they gave me some awesome pain medication, The Husband gave me a call, wondering if he should be there with me and have his parents get The Girl. "Yes, I think so," I probably slurred.

So, not quite knowing my thoughts yet on what to do about the situation, The Husband called his parents and asked them to get Lydia, citing our doing of "secret important things," and got to my side pronto. We decided that Sputnik didn't agree with our plans of secrecy or mode of planning so we were just going to have to wing it. While waiting to find out what was actually going on with me, we began making lists of what was left to be done, what I needed at the hospital if I actually was in labor, and what was left to buy. It was a long list.

After about an hour that pain medication wore off and, ohhh, it hurt. I was on a contraction and heart rate monitor by now and I wasn't having regular contractions (about two an hour) though there was some uterine irritability, but I don't know if that was what was painful. The nurses decided to give me some demerol in my IV. They asked if I had had that medicine before and I had back when my wisdom teeth were removed. So in goes the demerol and they said it would take about 15 minutes to take effect.

Within a few minutes I felt very lightheaded in a way that you feel when your blood pressure drops, and I think that is what scared me the most. I felt like I was going to faint, and that led into my first painic attack of the week. All I could get out where the words, "faint, faint!" and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Thank goodness The Husband was there, he held my hand and kept talking to me, trying to calm me down. I think that lasted about 15 minutes before I felt like I wasn't going to die and could safely rest.

My OB did elect to keep me there overnight for observation, so The Husband stayed with me and slept on one of those dastardly chairs. I think by this time he had notified immediate family as to what was going on, along with my office. I was pretty out of it by then.

The next morning my doctor felt pretty confident that I was not going into labor, though she said she wouldn't be surprised if I did over that holiday weekend. I was still hurting but wasn't even about to try any more demerol. I was given some percoset and that helped. My doctor was not sure why I was in so much pain but she did not think there was any grave concern for me or the baby, and if I was a week further along she would have gone ahead and induced me then. Since I was a week away from being full term, she wanted me to see a specialist just to make sure there was nothing she was missing, then just relax at home over the weekend and if I was still hurting (and still pregnant) the next week when I did reach full term, she would just induce me.

Before heading home we went by the specialist (the same one that first declared Sputnik to be a boy) and he also did not see anything of great concern that would be causing the pain, though he had no idea what could be hurting so bad. What I remember him saying was, "I wouldn't take a million dollars to be pregnant." I think he was trying to be funny but he just failed miserably. Don't say that to pregnant ladies, especially ones who are hurting so bad they're on narcotics.

So home we went for the Memorial Day weekend. Suddenly it was crunch time; launch might be imminent.

June 2, 2010

After a long week ending with a flurry of sudden c-section action, Mr. Samuel has arrived.

the slow countdown to liftoff

Poor Samuel. Someday when he's eight or nine he'll be reading this site and go, "Moooooooom, you never wrote about me like you did Lyyyyyyyyydiaaaaa!," in a whiny voice.

And I'll say, "Well sweetie, that's because Lydia was being whiiiiiiny all the time back then, just like you are now, only with a dash of tantrums included. My poor pregnant self had no time to write about the quiet child all cozy inside of me."

But Lydia is choosing to sleep late this morning (the best Mother's Day gift ever!) so I'm stealing a moment.

Sputnik is chugging along; I'm 33 1/2 weeks right now, so I've started that long 10-week march -- 6 1/2 weeks, 6 1/2 weeks -- and I am ever so ready. I have carried this one higher than Lydia and it's been tougher to breathe and eat, though apparently I don't look all that pregnant, just thicker. In fact, I'm not even wearing maternity shirts! My regular ones are getting by just fine. I do have the stretchy pants, though, as my hips have totally stretched out. Good for birthin'.

A few weeks ago we finally got a move on the room, and it is now painted and muralized. I always wanted to paint murals on my walls as a kid (my plan then was to paint dolphins and killer whales) but I was never allowed, so now I get to paint on my kids' rooms. Life is awesome!









As with Lydia's room two years ago, I painted all this the day I was off for my birthday, though this time I managed to completely wear myself out and was practically immobile by Sunday.

Even with the former office turning into another nursery, Lydia really has no clue. All she said when we got the crib together was, "Night night! Night night!" and motioned to be let in the crib. Oh man, her world is gonna be rocked. Ours too, baby girl, ours too.

sputnik update

Figured I'd give a little Sputnik update. He is growing, and it's starting to get noticeable. I've got two pairs of 'normal' pants that still work for me, though one of them I have to jerryrig with hairbands, but the rest of my pants are now of the maternity sort. The saggy, baggy, want-to-hang-below-your-butt maternity pants, oh how I hate them. There's got to be a better way to do pregnancy clothing.

At least my regular shirts are still good.

Sputnik is a big kicker; I see dancing or kickboxing in this kid's future. He can almost hurt.

I passed the oh so fun glucose test last week so FOOD FOR ME! As we speak The Husband is on his way to the Dairy Queen to fetch me a hot fudge sundae that I was denied yesterday (Lyida told me, "No!")

The Braxton Hicks contractions have started up as well, especially if I do too much or sit in a car for a long period of time. Fifteen more weeks of these? Where's my sundae?!

Ooh, I hear The Husband now! Yay!

general familial update

Mea culpa for the absence. My body has not enjoyed pregnancy near as much this time around, so for the last month or so I have been fighting the Virus of Death. I finally got rid of it a few weeks ago, but now I have strept throat. Again. The doctors keep telling me my immune system just isn't going to function as well right now, being with child and what, so . . . waiting for June ever so much here.

Today we received bonifide confirmation that Sputnik is indeed a boy. He is measuring right on target at 48% percentile and is currently sitting breech. Hopefully he'll re-situate himself before long.

I started feeling him wiggle around about a week and a half ago so it's nice to know he's kicking around in there. Just like with Lydia, I'm not really showing yet. I have to be nakers to really tell and only The Husband gets those kind of privileges (if that's what you want to call it).

Lydia has no awareness of the brother that is coming and, really, it's kinda tough to explain to a 19 month old who lives in the ever-present and NOW something huge that is coming in five months. We'll have to wait for the time to get closer and for her to level up a bit.

Speaking of Lydia, she is growing by leaps and bounds lately, especially her hair. Sometimes I think she could use a bit of a trim -- it's getting in her eyes -- but when I mention this to The Husband he yelps as if hurt. I would pull it back into a ponytail but she won't let me mess with it. However, there is someone at daycare she will trust her red locks to. I wonder how they gained that trust? She came home this afternoon looking like this, and I about died from cuteness:



Sometimes she tries her own hand with her hair. At her cousin's house last weekend, she figured her Aunt Cathy's potato soup would make a wonderful hair mousse.



And the speaking, oh! the speaking! She's a veritable chatterbox, even if she's telling you a story in complete babble. She'll pull out a book and tell you all about it in her own language. She knows some of the Queen's English, too. She's got perhaps 15 to 20 words she knows and uses, and she will parrot back just about any word you say to her. This can get you in trouble if you aren't thinking about what you're saying around her.

There's an attitude there, too. She will point her finger at Renton if he gets too close to her toys and say, "No no no!" Sometimes she points that finger at us. She's got sass.

Lydia's got a kind heart as well. If you ever need a hug or kiss, just ask her for one and she is always willing to oblige. She gives the sweetest kisses. There is just no better thing she could ever give me.

Sputnik is . . . aptly named?

This past Friday I had an appointment for a screening test. It's basically an ultrasound and bloodwork to check for chromosomal abnormalities. No biggie, we did the same thing with Lydia mainly because, hey!, another ultrasound. Why not.

With Lydia we went downtown but now they're offering the test at our hospital so the drive's a bit easier. So in the ultrasound room we go, the tech gooks up the wand and asks, "If we're able to tell the sex of the baby, do you want to know?"

Uh, okay, sure. But at 12 weeks? Good luck with that, lady.

So off she goes to get her pictures and measurements. Sputnik is just as cooperative as Lydia was in utero. Then she says, "Okay, based on the angle of this here and yada yada yada, it's a boy. Welcome to the world of Star Wars."

A what? For real?

No fooling?

See, Steven and I have been living in the Land of Pink for about two years now, and we've just gotten used to that. So we're kinda floored, actually.

The doctor came in a few minutes later and said that was his guess as well. I asked him how sure he was and without missing a beat he replied, "95% sure." Then Sputnik proceeded to curl up in a ball like a cat while the doctor unsuccessfully tried to get a profile shot of his face for the actual screening test.

So, there you have it. I'm not about to paint the nursery yet or anything, but . . . Star Wars and Pokemon and whatever else it is boys like. God knows I have no clue right now. We have baby dolls and tea sets over here.