Eva ~6 Months~

I can’t believe Eva is halfway through her first year of life! Yikes! I would be lying if I said it has flown by because I’ve been brutally aware of every waking moment of her life. That sounds horrible. I don’t mean it in a horrible way it just hasn’t been a piece of cake. I’m hesitant to say it but I’m gonna…life is getting better *knock on wood*! We’ve been having night nurses and I feel alive again! It’s more fun being a mom when you aren’t sleep deprived.

It’s a good thing she’s cute!

 

Eva has been doing a great job of slowly but consistently gaining weight this past month. This was last week at her weigh in for her synagist shot.

Her hair has gotten so long that I can do super cute hairdo’s now

She has gotten really good at making sounds past her trach, I love it! She has perfected her little whimper which she does when she wants to be picked up or lately she does it just because she likes making sounds.

She keeps getting sick which makes her regress when it comes to any progress she has made with her feeds. Today I just started giving her tastes of baby food. She doesn’t love it but she’ll do it for a couple of minutes. I did give her a taste of graham cracker and she LOVED that! She’s still not rolling over and has actually become very stubborn. When I try to do her rolling over therapy she refuses! I guess she’s gonna be lying on her back swatting at toys until she’s 5! No, I know she won’t be but she sure is trying to stress me!

I love my girl and I love this stage she is in. She has such a cute personality and I’m just enjoying so much about her!

Oh Aidan

This face…

I just love it!

As you can see, his front teeth are FINALLY coming in! He has missed them. I think little kids always look so funny when their adult teeth come in because they haven’t grown in to them yet. Can’t believe my little boy is already at that stage:(

He’s so grown up, he goes to school every morning with the kids in our cul-de-sac.

I think that this little uniform was one of Rich’s best purchases because Aidan has loved it! He will randomly decide he wants to be just like daddy and run and put it on. We might have to buy him a bigger one soon!

I’m so proud of the progress he has made in school. He is becoming an excellent ready and while he struggle with math, he is still progressing. He loves checking out books from the school library. This was his most recent choice.

He’s growing up so fast!

Night Nurse

After I got shingles Rich and I opened up the night nurse conversation again. I’ve been very stubborn and have not wanted anybody to take care of Eva but me. I finally agreed to give it a shot with the condition that if I decided I didn’t LOVE it we wouldn’t do it. The nursing director came to my house to get us all set up and papers signed and brought along the nurse that would be taking care of Eva that night. I liked her ok but didn’t feel any real connection with her. I was fine with giving her a shot. She came over Monday night at 11pm and stayed until 7am. That night I didn’t get much sleep because I felt like I needed to watch Eva on the baby monitor all night.

The nurse was supposed to come back the next night but we got a call that she had the flu! Honestly, I was relieved because I wasn’t really feeling her anyways. The nurse that  was offered to us as a replacement was described to me as “one that has mixed reviews”. Mixed reviews???? Uhhhh…no thanks! Only 5 star nurses for my baby, thank you very much! I told them that we would just like to take the week off.

We immediately looked into another nursing company called Ivy Lane. After speaking with them on the phone we thought we would give them a shot and see if they had any better options for nurses. The director came over on the following Monday and brought along the nurse that would be watching Eva that night. Her name is Chee and I immediately loved her! She reminded me of my close friend from my mission, Kulia. This was the feeling that I wanted to have when it came to the person that was going to be watching my baby while I was sleeping. Chee asked me tons of questions about Eva and specific details about how I like her to be cared for. After they left I was so excited for her to come back that night. She did come back and did a great job taking care of Eva (I watched her on the monitor). It was awesome knowing that I was going to be able to rest well in the future.

Chee took care of Eva on Monday and Tuesday night and then they sent me a “very experienced” nurse named Jami. She got here a little after 11pm and when she walked in she expected to go straight back to Eva’s room. I had never met her and she had never met Eva so this really shocked me! She had read Eva’s file but her file just gives medical facts, it doesn’t say anything about her personal preferences like what helps her fall back to sleep if she wakes up in the middle of the night or how I like to handle her when she is about to throw up. I asked her if she wouldn’t mind sitting with me in the living room so I could give her a little run down on Eva and she looked at me like, seriously??? We did sit down together and the whole time I was talking to her she was looking at me like she was so bored. I was really annoyed. I wanted to give her a chance since she came very highly recommended.

Jami went to the room with Eva and I went to bed…to stare at the monitor all night. At around 2am Eva needed to be suctioned and I watched as she put the catheter down her trach 3 times in a row, gagging her each time. She was going too far! I immediately jumped out of bed and went into Eva’s room. I said to her, “Are you just suctioning to the 8?” to which she responded, “Uh huh!” I said, “Ok, I just wanted to make sure because on the monitor it looked like you were going down too far.” I could tell by the look on her face that she had forgotten that I had a video monitor on. I went back to bed and watched as she suctioned to the 8 the rest of the night…JERK!

In the morning I went in and she was all chatty. I was super annoyed with her and unimpressed. Nurses like her are the very reason I was so reluctant to trust my baby with anybody. I was very short with her and as she left she said, “See you next week!” I responded, “Ok!” As soon as the office opened I called the nurse scheduler and had her remove Jami from our schedule and told her why.

The next night Chee came with a new nurse named Erika. I got the same feeling with Erika as I did with Chee, an instant connection. Chee spent the whole night teaching Erika all about Eva so that if I liked her she could come back and watch her the next night. Of course, I loved her so she came back last night and did a great job. I’m so grateful that Rich convinced me to give this whole nursing thing a shot because now that we’ve found 2 great nurses I feel completely comfortable letting them watch her while I sleep. I’m grateful for good people who really care about how they treat others and have such a gentle and good spirit about them. We are so blessed to have these wonderful women in our home and as a part of Eva’s life.

Eva ~5 Months~

I guess I should hurry up and post this picture since she will be 6 months old before I know it! I need to be a little more consistent with taking her monthly picture.

Here’s my girl!

Happenings…

Just another random post of our random happenings. These are what matter after all, right?

I’m gonna start with mini momma. She loves to pretend she is big and carry Eva. Truthfully, Eva is usually uncomfortable but I figure she’s not going to be small enough for Maya to be able to carry for too long so I let her enjoy her big sis priviledge. I’d also like to note Eva’s matted hair on the back of her head.

Arabella got her very first ever pimple.

She was so cute this day. She grabbed a stack of books and curled up in her sleeping bag where she read for almost an hour. She bought that sleeping bag with the money that Nana Jackie sent her for her birthday and has slept in it every night since.

Aidan wanted this hat so bad! When you squeeze the end of one of the flaps the ears pop up. He was so excited to wear it to school the next morning that he laid out his outfit the night before.

He didn’t actually wear it to school because he was worried about getting teased but instead took it in his backpack. He pulled it out right after school and it was a huge hit with all of the kids on his walk home. He did wear it the next day:D

 

Rich changed the sheets AND made the bed for the very first time this last weekend. Noteworthy.

It’s hard to tell from this angle but the nose is still attached and she is licking it. It’s her favorite chew toy these days.

This is the very moment right after Eva pulled off her nose for the first time. Oh great! We are in for it now.

After her nap.

We had to go to the clinic to have her weighed for her synagist shot. She hates the carseat.

Her weight as of a week and a half ago.

 

In other news, I got shingles! Apparently, when you are way too stressed and way too sleep deprived stuff like that happens. This is what they look like after they’ve gotten bad enough that I’m sure I need to go in to the clinic to have it checked out. This is on the right side of my stomach.

There is another spot on my side and back. This is the day before it got really bad. They later became excruciatingly painful…actually my whole torso hurt. After 5 days of steroids(which caused depression, by the way) and 7 days of an antiviral, I’m feeling much better. Lesson’s I’ve learned: Take care of myself and don’t blog when I’ve had a depressing day. People start to worry about my mental state.

 

Everyday life is good.

Choosing Joy

A good friend of mine had her baby today! I have been so excited for her and thinking about her all day just waiting to hear the news of the arrival of her baby boy. She went in early in the morning and I heard from her that she was doing well around 10:30. I checked Facebook all day waiting for the announcement and when 4:30 came and I still hadn’t heard anything I started to have anxiety. All of these crazy thoughts started popping into my head of what could possibly be going wrong. About 15 minutes later the picture of her sweet baby was posted on Facebook. He was bundled up peacefully in her arms and it made me cry. I wasn’t crying out of happiness for her though, I was crying out of sadness for me. I’m crying right now just thinking about it. I know that sounds horrible and I felt horrible about it! That is why I had to do some serious soul searching.

 

Today I came to a realization…I AM TRAUMATIZED.

 

Giving birth, for me, has always been a day filled with sadness and heartache. Of course there is the physical pain of the actual birth but that goes so far on the back burner and is totally and completely overshadowed by the emotional pain of what my babies have had to go through. Even my 13 hour long, epidural free, pitocin driven delivery of Aidan is not what has stayed with me. The second he came out and was taken away, none of that pain mattered. I still remember that it was excruciating but those memories fade. What hasn’t faded is the emotional distress that I felt of not knowing if my baby was alive or dead. The fact that he is a strong, smart, handsome, loving 6 year old today doesn’t change the emotional scars that were formed that day.

 

The day that Maya was born was one of the happiest days of my life. I can’t say that about any of my other births. It’s not that I’m not grateful and it’s not that I don’t feel blessed that they were born but their birth days were sad. Maya was my one and only joyous birth. The scar from Aidan’s birth made it’s presents known when the very first thing that came out of my mouth when Maya was born was, “Is she breathing?” She was, and I had genuinely never felt so much pure joy as I did when I got to hold my newborn baby girl.

 

Arabella’s birth was equally as traumatic as Aidan’s. This one left Rich scarred as well. Aidan was taken away before we could know his condition so everything was left up to our fearful imaginations. Arabella went into cardiac arrest right before our eyes. The doctor performed CPR while Rich stood there watching and pleading with God for the life of his baby girl. Weeks after her birth he was having anxiety and flash backs. How can a person not be left with scars?

 

Then there was Eva. Of the 3 with the condition, we were the most prepared with her. We were 100% prepared as far as the medical aspect of it went. I knew that that was the easy part. The hard part is being emotionally prepared. I did not fear for her life when she was born and that made the day so much less traumatic. Knowing that it was going to be a long road and that it was going to be hard and mourning the loss of my dream of having a “healthy” baby were all emotional hurdles that I needed to overcome.

 

With Aidan, Arabella and Eva, the very first time I got to see or touch them was when I was wheeled into the NICU.

 

After seeing my friends baby in her arms and being filled with sadness, I felt guilty. Why can’t I just be happy for her? I spent the rest of the day thinking. I realized that I AM happy for her. It’s not a sadness for her good fortune, it’s those scars that are associated with the births of my kids that brought the tears. It has nothing to do with who is pictured. Those pictures are a representation of some of the worst days of my life when for most mothers it is a representation of what I felt with Maya…pure joy. I remember crying like a baby when I held my newborn nephew in the hospital shortly after Arabella was born. It wasn’t because I wasn’t happy for my sister-in-law, it was because I longed for that same joyous experience.

 

I look back on how I handled each experience and I can see how far I have come. I can see that I have learned to choose joy. I am so different from how I was after I had Aidan. I felt so sorry for myself and to be honest I felt a little angry. I cried almost every single day for months. I let my circumstances define me-I had a baby with special needs thus my life is sad and hard. I don’t want to minimize my struggles because it was extremely and overwhelmingly hard BUT it didn’t help that I had not learned to choose joy.

 

Today, I have joy. Yes, it is hard and yes it sucks but can I choose to be happy and not let my focus be on how I wish it was? I can spend my days thinking about all of  the negatives. Counting the millions of times I have to suction her or dwelling on the things that I’m missing out on like nursing and hearing her voice. Those things all had their moment. I mourned them and I let them go. There is just too much good to be focusing on the bad.

 

The scars of my hardships came out for me today. While it made me sad for a bit, I’m glad that I had the opportunity to decide not to dwell on them in a negative way but instead to think about my journey and how those scars played such a big part in my becoming who I am today.

Making Progress

Now that Eva is well she is beginning to make progress. She has overcome her oral aversion and we are seeing an occupational therapist to teach her how to suck as she has completely forgotten how. She is keeping down all of her formula and we are working on getting her off of the continuous feeds. It’ll be nice to not have her attached to that darn pole 24/7. We are finally consistently doing tummy time. She’s getting a late start but I know she will catch right up.

She is such a good and happy baby! If it weren’t for all of the work that comes along with the trach and feeding tube, she would be such an easy baby. She rarely cries and is just all smiles most of the time.

Of course I noticed I was out of focus halfway through the video. It doesn’t take away from her cute laugh:D

Rich and I were a little worried that because of all of the attention Eva requires that the kids would be jealous or resentful. That has not been our experience at all. They love her more than anything and spend their day baby talking to her. It is the sweetest thing to see how much they adore her.

Maya is very attentive to her and always lets me know if she thinks Eva needs to be suctioned or if Eva is sad. She will be sitting, entertaining Eva and if she needs to leave her she will assign Arabella to entertain her. Aidan is constantly singing to her. He makes up the cutest songs and just goes on and on and on.

This video is the perfect example of our every day life. If Eva is on the floor or on the couch, they are all crowded around her. It’s about a month and a half old but nothing has changed.

Big brother with his baby sister. She is his world!

Our lives have had to revolve so much around Eva and the kids have joined in on that. As she is now making so much progress and life is changing, I’m able to spend a little more time with the older kids. I feel like my kids deserve an award or something for the way they have handled the last few months, haha! They never complained and have been so helpful. I’m thinking Rich and I are going to need to do something really special for them once life is “normal”…we shall see!