Well it wasn't leprosy...

Well it certainly wasn't leprosy but in my opinion it was just as bad. Now I hesitate to write what happened to my family today because oh my gosh it was just horrible and I feel like the worst mom in the whole world. I am beating myself up enough that I really don't want anyone else beating me up too. However I figure if you have been keeping up with our blog over the past couple of weeks, you are all just sitting on the edge of your seats just waiting to hear what happened to our family next. So yesterday my doctor put me on some medication to take every eight hours to help my uterus contract to get out the blood clots. Well since it was every eight hours I had to take a dose in the middle of the night. First you have to understand that we have an alarm system so at night we set it to turn on the laser in the main part of the house. So in order to go out into the kitchen we would have to unset the alarm, which is loud and it wakes up Dutch so we try not to ever have to do that. So I took the pill bottle with me to my room and set it on my night stand so I could take my middle of the night dose. Now I never keep medication in my room I always have it in the kitchen. So this morning dawned bright and sunny and we were all getting ready for the day. David had already left for school. Dutch was playing in my room while I was blow drying my hair. Pretty normal routine at our house. I am constantly checking on Dutch. And when I looked up I saw him with my pill bottle (the child proof kind) open. Let me just say I freaked out. I ran over there as fast as I could and put my finger in his mouth hoping to get anything out if he had actually swallowed one. Nothing was in there. So I checked the bottle, empty, I searched the floor. I only found one pill, there were two left. So I immediately called poison control, now because it is a pill only for women to take to make there uterus contract, they had never had a little boy take this pill so they wanted me to take him immediately to the hospital for observation. That way if there were any side effects it would happen there. Lets just say I was bawling this whole time. Again my good friend Stacy came over to sit with Maylee until my mom could come over. I took Dutch to the ER and they had to give him charcoal. It was awful, three people came in to hold him down, while they squirted this thick, nasty tasting stuff into his mouth, trying to get him to drink it, so that it could absorb the pill in his tummy. He sobbed the entire time, it broke my heart. Especially knowing that it was my irresponsibility that got him into this situation anyways. After they got the charcoal down him, they wanted to keep him for a total of four hours to make sure he would be fine. So David came and relieved me so that I could go home and nurse Maylee. We were very, very blessed today. Fortunately for us this pill caused no side effects and Dutch was able to come home, his healthy little self. I am so very grateful to have been so blessed today, knowing that the situation could have been so much worse. I have learned a very, very valuable lesson. I will never ever take any medication anywhere in my house other then my medicine cabinet, even if I have the best of intentions of putting it right away first thing. It is not worth the risk. I was shown today just how fragile these precious little children are and how quickly they can get into things that could very well end up being a life or death situation. Luckily for us that wasn't the case today. But I will try to never ever be that careless again. I also learned that a "childproof" container isn't really child proof, so me as a mom should never have forgotten that it was on my nightstand. Thank goodness this little episode ended so good for us. Tomorrow is going to be my day. Tomorrow my family is finally going to be 100% normal and healthy. Nothing bad is going to happen. Tomorrow is my families new beginning day of normalcy. So lets see how it goes.

Trying to catch a break!

Well if its not one thing, then its another for my family. I woke up Monday morning knowing that David was going to be in school all day long. It was going to be the first day with just me and the kiddos. And I was actually excited. So I woke up thinking, this is wonderful I finally feel really good, the sickness is gone, today is going to be a great day. And then I took a look at Dutch and he was covered in what looked like a rash. We noticed on Sunday night that he had some, what appeared to be bug bites. Well Monday morning we realized they definitely weren't bug bites. So then I just figured he had hives, but to what, that I couldn't say. So I called his doctor to see if I could put him on benadryl. While talking to the triage nurse I mentioned that he was on his third round of antibiotics within the last 30 days. I guess that sent up a big red flag. She told me to stop giving him his antibiotics and put him on benadryl and call back first thing in the morning to let her know how he was doing. So I called her back Tuesday morning to report that the ones on his face were a little bigger but that was all. She still wanted me to bring him in for a check. So I load up the kids and head to the doctor. This now makes for Dutch's fifth visit to the doctor since Jan. 11. Oh my gosh. The poor kid, he has just had something going on with him for so long. Well it's confirmed at the doctor he is allergic to penicillin. But his ear infections are gone, thats a good thing. And she told me it'll just take a few days for the spots to go away now that the penicillin is out of his system. Thank goodness. This isn't at there worst. Dutch was not wanting me to take his picture, so these are the only ones I got. But despite being covered in spots he was still feeling pretty good. He has taken a lot more interest in Maylee. He's decided that he wants to hold her. Which is just adorable when he does. Although he is all boy so I have a hard time getting him to be soft enough. He wants to rub her head really hard, or poke her really hard but we're working on it. But now he gets really put out when I am holding her and I won't allow him to just take her and carry her. He thinks now he should just be able to hold her all the time. But I am just so glad to see him showing interest in her. Its just melts my heart to see the two of them together. The latest thing that is now affecting our family happened this morning. The kids had a terrible night. Dutch can't sleep through Maylee's crying. We even now shut his door all the way hoping he won't hear her but nope, one little peep Maylee makes and Dutch is up crying. So both of them were up all night David and I were exhausted. So were they apparently. Here they are both wiped out this morning in our bed from having such a rough night. Well after I had been awake this morning for about 20 minutes I started having severe pain in my uterus. I was hurting so bad. I couldn't walk, no matter how I laid I was in pain and couldn't get relief. Finally I called by OB and they told me to come right into the office. I get to the office and my doctor checks me, he tells me everything looks good and he talked to the other OB who delivered me and he said he was sure he got out all my placenta. So even with that all said and him checking me he still wanted to do an ultrasound to make for sure. (By this point I was thinking ok am I just a big baby and can't recover from childbirth, but I never had this kind of pain with Dutch.) Well we go back for the ultrasound, she did an internal one since she was checking for left over placenta or tissue. As soon as she started the ultrasound, she said yep there is something there. But after just a second she was able to determine that it was blood clots not tissue. Thats a relief. Although she did say that I need to wait and see my doctor again and he'll decide if he has to scrape them out or let them pass. After talking to my doctor he did not feel it necessary to do a D&C, but he did put me on some medication to make my uterus contract super hard to get these clots to pass. He said they're old clots and my body is having a hard time getting them out naturally. So my great sister-in-law Tara offered to take Dutch today so that I could start the medication and try to rest. So now its just a waiting game for the medication to work. Its actually taken me about two hours to write this post because of having to keep moving for relief. But I am trying to walk a lot, you know let gravity do its thing. I told David we just can't catch a break, I wonder what it'll be tomorrow, all I can do anymore is just laugh every time something happens b/c its just been happening like crazy. So I asked David what he thought it would be tomorrow, he thinks leprosy, yikes, haha. Here are some random pictures to show that despite our sickness' we are still a happy family. Dad finally getting to enjoy his little girl. Dad and Dutch hard at work. David doing homework, Dutch is coloring and eating crackers! Beautiful little girl, doing what she does best during the day... sleeping!!! Me and my babies, please ignore how awful I look. Dutch loves playing in Maylee's car seat. Which is funny to me because when it was his he hated being in it.

A Rough Week

You would think bringing home a brand new baby would make for a really great week. Unfortunately that hasn't really been the case with our family. Of course having Maylee has been amazing but thats about all we got out of this week. When we came home from the hospital on Tuesday, David crawled in bed with a severe headache, backache and neck ache, he had a fever of 102 and a resting heart rate of 180. He wasn't feeling good at all. We quickly got him a blessing and I gave him some of my pain meds. Both David and I have been suffering from a headache all week but we just kept assuming it was from the lack of sleep. The only thing that was weird was our necks were hurting really badly too. And let me just tell you, I was freaking out, terrified that Maylee would catch whatever we got if it was contagious. By Thursday evening David was in so much pain he couldn't function at all. He finally called his mom to come and spend the night because he knew there was no way he was going to be able to take care of Dutch in the middle of the night. (Yes Dutch still wakes up and wants in our bed.) On Friday we were able to get him an appointment with the doctor. So I had Davids Dad come and pick him up and take him to the doctor since I couldn't and I didn't want to take Maylee to a doctors office full of sick people. Well about 45 mins after Davids Dad left with David, I came down with it bad. I had the headache, backache and neck ache, and a fever of 101.8. I went and crawled into bed and felt like I was going to die while my mom, the wonderful amazing women that she is, took care of my two kids. After David started getting some news from the doctor to let us know what was going on, David told my mom that they just did a CAT scan, were waiting for results from that and we also testing for spinal meningitis. By this point I was pretty freaked out b/c I had the same symptoms as David. So my mom called Maylee's pediatrician to find out what she wanted us to do. She told my mom that she needed to keep Maylee away from me until I hadn't had a fever for 24 hours, and that I needn't to pump and dump. It broke my heart. So as of right now I haven't seen or held Maylee since 1pm yesterday. The doctor finally diagnosed David with sinusitis and a really bad virus, thank goodness it wasn't spinal meningitis. My mom kept Maylee here at my house until David got home but I wasn't allowed in the same room with her, then at about six my mom took both of my babies to her house to spend the night so they wouldn't be around David and I. David and I both spent a rough night in bed feeling just miserable. But we have been very blessed and we both woke up feeling a tons better today. Our headache have finally eased up and we can actually feel like we can function. We still are both tired, we do feel like our bodies have been through a train wreck, but I haven't had a fever since last night, so I get my babies back tonight. David and I are just counting down the hours until they are home with us again. David hasn't held Maylee since Tuesday when we were in the hospital for fear of getting her sick, so he is really ready to just enjoy his new little girl, and I am ready to be able to nurse her and love on her again.

Maylee Jane

Maylee is here. She decided to come a little early, I was only 36 weeks and three days pregnant when I went into labor. Which makes her close to four weeks early. But she is healthy and beautiful and I am so glad that she is here. She weighed 6 lbs 1 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. Born Sunday February 17th. Like I said in my last post I went to the doctor on Thursday for my 36 week check and she said that I was dilated to a four almost a five. So I came home from the doctors and started working on all the projects that I wanted to get done before she came. I finished painting the kitchen (remember when I said David was remodeling on pantry... yeah that still isn't completely done... ugggg) Anyways I got the kitchen finished painted on that same evening as my doctors appointment, there wasn't much to do so don't worry I wasn't pushing myself.Then for my next project, finish painting my laundry room. Its something that I have been wanting to do for a while and with her birth coming close I decided to just do it. So I spent a few hours Saturday painting the laundry room. Its a very, very small room and I only painted two walls, nothing that I felt was pushing myself too hard. I've been pretty active my whole pregnancy so painting is like doing nothing. I mean I mowed my yard at 33 weeks pregnant. Anyways... Saturday night was Davids cousins baby shower. On my way over to the shower I started to feel kind of fevered and really flushed. And I thought, oh crap, I must be getting whatever Dutch has. He broke out in a fever on Saturday and wasn't feeling well. So I get to the baby shower and the entire time I was there my lower back was hurting sooo badly. I just figured that I must have been on my feet to much and I just needed to go home and lay down. (You have to remember I was induced with Dutch so I had no idea what to expect when I first go into labor.) Well I get home from the shower and I lay down, David says to me I think we should go to the hospital. I told him no way, I am not in labor, I just need to rest. I was in big time denial. I was not going to have a baby close to four weeks early. So David goes out to the kitchen to take some medicine (we have all been really sick lately... another reason why I didn't want her to come yet.) and then we went to bed. Or I should say David went to sleep and I laid there and started timing my contractions. Finally at two in the morning I woke David up and told him that I thought I was in labor and he should start timing with me. He wanted to just leave for the hospital, but I was still trying to convince him and myself that I wasn't really in labor and it would be silly to go down there. Well not much time past before I agreed with him. So I made him take a shower, he was been working on projects around the house all day and then watched Dutch for me while I went to the baby shower so he never showered. And I didn't want him to go to the hospital dirty. So he got cleaned up and finished packing my hospital bag. Then we called my parents so they could come and get Dutch and we called my friend Stacy, so she could come and sit with Dutch until my parents got there. Ok so we finally get to the hospital they get my all hooked up to the monitors and checked me. I was now dilated to a five almost a six. However my contractions weren't registering on there machine b/c I was only have back labor, my stomach didn't hurt at all with any contraction only my lower back. So the nurse calls the doctor to see want he wants to do and he says watch her for another 10 mins call me back and then I might send her home. WHAT!!! Send me home at a five. But my contractions weren't registering so he wasn't convinced, well they were registering just very small and very far apart not all the ones I was feeling. So after 10 minutes he told the nurse to have me walk around for 30 mins, check me again and we'll go from there. I was really started to get excited and panicked all at the same time. Excited thinking ok maybe I won't be having a baby so early and panicked b/c I knew I was going to be having this baby and I didn't want to have to have her at home. (Now keep in mind this is the on call doctor not my doctor.) So I walk around for 30 mins and we go back. My contractions are finally starting to show up a little better and now I am fully dilated to a six. So in 30 mins I went up a full centimeter, obviously I am in labor. My body is doing something. So he decide to keep me and they take my up to a room. Now from what my nurse said I was under the impression that he was going to break my water. When they broke my water with Dutch I had him less than two hours later. So I wanted to go ahead and get my epidural. So I get the big shot, it hurt. Then the doctor decides not to break my water, he was to nervous since I was only 36 weeks and he wasn't my OB. That really made me not so happy. So needless to say I sat at a six for the next seven hours. Not fun. Finally he gives in and breaks my water. About an hour and 15 minutes after he breaks my water my nurse checks me. She has great news. She says, ok your at a ten and the baby is right there, why don't you give me three practice pushes for 10 secs each. So I give her my first push. She then says ok, put you legs down and breath I am going to get the doctor here right now, and don't push. So we have to wait another 10 mins for the doctor at this point all I want to do is push. Oh another thing, my epidural didn't work I felt everything, it was so painful, I wanted to get this baby out. Finally the doctor shows up and I pushed for maybe 10 mins and she was out. It was great this time because her umbilical cord was long enough this time that they were able to put her up on my belly, she was so tiny. And she came out peeing. She peed all over me it was so funny. Then they took her to get her cleaned up. She wasn't breathing great she was what they called retracting, so they had to take her to the nursery for the first four hours of her life. I was so sad. But she is healthy and doing great now. And I am so in love with her, she is just beautiful. I hurt!!! Beautiful Girl!!! Dad on his ever so comfortable hospital bed! Dutch finally got to see her on Wednesday. Like I said he wasn't feeling well so my mom took him to the doctor for us on Monday. Poor little guy had double ear infections. The doctor put him and some meds and said that once he hadn't had a fever for 24 hours it would be fine for him to be around her. So my parents kept him until Wednesday when he was finally healthy enough. He pretty much just ignore her and pretended she wasn't there at first. He showed a lot more interest when we put her in the swing. Then he decided he would try picking her up, when we wouldn't let him do that he thought it might be kind of fun to push her. Well thats really scary to, so we have to be really careful with him around her, but at least he is showing some interest. Trying to pick up Maylee I'm a mother of two, oh my gosh!!!

Dutch's new antics

Well Dutch is certainly starting to get into a lot more things latetly. I have found him doing some of the funniest things. The other day I was in my bathroom putting something away and when I walked out into my bedroom I found Dutch sitting in the bottom drawer of my dresser. That was a brand new thing. Usually he opens it up and pulls everything out but I guess he decided he should just sit in it. It was really cute. But I had to get him out of it pretty quickly because the drawer isn't strong enough to hold that kind of weight. Then the other night David, Dutch and I were all in the kitchen. Dutch has always loved to play with my pots and pans. He usually pulls them all out of the cupboard and then gets a big spoon and cooks and stirs with me. Well the other night he decided to sit in the big pot. Now he is way to big for even our biggest pot. So all he was able to do by himself was to put his feet in there. Then his dad helped him out with the rest. Dutch has also started to show a lot more interest in the toilet, another thing I am not super thrilled about. But oh well what can you do. Well today Dutch comes crying to me. So I tell him to show me what he wants, so he walks into the bathroom, (and I know he had a little match box car) well guess where I found it. In the toilet. He was very upset that he couldn't get it back out. And he learned how to climb up onto the couch all by himself. So now he gets up on the couch and runs back and fourth and freaks me out. He has already fallen off on his head once, so I am trying to teach him that the couch is for sitting on, not running on. Good luck to me. We have been working really hard to get Dutch to eat more food and gain weight but we have been having no such luck. He has been struggling really badly with allergies for the past three weeks which has really decreased his appetite. And then he is just such a hard kid to get him to eat anything. Usually all he wants is just a carnation shake and thats it, he won't eat hardly any solids, its very frustrating, but I guess if he gets hungry enough he will finally eat right??? Well then today being Valentines day his grandma sent him a Valentines with two dollars in it for him to get an ice cream cone. So David and I took him out for ice cream and afterwards David wanted to stop and get him some chicken nuggets. (I know we did that in the wrong order but hey its a holiday.) So we get him some nuggets and French fries. Let me just tell you what, I have now realized that its not a matter of letting him get hungry enough, its a matter of offering him just the right meal, because he completely devoured all of his food. So he had that for lunch and then his dad took him back for dinner and got him a cheese burger and more fries. And he ate almost all of that. His dad is creating a monster. Well we are certainly not going to be doing that very ofter but now we know that he is actually capable of eating solid foods. I had my 36 week check today. I went in there with the thought that nothing was going to have happened, don't get your hopes up you still have 4 weeks to go. But secretly I was hoping that I would be dilated to maybe a two. I am so ready to have her and not be pregnant for a while. First of all this past week my bones have been hurting so badly, I didn't have that with Dutch, so I was just trusting everyone when they say that my body is just getting ready. So that is what was making me hope that maybe I would have some dilation. Well when the doctor checked me, the first thing she said was, wow the baby's head is right there, she's dropped. And then.... the next thing she said was..... drum roll please.... you are dilated to a 4 almost 5 and I am 80% effaced. Yeepee!!!!! I was not expecting that at all. I think I almost cried I was so excited. I wanted to jump up and hug her for giving me such good news. However I do still have 4 weeks to go. So they would like me to keep inside for another week. Which I totally and completely agree, I don't want my baby born 4 weeks early, that to me is too early and scary. So I am going to try not to go into labor for another week. But after next week, if I make it that far, I will start trying for the labor. But now I don't feel prepared at all, I keep thinking of everything I was planning on getting done before she came, b/c I still had four weeks. Well now according to my doctor I'll be lucky to make it another 2 weeks. So now I actually feel a little overwhelmed and starting tomorrow I have a list of things to get done. Starting with packing my hospital bag. Here is a picture of me taken today at 36 weeks.

Dutch Jumping

David was playing with Dutch the other day, you know doing the dad thing, where he throws him high up in the air over and over again and then stands him on the counters and has him jump off to him. Dutch was having a blast and did not want David to stop. But finally David was just to tired so he told Dutch that he was all done. Well once he set Dutch on the ground, Dutch just started jumping all by himself. We didn't show him how or even coax him to, he just decided that he would keep jumping. It was so cute. So of course we had to get it on video. (Ok I have been trying over and over to get my video to upload on here, so you can all see how adorable Dutch is when he jumps, however it will not let me put my video on here, if any of you have ever done this, please help my figure out what I am doing wrong.)