Wait...What?

NaBloPoMo, oh how I've missed you. What better way to start off this glorious month than with H1N1?! Exciting yes? Not particularly unless you're into seeing your six year old son hallucinate and yell in the middle of the night that he doesn't want the cockroach smooshed. Have you ever seen a boy that age try to function on about 7 hours of sleep in a two day period? Not pretty. He missed out on his Halloween Fall Party at school on Friday and that made me sad. He was so looking forward to showing his schoolmates his costume (Spiderman, duh). I got the call right after lunch that he had a fever of 101.7 and went to get him. He cried on the way home when he realized what he would be missing that afternoon. I cried for him too. That night was not good to him. He was coughing all night long. He cried about the cockroaches (really, we have none. Box elder bugs? Sure, you bet. See the 46 of them in the dustbuster, cockroaches in our house? no). He was burning up. No matter what...

The Peanut has a raging yeast infection. How does a 4 year old get a yeast infection you ask? Why you put her on two antibiotics - one for a chest/lung infection thingy and one for a UTI. Then you listen to her scream that her butt hurts and a hair is biting her vagina. I don't know, I just report these things. Then you take her to the walk in clinic and get a script for another antibiotic.  The husband has Sinusitis. Wanna know how we know this? He had a fever of 104.2, body aches, the shakes worse than Michael J. Fox off his meds and the chills. No, not Influenza H1N1helrh40932ng,se40349s.lp;oewiurwp - They jabbed a swab up his nose for that. We spent a few hours in the ER with this fun stuff. As they took him away for a CT scan, I decided to go get the girl's script for her infection filled.  Lo, the pharmacy at my store didn't have either medicine. Yay. The next closest of my stores didn't have it. Yay merrily. The Walgreen's next to one of the stores had one of...

My friend's little girl, Jocelyn, is 7 weeks old. She was born a couple weeks before the Littlest Little. She lived with her mom and dad at her paternal grandparent's home. Last week, her mom went upstairs to wash some bottles. Her dad was holding Jocelyn and giving her a bottle. 8 hours later she was in the hospital and it was not good. Seems her dad was "tired", perhaps he didn't like hearing her cry. Who knows. What is known is this: This sweet seven week old was hit by her father on the side of her head, smacked so hard that he fractured her skull. He grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her onto his lap. He broke her clavicle, left bruises on both shoulders. The hit to her head gave her a black eye and bleeding in the brain. She is seven. weeks. old .     Jocelyn's mom and dad were both questioned. He confessed to what he did. When she asked why, all he could say was that he was tired.  He was arrested and charged with 1st degree assault which is a fe...

I have experienced it today. I don't think there was a time (other than when I was driving) today that my body wasn't moving. Oh let's not get crazy and think that I was exercising because that? That would get you committed to the loony bin. No, I gave up exercising last year and have been toying with the idea of starting up again but gosh, doesn't that mean I have to exert...what's that called? Energy? Yeah, that stuff? Doesn't exist in my body. I've looked. My kids have Puh-lenty of it though. If only..... The Littlest Little had an ultrasound today and of course, we were misinformed on whether the doctor would talk to me afterwards or not. I was told he would be talking to me, the technician informed me (albeit nicely) that I would get a phone call on Monday . Awesome :::insert sarcasm::: The baby did well, was ogled by the nurses and declared so cute and oh my! Look at those chubby cheeks. Yes, thank you, I bake good looking babies. They get that cutenes...

The Littlest Little had her MRI last Friday as we all know. Today I was finally able to talk to her CMV doctor to discuss the results. It would appear that everything is the same as it was before. The ventricles are still large, there's still a brain bleed and still extra fluid. This didn't really help the husband and I with our decision that had to be made.  Our little one qualifies for the drug study . It's for a medication that is now in the oral liquid form versus the IV form. They would have her on the medication for 6 weeks then the medication or placebo for 6 months. This medication is used to control the CMV infection and possibly prevent the hearing loss that is common among the kids (I'm repeating myself - I know, sorry).  A couple concerns that I had: in animals, it caused shrinkage of the ovaries (they worded it much better), infertility and cancer. The doctor reminded me that those side effects were never seen in humans, just the animals. Another concern...

See what I mean by Littlest Little? Kinda cute and yet sad all rolled into one little bitty foot. Someone get me a tissue. Right before she was taken down the hall. I'm sure she's wondering what the hell is going on.  This is when she was coming around from the sedation. It's moments like this that I wonder what they are thinking. Then I think of my other two and am glad I don't know.  The husband went in the little door. He would. It's too bad I didn't get a shot of that.  All in all, she did very well. We won't get the results of the MRI until Monday. She could qualify for a study that her doctor thinks she would benefit from. It's a drug that the doctors think helps prevent potential hearing loss. In CMV positive kids, hearing loss is the most common issue that comes up. I'm torn on this and am still doing research on the drug and on CMV (as if there could be anymore information we haven't learned already on it. Good golly mister molly). She w...

I've been thinking we could use one of these things at home. Ya know, for containment purposes. I'm just saying. If this isn't the saddest thing. Mama had to leave the room.  Getting ready to head to the big bad machine. She wasn't sedated yet but had the "sweeties", sugar water, to calm her and did it ever. Death grip on the Nuk much? Yikes. The Princess bag? It held all the "the shit is hitting the fan" stuff to aid the docs in case anything went wrong. Thankfully, nothing did.

The husband and I get to  go on a date. Ya'll will have to hold your breath(s) 'til I get home for the hilarity that was ensued (???) at the hospital yesterday. There'll be pictures .  I knew that would hold you over =) Cya soon internets, hello Hugh Jackman!!! Rawwr

The baby had her MRI today. Doc decided MRI gave a more detailed picture of what's going on in there. Four hours at the Univ Hosp. I need sleep. Tomorrow I'll tell you about little i.v.s, the hospital bathroom and elevator hijinks.  I don't care if I lose, I'm gonna snooze.

Yesterday evening my throat was feeling a little, shall we say, funky? I immediately thought of the H1N14ek927n58z4 Influenza that's running out this popsicle stand of a nation because hi media, you make me paranoid. Thank you.  It was too late for me to go to my clinic so this morning I went. This, of course, is after my night of sleep was ruined by coughing which in turn woke up my sweet baby who will sleep for five hours straight if I let her. I was in tears this morning, I couldn't cough because it was hurting and every breath I took would make all this mucus shit move around and that was no fun.  I went to the Target clinic and sadly, it was in the one Target that I cannot stand. As my girl calls it, the crazy store. They never have what you want and/or need. The staff is rather curt and rude. The people who answer the phone all need to be retrained. It's the only one that I truly cannot stand going into unless I have to. That being said, it's the only one in the a...

We left off with my labor nurse Angie and her hand. Ever since that day, I've said it's a good thing that I liked Angie from the get go. I don't know that I would have liked having someone I didn't "click" with having to do what she had to do. So Angie was saying she has the cord, the other nurse was furiously unplugging monitors and stuff. The husband is confused, I'm sure as hell confused. Somehow I got on my hands and knees, per everyone's  vehement requests. I tried to keep my shit together but that didn't work so well. I was crying and asking what was going on. I'm sure they told me a couple times that her cord had delivered and that if they didn't take her now, she wouldn't make it. The cord cannot come before the baby, that's what was making her heart rate drop so much. Well OK then, it finally clicked in my head but hi? still in so much pain. Angie was still on the table with me. The husband said she had to duck my legs whe...

So. The bathroom and I are very good friends now and I hate to say it but I feel bad that I threw the brownies under the bus. It's not all their fault though Lord knows, they have a way of wreckin' my intestines UP!! (I know, just what you wanted to read about no? You're welcome) So again. I'm not even really sure where to begin with the Littlest Little's story. We were having ultrasounds every 4 weeks and bio-physical scans every week plus toss in a weekly visit to the baby baking doctor and voila! You've got yourself one super scanned baby. We had a bio scan two weeks ago and then I ended up here . I did the kick counts and in the four or five hours that I was at home I felt the baby move three, maybe four times. The baby baking doctor said to go back into the hospital and get a non-stress test done (which I found out is just the baby on monitors again) That was an epic fail. She's didn't move at all.  The doctor said we're inducing and we were t...

While I'm recovering from the chaos that was Friday*, I'm dealing with this ginormous baseball sized bruise on my belly. It's the one right next to the vertical scar that matches the one on my back from scoliosis surgery 21 years ago. I hope it doesn't heal thick and wide. I won't bitch about it (much) if it does. I'm just saying. I digress though. They have me on Tylenol, a lovely stool softener and Oxycodone (sp?). I know it's not Oxycontin, I asked. I've discovered that this lovely pain killer takes away the pain, yay! but it also makes me itch something fierce. Usually within a half hour of taking them, the tickling on the skin starts. The worst? The worst is when I get the meds at 2 am and I can't reach the spot in between my shoulder blades. I won't wake the husband up for that because, well, that would be silly. I try to stretch my long ass arms to get it but I jacked the shoulder up while playing Twister** on Friday. Usually I'm so ti...

Of course all kinds of things feel different now. My boobs. They are not as large as one would think. My thighs. Are they rubbing together? My butt. It's bigger, this I know. These contractions feel different. Therefore, I'm tearing the husband away from 24 (wretched horrible wife I am, I know) and take the trip to the hospital. If we get sent back home, well, it wouldn't be the first time. Same thing happened with The Peanut. Hopefully we'll know really soon if we're staying or not so I can let my sister in law know. Hey Fluffy, if you're reading this and you haven't heard from me, call your brother =0)

So....where to begin. Ya'll know I had mono and CMV last Oct when I was about 9 weeks along. That was a fun week in the hospital. :::insert sarcasm::: Because of the CMV infection, we have Level 2 ultrasounds every four weeks. We get the cool 4-D photos as well as higher detailed scans for growth measurements and progress in utero. Everything had been going swimmingly until a few weeks ago. The technician told us that the baby's belly was measuring in the 95th percentile and her head in the 5th percentile. The doc took us to the back room to talk to us. For the record? The back room or side room is never a good thing, at least not for us. What they were seeing was a restricted growth in the baby. Her head measurements hadn't really changed (grown) since the last scan four weeks before. They did make sure to point out that just because the belly/head measurements were 95th/5th percentile does not mean that if she were born now she would have a fat belly and itty bitty hea...

Hey life? You win. I lose. How much shit can you throw at me? I don't even want to know an exact amount. I think I have a good idea. And I'm not that good at math. I'm at a stress level point right now where every little thing that irks me is starting to piss me off. Instead of talking it out, I cry. I don't like crying. Once in awhile is ok but this is ridiculous. I feel like I can't even vent on here . I think I need to go back to therapy. At least then I have someone who will call me out on my bullshit yet won't judge me. I'm terrified that this is how I am now, before the baby gets here , before we know what* (if anything) is wrong with her. I don't want to know how or who I'll be after she gets here. Sweet Baby Jesus, please lead me in the right direction. *I don't even know that I can write a post about today's ultrasound and several phone calls with the specialists afterwards. I don't think I have that in my emotional capacity rig...

No, not those kinds of fluids. Sheesh. A couple weeks ago, at our monthly ultrasound, the perinatologist detected some fluid in the heart sac on the baby. It wasn't a lot of fluid but enough to concern him. He sent us to the University hospital to have a fetal echo cardiogram done the following day. The cardiologist said there was, indeed, some extra fluid there that really shouldn't be there. Awesome. It wasn't enough to freak her out but she wanted to see me again in a couple weeks and see where the levels were. For the last two weeks, you can imagine what's been going on in my head. I lost my mind. All I could focus on, of course, was that if they found more fluid in the heart sac, they would have to monitor me twice a week (ultrasound) and if the fluids increased regularly, they would have to take the baby. Yeah, I didn't sleep well. Fast forward to this morning. As I was getting the ultrasound done, I felt this incredible urge to cry. I couldn't figure ou...

So, we've all heard about the woman who had octuplets yes? I'm not that good at math, this we all know but! I know that means 8. That's seven more than my uterus has seen at any given time. Eight. Good golly miss molly. She has 6 other kids. Ages 2-7, a set of twins in there. Holy shnikey. There are so many things that jump out here. Let's recap shall we? 14 children seven and under. Hello? Sanity? There's no mention of a husband or significant other. Um ok. That's odd. She declared bankruptcy last year and abandoned her two (2!) houses that she owns owned. She worked at a fertility clinic and was implanted at a fertility clinic - no mention on if it's the same clinic. Why in holy hell would a physician implant that many embryos into a woman who has six (6!) children? One or two, ok. Eight? Um no. The grandfather says that they have a much larger house that no one will be able to locate. Danger Will Robinson, Danger! Said grandfather is also going home...

That's what this child should be for quite sometime. I mean in theory she shouldn't get sick for years right? I mean she's been exposed to mono, cytomeglovirus, a virus of some sort that had no name, strep and the rotavirus that keeps visiting our house. We had our every 4 weeks ultrasound today. She's about 15 inches long and weighs about 2 lbs. She also has fluid in the sac that her heart is in. The doctor wouldn't have been concerned if the fluid had been on the bottom of the sac. I think he said something about the sound of the heartbeat bouncing off and making it look like there's fluid. I'm not sure because I was sorta kinda freaking out in my head while trying to maintain composure to everyone else. We have to go down the Univ hospital tomorrow for an echo on the baby. Two things that strike me about this (well, I'm sure there are waaaay more than two but these will do for now): I'm so happy that I have this team of doctors that are truly look...

Today I had an OB visit, all is going well. She asked if I had any concerns and immediately three came to mind: Pain - I don't like it and I'm certain if it knew me outside of the delivery room, it would not be friends with me. I can count on that, I'm sure. I can't have an epidural because I have two herrington steel rods in my back. With Monkey Boy, I had a PCA (patient controlled analgesic) that sorta did the trick. It took the edge off but it was still brutal. With Peanut, I had fentanyl and that sucked the big one when it came to taking pain away. I bow down before any woman who has gone drug free during labor and delivery. It's not me. As much as I would love to not use anything, I know my limits and I know what I can handle on my own. A bowling ball coming out what used to be a lima bean sized hole? That, I cannot handle without some sort of painkiller. The doc said she would have one of the anesthesiologists come and talk to me long before I have the baby so...