And the diet is OVER

After 2 weeks of feeling like I was starving myself, being exhausted, worn down, irritable and craving all things delicious, Samantha's stools showed no blood, so the diet is over!

And let me tell you, that was a hard diet to stick to.  I almost cracked yesterday.  As I sat there playing Hedbanz with the family, and the tin filled with crumbs from what I can only assume was a delicious tasting twix cheesecake for David's birthday sat right next to me, it took every ounce of will power I had not to stick my finger in it and finish off the yumminess of it!

But, I did it!  Of course, when I went to take my vitamins on Friday night, I looked at the back for the first time since I bought them mid pregnancy.  I had a palm to face moment when in dark, black, bold letters I read:  Allergen: SOY.  Nice.

Aw Nuts

Let me tell ya, there are plenty of opportunities in life where the phrase "aw nuts" is perfectly acceptable to point out disappointment or disdain with something in life.  I would bet there are thousands of opportunities.  You know, you lock yourself out of the house, you step in a big puddle, you forget to tuck your tag in, you lose the back of an earring and on and on and on.  It is not acceptable to say "aw nuts" in response to someone informing you their son isn't at this appointment because he passed away.  It just simply isn't an ok response.

Shall we take it from the top?

As you may know from previous posts, Kaitlyn was having some serious migraine issues.  She had an MRI last spring that showed her sinuses were all completely filled and inflamed.  It also showed an unrelated cyst on her brain that will be reevaluated in 3-5 years.  The neurologist sent us to an ENT doctor.  The ENT doctor thought it was for sure allergies, she's been treated for them since she was 2, and it is probably just not being treated well enough.  He sent us to an allergist and said he would follow up.  We went to the Allergist, Kaitlyn completed the annoying and itchy allergy test.  Guess who wasn't allergic to ANYTHING??  That's right, Kaitlyn.  The allergist thought it could be reflux, cystic fibrosis or her tonsils.  She went on pepcid and was ordered a sodium chloride test to rule out cystic fibrosis and sent back to the ENT for her tonils.  Pepcid did not help.  I never once believed it could be cystic fibrosis, but we were scheduled for the test regardless.  We showed up for our scheduled test downtown and after being there for an hour, they could not locate the materials they need for the test.  Fabulous.  We went home, they rescheduled.  We went again, and again they could not find the material for the test.  The ENT had enough and out came her tonsils and adenoids.  Never thought about the test again.  Until Friday.  When the allergist's assistant called.  Kaitlyn has had a sinus infection since the removal of her tonsils.  Which means the surgery may not have been effective.  If we wanted insurance to continue to cover treatment for future sinus infections, we had to have the test done.  I told them fine, but it could be scheduled for school time. And if they aren't ready for us while we're there, I would literally explode.  They scheduled us for 9 AM Saturday morning.  Cue to Saturday ;)

We sign in for the test.  The elderly nurse we have the appointment went is incredibly nice.  She's friendly, she's telling Kaitlyn all the reasons she doesn't need to be nervous and explaining how the test was going to work.  They put gelatin disks on Kaitlyn's forearm and have an electrode like device on top of it to stimulate the muscles underneath to force sweat to come to the surface.  The electrode is aggravating, so she is talking to Kaitlyn for the 5 minutes it takes for the test to work.  She asks about the baby in the stroller, Kaitlyn tells her all about Samantha, who is starting to wake up.  She goes on to tell us about how her daughter grew up with 4 brothers and was so excited to have two girls.  She loves being a mom to sisters, has no desire for anymore and they have such a great time together.  The nurse keeps talking to Kaitlyn about this.  Chatty McKaitlyn tells her that she has a brother and a sister.  The nurse asks me where my son is, is he older?  Did he get to stay home.  I respond with "he passed away 3 years ago to SIDS."  She replied "aw nuts."

"Aw Nuts"

Seriously lady?  She then began to talk about how she lost one of her sons in a car accident a few years ago and tells me about some poems she has read that puts life and time into perspective.  She was quite kind after the deafening silence that followed her statement.  And while I'm sure she meant no harm by it, it's a comment that I couldn't find a reaction for.

In the end, Kaitlyn sweat up a storm, the nurse ran the labs while we waited and Kaitlyn does not have cystic fibrosis.

In the Nick of Time

As I blogged earlier this week, we were given the oh so fun task of collection Samantha's poo for 3 days, smearing it onto special little cards and taking it to the lab.  Our little miss likes to go in the evenings and every couple of days, she'll skip a day.  I was really hoping she would just do great, go in the morning, at home, finish up on Friday and get the results back in the 3 or so days the dr. thoughts we would.  Which would mean, if there was no blood in her stools, I could go back to eating!  YAY!!  Sounds like a great plan right?

Wednesday went great.  She went at home, I tried to get the mucousy gross stuff smeared neatly on the little card.  It was ok.  Thursday night though was another story.  I normally like to get into bed by like 10, asleep by 10:12 and be good.  By 10, she hadn't pooped yet for the day.  Knowing that this would set us back through the weekend, I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Finally, at 11:45, with only 15 minutes to go, she went.  I never thought I would be so glad to see poop.  Phew, I could go to bed.

Friday morning, she went by 9 and we had all the samples to the lab, I figured this way we might get an answer by Monday.  I asked the lab tech when my doctor should have the results.  She said it normally takes a week??!!!???  Holy Moly!

Since then, she has been nursing every hour and a half.  Around the clock.  She is either going through her 3 month growth spurt early or my supply is decreasing :(  I worry it's the later and I am going to try and bulk on some calories and lots of water the next couple of days and just hope for the best!!

The Follow Up: The Diet, The Apnea Machine, Cloth Diapers

This morning Samantha had a doctor's appointment to go over everything we left in the air last week.  We discussed her poop and the apnea machine.

Poop first.  I have now been 9 days without soy, dairy, eggs, berries, nuts, chocolate and I cut out glutens JUST to be safe.  There has been NO change in her poop at all.  He said that he's never seen it take longer than 2 weeks to make a change.  My instructions are to collect poop over the next three days to be tested by the lab and continue to diet through then.  On Monday, I should get the results back.  If she has any blood in her poop, it is most likely a Milk/Soy Protein Intolerance.  MSPI has a few symptoms:

• Blood, water or mucous containing stools
• weight loss
• chronic congestion
• repeated vomitting
• gastroesophageal reflux
• asthma
• eczema and/or skin rashes
• refusing to eat or comfort eating (eating all the time to soothe the stomach)
• irritability or colic-like behavior
  

Samantha only has a few symptoms.  Water/Mucous stools (we won't know about the blood until test results are back, vomitting or reflux, but so did Kaitlyn, and comfort eating.  She is a happy, growing baby.  She isn't losing weight, as of today she was up to 12 lbs 13 ounces!  

Most babies outgrow this by 1, and many by 6 months.  The question is, what to do if she is MSPI in the meantime?  Do we switch to a hypoallergenic formula for the next 9 1/2 months?  Or do we, I, stay on the diet for the next 9 1/2 months and continue to breastfeed?  There really isn't a right answer.

The diet has gotten a little easier.  My appetite has decreased.  I've lost weight and energy (and am forbidden by my OB from going to the gym until I am back to getting a lot of calories every day) and I cannot wait to go to McDonald's :P, but it is getting easier.  I am finding more I can eat and enjoying it.  I am loving olive oil, baked potatoes and the like.

On to the apnea machine.  We had a total of 3 alarms.  ALL related to the electrodes being in the wrong place, moving and stuff like that.  Her dr. does not think she has an apnea problem.  But, if the machine makes us feel better he said we can keep it as long as we'd like!

Cloth diapers are next.  They are going great.  I'm getting a routine with them, watching the clock a little more (which isn't a bad thing at all lol) and had only had one leak this week.  And it was today.  I didn't want to wake her when she was sleeping so she was in it from about 8:30 to 1:30 and that was WAY too long.  But, I'm loving them and thinking about ordering more....

Stylish Blogger Award

Thank you so much to Betsy at My Rotten Eggs for the stylish blogger award!

The rules for accepting this award are:
1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you the award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 15 other bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.


7 things about myself should be fairly easy, I do like to talk about myself!


1. While I don't watch a lot of TV, I make sure to make it count!  By make it count it means that my guilty pleasure is trash TV.  The shows I watch?  Real Housewives of ATL (I <3 Candi!), Teen Mom, 16 & pregnant, Top Chef, 90210 (although I so miss Kelly and Dylan) and House.  To round it out, I do have Fox News in the background through the day.  That makes it ok right?


2. I do not do well if I'm not multi-tasking.  It stresses me out.  If I need to walk to our bedroom, I make sure to find everything I can carry in there to make the trip worth it.  If I am doing dishes I clean all the counters at the same time.  If I'm ironing, while I wait for the iron to rewarm up between shirts, or whatever, I fold clothes.  I get A LOT done through the day, which is awesome, but then I think of things I could have done to make better use of my time.  It's crazy.


3. Speaking of cleaning, I like loading the dishwasher, I like sorting laundry and washing it.  I like all of the dishes and laundry to be clean.  I absolutely detest putting either away.


4. I love pictures.  I can easily do a thousand in a month.  Easily.  And I have a hard time deleting any of them.  Even the blurry, out of focus, too dark, too bright ones.  I just keep thinking, what if I go looking for that particular picture??


5. I. LOVE. FOOD.  I think it's amazing.  Just the bees knees.  It is so yummy, even the not so yummy stuff can easily be made yummier with sauces, dressings, seasonings or chocolate...


6. I love second chances.  I think just about everyone deserves one (unless you've done something beyond repairable obviously) and I am a softy.  Which means I find myself kicking myself for giving the second chance, the third chance, the fourth chance and on and on and on, when I need to just learn better.


7.  I love summer.  I am a tank tops, shorts, flip flops kinda girl.  The water needs to be 80 degrees for me to get in the pool and that's that.  I cannot wait for the seasons to change <3






The blogs I recently began following and enjoy reading:


1. 





2. Polka Dots and Ric Rac
3. Baby H, Take 2
4. 

5. Lazy Seamstress

6. The Jelly Chronicles

7. My Journey

8. 

9. i wish you love

10.


11. With a Hopeful Heart

12. Living in the Light

13. This moment in my life

14. Lori Does Maryland

15.

Well, that's one way to wake up

At about 4:30 AM the apnea monitor sounded.  If that loud beeping noise doesn't make you jump out of your skin out of a nice solid sleep, nothing will.  A quick glance at the monitor showed that her breathing and heartrate  didn't cause the alarm, but rather the wires were loose.  It was fixed and we were good.  For half an hour when she did it again.  I undressed her, reapplied the electrodes, reset the machine and didn't have another problem.

Through the night, she did have painful gas.  The toots she ripped were loud and smelly :(  I felt for her, I truly did.  For the first time in a long time, she didn't poop yesterday.  I'm really hoping that means maybe her poop today will be more normal and we can start adding some real food in.  But, then that gets me wondering, if dairy takes the longest to get out, does that mean that she's allergic to soy?  It's the only other food I eat regularly.  But, who knows, no matter how much I want to speculate, I know I shouldn't.

It is such a gorgeous day today, we have a birthday party to go to and then I'm thinking about taking the girls outside to get some "spring" like pictures.  If it stays like this tomorrow we might put Samantha in her awesome jogging stroller, stick Kaitlyn on her bike and hit the bike trail.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

And there goes another week...

For some reason, in my mind the week always ends on Friday.  Saturday and Sunday don't count, I mean, why should they?  They are the in between times.  The fun times.  Then, Monday starts a new week.  I'm not sure when I first starting thinking of time like this.  Maybe when I was in the hospital with Matthew and every Monday was a new week?  But how did Friday work in there?  Who knows, but it's  how I like to think of it.

And it was a good week.  You've read the updates about Samantha's appointment and our fun with the apnea monitor, and the launch of my etsy store, so you have a pretty good idea of what we've been up to.  How about some more details?

Samantha is doing great.  We do have to use the apnea monitor for all of her naps as well as night time sleeping.  Which, for some reason, I didn't expect.  Now, I get to carry it around with us.  Which isn't bad, except that it means her wardrobe is incredibly limited so I can accommodate the wires.  Speaking of wardrobes, I had to clear hers out today to make room for the bigger sizes.  She has officially outgrown all of her 0-3 month clothes.  And I filled up a 30 gallon tub with them.  It was so full I couldn't close the lid.  Note to self: if there is a next time, don't buy so much stuff!  Cloth diapers are also going great.  We've only had 2 leaks.  One she soaked through the diaper (she can be a heavy wetter) and one she just leaked through the leg.  Not too bad, just a little bit really.  I've also given up on the idea of using liners for poopy diapers.  It really isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  I've even gotten it down pretty good for when we're out and predicting how many we'll need.  I've also very happy to report that even though the poop diapers have still been green, super runny, slimy and filled with mucous, with a cold water soak and wash  without soap, followed by a hot water wash with just a tiny bit of All free and clear, not a single stain.  LOVE that! 

She's smiling all the time, still having gross diapers, but it might take a while for her to get everything out of her system.  She laughs like crazy and cracks me up and we've been so fortunate.  She goes to sleep around 7, gets up at 2:30 to nurse, goes back to sleep within 10 minutes, is up at 4:30 to nurse again and then up again around 6:30 for 10 min and I wake her up at 7:30.  We take Kaitlyn to school, get back and she sleeps until about 9:30.  Nurses and then sleeps until about 11, which is when I go to the gym.  She nurses and then normally sleeps until about 2.  Nurses, we pick up Kaitlyn and she naps again at 3.  She gets up at about 5 and then eats at 6 and 7 before going to bed.  She's a great sleeper and a great eater.  The only thing that upsets her is being hungry really.  And gassy.  But, hopefully we'll get rid of the later as figure out the food allergy.  It's hard to believe she's nearly 11 weeks.

Kaitlyn is doing awesome.  I was able to talk her into getting her hair cut today and so I jumped on it and got mine cut off too.  Hers looks really cute, it's just a simple bob (which is what I did too) at about her shoulders (which is what I did too) but it looks so much thicker and fuller now.  And healthier.  She really wants it long, it just grows so slow.  I know she's going to be jealous when Samantha's outgrows hers.

Kaitlyn is our sensitive child.  From a young age we've been really big on teaching her and asking her "how would that make you feel" about nearly every action she takes.  Which means that when she feels she is being treated badly, she takes it really personally.  A good example of this happened yesterday.  Every Thursday at school her class goes to the library to check out a book.  They don't get to take the book home, but they can keep it in their desk.  Then, that following Thursday they turn the books in.  Yesterday was their library day.  Kaitlyn turned in her book.  She wasn't allowed to check out a book.  They told her she had one out from December 8.  She argued, it didn't change.  When I pick Kaitlyn up from school we have a ritual, I ask her the following questions: How was your day, what was your favorite part of the day, what was the worst part of the day, did you eat all your lunch, what was the funniest thing that happened.  The answers are usually pretty typical.  But, yesterday she was really upset when she described to me what happened at school.  And really, what's a mom (who isn't allowed chocolate!!!) supposed to do??  Well, I of course called the librarian this morning and let her have it.  Kaitlyn has NEVER been in trouble at school and she felt that way.  The librarian was really apologetic and solved the problem.  I picked up Kaitlyn and her teacher ran after me.  She apologized to me about the problem.  Evidently it was her fault.  She had put the books in the librarian's cubbie to turn them in before break and didn't think anything else of it.  Guess who put them in the wrong cubbie?  Kaitlyn got an apology from the teacher and librarian and got to check out a book today.  So did the two other kids who got accused of the same thing.  So, something good came out of it!

Speaking of school (like all these speaking ofs?), I understand that Kaitlyn does not get a lot of learning out of it.  She is really advanced and just gets bored there.  We also understand the importance of her going to school.  She gets to learn about social interaction, not always getting her way, listening to other authority figures, time management, taking initiative and so on and so forth.  Plus, she gets to see her best friend.  But, we make sure that we challenge her at home.  She can read ANYTHING put in front of her.  It's awesome.  She doesn't get a lot of adult references, but I'm really good with that :)  Math is where it's harder to come up with challenges that are not too challenging so she doesn't get frustrated.  So, I try to start easy and then work it up harder.  And we do a lot in the car, so they have to be paper free.  This weeks challenge has been algebra.  And she is doing awesome!  We started with: if 82 + x = 97, what is x?  And worked our way to more double digit problems.  And now we're working on adding in some multiplication in with it.  As soon as I explained to her that it was like a mystery, she was so excited to practice and is always asking for more problems.  I love that kid.  And she really loved roller skating this week.  She got a lot faster.  Our challenge for next week is to work on her going left right left right instead of left, left, left, right and so on.  Then I know she'll just take off!

Like I said before I got a hair cut today.  About 6-7 inches off so now it's too my shoulders.  I went to a cheap chain place just because it was a super easy cut with nice thick hair.  I told her what I wanted and she asked me several times if I was sure.  I was.  Then she asked if it was ok with my husband.  Um....  What?  Seriously?  Yeah, he loves me for me and likes my hair long or short.  Hell, he said I should get a pixie cut.  Then that led to all of her baby raising advice, like breastfeeding.  It amazed me how she felt it was ok to tell me to make sure I eat right and then asked me how breastfeeding worked.  Again, Um...  Ok.  Whatever.

Our goal this year as been to stay at home more.  Don't rush out and try to do everything with everyone.  Which means I've been good about limiting ourselves to one event a weekend.  Considering I usually do several a day, that's pretty impressive!  I really want to work on spending more time and exerting more energy on our families and our core group of friends.  If there is anything I've learned in my old age it is that quality matters so much more than quantity.  I like the quality that we have.  I feel blessed.

After Matthew passed away, I needed something to do.  I needed to keep my hands and my mind busy and off to those dark thoughts.  So, I started selling tutu skirts and twirl dresses and digital cards and stuff on ebay.  I was going pretty good, selling a lot and staying busy.  I loved it.  Then, I was pregnant again.  We were moving, I miscarried, I went to work while Kaitlyn was in preschool and I lost my drive for it.  So, I stopped.  With Samantha here, Kaitlyn in school for most the day and my desire to stay home more, my drive is back.  I'm glad to of dusted off the sewing machine.  I'm learning new techniques and really having fun with it.

At the end of the day, this was a really good week for us.  We had a lot of fun, made memories, took pictures, smiled, laughed, learned and lived.  We thought about Matthew often, as we always do, spent time with good family and great friends, and really, at the end of the day, isn't that what life is all about?

And with that, I'm going to bed!  Tomorrow is Saturday, so I get to sleep until as late as 9!!  Yay me!!  And we have a birthday party in the afternoon. I'm sure the girls will have a blast.



* sidenote: I feel totally cyberstalked, I had the same visitor visit me 13 times in an hour and a half after yahoo searching denise miller facebook rio linda, not really sure what they are/were expecting? Because I don't like that type of behavior, I am going to be reviewing comments before they are posted and consider going invitation only for a while.  I'm really not in the mood for drama, there are so many more important things in life :) I'm sure you understand! *