A Mother Knows Her Baby!

Why don't some people recognize this? I hate being dismissed as a new paranoid mom when I KNOW my child is sick!

Braden never cries for long periods of time and is always consolable but this weekend he was not. He was unusually miserable all day and would wake up crying in the night almost every hour. When I would hold him and he would flop his head on my chest and cry and cry. I finally decided to take him into emergency (because on the weekends in Penticton there is very little doctor coverage except at emergency). The admitting nurse, who I am pretty sure thought that I was over reacting, was very curt with me but sweet to Braden. She talked only to Braden and cut me off if I ever tried to say anything. She was very patronizing.

She listed his symptoms off: "low grade fever, pain, drool, sounds like teething to me!" "Yes, lady it does, but consider that he never cries unconsolably and he is always drooling!" is what I felt like saying although if I had tried she would have cut me off...hmmmmm actually I did try saying that and she did cut me off. Fortunatley, the emergency doctor was more proffessional but couldn't find any obvious signs that Braden was sick. He could not get a good look at his ears because there was too much wax to see anything. He felt that he probably had the nasty virus that his going around and would feel better in a few days.

So after a weekend of crying, we are off to see our family doctor. This morning I noticed liquid leaking out of Braden's left ear. I am sure this is enough evidence that he has an ear infection and possibly that his eardrum has ruptured because of the ear infection.....

Anyway.....
We have seen the Doctor and he is pretty certain that he has an ear infection but he could not be sure if his eardrum has ruptured as there was no blood evident in the liquid in Braden's ear. He also was unable to see the eardrum clearly so we would need to wait until he is feeling better to be sure of a ruptured eardrum.

I guess next time I will have to listen to my instincts and not let a nurse insist that she knows more that I do, because it is not always the case.

Grace!

Poor girl..

Sometimes it seems like all I ever say to her is "You have to wait Mommy has to feed or is feeding Braden." She is a little girl on the go and mommy is tied down unable to go with her a lot of the time. I know this will change soon enough, but it sucks right now. She is such a sweet little girl who wants some of my time and I want to give it to her.

Her new thing right now is "tay-toe" - translated Play-Doh. She loves "tay-toe" and gingerbread men made out of play-doh. She needs a lot of help with it but it keeps her occupied and it is better than T.V.!

"More gingybread, Mommy, Mommmmmmmy!"

Gotta go she is calling!

Potty Training!

Ok I am actually a little nervous about being so excited about this and telling people just incase it is alittle too early to start bragging (and it probably is) but...

We started potty training the day after Mother's Day. Grace needs to be potty trained by September in order to start pre-school; so it is time to start. She is doing awesome! We bought her a potty and put it in the living room for now. She does not want help, she does not want to be asked about it and she does want you checking in or reminding her. She just prefers to do her thing and proudly tells you when she is done. She is very independant she has always been that way. She really seems to know what she is doing except when it comes to pulling down the pants and lifting up the skirt - that is something we have to work on. But we have only had two major accidents in 3 days!

I am sure we will have ups and downs but these last 3 days have seemed like a really good start.

Catching Up

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This is the way that Braden prefers to sleep! I will often go in to check on him and his face is always covered with the blanket.



Grace and Braden LOVE each other. It is so sweet to hear them talk back and forth and make each other giggle and laugh with delight. I even caught them holding hands in the truck the other day...awe!




Mmmmmmmm! Sweet Potatoes! So Messy!






Swinging at the Park! This is Braden's first time in a big swing!

Mother's Day

God knows what he is doing even when I sometimes wonder. Many people thought we were crazy to go through another pregnancy and yes I thought that too at times(who am I kidding I thought that MANY times!). I am glad God thought otherwise!


I am very blessed to have this perfect family and now I feel our family is COMPLETE! I LOVE my two beautiful children! and I love being their mommy!

The Story of My Life

I don't even know where to start...hmmmmmm

I spent too much time in the presence of doctors and nurses this weekend. I ended up in Emergency at Penticton Regional Hospital after experiencing shortness of breath and chest pain. These symptoms are primary in diagnosing a Pulmonary Embolism so I thought after a bit of "humming and hawing" that I should get checked out. Needless to say...it landed me on a stretcher in emerg with wires everywhere and on oxygen. Nice! I felt ridiculous. All I wanted was the blood test to check for clotting that the nice doctor at the Walk in Clinic suggested I get at Emergency. Funny enough, I also got the privilege of being a patient of Karen Bond's for my chest x-ray. It was bizarre to be wheeled through the hospital on a stretcher like I had about 7 months ago on bedrest with Braden.

After waiting too long to find out the results of the blood work and x-rays etc., we were told that my blood gases (or oxygen in my blood) was low and my d-dimer (the clotting test) was on the high end of normal -- not confirming but pointing towards another possible pulmonary embolism and I would need the dreaded CT Scan with IV Contrast to confirm it -- which is exactly why I almost chose not to go get checked. The reason I did not want it was because they have to inject a die into your blood during the scan which means that I would not be able to nurse Braden for 24 hours.

I left the hospital after learning to inject myself once again with Heparin, hardly believing this all could be happening again.

Poor Braden....

He was once a good enough bottler to get him out of the SCN at Royal Columbian Hospital but now (as we found out) he REFUSES anything other than his mommy. So for 24 hours he got lots of carrots, sweet potatoes, squash and he was also spoon fed some thickened formula. The hardest time for him was the 7:30pm feed. This is his bedtime feed so he is always desperate by 7:25pm. He is such a good natured baby and he did surprisingly well considering he was probably hungry and bordering on dehydration (towards the end of the 24 hours his urine was orange and he was looking orange after all the orange he was eating!)

It was hilarious to nurse him for the first time after the 24 hours was up. He was sooooo excited he could hardly believe it and he kept pulling back to check it all out!

The CT Scan (thanks Karen for arranging it for Sunday..it made it sooo much easier) was completely clear showing no evidence of a PE or anything else that might cause the symptoms. And actually the CT Scan showed no evidence of the previous DVT and PE that I had while I was pregnant with Braden. I also had a Pulmonary Function Test today which gave me a report of excellent lung health. In fact, some of the tests that were done put me above the average 30 year old woman for lung function...what a shock considering my history and how out of shape I am right now. Great news all around.