The Soy Experiment Continues

We are still soy-free and she is still clear of fog. It hasn't helped her tantrums or explosions, she still gets those. But she has not stumbled around in a daze since that last day after I gave her the gfcf waffles with soy in them and she was a zombie. I don't use margerine anymore because it doesn't exist without soy in it. I use organic vegetable shortening on her toast. We have bee using a lot more olive oil too because she really likes it and it is good for her. She seems to not have had any awful sensory issues recently, just normal levels, no awful sudden spikes for no reason I can figure out.

I have been slacking on her b12 shots. She was going through this awful back lash to it, screaming while we held her down to give her the shot. So it has been about a week since her last one and I'm feeling a bit guilty about it. I'm wondering if that will help her language and maybe her ability to not freak out over transitioning if I get the shots going again.

She has done a few different ticks over the past few weeks but seems to have settled on a cough that comes mostly at night. Someone suggested that it is a calming tool for herself. I hope that is right and it is not that she is uncomfortable and kept up by her cough.

I really hope that being strict about her soy is the key to keeping the fog clear. I love that she hasn't been stumbling around recently. She has been having little conversations with O over the past few days. In the car home from her school today she asked him about 3 questions about his day and his class at school.

I have been printing out worksheets so that she can work on her handwriting. She writes her Y's backwards in her name all the time and they don't seem to be working on correcting that at school. So we have been practicing at home and I have some gfcfsf chocolate chips that she gets after completing her worksheets. I hang them up on the wall too and switch them out each day. After she finally gets her name right and neat and tidy then we will start working on her last name with includes a backwards S. She writes lots of her numbers backwards too so that is behind her S's.

I have been getting O to do the worksheets too. He is very advanced in everything except handwriting, which I mean, he is only 3 so it doesn't matter. But it will be nice to practice so that he can start to write all of his good ideas down. I know he has the brain for it, I'm just not sure about the hand coordination since he is so young.

2 weeks until my younger sister's wedding. I have so much to do. AJ is doing her strange cough over and over and over.
me.

Happy Christmas Memory Made Today

AJ was so excited and such a big help decorating the Christmas tree this evening. She hung ornaments carefully all over the tree. This is the first year that I didn't have to convince her to hang at least one or two ornaments. She dug into the boxes and found the ones she like and hung them very happily. She was so into it, like with her online games, it was really fun to see. O was really into it too and it was fun to all three be decorating the tree. I put on some Raffi Christmas music and that kind of completed it. DH was at band practice so he missed out, but we had all gone earlier to pick out the tree together which was really fun too...no major melt downs and it wasn't freezing cold.

AJ was a bit explosive this afternoon and I had to put her in time out for hitting me with O's jacket because I interfered with her online video she was watching on Noggin.com, sigh, but one thing that I have been noticing lately, is that since I taught her to make fake crying noises when she does something that she should cry about...such as fall and hurt herself or if she gets in trouble, I have noticed real tears starting to form. It is so weird to have to teach your little girl to cry. Most people are saying "don't cry" and I say, "you are doing such a good job crying." I have to be careful not to say, "don't cry, don't be sad" because she thinks I am really telling her to stop and doesn't realize I am just showing emotion.

Tonight at bedtime O fell asleep by himself no problem and I rubbed AJ's feet until she fell asleep, since DH is worried about giving her melatonin every night.

me.

Let me start by saying that removing soy completely from AJ's diet has worked wonders. We used to give her food with just a little bit of soy in it, like margerine and some GFCF waffles. But I have since discovered then when she has no soy at all, she is "with us" but when she does have soy, like in the GFCF waffles, she is in lala land. I hope that we have found the secret to keeping her vocal and attentive. I will post again and see if this is consistent for more than two weeks.

So I am 27 weeks pregnant today. That is about how far along my older sister was when she came to visit me a few weeks before she passed at 32 weeks preg.

I have been dealing with something really hard core. Her husband told me a couple of days ago that they tried to save the baby. That he was taken from the scene, to the hospital, but he didn't make it. I had always thought that he died with her, in her belly, but hearing this threw me back into terrible grief again. After kind of figuring out how to separate her from the accident, I suddenly had to learn how to separate the baby from the accident and I am still dealing with it, still reeling from how horrible it is.

People say that they believe in angels. Where was my sister's angel? and why wasn't she her baby's angel? I have to figure out how to love the world anyway and the weird thing is, is that I do. I love that she had time with us, more than I hate what happened to her. I know that horrible things happen to people all the time but we always hope that we are exempt and that this stuff happens to other people...that we are the star of the story and they are all the characters that we read about.

But now I know that I could be gone tomorrow, that my kids could loose me or vice versa and I have to learn to not worry about it or I simply have no life. So I have kind of figured out how to go on and be happy anyway. Right now the baby in my belly is kicking away. It brings me so much joy but I am also shell shocked knowing exactly what my sister felt the last few weeks of her life. I also feel like there is this little life inside of me. There is this little personality and I when I feel my belly I can make out a head or a butt or a little foot. With the first two pregnancies it seemed like I had aliens moving around in my belly. This time it feels different. I know that there is a real little baby in there, my little one just growing and chilling out and getting bigger. He/she can even breath on his/her own if born right now. And these thoughts slam me back to my sister's baby. I don't know how long he was alive, if he even made it to the hospital. I think about how someone held him in their arms and it is a stunning thought. I kind of want to know who it was and what color the baby's eyes and hair were. But at the same time I want to leave it be and not ripple the waters more than they are, because no matter how much I find out, the outcome will be the same. I don't know how much more I want in my brain to make stories out of. I don't need any more answers that create more questions than before the answer was given...if that makes any sense.

DH said that he doesn't want me to grieve. He wants me to send "happy hormones" to the baby. And then I feel how unfair it is that I get this chance at being pregnant and having another baby while she was robbed of life and motherhood. I feel like I am stumbling through this in a way, thinking that at any second it could be taken away from me like it was her. Since she was older, i always followed in her footsteps...but not this, not this.

DH plays video games while I tell him about what I have been thinking and how I have been grieving and I cry and he plays video games until I tell him to turn it off and give me a hug. And he does, when I tell him to. I think that I have developed this kind of tolerance of him having no idea how to deal with this, because AJ needs to be told basic social things and I guess she got it from her daddy. So I don't get mad at him for playing video games while I cry about my sister. I just tell him what he can do to help me and when he willingly does it I am amazed at how he is so like AJ. His eye contact with strangers is terrible too. In fact, I can never ask him to get our waiter or waitress in restaurants because he won't look at their faces ever so he can't recognize them to ask them for something.

So a few other things that have slammed me back into grief mode is that I saw a fatal accident yesterday. I just went home and went to bed for 4 hours and made DH come home and watch the kids while I just waited for the shock to go away. Also my sister's husband brought me her sewing stuff. She has these amazing sewing machines, a Surger (which I never knew what one was until he brought it today...even though she had told me all about it before.) And another fancy machine I have no idea how to use. He brought tubs of remarkably organized thread and tubs of fabrics she had collected...some from little stores in her town and some from England when she went there with her husband last year. So now it is all piled in our living room until I figure out where to put it. I was thinking about putting it under my bed but I don't want to have weird dreams. Her husband also brought me her amazing mountain bike that she got when she was in college. The thing is, she would never have let me touch this stuff and now here it is in my shed and living room. My younger sister and my mom are both wonderful at sewing and neither of them want the machines. They can't deal with it. I feel closer to her when I look at her stuff and look at the fabrics and see the little sketches she drew of purses and a dress that she was going to make. I think that maybe I will try to make it in honor of her. My younger sister said she couldn't deal with that and that I can and that I have dealt with it head on right from the beginning. She said she could never had made a photo montage for the funeral like I did. I told her that making that video photo montage of her life was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life and I did it because mom asked me to and I obviously would have done anything for mom at that point...anything. DH helped me with it too when I would break down. My younger sister said that she just doesn't let any of it seep up. I don't really know what that means.

Speaking of my younger sister, she is having her wedding here in three weeks. I will write more about that next time .
me.

Why I Chose this OBGYN

So my new OBGYN...here goes:

After finding out that I needed to get a scan by Nov 21st to remain at my current OBGYN's practice, I wasn't sure what to do. I eventually, one morning decided that I would just get the ultrasound and this way I could make sure that the baby was Ok and what sex it was too so we could prepare more easily and be able to get the kids excited about it. AJ is sure we are having a girl so it would be nice to be able to give her a solid answer she could get used to. I told DH this when I woke up in the mornign and he said he thought I was making the right decision and he was glad I was going to be able to stay with the midwives that I liked and not have to worry about this anymore.

But when I picked up the phone to make the phone call I couldn't do it. I sat there with the phone in my hand and thought about how I was being pressured into care that was not right for me because they were worried about liability, not because they thought I was wrong about not having the scan. It seemed to me that if they couldn't adjust their care plan for me, that I needed to go somewhere that could. I thought about the articles and the studies I had read. I couldn't get it out of my head that the book, "The Out Of Synch Child" was on the same shelf as "What to Expect When You Are Expecting" at Books a Million. And I couldn't get out of my head that email I got from babycenter.com saying that at 20 weeks is when the "sensory organs are all developing." I also couldn't get out of my head that I knew back when AJ was a baby that there was a question about getting her those flu shots with thimerasol in them. But I let the doctor talk me into thinking I was doing the right thing, and then I watched my baby regress so much so quickly that it was really scary.

So while holding the phone I called my younger sister instead of Northside. She said that either way she knew I would make the right decision. Hm... that didn't help. So I called my dad at his work and told him the story from beginning to end, and he advised me to go to the birth center.

There was one more place I could call. My friend, Suzanne had told me about it. She had birthed her first child there. But it was different now. When she was there there were 3 midwives and now there was only one. The hospital they were affiliated with was closing in a year, so it seemed like they were phasing things out. They used to have a place where a person could deliver at their practice rather than the hospital, but they don't do that anymore. I had tried calling them a week ago and left a message for the midwife to call me but she never called me back. So I decided to try again, just so I would know all of my options before making the final decision. I called and asked where they were located and then drove me and O there (since this was after his preschool got out)

When I got to the practice I was not impressed. It was in a grimy small strip mall next to a convenient store with bars on the window. It had a small old sign out front and I thought about just leaving but then decided to at least check it out so I would know all of my options before making a decision. O and I went inside and it was a bit grimy in the waiting room. I asked if I could speak to the midwife if she wasn't too busy and they brought me back to a type of conference room with a clock on the wall that was stopped, empty shelves, and old large desk and a musty smell in the air. When Lilly the midwife came in I told her about what was going on at Northside Hospital and she said that she thought I should just get the ultrasound. When I started to go into why I didn't want one she cut me off and said that she didn't care if I had the ultrasound or not, that she and the dr there would not require me to get it and that it wasn't an issue. She said that if I wanted her to care for me that it would be a pleasure to see someone who had planned to have the baby, who wanted to have the baby and who was interested in natural birth. I got the impression she was used to dealing with a whole different set of moms to be than who were going to Northside Midwives. She was really nice but I wasn't feeling like I wanted to be at a practice where the mom's weren't excited about having their babies and where it was not clean and warm and well, inviting at all.
So when I was walking out I asked about the hospital she was affiliated with. General Hospital was across the street from them and also quite close to my house. She said that if I wanted to have a look at the labor and delivery floor that someone would probably show me around.

So my next and final stop was labor and delivery at General Hospital. O and I went to the elevators that took so long to open that I almost left. I kept thinking that if I was in labor this would not be cool right now. But O loves elevators and he would have had a fit if we almost got to ride on one but then left. So we stuck it out and eventually made it to the 3rd floor. When the doors opened I couldn't believe how cute the lobby was. We walked out into a beautiful, clean, cute and inviting room. Then I looked through the door there and saw the nurse desk and hallways of labor and delivery. I looked for a way to be buzzed in and didn't see one, so I tried the door and was pretty much stunned that it opened and that it wasn't kept locked and under tight security like at Northside and where I had birthed O and AJ. I didn't like that at all. But when I walked in there the nurses looked up and smiled and when I looked around it was so sweet and warm and clean with cute pictures on the wall. The hallways were carpeted and not concrete. It just looked like a really really nice place to have a baby. It looked nicer, cleaner and more inviting than Northside.
One of the nurses showed me around and we went and looked at an open delivery room. It was in pristine condition and she picked up a wireless monitor and said that each room had one so I could walk around and move while I was laboring and not be confined to a bed.

So I decided that it would be nice to have the baby here because it was close to my house, so I could do most of the laboring at home, and because I wouldn't have to get an ultrasound...but I would be in a hospital if anything went wrong and they had a nic unit there also. I would be able to keep the baby in my room too. The only problem is that I would have to have round the clock family keeping an eye on my baby since I would be paranoid about the lack of security...not because it is in a bad area or anything, just because when I am a new mom I am intense about keeping the baby in family's hands and sight at all times. I guess I have a mistrust of society that kicks in hardcore for those first couple of days after my little one is born. It is kind of a shame really. It would be so much easier to be trusting and be able to sleep and send the baby to the nursery and such with no worries. But its not going to happen. It was going to be weird to have my prenatal care at a place that I wasn't too excited about, but I figured if the midwife is good (they raved about her at the hospital) that it would be OK.

So there is my long post about my experience with trying to find a place to have the baby. I am 25 weeks preg tomorrow. The little one is dong flips in my belly quite often. Exciting stuff...I'm so glad I made a decision and that I don't have to think about this anymore.

Let me end by saying that the main midwife at Northside told me that regarding my concern with the scans, that I was "probably way ahead of everyone on this one." If she is right, then perhaps this was all worth it.

me.

Major Bad Parent Mistake #1 (many more to come I'm sure)

I'll write about the new OBGYN tomorrow. Today I'm going to write about O. Yesterday we went to the mall and I asked O to pick out a present for his school friend, Elle's party that was today. He picked out a $10 gift of two matchbox cars from the movie, "Cars." He was so proud of his choice that I just bought them and thought that I liked cars as a little girl so it is OK to give them as a present to a little girl.
But today while he was at preschool and I was back at the mall (getting them winter jackets) I saw some cute little dolls at the Childrens' Place that were only $10 and looked a lot more fun to give to her at the party that afternon than two matchbox cars. So I bought one, wrapped it up and gave it to O to give to his friend. I didn't mention to him that it was not the cars, but a doll. I was a little embarrassed at that moment at the gender labels I was solidifying. I didn't think he would ever know or be affected by it though because these days no one ever opens their gifts at their party. I figured it would be no big deal. I was right. We left before she opened them.

Then when we got home after a long day, he walked in the front door and there were the match box cars by the front door. I forgot to put them away. He picked them up and showed them to me and shouted, "We forgot the present!!!!!"
Instead of just telling him that I got her a doll instead I said, "There were cars in there. I bought two of them so you could have one and she could have one."
He looked a bit confused. I said, 'You can have these at Christmas time. I will put them away for now.
He said, 'I don't want them at Christmas, I want them at fall!!"
He very rarely gets spontaneous gifts, and I felt so guilty for my dumb lie that I just said OK and gave him the cars, pulling them out of the packaging and giving them to him.
So then at bed time he was holding the cars and he started crying. I asked him what was wrong and he said that there was nothing in the box that we gave Elle today. I said that there was a present in the box and I wouldn't give her an empty box.
He said, "NO, I checked, there was nothing in there!!"
The box was sealed well, there was no way he could have checked, but he is such a smart kid that he probably wondered why the box was so light, as this was a stuffed doll, not the heavy little cars. I decided to level with him and said, "I bought her a doll and put it in the box."
Now he was utterly confused and I was in a pickle. He said that he wanted to put the cars back in the packaging we had just taken them out of and give them to Elle tomorrow. He kept saying that the present box we gave her was empty.

His sophistication of his indignant protests was stunning. My heart was breaking as he cried because of how my ballooning white lies and bad decisions were affecting him.

So tomorrow I will go to Sears and get another packet of cars, the same one and bring it to his preschool so that he can give it to Elle. I won't really be making up for lying to him. I won't be fixing the confusion of the stories changing and possibly loosing his trust in me. But it is one small thing I can do to try and make up for it. I might even keep him out of preschool and take him with me to Sears and he can help me wrap it. I don't know. I don't want to make too big of a deal out of it but I need to follow through with something solid that makes sense to him.

So that was my bad parent vent. I know I will make many more mistakes but I have learned that even though O is 3, he is a very very smart little person and that I must always be honest with him, even if it inconvenient. Because the alternative is unfair and just well, pretty much awful.
me.

It is 6:30am and I have been up since 4. AJ came in our room and got in bed with us then didn't get back to sleep for two hours. Now she is fast asleep. Not me. DH got up and went to sleep in her bed so we would have room and because she wiggles for hours so no one sleeps. Tomorrow, well, this morning I am going to talk to him about what we can do to get her back in her bed since when the baby comes I can't be up all night with both of them. At least O has been sleeping through the night these past few days. AJ seems to wake up in wee hours of the morning when we give her melatonin.

Today I am going to call her pediatrician and tell her about what I wrote in my previous blog. We shall see what she says.

So I am 24 weeks preg now. The baby is doing summersaults constantly. I love that feeling! I got one ultrasound at 10 weeks and he/she looked great. Then they scheduled me for a 3D ultrasound at 20 weeks and I remembered something weird that my sister told me about her 20 week ultrasound. She said it was funny because it looked like the baby was running away from the scanner thingy the whole time. I thought that was kind of weird. So I looked up ultra sounds and autism and just like everything else, there is someone who says there is a connection. So I looked some more to try and have my research be even and not just take the word of a youtuber. I found a study by Yale done in 1996 that shows that ultrasounds cause displaced brain cell placement in mice. They went on to say why this applied to human babies too. You can find the article on the Autism Speaks website if you search under ultrasound.

So I thought to myself, well, no biggie, since I already had an ultrasound and things looked good, I just wont' get the 20 week one so I won't have to worry or think about it anymore. Then I went in for my check up and when I told my midwife, Jane, that I cancelled my ultrasound and that I decided not to have one, she kind of freaked out. She said that the doctors who own the practice would not be OK with that. She said that for liability reasons I had to get the ultrasound done or they wouldn't see me anymore.
I left feeling kind of shocked. I thought that I should just get the scan and forget about it. But at the same time I was annoyed that they were choosing liability issues over the individual care of the patient. I totally understand why they would, but I didn't really want to be a part of it.

So...I went to the birth center in town and spoke with the midwives there. I loved it there and it is only minutes from my house. But they don't offer the option of an epidural which is a bit scary but I thought would be the right option for me. I decided to go to the birth center. Then that night, I woke up in a panick, remembering when I got an epidural with O and telling myself that if I was dumb enough to have a third, to not try and do it without an epidural. I remember burning that into my brain, that I never wanted to feel that strength of a 9cm contraction ever again in my whole life.

I talked to DH about it and he said he didn't want me at the birth center. He said he wanted me and the baby at a hospital so if anything went wrong we would have immediate care. So now that left me in this weird position of do I just get the scan and stay at Northside Hospital? Or do I suck it up and go to the birth center?

My friend suggested that I go and talk to the doctor in charge at Northside. So I made the appt and DH and I went in to see her. She said that she agreed with me, that all of my reasons and arguments and points were valid and true. BUT she still couldn't risk the liability because in the rare chance that there was something wrong with the baby, I could sue her and say that she didn't councel me properly on why I needed it done.

for 3 weeks , between 21 and 24 weeks preg I had no baby care practice to go to. That was kind of stressful to be that far along and out in limbo. Then a friend told me about another place. This other place is the one that I chose. I will blog about that tomorrow :)
me.

Is she having seizures?

So today we I piked A up from school and me, A and O went to the University Therapy building for A's usual Wednesday OT and Social Skills class. We have a break between OT and Social Skills and so the kids play in the waiting room with the other kids and it is like a mad house in there. I talk to the other moms and it is very interesting hearing how they deal with their children's disabilities and gifts. When the SLP came out and called A to come in for her class, as usual she was spaced out and it took calling her a name a few times to get her attention and then she went with her therapist to do her little class.
The weird part...the part I am leading up to is one of the moms I talk to came up to me and sat down and she looked pretty nervous. I really like this mom. She is an amazing person who homeschools her kids and her typical daughter is the sweetest little girl ever and is so kind to the children there who have disabilities and is never rude. Her brother goes there for therapy. He has CP and seizures. Well, this mom said to me, "I really hope I don't offend you but I think that I need to share this with you."
That kind of scared me because I tend to say some dumb things sometimes and wondered if she was going to call me out on something that I said that was controversial or odd. But I decided to keep an open mind and not get too worried.
I told her that it was OK and to let me know what was up.
She told me that when A was being called by her therapist to come with her and how A just was standing there staring out of the side of her eyes at nothing, then seemed startled out of it by the therapist calling her name, as if she were waking up out of something...she said that this was exactly what her son, Nathan did when he was having his absence seizures. She said that Nathan is on medication for it and is doing really amazingly well. She said that the seizures cause regression, and could have been the cause of A's sudden regression at age 2 and that they can be treated so that she stops spacing out all the time.
I told this mom that A had an EEG before and there were no seizures. she said that absence seizures can be once every 4 hours and that the half hour study could have simply missed them. She said that A needs a 24 hours study.
I asked for the name of her doctor and he is 3 hours from our town. But I am going to call our pediatrician tomorrow and talk to her about it and see what she says.
Wish me luck. I hope this is truly something treatable.
me.