Encouraging news!

Today Tommy had his 18 month check up - even though he'll be 20 months in 6 days! We had to reschedule his appointment b/c he got strep and was on an antibiotic for a couple of weeks.  Anyhow this doctor visit was such a blessing! First of all Tommy did great! He was such a big boy and was so sweet to the doctor. I have mentioned his pediatrician in the past and I'm a big fan of his. I like him for many reasons and today is a great example of why.

I was feeling very uncomfortable with how we left things at the cardiologist last time and I was very confused. I called to try and get clarification from the cardiologist but I was still pretty lost. I understand (as much as I can as untrained professional) what is wrong with Tommy's heart, his cardiologist does a wonderful job at explaining that! However, we were on different pages when it came to the topic of when Tommy would have surgery. So after our conversation he kindly suggested that we move Tom's appointment up 3 months and make sure we're the last appointment of the day so we can take our time and have any questions answered that we need.  He was very sweet at wanting to accommodate this frazzled mom. Well I had told Kyle that I was planning to talk to the pediatrician about it b/c he's been along with us too for the whole ride and I wanted to see if it made better sense to him then it did to me. And it did, and he explained it so clearly.

Basically he said the information he got from Tommy's last cardiologist appointment showed that the ASD has gotten smaller. Did our cardiologist say this, no. But Kyle thinks he didn't mention it b/c he doesn't want to get our hopes up that it will close on its own and we still understand that the likelihood of that is extremely slim (but we know God can do great things). And the pediatrician agrees that Tommy will ultimately have to have surgery but it's an encouraging sign it's smaller, b/c the smaller the patch they have to put in, the better that is for Tommy.  And he also said perhaps as Tommy grows the bottom part of the Atrial wall will grow up and possibly allow for a heart cath instead of open heart surgery! Now I say this telling you that he does not necessarily think that's what will happen, but it is something to pray for. And to be honest - I am just so excited to hear the ASD is smaller! It's still significant, it's still surgery worthy (trust me we've seen the echos and the hole looks big), but we'll take what we can get! We thank the Lord so much for the improvement, no improvement is insignificant!

Then I asked the pediatrician for clarification as to what kind of growth deficiency they look for to know if the heart is causing issues. And he said HUGE growth deficiency, almost to the point of wasting away, and it wouldn't just be physical we'd be able to notice he'd be missing milestones, and he said it would be really obvious to us. He said Tommy is doing amazing. And he said that, that's probably where the big miscommunication was between the cardiologist and us occurred - most babies with this heart defect and down syndrome do not thrive this well. So he explained that the cardiologist was just preparing us for what usually happens and that Tommy is just beating the odds.  Tthe cardiologist had also told us that Tommy is doing better than expected and he is very pleased with his progress but for some reason coming from the pediatrician it sounded way more encouraging. I wish he could join us for our heart visits!

We don't want to get everyone overly excited or give false hope that Tommy won't have to have surgery. But we want to make sure we're giving the Lord glory for His goodness and for hearing our prayers. Recently I've started adding to my night time prayer with Tommy that if it's the Lord's will for Tommy to have surgery that He would give us wisdom as to when he should have it, and before we were thinking sooner rather than later (and by sooner we still mean years, not months) and I feel like He helped guide us in that today. If we know Tommy's heart is showing improvement, that gives us much more of a reason to wait.

Over all we are thrilled with this news and Kyle and I both feel so encouraged. I am sure the cardiologist has gained wisdom over the years that as he does not know each set of parents and how they will react to different news that he is cautious with what information he shares and how he shares it. But our pediatrician knows us a little better, we see him way more often and he knows how I handle Tommy from a medical aspect. So I think he either knew we could hear that and not put too much hope in it or he just thought we already knew and that the cardiologist had told us. Either way I'm glad he did. It's so silly but it did make me feel like, "God you really are listening! Thank you!" I know that the Lord hears my prayers but how awesome it is to see Him hear them. Thank you for joining us in lifting our sweet boy up in prayer and for celebrating with us in all of his accomplishments.

Go Tommy, Go Tommy Go!

I'll go ahead and apologize for being super repetitive and annoying in this video - but clearly the video is not about me.

Mushy Monday

Who's baby learned to dance this week?! Oh yeah - that's my babeh! His dance move - waving his hands in the air like he just don't care!!!

I have to get a good video of this for you all! Check back later in the week and I'll try to have one posted!

If I say, "Go Tommy, Go Tommy, Go!" Tommy will throw his hands in the air and shake them back and forth - I love it and he loves it! The other night we were in a restaurant and I didn't even notice the music playing and Tommy started "dancing." LOVE IT!

I have been hoping that this boy would like music and like dancing - but until recently he had shown very little interest.

He is also starting to cruise along the couch! My sweet boy is getting so big and he is such a joy! I am really excited about him being a big brother too! I think I'm one of the frew who are okay with and even enjoy their babies getting bigger b/c I love seeing more and more of Tommy's personality and who he is and is going to be.

So very thankful!

I love Thanksgiving! One friend put on facebook something about how it's a fun, family, food filled holiday where nobody gives anyone gifts! And it's so true - we all get together, enjoy good food, and fun family time but no pressure of gift giving or gift receiving and it's a time to remember to be thankful.

I was thinking late Thanksgiving night for all the many things I have to be thankful for. First what comes to mind is my sweet family of Kyle and Tommy, and now baby to be. I absolutely LOVE and cherish my time with Kyle and Tommy. Kyle is so attractive, funny, genuine, masculine, a great leader, an amazing father, handy, smart (common sense and book smart), and so much more. Tommy is just a joy - his smile lights up my day repeatedly, his laugh makes me laugh, he loves me as his mom and his friend, he's a boy through and through - he already loves to wrestle (in a modified baby/toddler version), he's so smart and handsome, he already tries to hold his own when he's being told no (not necessarily a good thing but part of his personality that I will still love), he's so silly, and I can't imagine where we would be without him. As Tommy gets older I find us having more and more family time, where Kyle and I play with Tommy together, and oh do I love this! It's so much fun and I just feel like it creates such sweet moments to keep tucked away in my memory. And I'm getting more and more excited thinking about Tommy having a sibling - I'm well aware that the first few months will be a juggling act; but in the long run I love that Tommy will have a sibling close in age and I hope that we can encourage them to be close friends. Also, it's fun to see Tommy becoming Tommy and no longer just a baby, so I look forward to seeing who this little person will be as well.

I'm also thankful for my immediate family outside of Kyle and Tommy. For my mom and dad - we are so blessed to live in the same city and to get to spend so much time with them. And they sacrifice so much time, energy, money to host Thanksgiving for a big family event so all of us can come and enjoy the holiday together. My parents are the greatest - if you know them, you know I speak the truth. And I'm thankful for my three sisters! I love when we're all in the same city and get to hang out and spend time with each other's families. Jennifer and Dave we get to see most often b/c we live in the same city and it's so nice, we wish the other two couples would move here too! Jennifer is just craaazzzy over Tommy and spoils him rotten. She goes through Tommy withdraw if she hasn't seen him often enough. But we love their company, Dave has a great laid back nature and Jennifer dances like a mad woman just to get a laugh out of Tommy. Jeanne and Jody are so sweet and expecting their little boy very soon! They will be amazing parents and we cannot wait to meet him! They are always so much fun to hang out with and I'm always thrilled when I know they're coming into town. Julie, Brian and Eliza are such a blast too. Eliza and Tommy are close in age so it's fun for them to have time together to play - sometimes Tommy loves to play with Eliza and other times he acts like she has cooties but she just LOVES him and it's so precious. (She really loves everybody though, she's a very outgoing little girl) Brian and Julie always make me laugh and I love when Julie comes for random trips and we get to have lots of playdates together! And I'm going to be so jealous when Julie and Jeanne get together all the time with their two little ones and I'm stuck here, without them and their babies. (Jennifer that means you have to quit working and come hang out with me and Tommy and new baby, so I'm not sisterless during the day)

And the other big thing I'm thankful for is close friends who love me and don't judge me. It is so encouraging and also freeing (sounds weird but I'll explain) to have friends who you know you can talk to about your sin and they aren't going to think differently of you b/c of it but they can help you think through it. When I say freeing, I mean b/c you can literally think what you are sharing with them is embarrassing and stupid, but you don't feel embarrassed and stupid when you tell them. Does that make sense? If you have a friend like that then it should make sense to you. It's a pretty awesome gift to have someone who isn't your spouse and hasn't made a life long commitment to you, to know you - sin, stupid, embarrassing you - and all and still love you and even like you.

Now we know I'm not going to leave out my thankfulness for love and grace of God. Selfishly I thought about how all the above things wouldn't be there if it weren't for the Lord. They physically wouldn't be there b/c nothing would be created, but what I really mean is none of those things would be the same. My relationship with my husband, son, family, and friends would all look so different. So I'm thankful we have the bond of Christ to deepen and strengthen our love for each other. And selfishly I'm thankful we can all be saved by the blood of Christ and not fear death or hell b/c of the sacrifice of Christ. While they are selfish thanksgivings to the Lord - they are still b/c of God's glory.

It's time for another one...

Another baby that is! Tommy is going to be a big brother in May! We are very excited and look forward to adding another sweet child to our family. I am just at 13 weeks; we had an ultrasound around 8 weeks and everything looked good and I had a belly check last week and the heartbeat was strong. I've been feeling much better than I did when I was pregnant with Tommy, thank the Lord! I do get a lot of headaches when I'm pregnant, but have discovered taking benadryl ASAP helps a lot.  Sometimes the benadryl doesn't quite get it though and my sweet husband rubs my shoulders to help. (Apparently tension headaches are super common for preggo women.)

Tommy has no clue I'm pregnant. He's a very intelligent little guy but that's just beyond his comprehension at this point. We did however use him to announce our pregnancy. We put a fake tattoo on his arm that said "Big Bro" and took a picture of him and sent it out in the mail to our family. Most people were a little suspicious when they saw they had mail from us, b/c we don't usually send out random mail.  It was a fun way to tell them though - on the front of the card it said "Tommy got his first tattoo!" then they opened it to find his picture and a message asking them not to tell anyone but call us when they got it. It was a long day waiting for people to check their mail but also pretty nice not having to make individual phone calls one right after the other. I remember making sooooo many calls when Kyle and I got engaged and when we were pregnant with Tommy - it's a lot of fun but a lot of work. So we took the lazy way out, we let Tommy tell everyone and calls excited calls trickled in through out the day. The first phone call was from my parents b/c Tommy had spent the night with them - the day after we put the tattoo on. Well I tried to get the tattoo off before he went over there but it was a pretty untemporary tatoo - I think he wore it for a good 3 weeks or so. (Side note - we learned rubbing alcohol takes temporary tattoos off nicely) Anyhow, my mom went to give Tommy a bath that morning and found the tatto. At first my parents were confused and then my mom said, "She's pregnant. Call Jill and ask her if she's pregnant!" So my mom and dad called - both on the phone at the same time. And I just laughed it off and said Tommy wanted a tatoo. Then I kept changing the subject - telling them how the dog and cat had both already thrown up that morning - and my mom kept saying, "Are you pregnant?" and my dad would chime in, "You're not answering the question." So finally I told them I was and they were very excited. One of the funniest things is that they thought our friends from church (Christina who I've mentioned in other posts and her husband) did it as a joke for halloween. Anyway it was a lot of fun.  Here's Tommy sporting his tough tattoo:

You would have thought the kid was getting a real tattoo with the fight he put up to hold his arm still for each letter to be blotted on. And once we were finished he pulled his arm back and rubbed the whole thing off, since it was still wet, on his high chair. But it turned out great - he didn't care about it at all once he was able to move his arm freely.

We are so excited and feel so blessed to be adding this new surprise addition to our family.  We weren't planning for this sweet little one but I'm glad that the Lord does things in His timing b/c I had no idea when I'd be ready for another baby. I think it will so much fun for the kids to be close in age and play together and hopefully be close and love each other very much!

I was a little afraid that I wouldn't be as excited this pregnancy, that I would worry that something would be wrong.  Whether it was DS or something else.  And to be honest I was worried in the very beginning, but more about having a miscarriage, not DS.  But I prayed specifically that the Lord would allow me to be excited and joyful and that I wouldn't worry about something being wrong.  And to be completely honest I'm not worried (at least not all right now) about this child having DS.  There is a higher chance once you have one child with DS to have another one, but here's the thing we know what a blessing any child is and that it's something we can handle (not on our own but with the Lord).  We won't be having any special tests done to check for DS, it did change my perspective on them though - I do see where people would choose to have them, not for abortion reasons, but to mentally and medically prepare.  There would definitely have been a perk to having done more research and talked to other moms who had been through it before b/c it's a lot to take in, especially in the hospital when you're having to schedule what seemed like a bajillion doctors appointments and you haven't even taken your child home yet.  But I did some research and Kyle and I talked about it and there's no guarantee with the tests - they can be wrong either way.  The test may say you aren't having a baby with DS and you really are, or that you are and you really aren't.  So I don't see the necessity in putting our emotions through something that may not be accurate. We will have a special ultrasound done on our baby's heart, we had one done with Tommy, b/c heart defects run in our family. They couldn't see any of Tommy's heart defects in utero though, so mainly major ones are apparent. Now if there was a major heart defect connected to DS that shows up in the ultrasound then Kyle and I might reevaluate and have one of the safer tests run, but we'll cross that bridge if we get there.

I do think Tommy will be a great big brother, I don't know if initially he will be but I know he'll grow into one and love this baby so much! My main concern with him right now is learning to be gentle. He likes to hit. We try correcting him, it really has no effect at this point but we're trying to be consistent but at the same time try different things to see if he responds more. But I think he'll be great at sharing his toys and us, he seems to like when we hold other kids as long as we stay close to him too. Oh we won't be finding out if we're having a boy or girl, we didn't with Tommy either. We don't even ask the heart rate at the doctor visits so there are no hints! Kyle thinks we're having a boy! I love that he even made a guess, with Tommy he made no guesses until like a week or two before we had him b/c we did know the heart rate then after being monitored many times b/c of my blood pressure. I'm due at the end of May 2012! We do not have names picked out and Kyle will not talk to me about names. He's not happy with me b/c we did have names picked out from way back when we were pregnant with Tom but those are both very popular names now and I don't like them as much. So he says I'll just change my mind by the end of the pregnancy if we pick out other names (not true...could be true...but probably not). Kyle's never had a love for talking baby names, so I understand his disappointment in me changing my mind, but I have always been a lover of talking about baby names so my fun continues. I have a girl choice picked out but no boy ideas - we want to use all family names if we can. Some day if we talk about and agree on names I'll let you know what they are.

My next doctor's appointment is mid-December and then we have an ultrasound in the beginning of January (where the sex of the baby will NOT be revealed).  And then two or three weeks later we'll have the special heart ultrasound done.

There will be plenty of updates on here. I kind of wish now that I would have blogged while I was pregnant with Tommy so I could go back and read what it was like at this point.

This is my mushy monday post by the way. What's mushier than having a sweet, little, snuggly, hopefully calm and happy and laid back and good sleeping and good eating, baby?!



Mushy Monday

Woo Woo look who's posted on the right day two weeks in a row?! This week I am suuuuuper happy to have our baby boy back! When your little one is sick and teething for a while, you forget what his regular personality is like - fun, laid back, sweet, funny, etc. After a week+ of holding a crying and whining baby, getting lots of sweet snuggles though, I was ready for the return of our Tommy. He took an antibiotic for the first time, he hated taking it so I was glad when it was all gone. And we have since discovered that it was all 4 canines coming in at once. Here's the bad news, only the tips of these 4 vicious teeth have poked through. You can see 4 specks of white where the teeth are, sometimes I think it might just be a leftover from a meal, but trust me I've felt them many times to verify they are in fact the points to all 4 painful canines. I'm just hoping that as they grow in more they don't cause him as much pain. But in wonderful, God praising, worthy news - TEETHING TABLETS ARE BACK! I know there are some teething tablet haters out there, I am not one of them. They work. God thought of me and Tommy, and my sister Julie and niece Eliza, (shout out on the blog woo woo) when he had someone invent these. By the way I did read why they took them off the market to begin with and how they brought them back. They're safe. They're great. The end.

But in all seriousness Tommy has been so much fun lately. He's big into giving me TONS, and by tons I really do mean more than I could count, of kisses. It's actually starting to dry my skin out on my cheeks from all the slobbery love he is giving to his mama. But I love it! He thinks it's funny! Oh and he's babbling so much more now, he is constantly saying "dadadadadadadadada" and now "babababababababa" sometimes we get a "rararararara" and on the rarest of occasions a "ma". He's actually babbling in front of people now too which is fun for them to hear his sweet voice.  He's been playing really well by himself again, which is so so so nice! I was afraid it would be a long road back to him being able to do that, but it hasn't. He's a pretty great kid.

Tommy just turned 19 months old yesterday! That blows my mind. Our little boy is over a year and a half old. How did that happen? His physical therapist thinks he'll be walking around the age of 2, but Kyle and I will be amazed if that happens. Not to sound negative, we just know he has a long way to go before he's walking, the kid is smart and independent, he likes to get around quickly in the ways he knows how to and that do not require anyone else's help. His cutest way of getting around is by leaning forward on his hands and then lifting and moving his butt over in which ever direction he wants to go.

This week, right around his 19 month old marker, was the first time a stranger brought up Tommy having Down Syndrome without me bringing it up first. It actually took me off guard. Initially I didn't really like it but the lady was super nice and didn't mean anything by it. It was a grandma who was playing with her 10 month old grandson. And we were talking about their ages and size and shortly after she just said, "My daughter works with kids with Down Syndrome." And I said, "Oh, that's good." Obviously she was meaning to be sweet and to let me know she had a connection with Down Syndrome. And I don't know if it was b/c she said it out of the blue or that we hadn't been talking that long but my initial reaction was uncomfortable. Now here's the thing, I am A Okay with talking to people about Tommy having Down Syndrome and a lot more people may be able to tell he has it by looking at him but aren't going to say something about it. Anyway one of my points here is that I had wondered if as Tommy got older if he would look more like he had Down Syndrome to me, there are some typical physical features attributed to DS but not every kid who has DS will have those attributes. But the answer to that question is that as he gets older I actually see it less. And I don't think that that means Tommy doesn't have those attributes, he might, but I think as his mother I know him for being Tommy and I see his personality way more than anyone else and that effects the way that I see him. Now sometimes when he is tired I do think you can see it more in his eyes, but I actually don't even see it as much now as I did when he was little (I don't think that means that it's changed I think it means that I have). I don't care if Tommy has the typical attributes associated with DS but I love that I see him through my eyes. Do you get what I'm saying? It's not completely like when you meet a good looking person but then when they start talking they get a lot uglier, or vice versa when you meet an average looking person but as they start talking they become a lot prettier; but it's kind of along those same lines. It is comparable to my twin sisters, some people can't ever tell them apart, I've been able to since I was 2, b/c I know them. They're faces look completely different to me. Well Tommy's face looks like Tommy to me - the most handsome little face I've ever seen! He has the sweetest smile and the most pitiful sad faces (which he is getting very good at faking for attention). It makes me happy to share this with whoever reads my blog b/c this was one of the things I worried about when we had Tommy. It sounds vain, but I had no idea what it was like to have a kid, let alone a kid with DS. So I was afraid he wouldn't look like us, or that those "typical features" would be all I saw. How naive was I?! Kyle always knew better. When Tommy was still and infant, I asked him my embarrassing question of, "Do you think we'll be able to see that Tommy has DS some day?" he said, "No, I think we'll just see Tommy. We'll know him as he grows and he might gradually change but I don't think we'll see it. And he'll just look like Tommy to us." I married a very smart man, who gave me a very handsome boy that looks just like his daddy! I love my family!

Mushy Monday

My mushy post goes out to my dear friend Christina this week! During one of the more difficult weeks of our parenting lives she made us dinner and brought it to us and brought us an additional dinner to make the next night! It was such a blessing to Kyle, Tommy, and me. Kyle hadn't had a real meal since we left his parents' house on Sunday and Tommy was barely eating b/c he had been sick and teething. I had planned to make dinner the night before but my sweet boy wouldn't let me sit him down, he needed his mama to hold him. And I hadn't been to the grocery in over a week so we were limited on options any way.

Christina offered to bring us dinner in an email, and I almost initially wrote back, "no that's okay" but then I thought about it for a second and realized that it really would be a huge help. But even as I was going to write her back I kept fighting with my pride to whether or not I should really accept her generous offer. But then I remembered what a sweet friend I met in Kenya told me. He's from Kenya and was one of our guides during the week and we were on the bus headed somewhere and he was getting up and asked, "Can I get you something to drink?" (or something of that sort, I know we were eating) and I responded, "Oh no that's okay I can get it myself." Just thinking I didn't want to make him go out of his way. And he said very seriously back to me, "You do know that you should allow people to serve you. You keep wanting to serve us but we want to have the privilege to serve you too, and you should allow us to." So of course somewhat embarrassed I said said something like, "okay I'll take a water then." But what he said is really true, when I have the opportunity to serve someone else it is so fulfilling. It's what Christ wants us to do, and to do it in His name (sometimes I have a hard time remembering that but I also think that's connected to the reason why it really does feel good to serve and love others through that service) but we also have to give people the same opportunity and allow them to serve us. Anyhow since Christina is a close friend I did actually agree. And Kyle thought it was a little silly that I agreed to it, b/c obviously we can go grab something out to eat but we had been doing that a lot already. But after he had Christina's dinner I asked if he was glad that I accepted her offer and he strongly agreed at that point. And he finished off all the leftovers the next night!! And poor, starving Tom Tom ate so much of it too, it was the first big meal he had eaten in about a week! (His canines are coming in and he had strep so he had been eating hardly anything)

And here's the other neat thing, it made me feel even closer to Christina by allowing her to serve us. It doesn't completely make sense to me, maybe it's b/c I felt kind of vulnerable in a sense by letting my guard down and trying to push my pride aside. Who knows. But I'm so grateful for her sweet friendship and her willingness to serve us!

Here's an oldie but a goodie of Christina and Tommy who is showing off his gymnastic skills

On a good note, things are looking up in our household! Tommy is doing better, Praise the Lord! He is taking his first antibiotic in his life, I think at a year and a half old that's not too shabby! That's something I want to remember too! He's been a very healthy boy and we're grateful to God for that. The Lord knows we couldn't handle this often.