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| Fairy day 21months |
Plans for the day/weekend:
We are able to go swimming again today. We have to wait until five when
open swim starts. Until June 9 is time for when he can swim will very a
little bit because open swim varies. The pool doea have toddler swim
times, but they run they entire time he is in therapy. Hopefully he does
fine with the change in time for the time being. Tomorrow we watch a
couple of older kids we have not watched in a few months so hoping he
does great with that still as well. We also will be going swimming
tomorrow as well.
*UPDATE*
How swimming went today:
We went swimming and it was not too bad. He was still gripping so
tight and not wanting me to put him down. Though he enjoyed the little
water slide. One mother was shocked when she seen him go down the slide.
The slide is in about a foot of water and when he got down he plopped
into float right away. We also did it in the middle of the pool while
people cooed over it in amazement. He swam to the wall and got my hand a
couple of times(I did not back up to far or he would have gone straight
into float), oh and he went for the stairs, but decided that floating
would be better. He felt the stairs with his hand when they were under
him but he did not flip, so I encouraged him a little by flipping him
into swim again using his shoulders. He sadly got cold really quickly
and then was not having any of it. We ended with a nice warm shower,
nursing and then got to play in the shower a little while mommy was
getting dressed. I LOVE that they had family changing/shower rooms. Made
it easier to get ready without having to worry about him running off
while I was trying to get dressed. Oh and discovered that Josiah is
terrified of automatic paper towel dispensers. He could care less about
the toilets, but the paper towel dispenser scared him...
Some background:
Since I am sitting waiting at LM`s appointment and do not want to read
my book (The Vampire Armand by Anne Rice), I will fill in some
summarized background knowledge on us. I guess I will start at the
beginning of not my life, but the start of our little family.
How Jason and I met:
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| Prom in 2007 |
I met Jason, my husband when I was almost 17. I met him through his
brother and sister-in-law before they were married (I met both of them
at a weekend long Christian event for teens, that we were all
volunteering at). I had shortly before I met him made a promise between
God and myself not to date for an entire year since I had just got out
of an abusive relationship (I honestly think that is the first time I
have used that term to describe it before, I have called it a bad
relationship, but not abuse like it truly was), that lasted five years.
We would chat online for hours everyday with a couple of other friends
or just the two of us. The first time we met was at 131 raceway,
watching drag races. We started dating February 18th. I was the first
girl Jason had dated and I really wished I could erase my past, but I
learned I couldn't and that my past is what helped to mold me into who I
am today. God even used the threat on my life from my ex, because of
the threat I went the weekend event even when I wasn't feeling well and I
have already explained the rest.
Started dating/engagement:
One of our first dates together was my Junior prom, so we have the
pictures from the event, to help us remember the moment, forever. Fast
forward eighteen months into the relationship we got engaged, just
before I started freshman year of collage. It was August eighteenth, at a
park during a picnic lunch, with subs and cherries. I can till
remember it like it was yesterday. We got engaged even though we knew
it wouldn't be until sometime after I turned twenty-one for our wedding
date because of another promise I made to myself and God before we met.
During our engagement we went through some really tough times but even
through it all we were still together.
The wedding:
June 18, 2010 was the date we planned to get married in a park by our
pastor, with close friends and family. Two days before the park
flooded so the location was switched to our church. With help from some
church members we set up the wedding in the new location. We had a
beautiful wedding with pictures and video. For our honeymoon we went to
Grand Haven for a fountain light show and time at the beach. Then
farther north for more beach and walking.
Loss and pregnancy:
Sometime in July we made the decision to expand our family. After the
loss of a pregnancy, we were pregnant again the due date was set for
August. The pregnancy was uneventful other then a bad case of the flu
around thirteen weeks in. June seven came around and I had three hours
of contractions. Almost two weeks ago Josiah(then known as little
monkey) had dropped completely into position, so much so that we
couldn't get an accurate ultrasound measurement or picture of his head.
The OB made the decision not to check for dilation and said see you in
two weeks (needless to say he was born three days before the
appointment).
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| 33weeks along |
Here comes Josiah:
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| Waiting to see how far dilated I was at the hospital |
July 8 I started contractions before the kids I was babysitting at the
time got picked up, I thought he was just putting pressure on me because
it felt fine when swaying. We went food shopping. We got done and
went to get my mom from a store. I couldn't stand still because of the
pressure. I talked with my mom how I never said I wanted him to come
and even told him he was not allowed to come until thirty-seven weeks or
later since thirty-six and earlier is considered premature birth. Then I
joked that if he kept up whatever he was doing that I wouldn't know how
I could make it to forty weeks. Well, by midnight that night I came to
the conclusion that it just might be labor I was in. We waited and timed
and watched. Decided around 1 in the morning to go in to the hospital.
I was all smiles because the pressure had stopped when I got busy
packing. We almost stayed home because it stopped. When we got there
they took their time, I mean I didn't look to be in labor so they
thought it was false labor and told me so. They hooked me up and
discovered I was having contractions and again stated I was probably in
early labor due to the grin still on my face. Well when they decided to
check me I was seven cm. Then took samples of blood and urine to check
for possible reasons for early labor (nothing was ever found). I was
checked again and was eight and a half cm. I was checked into a room,
Jason got the bags and my birth team started to show up. My water was
broke at 7 since labor had slowed, but I was too far to be sent home.
Things progressed rather quickly from there. With only three pushes my
beautiful, small baby boy was born, by a natural, medication free birth.
He was 5lbs 12oz and 18.5in long. He got a 9-10 apgar score and had no
need for the nicu. The birth was perfect up until the OB pulled on the
placenta causing my bag of waters not to come out like God designed.
Then he made the decision to scrape me out(like a D and C, but I was
FULLY awake and no pain relief) while everyone cooed over LM, so no
focal point or other natural help. The affects of that act on our sex
life lasted nearly TWO years. After some issues we figured out breast
feeding (He was to be the only one to latch and if I helped he would
unlatch and do it himself all by himself). Three days after birth we
went home.
The first year:
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| Ultra sound at 1 month old |
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| Build a bear firefighter costume-almost 3months |
Everything went rather smoothly the first month, but then I started to
notice the amount of throw up he had and the force at which he threw up
was unusual. We went into the pediatrician and she sent us to an urgent
ultra sound to see if he had pyloric stenosis (a stomach condition some
babies get, that requires immediate surgery), we were thanking God for
sure when we found out it was not that. We ended up going on a dairy
free diet which helped a ton. By six months I got off of the dairy free
diet. A little before this time Josiah began eating every half hour and
was really lethargic(not moving that much when awake). After several
visits to the pediatrician and a lactation consultant and then finally
seeing our pediatrician we were sent to an ear, nose and throat
pediatrician to check for tongue tie. It turned out that he had one and a
lip tie as well. They were both cut in office at six months. His eating
changed a little and he became less lethargic. He still had some eating
issues and by seven months we started to see a oral therapist. By nine
months they discovered he was extremely anemic and he was put on a high
dose of iron for a little while which he is still on iron in a
multi-vitamin plus iron to this day. Nine months is also when we
discovered that he was having bad acid reflux as well and thought it was
strange he did not protest about it other then in eating small frequent
meals. He was started on prevacid after trying two other medicines that
did not work(he still takes this to this day as well). after fixing
both of these problems Josiah started to crawl. At eleven months Josiah
had his hypospadias surgery and began his life of climbing on
everything. Something we knew was coming since he was born. Hypospadias
is a defect to the penis. It causes it to be crooked sometimes, the hole
to be in the wrong place, and a hooded foreskin that can be fixed(found
this out after surgery) in most cases if the parents wish to(in our
case the urologist said it was not fixable, so he did not even give us
that option).
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| After surgery-11months |
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| Eating his birthday cupcake |
The second year:
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| Showing off his cloth-12m |
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| Sitting in a wood shoe-14m |
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| Halloween(zookeeper giraffe)-15moths |
In the beginning of the second year I joked with Josiah that he was not
allowed to have anything wrong for the next year since we had gone
through so many different things in the first year. This hopeful
thinking of course would not be the case, but we love him so much either
way. By thirteen months I was really starting to be concerned about
little things, but could not put my finger on what could be the cause.
When he was fifteen months and still not walking or talking/babbling I
got a hold of an early on program. By the time they came out he started
to walk at sixteen almost seventeen months and they came to see us at
eighteen months. We started speech once a week. We talked to them about
autism and they said they do not do anything about looking into it until
a child is in preschool. I was not happy with this answer, since I know
how much a child learns in the first three years of life and that it is
better to catch things early (working on a bachelors of early childhood
education and I am so close to being done!). When we went to the
eighteen month appointment I brought up autism
which the pediatrician was prepared for as the m chat gets filled out at
that appointment. She too was very concerned about autism and
recommended us to BRAINS which did not take our insurance. I discovered
hope network and brought it up with her, she was actually going to
recommend us to them that day too. At twenty one months we started
swimming, five days a week for ten minutes, which was really awesome
because it just about stopped all of his tantrums and climbing. We also
went to the evaluation at hope network then as well. We were asked a ton
of questions left the room for five minutes and then came back to a
rearranged room. Josiah just about fully shut down because of this.
after prompting different behaviors that they were unable to get we
left the room again for five minutes. The next time they took just him
back and he cried for nearly an hour. He was diagnosed with PDD-NOS
(pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified), which is on
the autism spectrum. PDD-NOS is not less or more sever then regular
autism. He was given this diagnoses because he does not have repetitive
behaviors. Two weeks later after insurance approval he started therapy
there at five days a week for two hours. He is now 22 months and done
with swimming lessons, but still has speech and ABA therapy.
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| Climbing on window 20months |
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| Playing at Java Gym-18months |
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| 20months |
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