It's been a while....

Wow, two years. It feels like so much has changed but yet everything still seems the same. We are still living in the same place and I still have the same job however my husband switched jobs and he is absolutely loving what he does. Declan is doing incredible. Motherhood has been the most challenging, frustrating, stressful, wonderful, amazing thing I've ever experienced. It is so true when people say "the days are long, but the years are short". My baby is going to be THREE in just a few short months. I'll try to recap as best I can on what has been going on....

Summer/Fall 2017 was kind of rough for Declan in terms of health. We dealt with numerous colds, roseola, pneumonia and croup. The roseola and pneumonia were both ER visits and very scary. We were told that because of Declan's conditions at birth, he would be more prone to respiratory illnesses the first two years of this life - they weren't lying.

In July 2017 Declan was put into our local Birth to 3 program for troubles eating. This is something I touched on lightly in a previous blog post - mentioning that he struggled with the texture of any solid food; at that time he was only 7 months old so it wasn't a huge concern but after a few more months we thought it best to be proactive. He had an initial evaluation at our home with 3 therapists (2 occupational, 1 speech) and they observed him eating and assigned him to a therapist that would come to our home bi-weekly. He never got an official "diagnosis" but he would gag and throw up with any texture more than a stage 1 puree. Therapy continued for exactly one year and was a godsend and he has been doing fantastic with food ever since he graduated from the program.

First Birthday 9/27/17 - We had a huge party at my parent's house. It was a lot of fun. It was puppy themed which was (and continues to be) his favorite animal. We had almost 30 people show up, ordered pizzas, had a ball pit for the kids and Declan was very spoiled with a TON of gifts.

In November 2017 (at 13 months old) Declan officially started walking and he quickly went from walking to running in about two weeks!

- Then things slowed down a little bit, which was very welcomed after the crazy Summer -

Summer/Fall 2018 we had a ton of fun, we took our first longer road trip/vacation with Declan and went about 3 hours north for a long weekend by the lake. Declan went on his first boat ride and seemed to enjoy it. Because winters are so long here, we really try to maximize our time when the weather is nice; so we made it to just about every zoo in the state. We also had a children's museum membership so we visited there often. We also had many visits to the splash pad.

In July 2018 I quit pumping after 22 months.

Second Birthday 9/27/18 - Instead of a party this year, we decided to have an entire week of fun. My husband and I both took a week off work and we went to Wisconsin Dells for a few days and invited Declan's godfather and his girlfriend along. It was an awesome time. However, the day we came back we ended up going to urgent care where Declan was diagnosed with Croup for the second year in a row. We caught it early and started steroids so fortunately he was only under the weather for two days. After the sickness passed, we spent our remaining days at a huge children's museum out of town and the last day was spent at a local pumpkin patch. It was the most quality time we had a as family since Declan's birth. We decided that until Declan can decide, we will do a party every other year and give him "experiences" the years in between.

This past winter was again, pretty uneventful (fortunately). In regards to health, Declan just had one REALLY bad cold that lasted about 3 weeks and kicked all of our butts simultaneously. The only other big news is that I decided to go back to school. When I was 18 (many moons ago), I signed up for the Surgical Technology program at my local college. One of the prerequisites was Chemistry and despite my best efforts, I got a C. To the average person this wouldn't be a big deal. However, I have spent my life putting these insanely high expectations on myself. I strive for PERFECTION in everything I do. Trust me, I'm trying to work on it. Anyways, getting that C crushed me and I dropped out of the program and went a "safer" route with Medical Billing. I never pursued work in that field though because it's not where my passion lies. My years of infertility, two D&Cs and my cesarean ignited a fire within me again to pursue my dream again. So, in April 2018 I signed up for the same Surgical Technology program at the same college I was enrolled in 12 years prior. I'm going part-time because I'm still working and mom life but I'm so proud to say I've finished my first year on the Dean's list, was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and was just awarded a scholarship for next year. It is A LOT to juggle but I'm also so excited.

Other than that, this Summer is going well so far - crazy amounts of fun..as it should be! I will try to be better about posting. Aside from others reading my journey, it's enjoyable for me to look back on too.

Until next time!


xoxo

Sleeping through the night tips!

Every baby is different but here are my tips for helping to get your infant sleep through the night! While I think a large portion is pure luck, I believe what we did really contributed to our son sleeping a solid 8-10 hours at night as early as 8 weeks old. 

1. Get a routine down and stick to it! 
      - By the time Declan was 5-6 weeks old I started paying much closer attention to how long he went between naps and feedings comfortably. He eventually kind of picked his own napping schedule and I just went with it. Around 6 weeks old we really enacted a stricter bedtime routine. We would *try* to not let him nap past 5 PM but that all depended on how he napped earlier in the day. Starting around 6:45 PM we start a bath, dim down most of the lights in the house, followed by lotion/massage, book and bottle. This time stays very strict whether it's a weekday or weekend. We put him down when he was tired but not asleep. He always falls asleep to some kind of noise, whether it be a sound machine, fan or background TV noise. I never wanted him to only fall asleep to silence because our neighbors homes are fairly close and especially in the summertime you can hear kids playing outside until 9 or 10 PM. 

2. Overnight diapers!
    - I know most overnight diapers aren't available in a smaller size than 3 but Declan was a special case. He was 9 lb and 21" at birth and actually went home in a 0-3 mo outfit. He was in size 3 diapers by the time he was 8 weeks old and being able to use overnight diapers and keep him comfortable throughout the night I also think was important. 

3. Don't overstimulate too late in the day!
    - This is one our families still have trouble grasping it seems. If we are invited to a family get together we always try to leave by 3:30. People call us rigid but it is what it is. The few times we've stayed places up until we needed to start his bedtime routine he struggled a great deal to settle for the evening and it just isn't worth the extra stress for us and disruption in his sleeping. 

4. Ferber method...altered!
    - I am not a believer in letting an infant cry it out but I heard a lot of success stories with the Ferber method. I wasn't comfortable following it exactly, so I altered it to what I wanted. If after we put Declan down for the night he woke up within an hour or two and we knew he didn't fill his diaper and wasn't hungry, we would let him fuss (not cry) for no more than one minute. If he didn't self soothe, we would go in, put our hand on him, let him know we were there and try to soothe him back to sleep and leave the room again. If he began fussing again we would increase the interval to maybe a minute and a half and so on. We would increase the intervals every few nights, never going more than 5 minutes. Again, I want to clear, this was only fussing - NOT crying or screaming. 

5. Room sharing! 
   - Declan is now just over 9 months old and we are still room sharing. I like having him close and truly believe he sleeps better knowing we are close as well. 

6. Sleep sack!
    - Declan could weasel his way out of the tightest swaddle blankets at just a few weeks old so for his safety we transitioned him to the Halo sleep sacks and though he NEVER liked his arms being restrained at night, having the little velcro wrap around his mid section I think made him feel a lot more secure and contributed to a longer, better quality sleep. 



Like I mentioned, every baby is different but I always have people asking what our "secret" is. To be honest, when my husband was a baby, he slept through the night at two weeks old and I was two months old. Maybe it's just in our genes! Hopefully some or all of these tips can help you!

Update...FINALLY!

I can't believe it's been about 5 months since I've last updated. It really is true what they say, time FLIES when you have a little one. Declan is thriving and coming into his awesome personality a little bit more everyday. He is now 7 1/2 months old, closing in on 30" long (HOLY MOLY) and roughly 22 lbs. He is about the size of a 13 month old. He is a little wiggle worm and doesn't stay still for more than 5 seconds at a time, which is keeping us on our toes 24/7! He can say "mama", "dada" and "hi". He can scoot backwards but hasn't quite grasped the mechanics of crawling forward yet but we're thinking it will be any day now. He is still an awesome sleeper and goes an average of 11 hours at night with 3 naps during the day ranging from 20 minutes to 2 hours. I still pump exclusively (which still sucks by the way lol) so he is still breastfed and takes an average of 32 oz/day. We did introduce purees several weeks ago and he doesn't like much. He will tolerate pears, blueberries, bananas and carrots but doesn't eat more than an ounce in one sitting. So far, he HATES sweet potatoes, green beans, avocados and butternut squash. We aren't too concerned at this point because we are believers in the saying "food before one is just for fun". We have also tried, with the approval from our Doctor, giving him small chunks of some food which he is definitely not ready for, he will gag and cough. I'm not sure if it's a texture issue but we're just going to keep working with purees, eventually try thicker ones and try small chunks of food again in a couple months. He is the sweetest little boy and absolutely adores his Daddy. I got so lucky in that department, I knew my husband would be a good Dad...but he truly is an AMAZING Dad. I love the bond those two have. Declan lights up when Daddy gets home from work and he seems to save all of his big belly laughs for him! Declan is the absolute love of our lives and I'm so grateful I get to be his mom. To those still battling infertility; never, never give up because once you get to the other side it is SO worth it! 


All my love,
Ashley

Declan's Birth!!!

I apologize for the incredibly delayed post, I've been busy kicking ass as a mother! My amazing son was born on 9/27/16 at 7:43 AM via cesarean, weighing 9 lbs and 21" long. I have a lot of mixed emotions about my birth experience, some of which I'm still trying to come to terms with. I'll start from the beginning. The morning of 9/27, we had to be to the hospital by 5:30 AM as I was the first surgery of the day. I was so emotional that morning, not only excited for his birth (obviously) but also a little sad because I was going to miss being pregnant so much. Although I had rough stretches of pregnancy (subchorionic hemorrhage, gestational diabetes, prodromal labor), overall it was an incredible experience. We checked into the hospital and no time was wasted getting me in a gown, hooked up to monitors, starting an IV, getting blood drawn and drinking a nasty shot of some kind of liquid that would cut down the acidity in my stomach if I were to vomit during surgery. My doctor and anesthesiologist came in to talk to us and before I knew it, I walked back into the OR. I sat on the edge of the table and they attempted my epidural, I had to stop them at one point because it felt too far to my right, so it was taken out and restarted. When it felt more centered and administered, it was seconds that they lifted my legs and had me lay in place on the table. My arms were out on both sides and they had a wedge pillow propping me up to one side to get pressure off a main artery. Before I knew it the curtain went up and my husband walked in. He said the hardest part for him was seeing me shake as if I was having a seizure, which come to find out is very common and in my case, lasted for about 4 hours. Everything went so fast, and at 7:43 AM we heard those little cries for the first time. My husband and I both completely broke down in tears and I felt as if all the bad moments in our infertility journey replayed in my mind, like THIS....THIS moment is why we were put through all of that awful shit. My son was quickly taken over to the warmer to get weighed and then we were able to snap a quick photo all together. They noticed right away his breathing was very labored so sadly, we never got to do skin to skin and my husband was never able to cut the cord (these are the things still hard to come to terms with). My husband left with Declan while they finished his assessment and a few minutes later, I was wheeled back to our room. We never got to attempt breastfeeding right away because within minutes of me being wheeled back, our son was admitted to the special care unit (NICU) for his breathing difficulties. I wasn't able to hold my son until almost 12 hours after his birth. My recovery in the hospital was better than I expected. I think getting up and walking around as much as possible as soon as I could was crucial to my recovery. The day after surgery I was managing pain with just ibuprofen and that only continued for 2 days, then I was fine with nothing. I don't like taking medication of any kind, ever. We were discharged 3 days after surgery but because my son was still in the NICU, they allowed us to stay as a courtesy so we didn't have to leave without him. Declan ended up being diagnosed with a heart murmur, wet lung and laryngomalacia. He was hooked up to monitors the entire time in the hospital, which ended up being a total of 6 days. He also needed a feeding tube at one point. He was poked and prodded at so much that first day, it still breaks my heart to think about it. He needed his blood sugars checked several times those first few hours because of my gestational diabetes and fortunately, he regulated quickly. He needed xrays and an EKG. Oxygen desaturations were the biggest thing they were monitoring, his levels dropped quite low, several times. He was checked a couple times a day by different pediatricians and finally on Monday, Oct 3, he was wheeled into our room for the first time and we got the OK to go home! Although his oxygen levels dropped several times, he pulled himself out of it each and every time so no medical intervention was ever needed and they felt confident in sending him home. It was hard being in the hospital 6 days and never having him in our room.; especially when the walls aren't very thick and you can hear other babies crying with their moms in the rooms around you. We were able to go visit him in the NICU just about every time we wanted, except when the doctors were doing their rounds or when another baby was being admitted but it was still very uncomfortable in such a tight space, uncomfortable chairs and no privacy. Overall, what matters is that he's healthy and so am I. He is now 10w3d old and THRIVING! He's up to 15 lbs and just over 24" long. We never dealt with any colic and he has only spit up 3 or 4 times ever! He is still exclusively breastfed (I pump) and eats anywhere from 28 - 38 oz/day. We have our rough nights but overall, he's been a great sleeper from the get go...doing anywhere from 3-7 hour stretches from the very beginning! He is such a sweet boy and I feel so lucky that I was chosen to be his mama.

Meeting my son soon!

In less than 24 hours my son will be here! At the last growth scan it was determined that he ran the risks of something called shoulder dystocia, which means if I tried to deliver vaginally, there was a good chance he could get stuck at the shoulders. This becomes an emergency situation within minutes. It was decided that the safest option for both he and I would be to schedule a c-section. I obviously don't love the idea of surgery but I will do whatever is necessary to get him here safe. I'm glad I never had my heart set on a birth plan after finding out I no longer qualified for a water birth (thanks to gestational diabetes). I feel like I would've taken the news of a cesarean much worse. My feelings of excitement leading up to his birthday are being overshadowed by my own fears and anxiety. I think what is messing with me the most is being wheeled into the same operating room, with the same Doctor where I had my 2 D&Cs and believing that I will get to leave that room with a baby this time. It's also the fear of the unknown..I'm nervous about having an incision to take care of, having to take it easy, the long recovery and being awake while I'm getting the procedure done. I've had two appointments with my counselor since scheduling the cesarean because I can't get over the fear of something going wrong. It's such a shitty feeling feeling like you're counting down the days to your death rather than what is the best day of your life. I find myself making sure my husband knows where all the passwords to our online accounts are and making sure he knows where my life insurance policies are located and tying up any loose ends in case I don't make it. Then it's a whole different battle feeling like because I'm thinking this way that I will jinx myself. Anxiety is an ugly, ugly thing and I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. I'm trying my very hardest to put my fears aside and tell myself that this is our time and after over 5 years of struggling with infertility and pregnancy loss, we deserve this and things will work out. I'm genuinely going to miss being pregnant and feeling him kick and wiggle inside but I can't wait to see his precious face that is the perfect mixture of my husband and I. I will update as soon as I can after we BOTH make it through delivery!!


Love,
Ashley

My experience with Gestational Diabetes

So as you can tell by the post title, I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes this pregnancy. Although it didn't come as a huge shock to me, thanks to PCOS and family history, I still took the news REALLY hard. I was diagnosed right around 29 weeks and it took me several weeks to come to terms with it. I had a lot of self guilt, like if I would've done something differently I could've changed the outcome. The one hour glucose test wasn't that bad, people blow that shit way out of proportion. However, the 3 hour test wasn't the most fun I've ever had. Although the 100g sugar drink was nasty, the worst part was having to sit there hour after hour after hour with an empty stomach; but I somehow survived. The day of my 3 hour test, before I even got home, the nurse called and told me I failed. The next week I went in and met with a nutritionist and learned how to use my meter, which wasn't foreign to me as I previously mentioned, family history with diabetes. I had about two weeks that I felt like I had pretty good control over my numbers with diet alone. However, my Doctor is VERY strict and wanted my fasting levels below 95 and mine ranged from 92-102 so he said I needed intervention. I cried in his office, telling him I could do better but he explained that this is all about hormones and nothing I do or don't do will change things. He gave me the option of Glyburide or Metformin. I am NOT a medication person at all and when I HAVE to go on meds, I do an obscene amount of research. I heard people got horrible digestive upset (to put it nicely) with Metformin, so I decided on Glyburide. My Doctor told me to start 5mg each day with breakfast. My first day on it my sugar level quickly dropped to a very low 44 within just 2 1/2 hours of breakfast and the entire day was a constant battle trying to keep my numbers high enough to not pass out, have a headache, feel shaky or sick. I called his office once that day and the following and said I felt like my dosage was too high, he told me he wasn't willing to make a change until we see several days of trends. Well about 4 days went by and I was literally eating candy and crap food just to constantly have sugar and carbs in me. He finally agreed to drop my dosage in half, which still didn't seem to work for me. FINALLY at my next appointment, he agreed that the Glyburide was not a good option for me, as I had one of the only adverse reactions he has ever experienced in his practice (I swear I'm always that 1%)!! He suggested I go to insulin next. I was not looking forward to taking shots but I knew this was best for my son, this isn't about me and my comfort level. He wanted me to start at 5 units of insulin at night and 10 in the morning. I told him I'd like to start at 5 at night and 5 in the morning as I have great numbers throughout the day and he was receptive to it. I've now been on insulin for roughly 4 weeks now and I'm still taking 5 units in the morning but my nighttime dosage was upped to 8 because my fasting numbers were still in the upper 90s and so far this seems to be a perfect combination to keep all my numbers under control. The amount I'm on is actually considered on the lower end as far as dosage goes, many women have increases every week and can be on as much as 100 units a day so for that, I'm very grateful. I definitely don't have the sugar crashes like I did on Glyburide because the insulin I'm on is long lasting so it slowly releases after I take it, over several hours. The only bad "side effect" (if you can even call it that) is bruising on my sides from the shots, which isn't even a big deal. Overall, gestational diabetes sucks...let's be honest but it's not the end of the world and it's completely manageable once you figure out the best treatment plan for you!

Second trimester recap

Today I am 29w4d and officially in my THIRD trimester (WHAT?!?). Just like my first trimester, there isn't a ton I would complain about. The worst part has been round ligament pain...some days are better than others but if I take it easy and wear my support belt, it isn't too terrible. I'm definitely noticing that I'm pretty exhausted physically and mentally by late afternoon and it's becoming increasingly harder to breathe some days (especially when it's hot and humid)! I finally started to feel movement around 23 weeks..thanks to an anterior placenta! It was crazy...it went from not feeling anything one day, to being able to see and feel it from the outside the very next. We started work on the nursery a few weeks ago (pictures to come) and painted, installed carpet and have slowly been purchasing the furniture and decor, I'd give it another 2-3 weeks and  hopefully it will be all done! On another note, in regards to my anxiety...I found that although hitting the 24 week viability point was a little bit of a relief...it wasn't what I would've expected. I was thinking I would feel this 50 lb. weight off my shoulders but in reality I'm still so scared I could lose this little guy, so I cherish every moment. Here's some stats to sum up what the second trimester looked like for me....


Weight gained/lost: +9 (making a total gain of 2 lbs this pregnancy)
Symptoms: round ligament pain, frequent urination, difficulty sleeping some nights
Cravings: mexican food, grilled veggies like yellow squash and zucchini 
Aversions: I still haven't touched a noodle since February! I'm wondering if I'll ever eat them again! haha


That's about it for my update...I'll have more to update in the coming weeks, the first week or so of the third trimester has been eventful. Stay tuned! 

Ashley