Life At Home

Life at home has been busy. With my child care kids coming and going, starting my 4AM-7AM job, volunteering at Caleb's school, trying to fix up our other house, Joel being sick, and the duties of life, we have been busy!

Sunday started out great. Caleb and I had a date, just him and I. We went to Old Country Buffet and enjoyed eating, and sitting there talking about the most random things. Then we went home and Caleb went down for a nap. I went for a quick grocery shopping trip. And when I came home I got Caleb ready to go to his special date night with Jimmy.

There are the two of them in all their winter gear. They went tubing on the snow hill about an hour away from our house. They had a great time out there. But Joel and I had a rough time at home. 

I tried my darndest to get him to eat. And nothing... He didn't eat anything. A little back round on Joel here. Thankfully he had a g-tube (a tube hooked up to his belly that feed his belly directly with out having to go through his mouth at all) so I hooked him up to that and let him play. Well his line got wrapped around his IV pole and then he fell and pulled out the entire g-tube! Since Jimmy was a ways away, I called my mom to come over and help me put it back in. It was leaking formula a little but we figured it would since it had just had a big balloon pulled out of his little tube hole. He did fine all day Monday but then on Monday night the g-tube site got really read and snotty looking. When he finally took a bottle at 7 pm on Monday, it came right out of his g-tube site! Which meant that nothing was staying in. I called the surgeon and went in this morning (Tuesday). They told us it had tore to much and we needed to go get an GJ tube. A GJ tube is where the tube goes right into his belly but then goes into his intestines. So it bypasses the stomach all together. We went into the hospital and got that done at 11 this morning. Now we are home and he has been sleeping for the last 3 hours.

He is on a constant pump so it feeds him all the time day and night. The only bad thing about this is that he is so mobile now and he wants to crawl/walk all over but he has this tube, bag, and pump connected to him! It used to come out all the time when he had an NJ tube (a tube that goes down his nose, throat, bypasses the stomach, then ends in the small intestine). When it does come out, he has to go back to the hospital and get a radiation x-ray movie. They gave us the G-tube so we could stop that! It's a vicious cycle.

I am thankful that through all of Joel's struggles, God has given us peace. There is no need to panic, what good can come from panicking? Nothing. God has keep us calm in most all situations and I has had a serious plan for us. The last time we were in the hospital, I was supposed to have several kids and they all called off for those few days. Even before I had a chance to call them! And now today, I was supposed to have 2 kids and they both called off. I was kinda ticked but God is good. HE  has a great plan for us :)

When Joel has these sort of changes he requires more care than normal (and normal is at least 2 dr's appointments a week and lots of feeding issues). With that being said, I am going to focus on getting Joel back up to shape and not focus on my weekly goals so much.

Joel Jamison is Here!!

Joel Jamison
Born: Wednesday 3/16/2011
Time: 9:00 AM
Weight: 8lbs 3oz
Length: 19 inches

He was a big gastro baby!!

Life at home

Sorry that I haven't been posting tons. I have been trying not to even check out the deals (sad, I know)! They really bum me out since I am still on bed rest and unable to score any of them. So I have simply been steering clear! And truthful, I have felt tons better about what I am able to do this way.

So I do have a few updates on life at home:

It's been exactly 3 months today since I started bed rest!! It's been a tough road emotionally but have made it through. That being said, it's been 3 months since I have any income... and we are still holding STRONG!!! It's been amazing what God has done for us! We have still not touched our emergency fund or our savings!!

Baby will be here in just 2 short days. Wednesday March 16th, 2011 around 8:30 AM! Super excited about that too. I got an amniocentesis done on Friday and I am waiting to hear the results back from that. The amniocentesis was done to be sure that the baby's lungs were fully developed. Dr's pretty sure that they are being I am 37 1/2 weeks but just has to be FOR SURE.

OMGosh. I think I just totally figured out how to post a link with out posting the ugliness of the link! May have to research this a little further today :)

Baby Update!

Today I went in for another ultrasound and Jimmy was able to come as well!! First I got weighed. I gained 3 lbs! Then I had the stress test done. I was hooked up to that for about an hour. The baby just kept hiding! Odd to say but we just couldn't get a good reading. After the hour was up, the Dr.'s had me go to the ultrasound room while they looked at the stress test results. Now, I am no Dr. but I love to know everything about anything I can! The top of the two lines that print on my stress test is the babys heart beat. The bottom measures my contractions. The bottom was looking a little wavy. There were about 5 humps during that hour. I wasn't sure if those really counted as contractions but when the Dr. came in he asked if I had felt them. I knew my suspicions were right! He said that there is a pill I can take to stop those and if I continue to have them at a good rate, I need to call him and get that pill. Then the ultrasound started. It was a full measure this time. He measured the entire body inside and out. All measurements were looking GREAT this week!! He is measuring at 2 lbs 4 oz. The Dr. mentioned taking steriod shots to beef up babys lungs to prepare him for the early delivery. I will be asking him more about this during the next visit. The babys amniotic fluid was up to an 8. The Dr. was very excited about it :) We have an appointment in 2 weeks to meet with the surgeon and the NICU staff. I am excited about the visit today. The visit as a whole turned out great!

Baby Update!

Thursday at 6 am Jimmy and I woke up and got my son over to my mom's house. From there we went to get my 3 hour glucose test done. When we got there, they weren't quite open so we chatted with another gal that was waiting. She was very nice! They opened up and I signed in. Got blood drawn at 7:20 and right after that I had to drink that nasty orange drink! yuck!! I had to wait until 8:20 before I could get the second round of blood drawn. I think that was just about the longest hour ever. I was so sick and the wheel chair I was sitting in was just very uncomfortable. Not fun. They drew the blood and I had Jimmy bring us out to the car so I could lay back in the seat. Boy, did that make a difference. It was like day and night between those hours. Blood drawn again at 9:20 and 10:20. I don't know when I will get the results back but I am hoping they call me either way. I hate waiting around for results. If they don't call by Friday, I do have an appointment then. So I will know results by Friday either way. At my Dr. appointment later that day, they did the ultrasound as normal and were getting 4's and 5's at first for my amniotic fluid. Not good! By the end of my appointment the baby had gone pee so it was up to a 7. No hospital!! After that they did about a 1/2 hour stress test. The stress test has two monitors hooked up to my belly that monitor the baby's heart beat/movement and also my contractions. No contractions during that time frame and the heart beat/movement was great! I asked the Dr. if I could go to a work potluck on Sat night for a few hours and he agreed! I was really excited. Over all, another good visit. Just hoping my amniotic fluid doesn't go down that low again this week. That's kinda scary.

Baby Update!

This is a little delayed but on Monday I went to the Dr. and had another ultrasound. I didn't gain any weight this time around. Still at 156 lbs. Which means I have gained a total of 9 lbs. Monday was just a recheck. So they didn't do a full ultra sound. They looked at all the major things, heart, blood flow, umbilical cord, amniotic fluid, head size, the defect, kidneys, and a few other things. The heart is something they want to keep checking up on because with a baby with Gastroschisis, the chance of a heart defect as well is higher than in a normal/healthy baby. The heart of my baby boy is looking Better than they could have imagined!! So that is uplifting news! They are checking the blood flow in the entire body and umbilical cord to make sure there isn't a blockage of any sort. Everything looked great here as well. The amniotic fluid was still very low. Still at a 7. So they have requested that my 4 year old not be home unless some one else is here with me :( So I am home alone all day. As you can guess, I am not to keen on this idea!! But my mom does at home day care so she just takes him all day. The defect is looking the same as before. Nothing new there. And the kidneys still have extra fluid in them. On Tuesday my 4 year old had surgery to get tubes put back in his ears. This is time #4!! He first had them done at 6 months, then at 12 months, then last March so 3 years 5 months, and now, 4 years 2 months. Yesterday my Jimmy was home so I spent a lot of time with him. He has been doing a lot. Working 55 hours a week on average, then coming home and being mom and dad to Caleb, house work, finding us a car, ect. So a day "off" was in order for him! It was nice being able to see him for more than just a few min before falling asleep in bed! Today, I have been listening to Christmas music and trying to catch up on surveys! I am a few days behind and have found that some of my surveys have already closed out!! Still looking out for those deals though. :)

Ultra sound today!

Well, I figure I should mention a little bit more about the baby today. I found out I was pregnant right before my High School 5 year reunion. I wanted to take a test to be sure before I had a few drinks with everyone. Found out I was pregnant, so obviously I didn't drink that night. I didn't have insurance so I did have to go downtown to apply for Medicaid. As we all know, that can take just about forever. I got the acceptance letter the day before I went on vacation to Tennessee so I wasn't able to make an appointment til after I got back. After that, I went in for my first appointment. The weighed me and gave me prenatal meds. The scheduled me an ultrasound to see how far along I was a week later. At that ultrasound I found out I was just 6 weeks along. I had an appointment Oct. 28th and had some blood work drawn. That came back abnormal and I was asked to take a second round. That also came back abnormal and I had to go to a specialist the next week. I had an hour long ultra sound where the found out the baby had Gastroschisis, a defect where the skin on the right side of the babies belly never fully formed. So the intestines, bowel, and anything else that is sposta be on the inside of the belly just floating around in the amniotic fluid. I had a shorter ultrasound 2 weeks ago where they said everything was kinda the same. This week I had another long ultrasound. While they measure everything, they are paying special attention to the heart, which a lot of times also has a defect when a baby has gastroschisis. They are also looking at the kidneys, they have extra fluid in them. This is called Renal Pelvis Dilation. Extra fluid in the kidneys is also a sign of Down Syndrome. They are asking that I not be concerned about that. It isn't something they think is going wrong as of now. I will have an amniocentesis in a few weeks to check out the chromosomes of the baby. They will know more then. So today, the long ultrasound found that there was still extra fluid in the kidneys. The heart looked GREAT! They also looked at my amniotic fluid and found that it was really low. It is based on a scale of 0-20. 15-20 is normal. The baby is at a 7!! At 5 or 6 they will admit me to the hospital. Right now the Dr.'s orders are a strict bed rest. I am only aloud to get up off the couch/computer chair/bed to pee. They are hoping the baby will produce more fluid. I have another appointment next Monday and we will discuss the results and what to do next then. For now, I am going to try and rest and relax and get this baby healthy.