1 yr check up

You had a great visit to the pediatrician today.  Overall he thought you looked really good.  He is a little puzzled that you can crawl and still don't sit.  We talked about your hernia, eyes, and your eating.  Eye clinic is in 2 weeks and he referred us to the feeding clinic.  I'm glad I didn't come in on your actual birthday because you got three shots and a finger prick :(  So thankful for how far you have come!  15lb 3 oz! and 26 3/4 inches long.  You are getting closer to the charts!   My little munchkin has come a long way from 1lb 11oz!!!

Wow!  You're 9 times your birth weight!

Happy Birthday!

Your birthday started as just any other normal day.  

Good Morning Birthday Boy!

I had intentions of taking you to a park to go in a swing for the first time, but you were napping extra often and extra long, so we tried out the swing in the backyard instead.  Since you can't sit too well we propped you with blankets.  You didn't seem too impressed.  I think you liked your indoor swing MUCH better!

This is uncomfortable!  Get me out of here!

Abby did get you to smile...finally!

Your brothers had fun swinging too!

Then that evening we went out for a quick dinner before getting your photos taken at a metro park.  I am so glad we had this done!   From what I have seen so far the photos are great!  I just wish I had given Daddy a haircut!

Afterwards we went out for ice cream.  Daddy let you try some of his mint ice cream and you loved it!  You grabbed the spoon and wanted more!

Back at the house you were too tired for presents so we had to open them the next day.  We'll get to celebrate a lot more this weekend!

Your brother loves you SO much!  Jeremiah loves to
talk to you and sing to you and play with you...I just
have to watch him closely because he gets a little rough!

Abby spread all your presents out so
you had to crawl to get them.

The kids were all in charge of wrapping all your gifts.
They got to help pick them out too.  This one is Jeremiah's gift
of a cooling teething ring.

Look at the big boy trying to sit!

Abby sewed you a texture book all by herself...she was so proud!

Here is what I wrote on Facebook for your birthday...

It is a BIG day to celebrate! My littlest buddy is 1 year old!

Last year at this time my fever was rising and delivery at 24 wks was an impending doom. With so many fears, hurts, unknowns, and griefs we never thought we would make it to this day! But the Lord strengthened Joe and me to persevere and He strengthened Joshua and very slowly Joshua began to heal.

Today Joshua is a SUPER smiley, always on the move (kicking, bouncing, army crawling, rolling) little boy! He claps, he laughs, he babbles baba, dada, mama, he likes to grab and pull at your face. He rocks on his knees, eats baby food, and loves his wubbanub pacifier. Did I mention he is a SUPER happy boy?! I believe he is so happy because God gave him a chance at life. Joshua's happiness helps remind me not to wallow in my sorrows of what could have been or concerns I still have, but be thankful for every smile and snuggle that I am blessed with!
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Happy Birthday Joshua! I love you!

A few scattered thoughts on 1 Year Ago

It is no surprise that I have been thinking a lot about last year at this time.  I've been wanting to sit down and blog for the past two+ weeks, but I also have a hard time sitting down and acknowledging my feelings.  I don't want to feel all that again.  I just want to push those feelings away and not necessarily forget, but push them away because I have a hard time processing and verbalizing all I feel and I have very few friends who care to ask or listen.

But tonight I think about all the sleepless nights I spent crying out to God while on bed rest at the hospital, tears streaming down my cheeks, asking Him for strength for me and for the baby.  Trying to listen to encouraging christian music to calm my fears and settle my emotions in order to get a little bit of rest.  It was the first time in my life that I felt like nothing was in my control.  I had to relinquish everything to our Creator.  I was scared to death!  The song...LORD I need you, oh I need you...every hour I need you!  My one defense, my Righteousness, oh God how I need you...became a constant prayer in my head and on my lips.

I think about my doctor coming in to talk with me about the safest way to deliver the baby.  If the baby stays breach...if the baby is transverse...if the baby is head down...if I develop an infection...if I start to hemorrhage...if the baby is delivered today...if the baby is delivered a week from now or a month from now...many of these scenarios end in C-section.  I an NOT a c-section mom!  I gave birth to three babies vaginally (and had David with no pain meds.)  I've also watched The Business of Being Born, I've read Your Best Birth, read the Bradley method and the hypnobirthing method, I have it in my head that one intervention leads to another and another and finally a c-section and I am NOT that person...but yet it was out of my control.  I had to relinquish the fact that even though my cousin delivers breech babies as a medical missionary and one of my friend's 4lb triplets was delivered breech, that that was not the safest way to get a 1 lb baby out and it could cause a lot more trauma than a c-section.  I'd never had any kind of surgery though and I was scared to death of surgery!  And the type of c-section needed for a mom at 24 weeks is not just your normal c-section but a classical incision that means that I will forevermore have to have c-sections.  No VBACs.  I have to come to terms with the fact that I AM that c-section mom.  I still don't want to be!

I have flashbacks of the neonatologist coming in and explaining all that would happen once I needed to deliver.  Joe and I would need to talk about to what degree of resuscitation we would want.  The longer the resuscitation the greater chance of long term disabilities.  The chances of a baby's survival at that point was about 25% and survival without long term disabilities was about 11%.  The prognosis was grim.  And naive me, when she asked if I had any questions said, "Do we have to buy a special kind of car seat?"  HA!  I was just in denial about what was ahead!  I did not want to be forced to make life and death decisions!  I did not sign up for this!

I count this pregnancy as lasting about 3 enjoyable weeks.  It took me until 19 weeks to announce it to the world on Facebook because of miscarriage scares and also because of how sick I felt.  At 20 weeks I started feeling better and finally felt him move, but by 22 weeks my water had broken, I barely had a belly and now was stuck in the hospital.  I remember looking down at my belly at Riverside and crying because it was SO SMALL!  How in the world could the baby that was so small in there survive?!  At that point a stranger would have had no idea I was pregnant.  My fluid was gone and so were a few inches from my waistline.

I mourn the kicks in the ribs that I never felt, the belly I never got to show off, the rolling misshapen-ness of a large pregnant belly when the baby sticks his bottom up in the air.  One year later I can say that I'm happy I got to experience it three times while all of my NICU friends have never experienced that since it was their first babies, but I still long for those things that were stolen from me.  I even mourn the fact that I will never experience labor pains again.  My body will never again birth the way it was created to birth.  I also mourn the fact that I was only on hospital bedrest for 2.5 weeks.  Yes, I am thankful because if it would have been any less, Joshua would not have survived, but oh how I wished and hoped and planned for more.  If I had only _______...  maybe I would not have gotten the infection!  Oh how I despise those residents at Riverside!!!    I would gladly have traded my hospital stay for Joshua's.  My OB said that one day in the womb is worth 2 days in the NICU.  (Let's see...Joshua's birth was cut short by 107 days and he was in the hospital 149...close - 1.5 day day multiplier.)

Then there are days I cry as if my baby had died.  I literally feel that deep of grief and have to physically remind myself that Joshua is HERE, he is thriving just as we prayed!  But my pregnancy died and so many hopes and dreams and plans died too.  A piece of my heart and a piece of our family got fatally injured through this journey and it is taking a long time to recover.

So I will try to leave these feelings of fear, mourning, and sadness at the keyboard tonight because tomorrow is a day to celebrate!  It is a day I NEVER dreamed would be such a celebration!  Thank you Lord!  HAPPY Birthday my son, my strong fighter, Joshua!  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Take me out to the ballgame...

Joe's UALC season ended this past week with a bang!  The first game in the final round of the tournament, they were down by 10 in the 6th inning (out of 7) and they came back to win that game, and the next game, and lost on the 3rd game of the night!  Phew!

I took the kids to a couple games during the season and we watched the first game of the final round.

Earlier this week we met one of Joshua's primary nurses at the zoo.  It was great to have an extra set of hands and the kids enjoyed it because I was able to take them on the carousel.

So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu...

to medical equipment!!!!  Today Apria came to take away all of our oxygen tanks and medical equipment.  It feels a little bittersweet to get that out of the house.  Obviously I am ecstatic that Joshua doesn't need any of it anymore!  He is getting stronger and stronger all the time and overall doing really well!  But I lost my safety blanket.  I always knew that if he got a cold or had respiratory issues we had the O2 to fall back on before we would need to be admitted to the hospital.  Now if we have an issue, he may need to be admitted for a little bit.  In a weird way it is also sad for me to say goodbye to that chapter of his little life, just as it was hard for me to say goodbye to the NICU.

You are getting so big and strong buddy!  I can't believe you will be ONE soon!

Here you are rolling, crawling, and exploring while Abby practices
piano.  You like to play with the pedals too!  Silly boy!

August crazies!

 Well, now that the decision is over and done with, I will post the reason for all of the June, July and August craziness...We were *this close* to moving to Houston, TX!!!  We were not seeking to move, but Joe had a very exciting opportunity that fell into his lap to transfer within his company.  Through a lot of prayer and desiring to follow the Lord's will for our family we seriously contemplated it, but in the end we chose to stay here in Columbus.  It was a REALLY difficult decision as we clearly felt God nudging us to continue pursuing it every step of the way up until the final decision.

In these August escapades...Joe made a trip down to TX to interview and then later that same week we booked a last minute flight to Houston.  Joe, Joshua, and I flew down to take a look around the areas we could be living!   We are certainly not people who go seeking to uproot and move cross-country to a place we've never been or don't have any connection to!  It was an adventure and opportunity placed in our laps by The Lord.

For our trip we had to get Joshua cleared to fly from the BPD clinic.  We prayed and took extra precautions to keep germs at bay and thankfully he stayed healthy!  I wiped down our seats and trays on the plane with antibacterial wipes and tried to cover him up when he was sleeping.  Joshua did absolutely great on the plane!  Minus the normal squirminess because he wanted to get down and crawl, we really had little issues with him in my lap on the flight.  I nursed him or gave him a bottle on the take-offs just in case he had ear issues, but he seemed fine.  And throughout the hours of car rides, looking at houses, driving through towns, trying to find our way around what could be "daily life" he stayed on a good schedule.  It is a good thing he sleeps easily in the car!

Here are a few pics from Joshua's first flight and the trip.

The first flight I was separated from Dad.
We booked our tickets so last minute so we didn't
have much choice on seats.

2nd flight on the way down - we're all together!

I was welcomed to Houston by my personalized
favorite drink!

Continental breakfast at the hotel!

Little baby in a big bed!

On the way back to Detroit.  This was a direct flight.

The reason we flew back to Detroit was so we could
pick the older 3 kids up in Toledo and eliminate
extra driving.  One plus of doing this was being able to
visit with Joshua's Great Grandma Pud

She was so elated to finally meet him after all the prayers she prayed!

She had tears of joy in her eyes meeting you!

You liked to grab at her cheeks and pinch!  Ouch!

I am coming to peace with this decision and am going to trust that all these crazies were for a reason and that we will hopefully see those reasons why in the days ahead!  And for now Columbus is still the place we will call HOME!

Our first family vacation!

We were in great need of some family time so Joe and I decided that it was time to try a couple nights away with Joshua and see how it went.  We didn't want to go too far just in case Joshua were to get sick so we decided to go see some of the sites around SW and Central Ohio that we had never been to before.  Our first day was a trip to Newport Aquarium, just over the Ohio river in KY.  We stayed in Cincinnati for the first night.  The second day we drove up to Dayton and went to the Wright Patt Air Force Museum and the drove to Troy, OH to spend our 2nd night (and drove the kids around to reminisce my teaching and our dating years ).  The third day we drove to the Ohio Caverns and continued on home afterwards.  Overall it was a great trip!  

We made a stop at Mellow Mushroom for lunch so David could
have some pizza!

Stopped at a park to play until it was time to go to the aquarium

Next stop Newport Aquarium!

Under an archway aquarium with
sharks swimming above us

I loved snuggling with you!

Next stop WPAFB Museum, Dayton, OH

Abby's favorite part - seeing the mock shuttle

Love self-timers!

You did well in the hotel both nights!

It got a little tight walking with you in
some places.  

Our future geologist!  You can see in her eyes how excited she is!

Where did July go???

Here's a recap of July...it was so busy and we were so preoccupied with many events going on in our lives that July passed by in a whirl!

First off we met with one of Joshua's primary NICU nurses on June 30 (not quite July, I know)  What a great day that was!  I have missed the conversations with the nurse friends that I made while in the NICU.  Even though the road was long and hard and stressful, I got adult conversation every day!  Adult conversation definitely is something that lacks when you are a stay-at-home homeschool mom!  Cari got to see Joshua roll and kick and smile.  He *tried* to move forward.  You could tell he was thinking about it, but no forward motion yet.

We miss you a lot Cari!!!

Other fun photos and happenings from July...

Post dinner snuggles

You are one happy boy!

Cow appreciation day...maybe next year you will participate!

Our first try at mini golfing as a fam!

David got a hole in ONE! 

Mommy and Joshua kept score while the others played!
Abby was her crazy self!

It was a bittersweet day when I returned the breast pump
to the hospital.  So many hours of pain and sacrifice with the
 "ugly yellow baby" (as one lactation consultant in the NICU would call it),
but we still have a lot of milk in the freezer and you have been
breastfeeding a little better since you've been off oxygen.

Matching with Grandpa!

Your sister is your little Mommy.
She watches out for you as your roll around the room.
She loves to pick you up now that Mommy and
Daddy allow her to since you are
bigger and stronger.

Your first official try at baby food - July 23, 2014

You liked your pears and you liked sticking your
tongue out at the spoon.

You finished about 1/3 of a jar

One of your modes of transportation...
dig your heals in, arch your back, and slide up on your head and back.

You still like those tubes even though you
don't have to wear them anymore.

Inching forward army crawl!

You had one amazing week of milestones!  From July 20- July 29 you went from scooting on your back, rolling and rotating - to a few days later inching forward by reaching - to a few days later half rolling and reaching, then half rolling to the other side and reaching - to typical army crawl - to a little froggy army crawl where your legs hop like a frog and you get off the ground!  You go pretty fast with this frog hop thing!  During that week you also got up on your knees and rocked.  You also started babbling "B" and "D" sounds  babababa...dahb, dahb...

Trying to get you to stay still for a "posed" 11 month picture
is DIFFICULT!  Here you are on the move to see the truck!

You are mad because I'm holding your legs to stay still!

off to more exploring!

The second I put you on the couch you are moving to a
"better" position.  And look at that weird thing you do with your
tongue!  You bite it so hard it turns purple!  The PT from HMG was
a little concerned.  I hope it is just a teething thing!

Finally a photo of you sitting upright!!!
(about to dive off the couch!)

A classic, pensive Joshua look - "What are you doing?!"

Finally some cute smiles and you aren't running away!
We used one of the pics from this photo shoot for
your b-day party invite!  How can you be 11 months old?!

Our first family trip as a family of 6 was also in mid-July!  That will be its own post!