All good things have to come to an end, I suppose. As my La Leche League book tells me, "Everybody weans". I have loved breastfeeding from the moment I figured it out with Noah. Before babies I knew that I wanted it to work out for me and through many tough moments, both my children nursed until approximately the same age. We made it through Noah's surgery, tongue ties, too much milk, fast flow, lazy nursing, fast nursing, returning to work and pumping...you name it.
On September 1, 2009 Noah weaned abruptly. He was 16 months old I made a post on a parenting forum, entitled "Crushed":
UGH I just went to put my son to sleep and he refused to nurse. He just wanted me to put him into his crib. As soon as I did he fell asleep. He has never, ever refused his bedtime nursing session!
I kept offering and he kept biting me. I thought he just didn't have a good latch so I kept trying. He bit me hard and I said "NO" out of pain and his face crumpled and he sobbed. UGH that is just a lovely nursing memory isn't it?
I hope this isn't in response to the pregnancy. I can't imagine he gets much b/c he only nurses the one time and never for long before he is asleep. I am terrified to try again b/c all I can think is that our last nursing session will have been yesterday where I just spent my whole time reading perezhilton. Lovely....
I left his room and sobbed. I am fairly certain my husband thinks I am crazy!
I was, without a doubt - devastated. I got over it though because I was pregnant with Layla at the time (so I would be breastfeeding again in only 7 more months!)
I have one photo of me nursing Noah, laying in bed together when he was a toddler.
I have suspected Layla was close to weaning for a while. She hasn't relied on it for a long time but I push it because I didn't want to stop. Today, on July 18th, 2011 I think I have to throw in the towel. Layla is now 15 months old, exactly. It has been three days in a row where she has refused. Personally, I think it is due to her teething, as she has refused to eat at school today too. However, since this is day three perhaps I should take this window of opportunity and wean her. I share similar thoughts to my last weaning session - as I didn't really "appreciate" the last time I nursed. In fact, the last few times were comical. She would lay down, nurse for a bit, then sit up and pop between both sides while trying to nurse and rest her cheek on my chest. Then she would giggle and pop back on. I have known for a few months now that she was close to being done and I would watch her nurse and think, "this could be the last time". I tried to cherish it, but I am left with the last few days as a memory - her arching out of my arms trying to get to her crib. Oddly enough, the same way Noah weaned. They are just a month apart in age from when they stopped. Similar to Noah, I have one photo - a self portrait - of our time nursing. She wasn't a cuddly nurser - she was all business with breastfeeding. It isn't a great photo but it is all I have.
I am not sure if we will have another baby, so this is very sad for me. I am sure most people will think I am crazy but at least I'm not sobbing this time!
Showing posts with label The kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The kids. Show all posts
Monday, July 18, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Reflecting on Layla's first year
Layla Grace starts daycare next Friday....Seriously, where has the time gone. With Noah the year was SO long; yet Layla's first year has been so fast, I could have blinked and missed it! Part of that is probably because I returned to work when she was 8.5 months old and part of it is likely because having two kids makes you so busy that your head spins.
Yesterday I was watching Layla: she was holding onto the couch, tormenting her brother, when she just let go....she just tried to see if she could stand on her own without the support. She realized she couldn't quite make it yet and so she did a controlled landing to bring her back to her comfort zone. This is Layla in a nutshell: willing to dive headfirst into a new challenge, not caring about the danger aspect, but pulling back when it takes her a bit too far out of her comfort zone. I sincerely hope this is how Layla lives her life forever. Granted, the "diving headfirst into danger" aspect seems frightening - but what I truly hope for her is that she is not afraid to try new things and fail, but still be willing to pick herself up and try again another time.
Layla arrived into this world mad as hell, kicking, screaming and crying. When I tried to shush her to hear what the nurses and doctors were saying, she got mad and cried louder. This is a personality trait I can relate to, as Layla is my exact double in so many ways. She hates to be ignored, she wants to be the only one heard (or, at the very least, the loudest) and she hates when she doesn't get what she wants the moment she wants it. Luckily, I am able to see the silver lining in this personality trait too: as her bullheaded tenacity may get her far in life if she chooses to use it to her advantage. Who doesn't need to be stubborn and fierce at times in their career? Or when standing up for what they truly believe is right?
At first I described Layla as a fussy baby, but looking back I realize that an incorrect assessment. She isn't, nor ever has she ever been, miserable or cranky (illness and teething episodes aside). She merely wanted things done a certain way. Layla really found her groove right before I went back to work: sleeping better, eating better, playing better. It coincided with her increased mobility - which gave her the independence she craved.
Independent: It is the most perfect word to describe her. She isn't a cuddler, she hates to depend on me for food, she hates that she isn't mobile enough to take down her brother to get to his dump truck and she doesn't want our help getting her to sleep. She protests loudly at being strapped into a carseat or being forced into a snowsuit, as if to protest the act of doing something against her will. Similarly, diaper changes are a true test of patience, as you hold her ankles to lift up her bum and she spins around to escape. I always imagine that what she hates the most is being told to do something on our timeline, under our demands to best suit our needs. Luckily, I know that most toddlers hate this as well, so I know she will require a lot of independence as she gets older.
Looking back to this past year I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, I am so very sad that it has gone so fast because she is my baby and I really do feel like it went by in a blink. However, it means we are onto fun stages - I feel kids just get more fun as they age - and having watched Noah grow, I know that we are in for some fun times. I also know that daycare is going to age her and make her grow at warp speed so I expect my baby to be a baby no more in a few short months of daycare.
Yet, despite my sadness, I am so blessed and happy to have my little monster in my life. I call her all sorts of various nicknames: monster, tazmanian devil, trouble #1, etc., but I truly couldn't be more proud of the little girl. She came into our lives as a bit of a surprise but she is such an amazing baby girl. Sometimes, her "spirit" can tire you out and make you frustrated; but overall I really do appreciate that our baby has that personality. She is fun, carefree and yes, a little dangerous. She is going to be a nightmare of a teenager to raise, but I look forward to watching her try new things and one day learn to let go and stand on her own two feet...
Yesterday I was watching Layla: she was holding onto the couch, tormenting her brother, when she just let go....she just tried to see if she could stand on her own without the support. She realized she couldn't quite make it yet and so she did a controlled landing to bring her back to her comfort zone. This is Layla in a nutshell: willing to dive headfirst into a new challenge, not caring about the danger aspect, but pulling back when it takes her a bit too far out of her comfort zone. I sincerely hope this is how Layla lives her life forever. Granted, the "diving headfirst into danger" aspect seems frightening - but what I truly hope for her is that she is not afraid to try new things and fail, but still be willing to pick herself up and try again another time.
Layla arrived into this world mad as hell, kicking, screaming and crying. When I tried to shush her to hear what the nurses and doctors were saying, she got mad and cried louder. This is a personality trait I can relate to, as Layla is my exact double in so many ways. She hates to be ignored, she wants to be the only one heard (or, at the very least, the loudest) and she hates when she doesn't get what she wants the moment she wants it. Luckily, I am able to see the silver lining in this personality trait too: as her bullheaded tenacity may get her far in life if she chooses to use it to her advantage. Who doesn't need to be stubborn and fierce at times in their career? Or when standing up for what they truly believe is right?
At first I described Layla as a fussy baby, but looking back I realize that an incorrect assessment. She isn't, nor ever has she ever been, miserable or cranky (illness and teething episodes aside). She merely wanted things done a certain way. Layla really found her groove right before I went back to work: sleeping better, eating better, playing better. It coincided with her increased mobility - which gave her the independence she craved.
Independent: It is the most perfect word to describe her. She isn't a cuddler, she hates to depend on me for food, she hates that she isn't mobile enough to take down her brother to get to his dump truck and she doesn't want our help getting her to sleep. She protests loudly at being strapped into a carseat or being forced into a snowsuit, as if to protest the act of doing something against her will. Similarly, diaper changes are a true test of patience, as you hold her ankles to lift up her bum and she spins around to escape. I always imagine that what she hates the most is being told to do something on our timeline, under our demands to best suit our needs. Luckily, I know that most toddlers hate this as well, so I know she will require a lot of independence as she gets older.
Looking back to this past year I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, I am so very sad that it has gone so fast because she is my baby and I really do feel like it went by in a blink. However, it means we are onto fun stages - I feel kids just get more fun as they age - and having watched Noah grow, I know that we are in for some fun times. I also know that daycare is going to age her and make her grow at warp speed so I expect my baby to be a baby no more in a few short months of daycare.
Yet, despite my sadness, I am so blessed and happy to have my little monster in my life. I call her all sorts of various nicknames: monster, tazmanian devil, trouble #1, etc., but I truly couldn't be more proud of the little girl. She came into our lives as a bit of a surprise but she is such an amazing baby girl. Sometimes, her "spirit" can tire you out and make you frustrated; but overall I really do appreciate that our baby has that personality. She is fun, carefree and yes, a little dangerous. She is going to be a nightmare of a teenager to raise, but I look forward to watching her try new things and one day learn to let go and stand on her own two feet...
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Our current trials and tribulations - life with 2 kids
Keith is doing great at home with the kids. He really is amazing. He keeps the house tidy, the kids are very happy and he has fixed sleep, potty and many discipline issues. You see, I am the push-over parent. I am the one who will cave to their slightest request. I wish I could parent like he does!
I wanted to share what we are currently going through with the two kids, as life is never dull here and I am sure our stories are not unique to our kids.
Layla:
Layla is too young to really have any discipline issues. She is growing so fast though. I find she is learning to do things faster than her brother did. She just figured out how to crawl forward this week - which means our previous "rolling log of disaster" is now a "crawling mass of destruction". If something is dangerous or off-limits, she will find it and eat it. This is new territory for us, having had one baby who was very placid and didn't crawl until a year of age. Our biggest challenges with her right now are baby proofing to keep her safe, teaching her that things are off-limits (we use a tone of voice with her that she knows means something is off limits) and biting.
...Yes...biting...
Layla already has six teeth but we think a few more are coming. She has taken to biting her brother - not maliciously, but because she is probably teething and his flesh is the nearest thing to her mouth. When they have bath together, Noah spends the whole bath dodging her bites and scooting around the tub screeching at her to "stop it!". I would bathe them separately, but I can't really figure out how to do this because they go to bed at the same time.
The only thing we can do at this age is remove her from the person she is biting and distract her with something else. It works about 90% of the time.
Noah:
Noah is an amazing kid - so happy and calm, but something is making him feel like he needs more attention or more power in his life (My guess is that Layla is that "something" special causing him to feel a bit left out).
His newest behaviour that is causing discipline issues at home, and potty training issues at school is what I refer to as "learned helplessness" (as a tribute to nursing theory). Noah likes to throw a fit over things he is capable of doing by yelling, "I CAN'T!" and then crying (or rather, trying to make himself cry). This could be exclaimed as he tries to pull up his pants, put on his coat, or put his own socks on. These are all things he is 100% capable of doing. It can be very difficult to sit and listen to when you have to get out the door. This is one of those situations where Keith is a million times better than I am - he is more patient, whereas I give in and do it for him.
Keith and I parent according to Alyson Shaefer's alderian principles (http://www.alyson.ca/). We have been a bit busy lately to consult her book to see how to get Noah out of this learned helplessness cycle, however this weekend Keith had time to review the two chapters that apply to both attention seeking and power struggles.
We tried out the principles over dinner, which is an area we have had a lot of battles. Typically, Noah fights sitting at the table with us, and when he does he shoves his plate away and then trys to get back down after throwing a fit over what he is supposed to eat. He also has gotten ME in the habit of spoon feeding him, just to get him to eat something. After chewing it, he spits it back onto his plate. Inevitably, he will spend time in the corner during dinner.
Last night, we anticipated he wouldn't be hungry because he ate one pound of pasta at lunch...literally! It is hard to explain alderian principles properly and succinctly, so instead I will share what we specifically did with Noah:
As we served dinner, Noah dawdled at his chair. We asked him to join us and he refused. Instead of harping on him, or forcing him into his chair, we just began eating and pleasantly chatting about our day. He played around the kitchen for a while (enjoying his new freedom!) and at some point he noticed he wasn't getting undue attention from skipping dinner, so he came up to the table and shoved his plate away. This is something we don't tolerate, so he went straight to the corner (although I think Alyson Shaefer would have said we should just ignore that behaviour). After he was done in the corner, he asked to come to the table. So we told him, very nicely, that we would really like that. He tried to get us to put him in his chair for him, but he is capable of doing so himself so we told him that once he gets into his chair, we would be more than happy to push him toward the table. He did so himself and ate one piece of food before declaring he was done. We told him that was fine, but there would be no more food until breakfast the next day. He was ok with this and asked politely to leave the table. I was a bit anxious about putting him to bed hungry, but he actually ended up sleeping later than usual and had two bowls of oatmeal at breakfast...no harm done!
Every time we use Alyson's book, I am astounded at how well it works. It often seems common sense, but it really is challenging because I find the hardest part of parenting is not holding a grudge or making the child feel guilty over their choice. Haven't we all told the child that "yes, you can leave this table, but now I have to throw out this dinner that daddy spent so long making"? According to Alyson Shaefer, once you are past a misbehaving situtaion, you have to drop the anger or frustration - and this is really hard. So it is a constant work for us but Keith and I are very devoted to it and work very hard at parenting the best we can. We don't want to use old-school parenting techniques of "you have to do this because I say so" or guilt-trips, aggression or fear-tactics.
Another situation last night, where her tactics worked very well for us was when Noah wanted help putting his socks on for bed (he likes to sleep in socks!). He sobbed while begging Keith to help him. Keith gave him a long hug but then proceeded to read him his bedtime stories to Noah. About four pages in, Noah realized he wasn't getting attention over his sobbing and put his socks on himself and enjoyed the rest of the story.
If you have discipline issues with your kids, try Alyson's book out. It really is a quick and easy read (you only need to review the chapters that apply to your child's discipline issues) and you won't be sorry!
I wanted to share what we are currently going through with the two kids, as life is never dull here and I am sure our stories are not unique to our kids.
Layla:
Layla is too young to really have any discipline issues. She is growing so fast though. I find she is learning to do things faster than her brother did. She just figured out how to crawl forward this week - which means our previous "rolling log of disaster" is now a "crawling mass of destruction". If something is dangerous or off-limits, she will find it and eat it. This is new territory for us, having had one baby who was very placid and didn't crawl until a year of age. Our biggest challenges with her right now are baby proofing to keep her safe, teaching her that things are off-limits (we use a tone of voice with her that she knows means something is off limits) and biting.
...Yes...biting...
Layla already has six teeth but we think a few more are coming. She has taken to biting her brother - not maliciously, but because she is probably teething and his flesh is the nearest thing to her mouth. When they have bath together, Noah spends the whole bath dodging her bites and scooting around the tub screeching at her to "stop it!". I would bathe them separately, but I can't really figure out how to do this because they go to bed at the same time.
The only thing we can do at this age is remove her from the person she is biting and distract her with something else. It works about 90% of the time.
Noah:
Noah is an amazing kid - so happy and calm, but something is making him feel like he needs more attention or more power in his life (My guess is that Layla is that "something" special causing him to feel a bit left out).
His newest behaviour that is causing discipline issues at home, and potty training issues at school is what I refer to as "learned helplessness" (as a tribute to nursing theory). Noah likes to throw a fit over things he is capable of doing by yelling, "I CAN'T!" and then crying (or rather, trying to make himself cry). This could be exclaimed as he tries to pull up his pants, put on his coat, or put his own socks on. These are all things he is 100% capable of doing. It can be very difficult to sit and listen to when you have to get out the door. This is one of those situations where Keith is a million times better than I am - he is more patient, whereas I give in and do it for him.
Keith and I parent according to Alyson Shaefer's alderian principles (http://www.alyson.ca/). We have been a bit busy lately to consult her book to see how to get Noah out of this learned helplessness cycle, however this weekend Keith had time to review the two chapters that apply to both attention seeking and power struggles.
We tried out the principles over dinner, which is an area we have had a lot of battles. Typically, Noah fights sitting at the table with us, and when he does he shoves his plate away and then trys to get back down after throwing a fit over what he is supposed to eat. He also has gotten ME in the habit of spoon feeding him, just to get him to eat something. After chewing it, he spits it back onto his plate. Inevitably, he will spend time in the corner during dinner.
Last night, we anticipated he wouldn't be hungry because he ate one pound of pasta at lunch...literally! It is hard to explain alderian principles properly and succinctly, so instead I will share what we specifically did with Noah:
As we served dinner, Noah dawdled at his chair. We asked him to join us and he refused. Instead of harping on him, or forcing him into his chair, we just began eating and pleasantly chatting about our day. He played around the kitchen for a while (enjoying his new freedom!) and at some point he noticed he wasn't getting undue attention from skipping dinner, so he came up to the table and shoved his plate away. This is something we don't tolerate, so he went straight to the corner (although I think Alyson Shaefer would have said we should just ignore that behaviour). After he was done in the corner, he asked to come to the table. So we told him, very nicely, that we would really like that. He tried to get us to put him in his chair for him, but he is capable of doing so himself so we told him that once he gets into his chair, we would be more than happy to push him toward the table. He did so himself and ate one piece of food before declaring he was done. We told him that was fine, but there would be no more food until breakfast the next day. He was ok with this and asked politely to leave the table. I was a bit anxious about putting him to bed hungry, but he actually ended up sleeping later than usual and had two bowls of oatmeal at breakfast...no harm done!
Every time we use Alyson's book, I am astounded at how well it works. It often seems common sense, but it really is challenging because I find the hardest part of parenting is not holding a grudge or making the child feel guilty over their choice. Haven't we all told the child that "yes, you can leave this table, but now I have to throw out this dinner that daddy spent so long making"? According to Alyson Shaefer, once you are past a misbehaving situtaion, you have to drop the anger or frustration - and this is really hard. So it is a constant work for us but Keith and I are very devoted to it and work very hard at parenting the best we can. We don't want to use old-school parenting techniques of "you have to do this because I say so" or guilt-trips, aggression or fear-tactics.
Another situation last night, where her tactics worked very well for us was when Noah wanted help putting his socks on for bed (he likes to sleep in socks!). He sobbed while begging Keith to help him. Keith gave him a long hug but then proceeded to read him his bedtime stories to Noah. About four pages in, Noah realized he wasn't getting attention over his sobbing and put his socks on himself and enjoyed the rest of the story.
If you have discipline issues with your kids, try Alyson's book out. It really is a quick and easy read (you only need to review the chapters that apply to your child's discipline issues) and you won't be sorry!
Friday, January 21, 2011
2010 in photos
Fellow mommy bloggers have done their year in photos, and I wanted to join in the fun! I am a little late, since our computer had died over the holidays, but here we go!
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| Pregnant at the start of 2010 |
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| This is the only photo I had in February, so it won by default... |
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| March, we did maternity photos |
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| I wanted to add another one with the whole family |
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| April marked the end of my Master's program...I had Layla a week later |
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| April: My final belly shot before being induced |
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| A few hours later, Layla came into our lives |
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| The three of us, Noah wouldn't join us in the photos |
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| May marked Noah's second birthday! |
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| June: Noah and Layla getting closer |
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| July: Canada Day! |
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| August: Learning to play together |
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| September: Noah went to ride on Thomas the train with Nana and Granddad |
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| September: Also marked Layla's baptism |
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| October: We went apple picking with Keith's family |
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| October: We also did some Halloween photos with Kim |
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| November: Layla getting bigger! |
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| November: Noah developing such a sense of humour! |
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| December: Sibling love - but also the start of sibling rivalry, as Layla is learning to move around and steal Noah's toys |
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| January 2011: Keith started his parental leave, until April. He is such a good stay-at-home dad. |
Friday, December 31, 2010
Reflecting on my second maternity leave
I am back with a computer! Turns out we totally fried our hard drive so my dad is fixing it up and hopefully recovering our photos and other valuable data. I will do an update on my Shred workout but for now, I want to reflect on my maternity leave as it draws to a close, and Keith takes over the final three months.
Being a mom is by far, the best thing that has ever happened to me, aside from meeting and marrying Keith. I have always known I loved kids - but being a mom is amazing. I am a goof and nothing is better than having a dance party with Noah and Layla - Noah getting all red in the face, and Layla clapping to the music. I have a hard time believing I will be a strict mom down the road, because I sure am lenient now. If you would have asked me before I had kids who was going to be the tough parent, I never would have said Keith - but he has rules and they are followed. I am lenient and get walked over a bit!
During my first maternity leave, I returned to school around the same time as I am going back to work this time. I was bitter to have done that, but I had no choice. This time, I did have a choice - and I am excited and scared.
Layla has been a very fun child right from the get-go. I remember those first moments, seeing her after she was born. They laid her on my chest and then....she wailed. I mean, WAILED...she really exercised her lungs. The healthcare staff had to shout over her as I tried to mash her face into my breast to nurse for the first time as Keith and I looked at each other with complete terror in our eyes. She wasn't quiet! She didn't just stare at me like Noah did. Oh dear....she was "spirited"!
Ever since her birth, Layla has been a spirited child who knows what she wants and when she wants it. In a way, I am happy to have such a daughter because I don't want my daughter to be a push-over. I want to raise a woman who can live on her own, stand up for what she wants in life and speaks her mind. So I think her personality will foster that.
Layla is the kind of child who you can't just leave on the floor with a bunch of toys around her. You can't allow her to go even the teensiest bit hungry, and heaven forbid you should prevent her from gnawing on an extension cord! Her voice has only gotten bigger, and her temper shorter. However, that being said, she is also the happiest and most beautiful baby. I know I am her mom, and thus biased, but she really is an amazing child. She has the largest and most gorgeous eyes that encompass you and melt your heart and her smile is stunning and warm. You can't help but fall in love with her!
Ending my mat leave early makes me sad for a few reasons: Noah is just getting funnier by the second and his imagination is exploding, so playing with him is so enjoyable; Layla is leaving the baby phase and entering the toddler years. She is increasingly mobile and she is interacting with her brother more and it is hilarious to watch. I am going to miss the days where it was just Layla and I; I am going to miss the days I had the two kids. I am really going to miss Friday morning trips to Country Style with Noah and Layla for treats. I am also going to miss my Weight watchers group and their fawning over Layla.
I have had a few thoughts about pregnancy and mat leave for second time moms that I think I should share because people just don't talk about this stuff (they are too busy with their kids to share)!
1. Pregnancy with the second child flies by when you are chasing a toddler! My first pregnancy was excruciatingly long (especially when I was on bedrest) but this time round, I really can't believe how fast it went by. Just thinking that Noah was a baby himself when I was pregnant and now is nearing 3 - it is just crazy, which brings me to point #2
2. The older child will change by leaps and bounds in your baby's first year (which, coincidentally, flies by even faster than your second pregnancy). I know the baby grows a lot in the first year, that is a given - they go from 9lbs to 30lbs in 12 months (wait...what? That is just my kids?!?!). But the older child also ages and they change so much. I know this must sound ridiculous to everyone, but I seriously feel like I just gave birth a few months ago so when I look back on Layla's early photos and Noah is only 23 months old and is now speaking in full and clear sentences and is fully toilet trained....that is shocking for only 9 months. You hear all the time that they grow up too fast but I really didn't feel that was true until we had Layla.
3. When you bring the second baby home, you assume they are going to take up all of your time. WRONG...it is the toddler that takes up all your time. They are thrust from their only child status and they are extremely challenging to handle those first few weeks. However, after a while, they seem to realize that the baby is here to stay and life gets a lot easier.
4. That said, having a two story house causes some difficulties when dealing with naps for two kids (which are never at the same time, by the way). It also complicates life when your baby hits the "distracted by everything" phase of breastfeeding and you have to feed in a dark and quiet room away from all stimuli. Tell me...what do you do with the older child?!?! Noah was just 2 years old and I had to find things for him to do while I was upstairs with the baby. Conversely, when Noah went down for his nap, but Layla wasn't ready to nap, I had to find something for her to do alone. It was very difficult and to this day I struggle with this.
5. It is true, you do loosen up on some things and learn not to stress the small things. New moms tend to be very concerned about what the child eats, drinks, how much tv they watch, what toys they play with, etc. I did that all with Noah. Yet, when the second one comes your values have to change. You may stick to your guns about certain things that are very important to you (whether that is tv time or juice intake) but you end up doing what you have to do to survive. For example, Noah's tv time went up...a lot - I mean, it kept him quiet and out of trouble while I put Layla down for a nap. However, as a result, I also really do think Treehouse helped his vocabulary, his speech, his counting and learning colours. It also has contributed to the development of his imagination - he is always telling me stories that are clearly based on the latest Max and Ruby program.
6. Your relationship with your spouse undergoes another change, as you become a family of 4. It is really hard to find time for your spouse. Often, Noah is with keith so I can nurse Layla and that leaves no time for ourselves. Once the kids are in bed and it is 8pm, one of us is either working out, packing lunches, doing dishes, shoveling snow, doing laundry, or falling asleep. We try to keep this in mind, but it can be hard. Thankfully kids are only this physically demanding and dependent for so long
7. Keeping track of milestones is next to impossible because time is flying by! I did my best to keep track of it all but I know I missed some stuff. I tried very hard to do for Layla all that I did for Noah, but I feel it is a bit impossible. There are also less photos and less video coverage because with Noah, I literally was just sitting in our condo, staring at him for 12 hours a day. With Layla, I have to keep Noah occupied and her happy. There is very little sitting and thus, less projects to keep me occupied.
8. Having more than one child is just awesome. One day, Noah pulled Layla's highchair over to his chair at the kitchen table and he kissed her and whispered in her ear that he loved her. I mean, you just don't get better than that in life. Also, the love she has in her eyes for Noah is unbelievable. He is the only one who can make her stop crying every time, because she worships him. Her eyes light up when she sees him and her smile becomes huge. She kicks her legs and gurgles happily for him. I would be surprised if her first word wasn't his name.
9. My house is a mess, I never style my hair, my makeup sits unused and I have no idea what is in style in fashion anymore....and I don't really care!
10. I forget what life with just Keith was like; I forget what life with just Noah was like - I honest to goodness can't imagine life without Keith, Noah, and Layla in my life. I keep telling Keith we have to have another baby so I can go on leave again, but who knows what the future holds. A psychic told me once I would have three babies: two girls and a boy - so we shall see...
I have no photos on this computer, but I do have one of my prince and princess at Christmas...enjoy:
Being a mom is by far, the best thing that has ever happened to me, aside from meeting and marrying Keith. I have always known I loved kids - but being a mom is amazing. I am a goof and nothing is better than having a dance party with Noah and Layla - Noah getting all red in the face, and Layla clapping to the music. I have a hard time believing I will be a strict mom down the road, because I sure am lenient now. If you would have asked me before I had kids who was going to be the tough parent, I never would have said Keith - but he has rules and they are followed. I am lenient and get walked over a bit!
During my first maternity leave, I returned to school around the same time as I am going back to work this time. I was bitter to have done that, but I had no choice. This time, I did have a choice - and I am excited and scared.
Layla has been a very fun child right from the get-go. I remember those first moments, seeing her after she was born. They laid her on my chest and then....she wailed. I mean, WAILED...she really exercised her lungs. The healthcare staff had to shout over her as I tried to mash her face into my breast to nurse for the first time as Keith and I looked at each other with complete terror in our eyes. She wasn't quiet! She didn't just stare at me like Noah did. Oh dear....she was "spirited"!
Ever since her birth, Layla has been a spirited child who knows what she wants and when she wants it. In a way, I am happy to have such a daughter because I don't want my daughter to be a push-over. I want to raise a woman who can live on her own, stand up for what she wants in life and speaks her mind. So I think her personality will foster that.
Layla is the kind of child who you can't just leave on the floor with a bunch of toys around her. You can't allow her to go even the teensiest bit hungry, and heaven forbid you should prevent her from gnawing on an extension cord! Her voice has only gotten bigger, and her temper shorter. However, that being said, she is also the happiest and most beautiful baby. I know I am her mom, and thus biased, but she really is an amazing child. She has the largest and most gorgeous eyes that encompass you and melt your heart and her smile is stunning and warm. You can't help but fall in love with her!
Ending my mat leave early makes me sad for a few reasons: Noah is just getting funnier by the second and his imagination is exploding, so playing with him is so enjoyable; Layla is leaving the baby phase and entering the toddler years. She is increasingly mobile and she is interacting with her brother more and it is hilarious to watch. I am going to miss the days where it was just Layla and I; I am going to miss the days I had the two kids. I am really going to miss Friday morning trips to Country Style with Noah and Layla for treats. I am also going to miss my Weight watchers group and their fawning over Layla.
I have had a few thoughts about pregnancy and mat leave for second time moms that I think I should share because people just don't talk about this stuff (they are too busy with their kids to share)!
1. Pregnancy with the second child flies by when you are chasing a toddler! My first pregnancy was excruciatingly long (especially when I was on bedrest) but this time round, I really can't believe how fast it went by. Just thinking that Noah was a baby himself when I was pregnant and now is nearing 3 - it is just crazy, which brings me to point #2
2. The older child will change by leaps and bounds in your baby's first year (which, coincidentally, flies by even faster than your second pregnancy). I know the baby grows a lot in the first year, that is a given - they go from 9lbs to 30lbs in 12 months (wait...what? That is just my kids?!?!). But the older child also ages and they change so much. I know this must sound ridiculous to everyone, but I seriously feel like I just gave birth a few months ago so when I look back on Layla's early photos and Noah is only 23 months old and is now speaking in full and clear sentences and is fully toilet trained....that is shocking for only 9 months. You hear all the time that they grow up too fast but I really didn't feel that was true until we had Layla.
3. When you bring the second baby home, you assume they are going to take up all of your time. WRONG...it is the toddler that takes up all your time. They are thrust from their only child status and they are extremely challenging to handle those first few weeks. However, after a while, they seem to realize that the baby is here to stay and life gets a lot easier.
4. That said, having a two story house causes some difficulties when dealing with naps for two kids (which are never at the same time, by the way). It also complicates life when your baby hits the "distracted by everything" phase of breastfeeding and you have to feed in a dark and quiet room away from all stimuli. Tell me...what do you do with the older child?!?! Noah was just 2 years old and I had to find things for him to do while I was upstairs with the baby. Conversely, when Noah went down for his nap, but Layla wasn't ready to nap, I had to find something for her to do alone. It was very difficult and to this day I struggle with this.
5. It is true, you do loosen up on some things and learn not to stress the small things. New moms tend to be very concerned about what the child eats, drinks, how much tv they watch, what toys they play with, etc. I did that all with Noah. Yet, when the second one comes your values have to change. You may stick to your guns about certain things that are very important to you (whether that is tv time or juice intake) but you end up doing what you have to do to survive. For example, Noah's tv time went up...a lot - I mean, it kept him quiet and out of trouble while I put Layla down for a nap. However, as a result, I also really do think Treehouse helped his vocabulary, his speech, his counting and learning colours. It also has contributed to the development of his imagination - he is always telling me stories that are clearly based on the latest Max and Ruby program.
6. Your relationship with your spouse undergoes another change, as you become a family of 4. It is really hard to find time for your spouse. Often, Noah is with keith so I can nurse Layla and that leaves no time for ourselves. Once the kids are in bed and it is 8pm, one of us is either working out, packing lunches, doing dishes, shoveling snow, doing laundry, or falling asleep. We try to keep this in mind, but it can be hard. Thankfully kids are only this physically demanding and dependent for so long
7. Keeping track of milestones is next to impossible because time is flying by! I did my best to keep track of it all but I know I missed some stuff. I tried very hard to do for Layla all that I did for Noah, but I feel it is a bit impossible. There are also less photos and less video coverage because with Noah, I literally was just sitting in our condo, staring at him for 12 hours a day. With Layla, I have to keep Noah occupied and her happy. There is very little sitting and thus, less projects to keep me occupied.
8. Having more than one child is just awesome. One day, Noah pulled Layla's highchair over to his chair at the kitchen table and he kissed her and whispered in her ear that he loved her. I mean, you just don't get better than that in life. Also, the love she has in her eyes for Noah is unbelievable. He is the only one who can make her stop crying every time, because she worships him. Her eyes light up when she sees him and her smile becomes huge. She kicks her legs and gurgles happily for him. I would be surprised if her first word wasn't his name.
9. My house is a mess, I never style my hair, my makeup sits unused and I have no idea what is in style in fashion anymore....and I don't really care!
10. I forget what life with just Keith was like; I forget what life with just Noah was like - I honest to goodness can't imagine life without Keith, Noah, and Layla in my life. I keep telling Keith we have to have another baby so I can go on leave again, but who knows what the future holds. A psychic told me once I would have three babies: two girls and a boy - so we shall see...
I have no photos on this computer, but I do have one of my prince and princess at Christmas...enjoy:
Thursday, November 18, 2010
My father's wish...
Growing up, my father would always say to me, "I hope you have four little girls...just like you". Awww - sounds sweet doesn't it? That is, until you find out he was saying it to me out of exacerbation!
And so, many years later my father gets his wish: I am 2 for 2.
My two children, while they may look like Hemingways, are infuriatingly Spilka's! I am mostly talking about their stubborn streak, their temper and the fact that they are mean when hungry.
Ok, mostly I am talking about their tempers and stubbornness. Layla is so much like me that I fear we won't get along when she is a teen. There are days where she is having such a tantrum that I just throw my hands up and say, "Arg! I can't deal with you...it is like dealing with myself!" - and I drive myself crazy!
Today, for example, Noah had to put his shoes away in the cubby at school. He refused to use two hands to pick them up - and so I had to watch as he was determined to move two shoes at once, with one small hand, into the cubby. Once I told him he "had" to use two hands, he simply wouldn't.
Sometimes Noah will throw himself dramatically onto the couch to cry over something he is not allowed to do/have and I just roll my eyes because I did that the night before to Keith over something that I couldn't do/have.
Luckily Layla is still a baby so her Spilka-like nature is minimal right now, but believe me it is there!
The person I feel the worst for is Keith - he is surrounded by me (and not my best qualities, I should add). Thank goodness he is a kind and patient man, because he handles it all very well. Nothing really ruffles his feathers. I think he is in for a treat as the kids age and one day become difficult teenagers.
And so, many years later my father gets his wish: I am 2 for 2.
My two children, while they may look like Hemingways, are infuriatingly Spilka's! I am mostly talking about their stubborn streak, their temper and the fact that they are mean when hungry.
Ok, mostly I am talking about their tempers and stubbornness. Layla is so much like me that I fear we won't get along when she is a teen. There are days where she is having such a tantrum that I just throw my hands up and say, "Arg! I can't deal with you...it is like dealing with myself!" - and I drive myself crazy!
Today, for example, Noah had to put his shoes away in the cubby at school. He refused to use two hands to pick them up - and so I had to watch as he was determined to move two shoes at once, with one small hand, into the cubby. Once I told him he "had" to use two hands, he simply wouldn't.
Sometimes Noah will throw himself dramatically onto the couch to cry over something he is not allowed to do/have and I just roll my eyes because I did that the night before to Keith over something that I couldn't do/have.
Luckily Layla is still a baby so her Spilka-like nature is minimal right now, but believe me it is there!
The person I feel the worst for is Keith - he is surrounded by me (and not my best qualities, I should add). Thank goodness he is a kind and patient man, because he handles it all very well. Nothing really ruffles his feathers. I think he is in for a treat as the kids age and one day become difficult teenagers.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
All about Layla
Layla was a surprise pregnancy...the result of two people believing themselves to be infertile! At the time I got pregnant, Noah was 14 months old, I had just returned to work and was finishing up my Master's degree. We always said if we somehow conceived on our own it would be a wonderful blessing. This is how Layla Grace came into our lives.
The day I found out I was pregnant, I had gone to work with a suspicion that I was pregnant. I went to a drug store on the way into work and grabbed a test. Keith and Noah had an appointment at Sick Kids, so I knew they were going to meet me afterwards. I went out to meet them and couldn’t keep it in, “I’m pregnant”. Keith looked as shocked as a human could look! He just stared at me. Part of his shock is largely due to the fact that a few weeks before, we had sat down and had a serious discussion about when to return to the fertility clinic. We were trying to time it around Noah’s age, the end of my Master’s program, finding a new job and saving money before going back onto maternity leave. Life had other plans.
Layla's pregnancy was very easy and very different from Noah's. Keith and I just knew that it was going to be a healthy pregnancy and it was - short of taking a fall on ice at work one day!
Layla was supposed to be named "Grace Elizabeth" as we had that name picked out for a long time. "Grace" was picked because I liked it, more so than the meaning. "Elizabeth" was after Keith's grandmother. However, one day Keith came home and said that he thought Grace was too common lately and after naming Noah (whose name is in the top 5 names right now), we didn't want to have the same problems we are encountering with Noah at daycare (there are three Noah's in his small class right now!). He met a little girl at Noah's gym class named Layla and said how much he liked the name. Once he was into changing her name, I searched high and low for other names but he hated them all because in his mind, she was his little Layla already. Of course, since choosing this name, I have heard of three new babies named Layla and haven't heard of a single Grace...so who knows. We chose to use the name Grace as a middle name and for some reason, I can't stop calling her Layla Grace - rather than just Layla. Keith loves to call her L.G. and Noah...well Noah likes to call her "baby".
Layla was born a month before Noah's second birthday. Her birth story is actually quite humourous - many of you have read it already but I will post it here too because I think it was an amusing situation.
So far Layla is very healthy. She is a big baby - off the charts in all respects, but she definitely has a different personality than Noah. She is my "spirited child". She knows what she wants and when she doesn't get it - watch out! She has developed a disturbing deep and husky growl when she is frustrated - it is hilarious to hear. She is a great sleeper but her naps have always been a challenge. Worry about naps consumes so much of my time I am sure it will get it's own blog post.
Layla and Noah are opposites in every way thus far:
- Noah ate all day long when he nursed; Layla is in-and-out in 10 min's
- Noah was quiet; Layla is very vocal
- We never had to baby proof with Noah - he just was told not to do something and he wouldn't...I have already caught Layla chewing through cords (time to baby proof!)
- You could leave Noah to amuse himself; If Layla doesn't have constant attention she is furious!
I think the biggest challenge we will encounter raising Layla, is helping her grow up without resentment for Noah's ailments and the attention they inevitably receive: good or bad, attention is attention - and I fear that it may have repercussions on her childhood and her relationship with her brother. I have witnessed this first hand at the bedside, and I have no idea how to avoid it. We try to treat Noah as normally as we can, however on some level we will always baby him a bit, even if we don't try to - when you go through what we did with your child, it is hard not to baby them!
Conversely, we feel that Noah's health issues have given us a unique perspective when it comes to appreciating the children and enjoying every minute of their lives.
Layla is still sleeping in our room - we moved her crib beside my bed when she outgrew the playpen. Thank goodness we have a huge room and can't afford to properly furnish it! So our next job is to get her into her own room. Right now I am working on getting her naps in the crib. Currently we either co-nap, or I nurse her to sleep on our bed and leave her there. I am day 4 into this experiment and so far she is doing ok. Every now and then she stays on our bed, but I am really trying to help her learn to nap in her crib.
Layla has also started solids. She loves them some days, hates them on others...it really depends on her mood. As I said, she is spirited!
Anyway, here is her shortened birth story (also posted on FB), and I am going to post photos after it of our gorgeous blue eyed girl!
Layla's Birth Story
April 17th, 9pm: Keith and I are watching TV and I keep getting intermittent pains. They were quite uncomfortable, so I tell Keith and go upstairs to have a shower to make them go away. I feel much better after the shower, but when I get downstairs, Keith is clutching the phone. We then proceed to argue about whether or not I am in labour or if I just have gas! He wanted to call his mom to come up because she had a long drive, but I wanted to wait because I really didn’t feel it was labour (I was, after all, a few days early!). We argue all until bedtime, at 10pm. I tell him that he can’t call his mom and if I do in fact go into labour that night, he is not to say, “I told you so”.
10:20pm: We shut out the light, and I get a contraction. To tell if it is a Braxton hicks contraction or not, I decide to get up out of bed and walk it off – as soon as I get up, my water breaks! I run to the bathroom yelling, “Call your mom!”.
I can hear him on the phone with his mom: “It’s go time! Her water broke……Yes…..come now…..Her water broke!.....HER WATER BROKE!” (clearly it took a few tries to get the message across)
My contractions never really kicked in, so I go to bed. I was up every 15 min's with contractions, but they didn't get any stronger or closer together...just more annoying than painful.
April 18th, 6am: I get up with Noah and my mother-in-law is shocked to see us still at the house. My contractions are getting further apart so I call triage, who tell me to call the OB on call (who just happens to be my own OB). She suggests I go to the hospital (but don’t rush there), where she promises she won’t send me home because too much time has passed since my water broke the night before.
8am: We arrive at the hospital. We are the only ones in triage so we are seen immediately. The nurse hooks me up to the fetal monitor and leaves us to our own devices. I nap off and on, since I didn’t sleep well the night before. Finally a doctor comes to see us around 10am (I had missed my own OB who went off-call by 7am). She said they will admit me but I ask her to check me. She didn’t want to, but I insisted – I am 3cm dilated at this point.
10am: Keith and I walk the halls and I try the exercise ball to get labour going, but contractions totally stopped by now. The nurse asks me if I will want an epidural – she anticipated my labour would come on hard and fast with the pitocin because I had a fast labour with Noah. She suggested it might be easier and better to do the epidural before the pitocin – I agree. So we spend the next hour waiting around for the anaesthetist to do the epidural.
11:30: Got the epidural - I felt like such a weakling getting an epidural before I had any real contractions, but with Noah’s birth, the epidural didn’t take, so I knew what labour felt like and I wasn’t eager to feel it again! The doctor assured me many people do it this way and made me feel less stupid for asking for it so early.
I did not like how I felt once I had the epidural. I felt faint and nauseated from being numb. It wasn’t related to my blood pressure, which was fine. It was all in my head – I couldn’t get past how awful it felt to have numb legs and bum. I think because I didn’t relish the relief an epidural can bring when in active labour – I basically got it with no pain at all – so it really felt weird to me.
12:45: Started the oxytocin
13:15: Contractions 4-6 min’s apart, increasing in strength. I didn’t feel a thing so I napped a bit off an on.
15:19: Contractions 2.5 min’s apart. Starting to shiver – likely in transition at this point. The nurse kept increasing my drip because my body would react well initially but then it would seem to get used to the level of drugs and slow down again.
15:30: Increased my pitocin again.
16:15: I had asked the nurse if they could check me because I was shivering but couldn’t feel an urge to push. I had been on the drip for about 3.5 hours and I wasn’t convinced I would feel the need to push. They told me I would but I had convinced them to check me anyway. Lo and behold – I am 10cm! Who knows how long I was 10cm for because I really couldn’t feel a thing. My bum was very numb.
All of a sudden I am VERY nervous. I didn’t feel any pain with the labour and I didn’t have the urge to push so the thought of just pushing with no urge, made me scared. So I begged the doctors and nurse to take their time setting up, so I could calm down a bit. I start shivering big time but this time it is related to my nerves. I did however, have another nap as the doctors tended to another labour (at my request).
17:23: I can feel the contractions enough now to know when to push. I pushed three times with each contraction, despite feeling quite ill with each contraction. After 2 contractions they had to call the doctors because her head was right there. I didn’t really realize how close it was because I didn’t feel a thing!
The nurse called in the resident, fellow and staff into our closet of a room, and I begged them not stretch me to accommodate the head – they all laughed. Then I told the nurse that if I threaten to punch her, not to take it seriously.
I push once and I hear “STOP!”. I stop and ask “WHY? What is going on down there?’. They laughed and said “The head it out!”. I am shocked because I really didn’t feel it! (I should point out that Layla's head remains, to this day, enormous! At 33 weeks, her head was the size of a full-term infant)
Then I push one more time and out she came flying! I had pushed for 9 min’s – most of which was waiting around for contractions or doctors! All in all it was 3 contractions.
Then I push one more time and out she came flying! I had pushed for 9 min’s – most of which was waiting around for contractions or doctors! All in all it was 3 contractions.
Layla Grace was born at 17:32 – 4.75 hours after being induced.
Here are photos of our beautiful Layla Grace:
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| Layla after birth |
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| 24 hours old - going home! |
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| First family photo! |
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| 10 days old |
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| This photo always make me laugh! |
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| Big brother holding his new sister |
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| 1 month |
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| Right from the start, she has clutched a blanket when sleeping |
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| This is how she slept for months! |
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| 3.5 months |
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| 3.5 months |
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| Another photo that I find hilarious! |
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| 4 months |
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| Playing in the leaves with Noah |
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| Modeling her Baby Legs |
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| 5 months |
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| 5.5 months |
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| Party time in her diaper! |
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| First food |
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| And just like that...she takes a sippy cup. No problem! |
Friday, October 22, 2010
All about Noah
As my first post, I wanted to explain a bit about Noah's background, since I will be frequently discussing his health issues. It is my hope that our story will provide insight, hope and knowledge for those going through a similar journey, raising a child with chronic health issues. My next blog, I will go into detail about Layla, who thus far, is healthy (thank goodness!). A fair warning that this will be long - and poor Layla's will be short (but in her defense, she is only 6 months old!)
Keith and I had been married for 16 months before we became pregnant with Noah. It was a bit of a struggle, since I suffer from polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and thus don't ovulate on my own. We sought out assistance from a fertility clinic and, with the help of Clomid, we were able to conceive Noah on our first round of medication.
Noah's pregnancy was not without its trials and tribulations: at 17 weeks when I was placed on bed rest for a heavy bleed which was the result of a subchorionic hematoma. At the time, we were not sure if we would carry Noah to term. So I was considered to be suffering from a "threatened miscarriage". However, at 22w I was able to go back to work, with limited activity because the bleed had diminished in size. We had many, many ultrasounds as the result of the bleed, fertility treatment and the normal ultrasounds that are scheduled during a pregnancy - but none were able to catch his multiple heart defects. During every ultrasound, being a cardiac nurse, I would ask them to show me his four ventricles - every time I saw them I breathed a sigh of relief. However, I do feel on some level that I knew something was amiss: I would frequently comment to my coworkers, "My biggest fear is that this baby will have a heart defect"; or to Keith, "something doesn't feel right - I don't know what or why...but it doesn't feel right" (after which he would get upset because there was nothing he could do to make me feel better and I had instilled a dose of worry into his day).
When I was overdue by a few days, I was induced for vision disturbances. All they had to do was break my water, and after that I did the rest on my own. After about 6 hours of back labour with a non-functioning epidural, Noah arrived - a healthy size (8lbs 12 oz; 21 inches). His breathing was a bit laboured, but after a nursing session and some kangaroo time, he calmed down. Everything appeared normal.
Before we were discharged, a pediatrician came to see him to check him out before we were able to leave. The doctor had difficulty finding his femoral pulses and commented on it. But then he seemed to find them and all was ok. I did however comment to Keith that it bothered me a bit. Keith also noticed how cold his feet were all the time. The medical team passed it off as immature circulation, which, I suppose could be a fair explanation...just not the only explanation.
At home we did ok - breastfeeding was brutal because of the pain, but he seemed to have normal energy levels and nursed constantly...literally, all day and night long! Being paranoid, I would listen to his heart daily because I knew that if he did have a defect, symptoms would appear around the time the patent ductus arteriosis (PDA) closed. This is the vessel that allows fetal blood to flow between the aorta and pulmonary artery, which closes about a week after birth. I didn't notice it close, but I did comment to the family doctor that I still heard a murmur when it should have been closed. She thought it was merely the PDA remaining open.
Around 6 days after his birth, Keith sat and watched Noah sleep. He commented that he really seemed to struggle to breathe at night and was visibly concerned. I told him we would watch it and then bring it up to the doctor at our next visit. Over the next few days, Noah's breathing became faster, but it wasn't until my grandmother pointed it out when she was holding him. Once she pointed it out, it was all I could notice. He was breathing over 100 breaths a minute at rest. Normal is about 60! He literally appeared to be panting like a dog.
I mentioned it to the doctor and to telehealth on the phone. They both brushed it off (likely thinking I was just an anxious first time mom). I turned to Dr. Google, and everything kept coming up as a heart defect of some sort.
By 10 days after his birth, my mom called me and I was in tears with worry. She said, "If something doesn't feel right, just go to the emergency...you will feel better for trying". At this point Noah had significant indrawing with each breath and his breathing just seemed to get faster by the day.
When I worked at the bedside, I worked in pediatric cardiology at the children's hospital in town - and I knew their emergency room would be swamped. So Keith and I decided to return to the hospital I gave birth at, because they had an urgent care clinic with no line up. When we got there we were approached in the waiting room by a nurse who informed us that they don't see infants once they are discharged because the children's hospital was down the road. She looked at me and asked why we came there. I explained our reasoning and she said, "Your son is in respiratory distress...you will be seen immediately". It was then that we both realized that he really wasn't well - but with what or why was yet to be determined.
The nurse was right, we were seen very quickly. After an x-ray, Noah was diagnosed with wet lungs, likely from pneumonia after birth. He was started on triple antibiotics and was going to be admitted for 10 days. I burst into tears...this isn't how you are supposed to spend the early days with your baby and 10 days seemed SO long. I asked him to do an echocardiogram to check the heart, just to make me feel better. He said, "We are aware you are a cardiac nurse...when he is on the floor we will get an echo done". That made me feel better.
As we were waiting to go up to the infectious disease floor, the doctor and resident from that ward came to check out Noah before admitting him to the floor. They asked a bunch of questions and probed deeper into the situation. They then were very smart and did a 4 limb blood pressure. As soon as I heard that the leg and arm differed greatly I started freaking out saying to Keith, "Oh my God...he is a coarct....he is a cardiac kid". Keith, of course, had no clue what I was babbling about.
Shortly after they did an echo. The doctor doing the echo was teaching a few other residents and was speaking out loud. He pointed out the coarctation of the aorta (basically, a kink in the aorta) and then he started saying more to them. He pointed out a ventricular septal defect as well! I burst into tears and my husband kept asking me, "what does that mean? What does that mean?". The residents looked alarmed and the doctor doing the echo merely passed it off, "Oh, she is a cardiac nurse". I heard it all and knew our situation was getting worse and worse....with a longer and longer hospital stay. Certainly longer than the original 10 days! I tried to explain as best I could to Keith (even though this wasn't my job!) and I think he just felt so confused and upset. I can't imagine how it would have felt because noone was explaining anything to him!
After the echo, they let me nurse Noah, even though he was breathing so fast, and they made plans to admit us. I realized then that we weren't going home until he was repaired. They wanted to admit us to the cardiac critical care unit and I begged them to admit us to the ward instead. They agreed to place us in the step-down unit. By now, it was 4am (we arrived in the early evening the night before). By 6am we were on the ward and Keith and I were settling in. I just nursed Noah and the nurse came in and said, "What are you doing? You can't feed him...he may go to the OR today!" That was it....we both lost it. It was too soon after hearing the news. After a lot of talking and negotiating, I chose my surgeon (the best in the hospital!) and he agreed to take the case. Thank goodness he is cautious because he wanted more echo's and an MRI done on Noah.
Once things settled down, Keith and I were given a patient room on the ward to sleep in, since the ward wasn't busy. We laid down and held each other while we cried. It was the most pain I have ever felt in my life. Little did we know, there would be so much more to come.
After the next few days, Noah was sedated and intubated for the MRI, he had multiple echo's and we spoke to countless doctors. Apparently his case was more complicated than we originally thought. The gist of it is that he had a hole in the ventricles, one in the atria and he had the kink in his aorta. The VSD was not clear cut - as it rode over to the side a bit and started to take over the aortic valve - which had only 2.5 leaflets, rather than 3. The surgeon told us that Noah's valve was borderline in size, so he may not be able to do the simple repair he wanted to do. Instead he told us he didn't know what he was going to do. After conferencing with the doctors and surgeons in the hospital we had three options:
1. Fix the VSD and ASD with a patch, repair the coarct, and hope that the valve grows with him, allowing the increased bloodflow (from having the holes patched) to stretch the valve a bit more so it functions better - this was the ideal situation
2. Do a Ross procedure - Basically taking his pulmonary valve and putting it where his aortic valve is.
3. Make him a single ventricle - which we didn't want, since he had two normal ventricles. We were given a mortality rate of 50% with this surgery.
So on May 27th, 2008 - 17 days after his birth, Noah had his first open heart surgery. He went in around 8am and was done by 1pm. People came to visit us, some even brought food. I fell asleep on Keith's lap and stayed there for nearly the whole procedure. The situation was out of my hands and I felt I could rest with some peace at this point. At 1pm I went to pump (my milk supply was taking a huge hit between Noah not eating, stress and not pumping enough) and as I walked out, the surgeon walked in (I had just missed him) and he called Keith to the conference room - with a very straight and a blank facial expression. Poor Keith had to talk to him alone but the news was great...he was doing well but they were taking their time closing him up because they couldn't get the bleeding under control.
We had agreed to allow Noah to be part of a few studies, one of which had him externally paced, even though he didn't need it. So he had four pacemaker leads, two drains and many IV's. He stayed in the ICU for a week.
A few days before our anniversary, Keith and I left the hospital for the first time to eat at a restaurant, as a friend had graciously given us a gift card to this restaurant. When we got back, we learned that Noah had been extubated. When we walked into the room, Noah was struggling to breathe, experiencing stridor and head bobbing. I freaked out - mostly because his nurse was not with him at this time, and no one was doing anything. Stridor is basically an inflammation of the airway - and the doctors came in and wanted to reintubate him. I flat out refused. They did not like that, because if they reintubated him, they could control his blood gases and breathing easier. However, my argument was that his airway were swollen enough from the extuabtion - how did they think they would get the tube back in there without doing more damage? Keith and I had heated arguments with the doctors over this but we wouldn't relent. The doctors kept telling us to go to bed (it was the middle of the night at this point) but we refused because we knew the minute we left the room, he was getting reintubated. Instead, we agreed to CPAP to assist his breathing. We sat by him the whole night until the staff physician came on during the day and looked at him and gave a "so-so" gesture with his hand. He asked why noone had given him dexamethasone - a steroid that would diminish the swelling of his airway. We were furious - he had a medication that could have fixed this problem hours and hours ago and noone thought to give it?!?!
By the time he got the medication, his breathing was improved but by that point, the damage had been done to his blood gases and we had to spend another few days in the ICU waiting for it to correct itself. Keith and I sat by his bed the next day, with me sobbing and asking the nurse, "Why does noone care that our baby is dying?". This event was so painful that I still tear up thinking about it. We really thought we were going to loose him that day.
Shortly after we got Noah's breathing under control, Keith started to worry that he had gone without food for so long. It had been a few days, so after speaking to the nurse, we got him some TPN - that is, nutritional supplementation via an IV. He was only on this for 24 hours before I tried to nurse him. Once he got the nutrition, he seemed to improve significantly. It was hard to get nursing started again, after the break and with nasal prongs - it all seemed so hard! It wasn't until Keith suggested we try nursing without the nasal prongs, that we seemed to get the hang of it. We were also battling a case of thrush, so that complicated matters further. With the help of nutrition, he got better so much faster, so we were able to get up to the ward after a few days.
After arriving on the ward however, we were home in a couple of days. Noah had developed a blood clot in his femoral artery so I was giving him twice a day injections of blood thinners and he had some reflux as the result of the surgery and being intubated - but otherwise he did quite well. We didn't have to endure any parental education, so we were home a day or two earlier than normal. He was back to breastfeeding but since he hadn't breastfed in weeks, and my milk supply was very low - we had a rough go of it. It wasn't until he was 4 months old that we got into the swing of things. He ended up nursing until he was 16 months old - when he self weaned one day, likely because I was pregnant with Layla.
Time passed and Noah grew and got quite chunky (an abnormal situation for the cardiac child!). He was doing well and we were told by the cardiologist that his long term prognosis was that he was "just like a healthy boy".
Noah's health overall was great - however, after a set of immunizations, he seemed to be having absence seizures - they were so freaky. His eyes would roll back in his head and he would zone out for a few seconds. They happened over and over and over - probably 100x a day. We had a neurology check and all turned out ok and the episodes stopped eventually. We still have no idea if they were truly seizures or what really caused them.
At his one-year check up, he was doing very well but we had to book a follow-up for 9 months later because there was some muscular crowding occuring below his aortic valve. He was in no failure at all, but the muscle bundles would have to be removed eventually. Otherwise, his aortic valve was holding its own and his patch repairs were holding up nicely.
We just got back from the 9 month check up - unfortunately, his surgery will be sooner rather than later. The crowding has grown some more but he is not yet showing signs of heart failure. We were also told the valve isn't holding up as well as we had hoped, so he may still have to have the Ross procedure done, or have a mechanical valve inserted. Keith is researching this a lot (because that is what he does), but I am trying not to think about it because it upsets me that Noah now needs at least two more surgeries. Also, since they believe the tissue under the valve to be muscular, rather than fibrous tissue, it will keep growing back - which means that he will need many more surgeries over his lifetime. News we could have done without.
Regardless, Noah is a strong and very healthy looking 2.5 year old boy. He is tall and heavy for his age - in a good way, of course! He keeps up with the other kids at his daycare and has the nicest personality you could ask for. He is well mannered and at times acts older than his age - which I suppose is what happens to chronically ill children. He amazes us more and more every day.
For now I will leave you with pictures of our gorgeous boy. He is truly a miracle - speaking of which, that is where his name came from: through all the trials we endured when pregnant we chose the name, "Noah Kayden" which translates into "Peaceful fighter". He is the most peaceful child you will meet and he truly had proven himself to be a fighter.
Keith and I had been married for 16 months before we became pregnant with Noah. It was a bit of a struggle, since I suffer from polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and thus don't ovulate on my own. We sought out assistance from a fertility clinic and, with the help of Clomid, we were able to conceive Noah on our first round of medication.
Noah's pregnancy was not without its trials and tribulations: at 17 weeks when I was placed on bed rest for a heavy bleed which was the result of a subchorionic hematoma. At the time, we were not sure if we would carry Noah to term. So I was considered to be suffering from a "threatened miscarriage". However, at 22w I was able to go back to work, with limited activity because the bleed had diminished in size. We had many, many ultrasounds as the result of the bleed, fertility treatment and the normal ultrasounds that are scheduled during a pregnancy - but none were able to catch his multiple heart defects. During every ultrasound, being a cardiac nurse, I would ask them to show me his four ventricles - every time I saw them I breathed a sigh of relief. However, I do feel on some level that I knew something was amiss: I would frequently comment to my coworkers, "My biggest fear is that this baby will have a heart defect"; or to Keith, "something doesn't feel right - I don't know what or why...but it doesn't feel right" (after which he would get upset because there was nothing he could do to make me feel better and I had instilled a dose of worry into his day).
When I was overdue by a few days, I was induced for vision disturbances. All they had to do was break my water, and after that I did the rest on my own. After about 6 hours of back labour with a non-functioning epidural, Noah arrived - a healthy size (8lbs 12 oz; 21 inches). His breathing was a bit laboured, but after a nursing session and some kangaroo time, he calmed down. Everything appeared normal.
Before we were discharged, a pediatrician came to see him to check him out before we were able to leave. The doctor had difficulty finding his femoral pulses and commented on it. But then he seemed to find them and all was ok. I did however comment to Keith that it bothered me a bit. Keith also noticed how cold his feet were all the time. The medical team passed it off as immature circulation, which, I suppose could be a fair explanation...just not the only explanation.
At home we did ok - breastfeeding was brutal because of the pain, but he seemed to have normal energy levels and nursed constantly...literally, all day and night long! Being paranoid, I would listen to his heart daily because I knew that if he did have a defect, symptoms would appear around the time the patent ductus arteriosis (PDA) closed. This is the vessel that allows fetal blood to flow between the aorta and pulmonary artery, which closes about a week after birth. I didn't notice it close, but I did comment to the family doctor that I still heard a murmur when it should have been closed. She thought it was merely the PDA remaining open.
Around 6 days after his birth, Keith sat and watched Noah sleep. He commented that he really seemed to struggle to breathe at night and was visibly concerned. I told him we would watch it and then bring it up to the doctor at our next visit. Over the next few days, Noah's breathing became faster, but it wasn't until my grandmother pointed it out when she was holding him. Once she pointed it out, it was all I could notice. He was breathing over 100 breaths a minute at rest. Normal is about 60! He literally appeared to be panting like a dog.
I mentioned it to the doctor and to telehealth on the phone. They both brushed it off (likely thinking I was just an anxious first time mom). I turned to Dr. Google, and everything kept coming up as a heart defect of some sort.
By 10 days after his birth, my mom called me and I was in tears with worry. She said, "If something doesn't feel right, just go to the emergency...you will feel better for trying". At this point Noah had significant indrawing with each breath and his breathing just seemed to get faster by the day.
When I worked at the bedside, I worked in pediatric cardiology at the children's hospital in town - and I knew their emergency room would be swamped. So Keith and I decided to return to the hospital I gave birth at, because they had an urgent care clinic with no line up. When we got there we were approached in the waiting room by a nurse who informed us that they don't see infants once they are discharged because the children's hospital was down the road. She looked at me and asked why we came there. I explained our reasoning and she said, "Your son is in respiratory distress...you will be seen immediately". It was then that we both realized that he really wasn't well - but with what or why was yet to be determined.
The nurse was right, we were seen very quickly. After an x-ray, Noah was diagnosed with wet lungs, likely from pneumonia after birth. He was started on triple antibiotics and was going to be admitted for 10 days. I burst into tears...this isn't how you are supposed to spend the early days with your baby and 10 days seemed SO long. I asked him to do an echocardiogram to check the heart, just to make me feel better. He said, "We are aware you are a cardiac nurse...when he is on the floor we will get an echo done". That made me feel better.
As we were waiting to go up to the infectious disease floor, the doctor and resident from that ward came to check out Noah before admitting him to the floor. They asked a bunch of questions and probed deeper into the situation. They then were very smart and did a 4 limb blood pressure. As soon as I heard that the leg and arm differed greatly I started freaking out saying to Keith, "Oh my God...he is a coarct....he is a cardiac kid". Keith, of course, had no clue what I was babbling about.
Shortly after they did an echo. The doctor doing the echo was teaching a few other residents and was speaking out loud. He pointed out the coarctation of the aorta (basically, a kink in the aorta) and then he started saying more to them. He pointed out a ventricular septal defect as well! I burst into tears and my husband kept asking me, "what does that mean? What does that mean?". The residents looked alarmed and the doctor doing the echo merely passed it off, "Oh, she is a cardiac nurse". I heard it all and knew our situation was getting worse and worse....with a longer and longer hospital stay. Certainly longer than the original 10 days! I tried to explain as best I could to Keith (even though this wasn't my job!) and I think he just felt so confused and upset. I can't imagine how it would have felt because noone was explaining anything to him!
After the echo, they let me nurse Noah, even though he was breathing so fast, and they made plans to admit us. I realized then that we weren't going home until he was repaired. They wanted to admit us to the cardiac critical care unit and I begged them to admit us to the ward instead. They agreed to place us in the step-down unit. By now, it was 4am (we arrived in the early evening the night before). By 6am we were on the ward and Keith and I were settling in. I just nursed Noah and the nurse came in and said, "What are you doing? You can't feed him...he may go to the OR today!" That was it....we both lost it. It was too soon after hearing the news. After a lot of talking and negotiating, I chose my surgeon (the best in the hospital!) and he agreed to take the case. Thank goodness he is cautious because he wanted more echo's and an MRI done on Noah.
Once things settled down, Keith and I were given a patient room on the ward to sleep in, since the ward wasn't busy. We laid down and held each other while we cried. It was the most pain I have ever felt in my life. Little did we know, there would be so much more to come.
After the next few days, Noah was sedated and intubated for the MRI, he had multiple echo's and we spoke to countless doctors. Apparently his case was more complicated than we originally thought. The gist of it is that he had a hole in the ventricles, one in the atria and he had the kink in his aorta. The VSD was not clear cut - as it rode over to the side a bit and started to take over the aortic valve - which had only 2.5 leaflets, rather than 3. The surgeon told us that Noah's valve was borderline in size, so he may not be able to do the simple repair he wanted to do. Instead he told us he didn't know what he was going to do. After conferencing with the doctors and surgeons in the hospital we had three options:
1. Fix the VSD and ASD with a patch, repair the coarct, and hope that the valve grows with him, allowing the increased bloodflow (from having the holes patched) to stretch the valve a bit more so it functions better - this was the ideal situation
2. Do a Ross procedure - Basically taking his pulmonary valve and putting it where his aortic valve is.
3. Make him a single ventricle - which we didn't want, since he had two normal ventricles. We were given a mortality rate of 50% with this surgery.
So on May 27th, 2008 - 17 days after his birth, Noah had his first open heart surgery. He went in around 8am and was done by 1pm. People came to visit us, some even brought food. I fell asleep on Keith's lap and stayed there for nearly the whole procedure. The situation was out of my hands and I felt I could rest with some peace at this point. At 1pm I went to pump (my milk supply was taking a huge hit between Noah not eating, stress and not pumping enough) and as I walked out, the surgeon walked in (I had just missed him) and he called Keith to the conference room - with a very straight and a blank facial expression. Poor Keith had to talk to him alone but the news was great...he was doing well but they were taking their time closing him up because they couldn't get the bleeding under control.
We had agreed to allow Noah to be part of a few studies, one of which had him externally paced, even though he didn't need it. So he had four pacemaker leads, two drains and many IV's. He stayed in the ICU for a week.
A few days before our anniversary, Keith and I left the hospital for the first time to eat at a restaurant, as a friend had graciously given us a gift card to this restaurant. When we got back, we learned that Noah had been extubated. When we walked into the room, Noah was struggling to breathe, experiencing stridor and head bobbing. I freaked out - mostly because his nurse was not with him at this time, and no one was doing anything. Stridor is basically an inflammation of the airway - and the doctors came in and wanted to reintubate him. I flat out refused. They did not like that, because if they reintubated him, they could control his blood gases and breathing easier. However, my argument was that his airway were swollen enough from the extuabtion - how did they think they would get the tube back in there without doing more damage? Keith and I had heated arguments with the doctors over this but we wouldn't relent. The doctors kept telling us to go to bed (it was the middle of the night at this point) but we refused because we knew the minute we left the room, he was getting reintubated. Instead, we agreed to CPAP to assist his breathing. We sat by him the whole night until the staff physician came on during the day and looked at him and gave a "so-so" gesture with his hand. He asked why noone had given him dexamethasone - a steroid that would diminish the swelling of his airway. We were furious - he had a medication that could have fixed this problem hours and hours ago and noone thought to give it?!?!
By the time he got the medication, his breathing was improved but by that point, the damage had been done to his blood gases and we had to spend another few days in the ICU waiting for it to correct itself. Keith and I sat by his bed the next day, with me sobbing and asking the nurse, "Why does noone care that our baby is dying?". This event was so painful that I still tear up thinking about it. We really thought we were going to loose him that day.
Shortly after we got Noah's breathing under control, Keith started to worry that he had gone without food for so long. It had been a few days, so after speaking to the nurse, we got him some TPN - that is, nutritional supplementation via an IV. He was only on this for 24 hours before I tried to nurse him. Once he got the nutrition, he seemed to improve significantly. It was hard to get nursing started again, after the break and with nasal prongs - it all seemed so hard! It wasn't until Keith suggested we try nursing without the nasal prongs, that we seemed to get the hang of it. We were also battling a case of thrush, so that complicated matters further. With the help of nutrition, he got better so much faster, so we were able to get up to the ward after a few days.
After arriving on the ward however, we were home in a couple of days. Noah had developed a blood clot in his femoral artery so I was giving him twice a day injections of blood thinners and he had some reflux as the result of the surgery and being intubated - but otherwise he did quite well. We didn't have to endure any parental education, so we were home a day or two earlier than normal. He was back to breastfeeding but since he hadn't breastfed in weeks, and my milk supply was very low - we had a rough go of it. It wasn't until he was 4 months old that we got into the swing of things. He ended up nursing until he was 16 months old - when he self weaned one day, likely because I was pregnant with Layla.
Time passed and Noah grew and got quite chunky (an abnormal situation for the cardiac child!). He was doing well and we were told by the cardiologist that his long term prognosis was that he was "just like a healthy boy".
Noah's health overall was great - however, after a set of immunizations, he seemed to be having absence seizures - they were so freaky. His eyes would roll back in his head and he would zone out for a few seconds. They happened over and over and over - probably 100x a day. We had a neurology check and all turned out ok and the episodes stopped eventually. We still have no idea if they were truly seizures or what really caused them.
At his one-year check up, he was doing very well but we had to book a follow-up for 9 months later because there was some muscular crowding occuring below his aortic valve. He was in no failure at all, but the muscle bundles would have to be removed eventually. Otherwise, his aortic valve was holding its own and his patch repairs were holding up nicely.
We just got back from the 9 month check up - unfortunately, his surgery will be sooner rather than later. The crowding has grown some more but he is not yet showing signs of heart failure. We were also told the valve isn't holding up as well as we had hoped, so he may still have to have the Ross procedure done, or have a mechanical valve inserted. Keith is researching this a lot (because that is what he does), but I am trying not to think about it because it upsets me that Noah now needs at least two more surgeries. Also, since they believe the tissue under the valve to be muscular, rather than fibrous tissue, it will keep growing back - which means that he will need many more surgeries over his lifetime. News we could have done without.
Regardless, Noah is a strong and very healthy looking 2.5 year old boy. He is tall and heavy for his age - in a good way, of course! He keeps up with the other kids at his daycare and has the nicest personality you could ask for. He is well mannered and at times acts older than his age - which I suppose is what happens to chronically ill children. He amazes us more and more every day.
For now I will leave you with pictures of our gorgeous boy. He is truly a miracle - speaking of which, that is where his name came from: through all the trials we endured when pregnant we chose the name, "Noah Kayden" which translates into "Peaceful fighter". He is the most peaceful child you will meet and he truly had proven himself to be a fighter.
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| Noah at birth |
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| The night before his surgery |
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| About two weeks after surgery |
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| 1.5 months old |
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| 2 months old |
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| First Halloween |
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| 6 months old |
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| First Christmas |
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| 9 months old |
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| First Birthday! |
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| 1 year |
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| Apple picking with mommy: 1.5 years old |
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| Second halloween: 1.5 years old |
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| Enjoying the snowfall: 1.5 years old |
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| Playing basketball: Nearly 2 years old |
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| On the playground: 2 years old |
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| Second birthday! |
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| Apple picking with daddy: 2.5 years old |
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