Halloween ER visit

Let me tell you about my super fun day (sarcasm intended)! On Thursday Oct 31st at 4am I woke up in agony, much like waking up in labor with Noah. I didn't know what was wrong and I was helpless to end the pain. It hurt if I was laying, standing, sitting or walking. It was in the same area as my gallbladder pain was last year. The night before I had eaten barbecue chicken for dinner and a few hours after I had a stomach ache and had thrown up. Maybe this was related, it had been a new sauce and I was the only one to eat it so it might have been bad. At about 5:15 am I called Maria (my mother-in-law) and asked if she could take me to the ER while Ryan stayed with the boys. After getting to the ER I was taken back to a room almost immediately and then played the waiting for a Dr game. After all my vitals were taken and questions asked and what seemed like an endless amount of waiting, the Dr finally made his appearance just before 6am. He asked me all the same questions and then told me the game plan; he would give me a GI cocktail (something like mylanta mixed with a numbing agent) he told me it would taste terrible (not a lie at all, I wanted to throw up) but it would numb my mouth, throat and stomach. If the pain stopped that meant acid reflux, if not they'd try a different approach. So down went the awful cocktail and after about 5 min my pain was gone. I was incredulous! And I felt immensely foolish for going to the ER with nothing more than acid reflux. The shift changed at 6am and it took about 45 min before the new Dr came in to check on me. After hearing I was pain free, he gave me some prescriptions and sent me on my way. I filled the prescriptions and started the meds along with some tums for the immediate relief factor. I still felt ok, the tums were helping and I was getting ready for Noah's preschool harvest party. Then I threw up the pill I had taken. Weird, but upon reading the side effects, it wasn't unexpected. I took the liquid next, it was supposed to coat my stomach and help with pain relief until the pills started working. We went to the party and I really started to feel like crap. My pain was climbing back up the scale and I was sure I would soon be getting sick in the bathroom. We left early and sure enough I threw up again in the car (luckily I had one of those blue vomit bags in my car from when I gave birth to

Teagan). We got home, put Teagan down for a nap and I got in touch with Brianna to let her know I wasn't up for taking Rhys and Reagan today. I got on the phone and called my Dr to try to get in for a follow up and get something for the pain until the pills started working. She was full, if I wanted to wait until Friday at 130, I could see her. The receptionist told me my best bet was back to the ER or Urgent Care. When T woke up, we went to UC, after taking my vitals and asking questions the nurse went to get the Dr. She came back and said, the Dr wants you to go back to the ER. At this point I'm crying, can hardly stand up straight, and I'm ready to die from the pain. Ryan drives me back to the ER. As I'm coming in, the Dr who had come on at 6 happens to be in the hallway and asks what I'm doing back. Through my tears I tell him what has been going on since I left the ER at 7am. He orders IV drugs on the spot and gets me in a room. He also orders a full work up with blood work and  a CT scan. They hook me up to the IV and start the meds, the relief is amazing, the nurse tells me he knows they're working because my blood pressure just went back down to a normal level. They take blood, the imaging tech comes in and talks me through the CT procedure before he does it and then I'm back in my room, pain free and drifting in and out of sleep. The Dr comes in after a while and tells me two things, 1) my blood tests show abnormal liver (or maybe kidney, I don't remember) function and I need to see a gastroenterologist to find out why. 2) The CT shows that my IUD has migrated through the back wall and is no longer preventing pregnancy...awesome. He says they're just waiting on results from the CT and as long as they're normal he'll send me home but with some strong pain killers this time. After a while he comes back and says the results are in, it's not acid reflux, it's transverse colon diverticulitis. The part of my colon that sits just under my ribs by my stomach, has developed pouches along the wall that have become inflamed and infected. Hallelujah! I wasn't crazy, and I didn't go to the ER for acid reflux. He told me how great it was that I came back because I knew there was something more going on. He gave me four new prescriptions (two antibiotics, one for pain and one for nausea) and referred me to the gastroenterologist for further review of the liver/kidney abnormality and to follow up with the diverticulitis, and he told me to call my OB/GYN about the IUD. My day was a crazy, painful, whirlwind of a day but I'm so glad to have gotten it all figured out. Upon reading more about diverticulitis, I'm pretty lucky. If it's not caught early enough you will most likely end up in the hospital for about a week receiving antibiotics through an IV, and sometimes the colon wall actually ruptures causing all sorts of problems and requiring surgery. 

Today I'm finally starting to feel better and can actually keep down some food. A huge thanks to Maria for helping out so much with Noah and Teagan and thank you to everyone who checked in with me to wish me well and offer help. It has been wonderful to know I have you all in my corner. :-)

Time

Today at church I listened to a powerful message about time. The essence of it was this, what are you doing with the wonderful gift God has given you? Are you maximizing it in pursuits pleasing to Him or are you squandering it away on useless pursuits? I've heard it before, time and time again but this was the time the message was for me. It was finally the right point in my life to receive this message as was intended, for my betterment. It's a humbling experience. 

This will be a short sweet post to explain some changes coming your way. 

My focus is changing. As hard as it is to admit, I've neglected aspects of being a mother and wife and even a friend in the pursuit of...I don't even know. But I know this, it's not what I was given time for. I have deleted my Facebook and social media apps (not accounts, I'll still get on after the kids have gone to bed to update and be updated on those not so close to me. I hope it won't be nearly as often and I hope you'll understand and respect the decision. I also will be deleting my friends living close enough to visit regularly. I don't want to keep up with you via the internet. I want to make time for you. Count it as it's meant to be, a plea for closeness and not a shun. Facebook has made me lazy with you all. Forgive me. 

Again, short and sweet. For now something more worthy is requesting this all too precious time. I'll try to update my blog a bit more frequently and indepthly when I can. So much love to all of you and God bless!

Tiph

Cloth diapers

It makes me sad that I don't find the time to update my blog anymore but I can't even find the time to clean my house so unfortunately the blog isn't going to be a regular thing anytime soon, unless I go all crazy and hire a cleaning service or something. Hahaha. Maybe. 

Anyway, I have had a lot of people asking me how cloth diapering is going lately. I'm sure as soon as they ask they regret it because I tend to not shut up about it once the door is opened. I LOVE cloth diapers. Crazy, right?! Except its not. Let me tell you all about it 😉

How and why I started CDs: I never in a million years would have thought I would be the type to cd. EVER. I mean its terribly gross and time consuming and why would you ever want to add to your work load just to save a few bucks?! But then they are SO cute! That's what piqued my interest in the very beginning. I hadn't ever actually paid attention to them before, but I joined a co-op for a great deal on an Ergo carrier and they were running CDs as well. Picture after picture of adorable diaper prints. They didn't phase me much at first but they were always there being adorable. So I started to research it. I had never considered it as an option so I knew NOTHING about them. I called my lovely sister-in-law who had tried it and talked to her, I called my wonderful friend who was still doing it one year later and talked to her. They both told me the same thing, it's not nearly as bad as you think it will be. Hmm, maybe. But the upfront cost is appalling, especially if I hate it and decide not to continue. Then what? 1. CDs hold their resale value well. You don't actually lose much money if you use them for a bit and then sell them. 2. I have an amazing friend who had more diapers than she needed and offered to mail me a trial package. Risk free!? Really?! Definitely worth a try. If I hate it, I just pay to mail them back. I can handle that. 

  As much as I hate to admit it, I'm not very environmentally conscious. I rarely recycle and I'm not all too worried about the amount of garbage in the landfills (please spare the lecture, I know I'm terrible for it) so the environment was not my motivation behind starting this. What was? The cost effectiveness of them (ok, and if we're being honest, the adorable factor). So I took the plunge. My package of diapers came in the mail and dived right in. My trial pack contained 9-10 diapers all of them pockets except one. That one was a cover with a pre fold so I could try another style that I thought might be easier. That amount of diapers meant doing laundry every day and I totally thought that alone would make me hate it. 

Why I continue CDs: I didn't hate it. Even doing laundry every single day for over a week, I actually kind of loved it. I was excited to try it in the beginning and I think that helped A LOT. I loved how cute they were and I REALLY wanted to like them and not have to buy disposable diapers anymore. And I found that I did. I think what deters a lot of people is the perceived mess. Pee diapers are nothing, you take it off roll it up like a disposable and (in my case) put it in the wet bag in the bathroom. That's it, done until laundry time. Poop ones are obviously a little more involved but still not nearly as bad as I thought. Firstly, did you know they make diaper sprayers? It's like a kitchen sink hose that attaches to the toilet (at the wall where the toilet water hose attaches) and you can literally just spray the poop off into the toilet. I do not have one of these ingenious things and I still don't mind the poop. A poop change looks something like this, take the diaper off, wipe the bum (sound familiar?) replace diaper with a clean, dry one and send baby on his way. Take soiled diaper to the bathroom, dump poop into toilet and then roll up diaper like a disposable and put it in the wet bag. Just like that. Does my bathroom stink? Nope. Not at all (I can't say if it would if you went the diaper pail route, I haven't tried it) the waterproof bag with a zipper contains it all, even the smell. Now when I open the bag that's a different story, but easily fixed by a spray of air freshener once it's closed again or in the wash. 

What about washing you say? I take my wet bag to the washer and dump them in (this part is the worst by far, because it smells terrible but it luckily can be done I under a minute). Once all the diapers and wet bag are in the washer I turn it on cold and let it do its thing (no soap this time as its just to rinse them out and loosen up the solids that may have held on). When it's done I start it again with a hot wash and soap (I make my own, equal parts baking soda, washing soda, and oxyClean) depending on load size I do 3-5 scoops and once every three days or so I add a squirt of original blue dawn dish soap to help keep my inserts fully absorbent. Once that cycle finishes I rinse rinse rinse until there are no more bubbles. Then I dry everything on low for about 15min, and then pull out my covers and wet bag and finish line drying those. The inserts usually take two dry cycles and by then my covers are dry and I can stuff them. Easy peasy. For a lot of you some of the words and phrases won't make sense in their context but if you're considering a switch you'll soon discover just what I mean. My favorites are pocket diapers and diapers are only as good as their inserts. Hemp has been good for me as well as microfiber/bamboo blends. I don't love microfiber by itself and I find bamboo by itself to be much too floppy and shift around a lot. I haven't tried a lot of other options so that's as far as I can recommend. Please don't hesitate to ask questions and let me know if you've tried it, are currently using them, or just thinking about it. 

P.S. I love preschool days when the "babies" also take a nap. I probably should have done some housework with my alone time. Oh well...

Fun stuff

I don't have a while lot of time right now (I know, you're shocked!) so I'll make this short and sweet. Teagan is just shy of eight months and crawls everywhere. He pulls himself up on the furniture and has started cruising around it too. He's doing great! He has three teeth, his two bottom middle and his top left incisor. His right one is coming in but hasn't made it all the way through yet. I just noticed the two front middle starting to make an appearance. Teagan loves music and singing, he is off the bottle and now gets his formula in a sippy cup. Apparently if you switch early you don't have to deal with as much attachment difficulties. I have to admit it was easier with him than it was with Noah. We'll see once we switch him to whole milk how that goes before I make a final assessment. Teagan is a talker! And a squealer! He pretty much just loves to make noise. He's very expressive and happy. He loves to be included in all things even if it's just Noah going potty. He loves solid food now, his favorite is carrots. He has about half as much hair as Noah did at this age. He's such a fun little guy!

Noah is such a big boy now! He is so much fun to converse with and he's constantly surprising us with the words he says now. He's so funny!
I was making Teagan some formula the other day and Noah said, "Teagan wants a bottle?"
To which I replied, "No, Teagan wants his cup."
Noah: "No, bottle!"
Me: "He has a cup now, no more bottles. See, the cup has a spout and his bottle had a nipple."
Noah: "Teagan has a bottle."
Me: "No, Teagan has a cup."
Noah: In a patronizing voice dripping with sarcasm, "Ok, momma."

He wants to do everything himself and is getting to be incredibly indepenent. He loves Winnie the Pooh and Thomas. We play trains all day long. For the most part he's a good eater. I'm very much looking forward to the holidays this year, he's at the perfect age to really start enjoying them!

I'm out of time for now but I'll be back again soon! Happy Halloween!

Growing and GROWING

Noah is officially two and a half! It's so crazy to think about that! He has been wearing undies for over a month now and it's so exciting!! He does really well with pee, minimal accidents. Poop is another story entirely! He did really good with it for about three days. Telling me when he had to go before he went in his undies, then he started going in his pants and telling me after. Now we're in a weird spot where he goes in the morning right after he wakes up. So it's in the pull-up at least but the toilet would be more preferable... Tonight he started asking to go by himself, didn't even want me in the bathroom with him. Bitter-sweet moment for me.  :-) We've started looking into preschool and think we may have found a winner but he can't start until January/February. It's a pretty exciting time at our house!

Teagan just turned 6 months on Tuesday, I found him sitting up completely in his crib the other day. And now he's mastered going from laying down to sitting up. It's so cute how he does it, he'll get up on his hands and knees and then up onto his hands and toes, he kind of walks his hands back at that point until gravity takes over and he lands on his bum.  :-) He smiles all the time! He's getting so big! He still doesn't have as much hair as Noah did by this age but he's just so stinkin cute! He definitely looks like he might get a little bit darker hair than Noah has too but only time will tell. He's got some mini dimples going on which just adds to the cuteness. We're trying to transition from bottle to sippy cup right now, I hear the earlier you do it, the easier it is. If anyone has any good transition cup recommendations I'd love to hear them, so far I haven't found any that work.

Is nap time and I've got to get some stuff done today so that's all for now. We love and miss you all.

~Tiph

A few pictures

I know it's not nearly enough but I thought I'd share these few from my phone. I'll try to do a large batch tonight from the computer.

Double time

Oh man! I just read that last post and it made me realize just how important it is to keep track of all this stuff. I had totally forgotten about the screaming phase and it made me laugh to read about all the other fun stuff Noah was doing at that age. What a fun age that was! Noah my little screamer is almost 2.5! I can hardly believe it most days. Noah talks like you wouldn't believe! If you haven't heard him in a while you would be amazed! All day long now he's jabbering away, sometimes what he says doesn't even make sense, I think he just likes to hear himself talking so he makes up words. He's also become quite the parrot, repeating words at random that he hears. We are learning to be very careful about what we say around him, even when we think he isn't listening. He surprises us a lot. He's such a funny little boy and VERY opinionated. If he doesn't want something he will make sure the world knows it. His favorite thing to say right now is "I don't want it!" He yells this a lot. It's so hard not to laugh when he gets on his kicks, I'll have to share a video we have so you understand better.
Noah loves the water. He would play in it almost all day if I let him. We were given a boat back in April and we've gotten it out on the water a few times now and Noah loves to ride in it. He'll randomly come up to me now and say "Go boating?" It's precious. We started swim lessons this past Monday and we've been enjoying doing that together.
We took a trip to Seattle last month and visited the Zoo and Aquarium, both were a hit. It was nice to be able to spend some time with our family over in that area. The cousins had a blast playing together.
It's' getting late and I'm not going to have the time to upload pictures like I thought I would so I'll just give you a rundown on our newest member and have to leave it at that for tonight.
On Sunday March 11, 2012 I got a call from the hospital asking if I wanted to come in and have my baby (I had been scheduled for an induction the next day but they were slow and looking for stuff to do). Of course I said yes, so we dropped Noah off with our good friends, Tasha and Marshall, to wait until Grandma got back from her trip over to Tacoma. We arrived at the hospital around 8am and got all settled in. They started the antibiotic (GBS positive) and hooked me up to the monitors. Of course nothing was going on contraction wise so after a few hours (to give the antibiotics time to do their thing) they started oxytocin (I think that's what it was called, they no longer use pitocin). After a few more hours of a whole lot of nothing/super mild contractions, they broke my water. After that things started to pick up. Also, somewhere along the lines in there I was given an epidural. It was such a different experience than what I had with Noah.
At 7:21pm our little Teagan Ray made his debut, weighing in at 8lbs 7oz and 20.5 inches long. He looked a whole lot like his big brother. The one major difference in the beginning was the chin, so completely different from Noah's. Now I find it hard to see anybody else in him at all, he just looks like Teagan. He was quite the difficult baby in the beginning. Nothing like Noah! He wouldn't sleep unless someone was holding him, he wanted to eat almost constantly and he was generally an unhappy baby. It broke my heart. When Teagan hit about 3 months I went into the ER for some pretty intense pain I was having, only to find out I would need to have my gallbladder removed soon. They put me on some meds that I couldn't take while nursing. I was essentially told to "pump and dump" though the Dr didn't quite use that terminology.  Then less than a week later I went in for surgery and was told to do the same for a day. After that I was never really able to pick it back up. Teagan had gotten used to the bottle and wouldn't latch anymore and my supply was suffering horribly. We made the switch to formula and it's made a major difference.
Our little Teagan is such a happy boy now! He laughs and talks all the time. He's starting to sit up, he can army crawl across the house in record time! He loves to watch his brother play. He has started solid foods, we've done rice cereal, green beans, peas, broccoli and applesauce. He does ok but he doesn't love food like Noah did. They are so very different and I love it! That's all I can do for now. Love to all!