Just in time for Thanksgiving!

Audrey cut her first tooth! I thought she was going to be gumming it forever! She's already a great eater, self-feeds table food like a champ. A few more teeth and she'll be on a whole nother level. Now we have to wean her off the bottle...fun.

Not To Put The Cart Before The Horse But...

Today MB and I went looking for a new Larri mobile. Right now I drive an Equinox which is Chevy's small crossover SUV. I love it. It's a "mom" car but it's smaller and has all the room we need. Most importantly, it's not a minivan. While the nox is a great ride now, once we add another player to our roster we are going to need a new vehicle to cruise around town in. See where the cart and horse reference came from? That's how you know a great metaphor, when the author feels the need to explain it.

Anyway, I'm trying to avoid getting a stupid minivan. I could bore you hear with a long nagging narrative about how car seats are HUGE and that they take up even more room when you have to put them in backwards and how I think it's dumb that we have to keep our kids rear-facing until they go to college these days, but I'll spare you. THEN after we deal with all the space needed for "safety" we have to accommodate for all of our crap! Do you know how much SHIT kids need? Some parents lie to you and tell you that the load gets lighter as the kids get bigger but that's only half true. If your kid isn't involved in any activities and spends his days at school and nights in front of a TV or playing video games, than sure, no extra baggage required. HOWEVER, if you have the nerve to expect your kid to actually do stuff, well than that's a whole nother set of crap you need to be able to lug around. MB's violin and football pads take up just as much room as Audrey's stroller. Forget a double stroller! Have you seen those things!? They're basically the Buick of the stroller world.

So with all that in mind and based on my eyeball test, it looks to me like we are going to need a large SUV with a third row and captain seats. Can someone please tell me where I can get one of those for less than $50K? Oh yeah, and leather seats please because kids are slobs. No one? Not even a reasonably used one? NO ONE? Yeah I haven't found one either. We've got time though so I'm not giving up yet.

When we got home and my husband finished rolling his eyes at me for going to shop for a vehicle we don't plan on purchasing for another six months he told me that if I had to drive a minivan he'd paint pink flames on the side and put a wine bar in the back. Now THAT'S a minivan I could get on board with!

Quick baby makin update: Our first HCG level came back at 71 and our second, two days later, was at 198! The hope is that the level will double every 48 hours. Looks like our next little one is a bit of an overachiever. We go back in for an ultrasound on December 4th. I've got a good feeling about this one though.

Here We Go Again...

Guess what people? J and I signed up to do this while fertility nonsense again. Clearly we have lost our minds. We went in last Friday to transfer a few of our frozen embryos. For the most part it was pretty uneventful. We ended up transferring two "very promising" embryos.

We went back and forth for a while on that decision. The first go around we both had moments when we thought, "Hey, twins could be cool..." I assure you that thought is LOOONG GONE! When Audrey was about six weeks old and we had just gotten to bring her home from the NICU I remember looking at J with bags under my bloodshot eyes and thanking god we only had one baby. We have no illusions. With that said, to date we have completed two (well now three) transfers with two embryos each and have one baby. I guess we felt like two must be our recipe for success.

BUT THEN the day of the transfer came. Two popsibabies are thawed and one doesn't make it. We still have plenty of those bad boys so we go ahead and tell them to thaw another one. we are told to report to the hospital at nine thirty and I am to take my Valium in the parking lot. Man I forgot how awesome Valium is! So we get upstairs, do a quick blood draw and before we know it the nurse comes out to get us. By now I am in the land of marshmallows, sunshine and rainbow shitting unicorns.

After getting all gowned up and tucked into bed the doctor comes in. Now this wasn't Captain. Captain was out of town. I also think she would of known better. So the Doctor explains to us that while the third embryo looks fantastic the first one seems to have petered out a bit. She says she can go ahead and transfer the two anyway and see what happens or she can thaw another one and see if we can get another rock star. She then adds that she just wanted to check because she wasn't sure if we were one of "those couples" that's nervous about the possibility of twins. BUT because I'm in the land roses and wonderfulness, I say SURE! thaw out another one.

As she leaves, I briefly come down from my high just long enough to realize that WE ARE ONE OF THOSE COUPLES WHO ARE NERVOUS ABOUT TWINS. I looked over at my husband and asked him if I just made a boo boo. Not kidding. I actually used the words BOO BOO. His response? "Well I guess we'll find out!"

I did ask him later if he thought I made the right call and he said her totally agreed and that if he hadn't he would have spoken up. I just want that noted for the record, because if I pop out two babies I'm going to need to be able to at least share the blame! But that brings me to my point, yup! there's a point, why on earth would anyone ask someone to make life changing decisions when they are hanging out in happy town being smothered by wonderfulness. Seriously?

A Letter To My Little Nugget on Her First Birthday

Dear Audrey,

First, I need to apologize for the nick name. See, when you were in my belly you always measured small. You were my little nugget, just swimming around in there. I had no idea everyone else would run with it. My bad. I've been trying out Nugarita to make it more lady like but it hasn't really caught on. I'll keep at it.

Second, holymoly are you amazing. I look at you at least once a day and thank the universe for bringing you to me. Your smile lights up a room. I'm not kidding, a whole room. Today, twenty-some-odd fourth graders couldn't contain themselves when you waived "bye-bye" to them after we had lunch with your brother.

Speaking of your brother, man do you love him. And he adores you. He's so proud to have you as his little sister. He loves to show you off and dance around the room to make you giggle. He's always quick to tell everyone that he is the BEST at making you smile. It's the truth. The minute you hear his voice you look right at him and hold your arms out to him. I love watching you two together.

You and your Dad bond over music. He plays music for you while he gives you a bath and makes up words to the songs. Mostly about how cute you are, You love to help him "work". He sits you on his lap and lets you bang on your own keyboard. Until you figure it out and make him let you bang on his. You love to grab his beard and pull his face yours so you can give him kisses.

You and I love to snuggle. We read books together and sing songs together. Your Dad is amazed at the extensive library of children's songs in my head. To be honest, so am I. Your favorite is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Audrey, I can't tell you how much you have already changed me. You've made me a more compassionate and understanding person. You've made me less judgmental and more accepting. I've always been a big cry baby but now it's downright ridiculous. You've made me a better mother, a better wife, and a better person. Thank you.

Love,
Mom  

Singing the O2 Blues

Well we had our sleep study. Audrey took it like a champ but it was a long night for mama! Lets talk a little bit about the sleep study.

After we checked in, they showed us into a room about the size of a jail cell. I've never been to jail but in my mind it looks a lot like this.

        Mommy Jail                 Baby Jail

I fed Audrey and got her into her jammies and sleep sack. Now that she was ready for bed the next step was getting her all hooked up. The amazingly awesome sleep tech, who we'll refer to as BAMF, attached about ten little electrodes to her head. The electrodes were attached with a putty that gets sticky when warmed. To make sure that the electrodes stay put BAMF then wraped the whole shebang in gauze. Audrey was not a fan. She does not appreciate things on her head. By "she does not appreciate" I mean she screams like a banshee when you so much as put a hat on her. There was also a sensor on her neck and another one on the back of her shoulder. THEN, yes there's more, there was a belt around her chest and a belt around her little pot belly. Those monitored the rise and fall of her abdomen while. Finally it was time for our nightly Mommy and Audrey sing-a-long. I sing Audrey to sleep every night. I'm not sure why it works, I just know it does. I assure you it's not on account of my beautiful singing voice. For whatever reason though, it calms her. Tonight though, I had an audience. Sleep studies are filmed. Visual and Audio...It was a live concert ya'll. I killed it.

Once she was asleep we put on the final piece of equipment. Yes, MORE. This friends is a nasal cannula. It is basically a torture device designed to piss off babies and keep mommies up to the wee hours of the night. It monitored air pressure as air went in and out of her nose and mouth. She was not a fan. Between that and the mummy hat she was miserable. For the first few hours she fussed every fifteen to twenty minutes. I was terrified of her waking up so I would run over and shove a pacifier in her mouth until she calmed down. She never did wake up.

Between the pacifier shoving and the most uncomfortable "bed" in the world I only got about three hours of sleep. Audrey didn't sleep much better. We got a call a few days later from Dr. Wilson and he confirmed my suspicions. Audrey sucks at sleep. I don't remember her specific numbers but they were bad. Real bad. Dr. Wilson wants to try putting Audrey on just a touch of oxygen at night. Sounds harmless. It's not. It means dealing with that stupid cannula. Every. Fucking. Night. At this point I'm not confident that Audrey's actually getting much oxygen and I'm definitely not getting much sleep. Lets just hope in a month I'm reading this with a sense of humor because this nightmare is behind us. Fingers crossed. 

Doctors, Doctors, And MORE Doctors!

Woo! This week was a big one! Audrey had SEVERAL doctors appointments. The first was with Dr. Wilson at the Sleep Disorders Clinic. Not a whole lot of news there. Dr.Wilson was awesome! When you see as many medical professionals as we do you learn to appreciate a good doctor. Anyway, he took a VERY detailed account and history of Audrey's sleeping habits and watched my video. He agrees she needs a sleep study. I should here from his office by tomorrow to schedule that.

We also went back to her pediatrician for the weird rash on her cheeks. We still can't figure out what it is. Dr. Nielsen's out of guesses so she refereed us to a pediatric dermatologist who we will see on Monday.

Today we went to the Ophthalmologist. It went medium. Audrey has clogged tear ducts and will need surgery if they don't resolve on their own in the next three months. The procedure is low risk and has a pretty high success rate (85%) so we've got that going for us. He also said she has an astigmatism. She doesn't need glasses now but I have a feeling that she will in the next year or so. He also confirmed that the little white spots in Audrey's eyes are, as I suspected, Brushfield spots. Brushfield spots don't effect vision at all they are just a common characteristic of people with Down syndrome. Quite frankly, they are freaking beautiful. They look like tinny stars.

Tomorrow she has therapy at a new therapy center. Cross your fingers people. Mamma NEEDS this to go well.

In other happenings, we had a play date with one of Audrey's new besties, Kadie. I met Kadie's Mommy Jackie through our local DS support group. Kadie is about three month older than Audrey and I can already tell they're going to be friends. Look how Kadie helps get Audrey's boogers. Now that's friendship folks! Jackie got a pre-sale pass to a consignment sale in our area and invited me to go with. After the Moms did some damage to the ole check book (does anyone still use a checkbook anymore...) Audrey and I headed over to their house so the girls could get in some play time. It's so cool to watch these little ones interact with each other. Audrey was FASCINATED!

Baby Basics: Eating and Sleeping

Audrey started eating solids this month. I was SO NERVOUS. I was worried she wouldn't be able to do it. It's common for kids with Down syndrome to have feeding issues. Honestly, I just didn't even want to deal with it. I did a lot of research hoping that something I read would give me permission to wait but I found the opposite. Many experts I stumbled across warned that waiting too long could lead to aversions. That's the LAST thing I want to mess with. So Mom put on her big girl pants and bit the bullet. I did research on what types of food are good to start with and after some back and forth settles on avocados. Audrey was less than enthused with my choice. All my worries came back. All my self doubt about not being able to breast feed her came back to the surface. "Oh God" I though, "she's not going to be able to do this."

And then after a few days, it happened. She saw the spoon, opened her mouth, chewed, and swallowed! There I was sitting across from her at the dinning room table sobbing as she was smacking away on some sweet potatoes with a grin on her face. "Don't underestimate me Mom, I got this!" All my anxiety fell away as relief washed over me. All I could do was laugh and cry. Imagine what a mess I'll be when she learns to walk...

Audrey dominated sleeping through the night. Like a boss, she doesn't just "sleep though the night" she sleeps in her crib for a solid eleven hours. Her mom loves her for it. But....she sounds like Darth Vader. She's also pretty restless at times. She does this thing where she lifts both her legs up at a ninety degree angle and slams them back on to the mattress. Over, and over, and over, and over again. She doesn't wake up, just bags away. It's because of all of these things, that I took a video of her sleeping. I am worried she might have sleep apnea. I showed the video to her pediatrician and she shared my concerns. Audrey has an appointment with a sleep medicine doctor tomorrow so I guess we'll see. Hopefully it's just a case of a paranoid mommy.

Just Rolling Right Along

Audrey rolled!!  I was pretty freaking excited.  She's gone front to back and back to front now.  We are working on consistency.

A lot has changed since I was 32 weeks pregnant.  In fact, two days after I posted that blog post I gave birth to our Little Nugget Audrey.  I was 34 weeks and 1 day.  She was a tinny little thing weighing in at 4lbs 1oz and she's fantastic!

Motherhood has been mostly what I expected so far with a few extra doctors and therapy appointments sprinkled in.  I didn't expect to have to fight for J's attention though.  He actually said the other night that he loved me and MB but he loved Audrey the best...so...  Granted he'd had a few beverages of the alcoholic variety, but still.

MB is doing well.  He's a FABULOUS big brother.  We really couldn't ask for more from him.  He's protective, attentive, and loves her so much.  He's participating in spring football camp and taking swimming lessons.  He has struggled to get along with his teacher this year but his academic grades are great.  He has a very exciting summer planed with several vacation.  His Aunt Sunflower and Uncle Picture Taker are taking him on a nine day camping trip to Yellowstone.  His Granmaaaa is taking him on another camping trip in New Mexico and we are all going on a family vacation to Branson, Missouri.  I mean, that's straight bucket list material, people.

J has settled into fatherhood for the second time quite nicely.  The sun rises and sets on his little girl.  He's still attending monthly meetings with the Dads support group in our area and has met some really great guys.  He started a workout routine while I was pregnant and even with a newborn managed to stick with it.  I'm so proud of him for that.  Now if only I could get my wiggly but on a treadmill.  I couldn't ask for a more loving and supportive husband,  I really married up, people.

On to Larri.  Well my life has COMPLETELY changed.  I never went back to my full time job.  I just didn't feel it was going to be conducive to raising Audrey the way we wanted.  I did however, stumble into an amazing opportunity with our local DS support group.  I work twenty hours a week from home and spend the rest of my time loving on my little nugget.  It took some time for me to find my groove but now it's a perfect balance for me.

Audrey has changed so much these last few months.  From a four pound preemie to a chubby cheeked five moth old who loves her sleep.  She did manage to dodge the heart defect bullet but we never really mastered nursing.  Between my lack of all the right hormones, having her so early, and via c-section to top it off my supply never really came in.  In hindsight if my supply had been better I think she would have aced it.  I did pump for Audrey for five and half months (my last day was actually yesterday) so she's been being fed both breast milk and formula.

That's a quick recap of where we've been and where we are headed.  I hope to blog more now that I have my life under control a little.  Hopefully I'll get to getting her delivery story posted and maybe even a post or two about those days in the NICU (there were over five weeks worth!).  For now though, I really just wanted to get SOMETHING down.  I don't want to regret not documenting this time in our family's life.  If I've learned anything over the last few years it's how fast time flies!  Speaking of getting my life in order.  I think I'm doing quite well.  The nine year old thinks I need help.

Man I love him.