Since I last blogged, so much has happened! This post was originally written in March 2012. I'm just now getting around to finishing it with everything that has been going on the last year or so. I didn't want to just leave it as a Draft though so please excuse how dated it is!
On Father's Day 2011, we found out we would be adding another little bundle of joy to our family and we couldn't have been more excited. Back in September, we found out that precious little bundle was a boy! Noodle was not to happy since she really wanted a sister and Nugget, being only 2, didn't really care either way. When I was about 33wks pregnant, I found out I had gestional diabetes and got put on a fun diet! This pregnancy was the easiest when it game to gaining weight. I didn't gain much and then being put on a diet towards the end, I only put on 11 lbs altogether. Well, at 36 weeks, I went into labor and Bean joined us at a big ole 7lbs. 11 oz for being 4 wks early. Shortly after being born, he was bumped up to a Level 2 nursery baby and put on oxygen for some fluid that got into his lungs on the way out via c-section. He was only on that for a few days and did wonderfully after coming off of it. He was eating like a champ and doing everything he was supposed to but then he started having Bradys and Apnea. Bradys, short for Bradycardia, is where the heartrate would drop below 80. With the drop in heartrate, he would also stop breathing. This meant that he would have to stay in the hospital even after I was discharged. At frist, he was having some pretty bad ones where he would turn blue around his mouth and have to be stimulated to come out of them. It was pretty scary. The severe ones stopped and he was just having minor ones that lasted mere seconds. However, these were keeping him in the hospital in the Level 2 nursery! It was so hard leaving the hospital without him and even harder, going to visit everyday knowing that I was going to have to leave without him all over again. The Bradys were the only things keeping him in the hospital! Well, after 2 weeks, his Neonatologist said his Bradys were minor enough that he could come home on a heart/apnea monitor. We were so excited to have our Bean home but at the same time, scared to death for him to come home on a monitor. He's been home for 5 wks today and the first couple of weeks, his monitor went off regularly. It wasn't too scary luckily! The last couple of weeks, its only been going off in the car and they were lasting only a second. This week, the Respiratory Therapist came and downloaded his monitor to send to the Dr and she lowered the alarm to go off if his heartrate dropped below 70 instead of 80. I am so happy to say, it hasn't gone of since then. He is now Brady and apnea free! It only took him til he was almost 7 wks old/3wks adjusted! I'm also happy to say that he hasn't taken anytime at all to catch up to being a big baby that I'm used to having! At his last appt, almost 2 wks ago, he weighed 10 lbs 15 oz! He's quickly becoming my little chunker and I love it!!
Here's a picture of our new family of 5. Sorry, I can't seem to find any of my other pictures from when Bean was born.
The Hubs started a new job a little of 6 months ago (Aug. 2011) and it's been the best thing! He's home every night at a decent hour but the best part is he only works every 3rd Saturday and never works on Sundays! That would have never, ever happened at his old job! There would be days that would pass that he wouldn't see the kids and now he puts them to bed every night. We did take a small pay cut overall but because his pay is commission only based, some months he makes way more money that he did at his other job while some months he makes way less. We've discussed this numerous time and our final decision was that it's worth it since we have so much more time together as a family and there's much less stress for him! (He's since lost that job, had several others and just recently (March 2013) has one that we think we like and will pay the bills but that's a whole other post in itself)
Right before the Hubs started his new job, we found my Dad had Stage 4 Lung cancer. We learned that it was in his lung, his hip, his spine and several other places.The day we learned of his diagnosis, we also told him that we were having another baby. He was excited, I felt as though he would not make it long enough to meet our new little one. Unfortunately, I was right. On Jan. 8 2012, we went to his house to celebrate a late Christmas with him since my sister and her family were in town from Ohio. None of us had seen my Dad since he had been diagnosed. We did not have a close relationship over the years and he wasn't one to share what he was going through. He did not want us to see how he was struggling and I didn't want to build a short, close relationship with him. Anyway, when he walked out of his bedroom when we got there, I lost it! My once strong, physically fit, handsome Firefighter Father had be turned into a week, frail, skeletal 90 year old looking man. I ran to the bathroom and sobbed. I had heard from my aunt the toll the cancer had taken on him and tried to prepare myself as to what he would look like before our visit but no amount of preparation would have been enough. We had a nice visit with him that day. Even through his battle, he managed to keep his sense of humore which is one thing I will never forget about him. Mentally, I don't believe he was all there that day but he was still cracking jokes with us. That day we joked about how in 6 weeks, I was going to lose my belly when Bean was born and that he needed to gain a belly with how skinny he had become. I am glad we got to spend that time with him but sad that often when I think of him, I see the frail, sick Dad rather than my Strong Firefighting Dad. On January 11, 2012, he lost his battle with cancer and just 2 1/2 weeks after that our precious Bean was born. We gave him my maiden name as his middle name in honor of my Dad since they never got the chance to meet here on Earth.
Well, I started this post forever ago and so much has happened even since then that it will have to be a whole other update post! I'm going to try really hard to get back into this blog because I love looking back and reading past posts!
Until next time...
