Kevin Eats Wood

Wood. He loves it. The leg of the coffee table and the crib railing are his favorite. He is not unlike a mischeivous puppy. Bite marks from his only 2 teeth have covered these items.

I'm a little concerned. I posted this on TMP looking for re-assurance it is normal behavior for an 8 month old and I received that re-assurance. I'm still a bit skeptic though. I'm worried he is going to end up on that reality show about people with strange addictions. I may have actually seen one where a women ate wood. I am hoping it's a phase he will grow out of.

Crib picture

The Crib Problem

Kevin turned 8 months on Saturday. He also sat up by himself for the first time! So exciting. He loves to play sitting up and has been doing so for over 2 months now but on Saturday he actually got himself from a lying down position to a sitting up position. He's very proud of himself and looks up at us and gives the hugest smile when he does it. (Our cheering probably doesn't hurt)

So we were all very excited about this new development until last night. I went to put him to bed and he wasn't really in the mood. I left the room for a few minutes to see if he would settle himself down. I hear happy noises but no crying so I leave him for a little while and when I go check on him he is sitting up....in his crib. When he sees me he flashes that huge smile and reaches for the side of the crib and I realize to my horror...He is moments away from figuring out how to pull himself up. UP AND OVER. Oh Crap.

So I rock him and sing to him until he falls asleep and then lay him in his crib for the night. I text Rob, who is in Chemistry class, and tell him tomorrow we have to lower the crib mattress. No big deal. Except it is kind of a big deal because I am 5 feet tall. Once the mattress is lowered I don't think I can reach to pick Kevin up and get him into or out of the crib by myself. Why don't they make a safe drop side crib?

Rob is home with Kevin today and I asked him to look around the city for a step stool. I have no idea if it will work or not but it's the only idea I have.

Maybe it won't even be an issue. This morning when I went to get Kevin he was already sitting up in his crib. That amazing smile on his face. I had to cheer :) If he does that every morning I'll be able to reach.

Thyroid Issues

I plan on blogging from work. I need to space the day out better and Kevin takes up most of my home time anyway. I seem to have a problem with the comment boxes though. My work computer will not allow me to comment on my own blog or anyone elses. I'll see if I can fix it but I'm not all that tech-savvy. I'll probably read blogs here and comment at night or on weekends from home.

I want to explain a little about the thyroid issue I am having. I don't understand much about it. I went to the GP for allergies in June. I was still breastfeeding and wanted a nasal spray because I wasn't to keen on taking any medication while breast feeding. My GP hadn't seen me in a while and wanted to run some blood work. I let her, took my allergy Rx, and went on my way.

Fast forward 3 months and it's September 30th, I have stopped breastfeeding, started working, and my allergies are acting up again. I go back to the doctor. She checks me out and tells me I have an ear infection and my thyroid levels came back a little high. I had a slight case of HYPERthyroidism. Probably from the pregnancy and it would probably fix itself but she needed to re-run the blood work. So I let her and go get my Z-pack for my ear infection, (that didn't hurt), and go on my way.

A few days later I get a call from the doctor saying my thyroid is now under producing and I have HYPOthyroidism. uuuggghhh. I need to take Synthroid once a day and go get an ultrasound of my thyroid done and we'll take it from there. So seems my thyroid is just not regulating.

Basically, if I do not get it regulated this can cause serious issues for TTC and future pregnancies. So I guess it was lucky my allergies acted up and I found this out now. Still.... I am a little annoyed I went to the doctor for nasal spray and came out of there with an ear infection and hyper AND hypothyroidism.

I'm not a doctor and don't really understand the function of the thyroid but I can't help but wonder if this would have regulated itself. My blood was taken 2 weeks after I stopped breastfeeding and the day of my first period since becoming pregnant with Kevin. Who knows.

I am taking the medication daily and have a thyroid ultrasound scheduled for October 25th.

Bringing the Blog Back

I know it's been a very long time since I've blogged so I will write a recap of where I am now and other stuff can just come about in time. Kevin will be 8 months old on Saturday. He is an AWESOME baby.

I took 7 months off to stay home with Kevin. Rob was home most of that time as well. He was applying to nursing schools and as of August is now a full time nursing student. I went back to work Sept 15th. I do general office work, mostly HR stuff, but also some finance and accounting for my fathers electrical contracting company. We had an amazing couple of months staying home with Kevin and I enjoyed every second. However, we are back in the real world now and still adjusting to our new crazy, busy lives.

We hired a part-time nanny for Kevin. This is our current schedule:

I work Monday through Friday from 8am to 4pm. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursdays we have a nanny come in from 10am to 5pm while Rob is either at class or doing class work. Rob has night classes as well so it's just me and Kevin Monday nights until 10pm and Wednesdays and Thursdays until 7pm. Rob watches Kevin on Tuesdays and Fridays. He also has a full day lab every Saturday and it's me, Kevin and NYC. Rob has the car on Saturdays so we are limited on where we can go. Sunday is the only day both Rob and I have off.

So Rob and I went from being 2 stay at home parents to 2 crazy busy people. It's been a tough adjustment but I think we are finally settling into our new routines. I'll get more into the emotional aspects of this in time. It's hard being away from Kevin so much though.

So that's our story up until now. As for the future, we hope to leave the city within a year or 2 and rent a house somewhere. We hope to start trying for baby number 2 in 2012. We originally planned to start trying in December but Rob needed an MMR shot for school and that can cause problems in a fetus. Also, my pregnancy with Kevin has caused me some thyroid issues and I have to get that regulated before we TTC. If I don't it could possibly lead to infertility, miscarriage, or pre-natal complications. So, yeah, that must be taken care of first. So February it is. I hope. I am going to be 36 years old on Saturday, and I understand that means advanced maternal age and can make conception much harder. So we will see.

Until then this will just be a mommy blog.

I'll leave you with a picture of Kevin taken 1 month ago:

Kevin's Birth Story

Kevin Michael. Born on February 15, 2011. 8:47 am. 6 pounds 6 oz. 20 inches long. Born at 36 weeks 1 day and he is absolutely perfect. Kevin shocked us all by coming so early and with pretty much no warning. Here is is his birth story:

February 14th, 2011. Normal day. I woke up went to work came home had dinner and Rob and I were watching TV. Around 8:00 pm we put on that Lifetime reality show 'One born Every Minute'. It's real life story's of people in the labor/delivery unit of a hospital. As we are watching it I had 2 back spasms. I wondered for a whole second if it was labor related. I decided no, that was all in my head because of the show I was watching.

Around 9:00 pm the show ended and I went to the bathroom. I stood up and my water broke! It was just falling out of me. I was in shock and yelled to Rob to come to the bathroom. I am standing in a puddle of water and I look at him and say I think my water broke. He agreed and we kinda stood there for a second in complete terror. I was scared shitless. I still had 4 weeks to go of pregnancy. Also the water was now turning pink so blood was becoming involved in this and I had no idea if that was supposed to happen or not. (turns out it's fine).

I paged my doctor. I hadn't yet had the Group B strep test so my doctor told me I was to come to labor and delivery and I needed to be induced and given antibiotics to be safe. She said I had time to pack a bag and wasn't concerned about the bleeding as I could still feel Kevin moving. I could not believe this was happening. I wasn't ready. I still had a month left!

Rob packed up a bag and we just left and went to the hospital with not too much in that bag. We remembered phones and computers and season 2 of House on DVD. We didn't stress over this as we live 12 blocks from the hospital. (Rob ended up going back and forth a few times).

We got to the hospital and it was a pretty crowded night in L&D and I had to wait in the waiting room for them to get a triage bed cleaned up. It was here while we were talking to some new grandparents that my contractions started. Like my water breaking, they came out of nowhere and came every 5 minutes, then every 3 minutes and stayed there for awhile. It was about 11:00 pm now and I was hooked up to the monitors and checked out. I was 3 centimeters dilated and contracting every 3 minutes without being induced. I was admitted. Kevin was coming!

The contractions were painful and coming so frequently I asked for an epidural around 12:30 am. I was all set by 1:00 am and FINALLY this had become dealable. I highly recommend the epidural. It changed my night and I could now stop focusing on the pain and get excited to meet Kevin. I was dilated to 7 cm by this point.

However my labor started to stall over the next couple of hours and at 5:00 am they gave me some pitocin *(sp) to speed things up. By 7:00 am the contractions were just coming one after the other and the epidural wasn't really helping much any more. It was almost time. The doctor came in and set up to push. I did some practices pushes and they told me they had to call the pediatricians just in case to check him out right away. He was 4 weeks early and it was a precaution.

My doctor also told me if I had carried Kevin to term I could not have delivered vaginally as my pelvis was on the small side and she believed Kevin was already about 6 pounds and would have been around 9 pounds in another 4 weeks.

I can't remember the exact time I started pushing but this part actually went fairly quickly. I pushed 3 times with 3 contractions and at 8:47 am he was here! He was screaming before he was completely out. The doctor put him right on my chest and I hugged my baby boy.

The pediatricians took him to be cleaned and checked out right there next to my bed and he was declared perfect and weighed 6 pounds 6 oz! They cleaned him up and gave him back to me and we had skin to skin time.

I had no warning signs of labor. It came on suddenly. No Braxton Hicks or contractions of any kind. I hadn't had my Group B strep test or the last u/s to check on weight. I was never checked for dilation. The baby did not drop before labor. I was more bloated in the face then usual and I did have 2 back spasms the hour before my water broke but I didn't think anything of it at the time.

We are home now and could not be happier. Kevin is amazing!!!

Kevin is here!

Kevin came 4 weeks early!

He is perfect. 6 pounds 6 oz, 20 inches long and all is great.

I will give a real update with pics soon but we just got home from the hospital yesterday and I can't stop staring at him long enough to put together a coherent post