Happy Birthday Bubba-Rocks!

My baby turned 7 today.  He tries to tell everyone that he is 9 - he wants to be older than Nathan.

It's hard to believe that 7 years ago I was walking into a hospital.  Going in to get an amnio to check to see if the baby's lungs were mature enough for him to be born.

1: I needed a repeat C-section and was previously (with Noah) classically cut - so they wanted zero chance of my going into labor on my own, there was a fear about how quickly labor would advance.
2: I was utterly and completely miserable.  It had been 12 years since having a normal non-premature/low baby weight baby ...  this was a full term, fat hefty baby.
3: We wanted everything safe for both him and I ... so the biggest worry was if his lungs were ready.

So, we had gone in on September 2nd - and the amnio had come back immature lungs.  So we waited a week.

I woke up the morning of September 9th - already in labor.  My amnio wasn't until the afternoon.  I didn't even really realize that I was in labor.  You have to take account that I had been having contractions since I was 5 months pregnant, and on bedrest.  So having contractions was nothing new to me.  I was being a nut-job cleaning and getting stuff ready, re-ready, double checking, making sure everything for Noah and Nathan was done - that my Mom (who was staying with us to help out for the first few days and while I was in the hospital) had instructions, and everything she needed...  Mom and DB kept asking me, repeatedly, if I was having contractions.  They didn't feel any thing more than what I had been having, so I kept telling them no, nothing more than normal.

However, when I had to stop cleaning to breath through contractions?  Well....

So it came time to go to the hospital and I still thought that the contractions were pretty much nothing to worry about.

We walked through the parking lot - and the part of the hospital before getting the door where cars pull up (street) area ....  as we were crossing, and DB was way up there infront of me, I stopped in the middle of the road.  Stopped.  DEAD stopped.  Gripping my stomach.  STOPPED.  DB turns around and says "Are you having a contraction?"  ....  and I snapped my head up and shouted, "No, I thought I would try to get hit by a car" ... he immediately started shaking his head and said "never going to live that stupid question down" .. and hell no he won't.

But we got up there, I got strapped up to the monitor and realized I was having contractions every 2 minutes.  So when the doctor came in - I told him - I'm having contractions every 2 minutes.  He starts talking up the amnio risks and stops in the middle of it and says ... "you really are having contractions every two minutes" ... he checked me and I was 3-4 cm dilated.   Plans changed real quick.

I think had I not had that appointment, I probably would have stayed at home until it was almost too late.

So our little Monkey was born.  It's kinda funny - Noah was born on 02-01-02 ... had he waited one more day, it would have been 02-02-02 ...  Kaedyn came on 09-09-08 ... LOL..  almost a triple digit thing again.

The crib card on the collage above is the same one beside his big fat 7 year old hobbit foot below.

He got home from school and had one of those Happy Birthday crowns :)  AND a birthday sticker

We still had to go pick up his cake, so we took him with us.  He was looking through the book trying to "guess" what we got.

So she brought it out and opened it up ... and he leans over to me, and he whispers "I love it" .. lol.  Made my day.

He picked out pizza for dinner...  

Of course the cake....

I got a "birth" day cake too!!  I have five birthdays a year.  The day I was born, and the day I gave birth to each of my children.  LOL

He got to go with us later when we had to run out and I stayed in the van with him, he of course had to be goofy.  True to his character and personality.

Nathan's Story ...... World Prematurity Day

18 weeks pregnant on the day Dennis and I got married 

In 2006 I was pregnant with Nathan. We were told - via amnio - that Nathan was genetically healthy - as far as they could tell. However, his pregnancy mimicked Noah's greatly and it gave me great pause. I felt as if something was wrong, but there was no proof. At our 20 week ultrasound we found out that Nathan had a two vessel cord (normally there are three vessels ... two going in, one going out ... Nathan's case there was one going in and one going out. So Nathan was getting half the nutrients any other baby would.) ... So in addition to that - they found out that I had Fibroid tumors in my uterus, pretty big ones from what I understood, which also restricted things, and Nathan had a "cyst in his brain" ....

Valentines Day 2007

But there was NO WAY to know what the future held.

To be safe, I was given steroid shots around 33 weeks. At that point, things were taken week by week, but they didn't want to let me go past 36 weeks.

We hit 35 weeks, Noah developed an ear infection. So he went on some antibiotics. However, over that weekend - he started to get really sick. He was complaining that his right side hurt, he was feverish, vomiting - we took him into the local ER and got brushed off "It's just a virus" ... but in my gut, I felt it was more. The next day, he actually seemed to get a little better, so I thought - well, maybe I'm wrong. But the following morning, the day I needed to go to the hospital - the same hospital Noah was born at, 2 hours away - where Nathan would also be born.... for an appointment to determine when Nathan was coming, Noah was so sick that I was torn about even going to the appointment. He had a 104 temp, he was lethargic, vomiting, and I couldn't leave him. So Dennis and I packed him up, took him the 2 hours away to the hospital - to have him seen in urgent care there.

What does that have to do with anything? Well ... Noah was so sick he was hospitalized. Noah almost died that week. I was told if we hadn't gotten him in - it wouldn't have been long. Regardless, I had to go from Noah's hospital room, down a floor, on April 19th 2007, to give birth to Nathan.

Thankfully - Noah got better... 

It was a planned c-section - wasn't life or death - like it was with Noah. But it was time. And I had a very very hard time because of the Noah's birth was traumatizing for me. I told Dennis, I made him promise, NOT to leave the baby.

During Nathan's birth - they did pause a moment so we could see him, Dennis was taken to the room off to the side of the OR where they took the babies prior to taking them into the NICU...

He was 3lbs 4oz and 15 3/4 inches long. He was born at 36 weeks. He was put in the EXACT same spot in the NICU that Noah had been in.... and the nurses kept saying "You are a pro, you take care of him, you know how to do it..." LOL... since it was Dennis' first experience in the NICU, I let him do a lot of the firsts when it came to Nathan. I walked him through a lot, and told him how to do stuff and what to expect. I hope that my experience with Noah helped me make his experience with Nathan less traumatizing as a parent.

Later we learned that Nathan's lack of growth is due to him having a rare type of Primordial Dwarfism (primordial meaning he's proportionate, and dwarfism meaning he is expected to grow under a certain height) ... called Russell Silver Syndrome. He was born with a cleft palate that was repaired May 2012, among a lot of other things. He also has Autism. I hate to say he's non-verbal because he tries so hard.

He is 6 years old, the size of a 2 or 3 year old, he is 27-28 lbs and about 33-34 inches. He is my hero!