7 Weeks!

Here’s what’s going on this week:

Your baby:

• Still with the growing. Always with the growing. Your baby starts off this week at four or five millimeters long, but is a whopping half an inch by the end.
• Has a two-chambered heart, air passages in the lungs, and cerebral hemispheres in the braaaaaains.
• Has an appendix, which is kind of cool until you remember that the appendix is almost completely useless. But it’s there now! Awww.

You:

• Might be feeling a little urpy and gaggy and pukey.
• Are incredibly sensitive to smells.
• Like, seriously. Who burned an English muffin in the employee break room this morning? WHO? WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN, YOU MUFFIN-BURNING IDIOT!

I definitely feel pregnant this week!  The nausea has set in, and that’s just no fun.  You wake up feeling sick because your stomach is empty, and throughout the day the nauseous feeling comes and goes.  The best way I am able to keep the nausea to a minimum is to always have food in my stomach or on standby for when I start feeling sick.  Luckily, with Ryder I never threw up, and I don’t feel like I’m going to with this one either.  Thank goodness!  I’m not getting dizzy or light-headed anymore, so that’s great!  Other than that, my symptoms are heartburn and exhaustion.  Like I said, I definitely feel pregnant this week.

Alpha Mom said something else on her blog about this week that made me laugh because it is SO me! 

“You may feel more pregnant than you actually look (even though your uterus has doubled in size), and without that nice round belly you might not be getting a ton of “everything is okay” reassurance from your symptoms.
(Of course, as I have learned, all bets are off for a second pregnancy, as my previously stretched-out joey-pouch belly has rejoiced at the chance to totally fulfill its poochy destiny once more.)”

So…here you go…my left-over-Ryder-shouldn’t-be-this-big-but-can’t-suck-it-in 7 week belly!

Always/Sometimes/Never

I saw this post on Diana’s blog a few weeks ago and thought it was a really cute idea!  These babies grow up so fast and their little personalities and quirks change, so I love any chance to document each stage of Ryder’s life.  All to soon, the things he always does now will be things he never does and I don’t want to forget about them.  So here we go:

Always:

~ Talks!  He talks from the second he wakes up until the second he falls asleep.  He’s either repeating what you say or telling you what he’s doing or just rambling on and on…but something is always coming out of his mouth!

~ Tells his Daddy goodnight!  Even if Daddy isn’t home, Ryder yells “night-night Dada!” from his bed, hoping Daddy will hear him wherever he is. 

~ Wants kisses!  A regular kiss first, then he wants an eskimo kiss, then he wants a butterfly kiss, then a bear hug…in that order!

~ Eats Snacks!  He has a snack cabinet at home and if Daddy hasn’t already brought something home or got something out of our cabinets for them to share, then Ryder will find something out of his and bring it to Daddy.  Somehow, all of the snacking they do doesn’t ruin their appetite at meal time.

~ Says goodbye to objects when we leave somewhere.  “goodbye house, goodbye mailbox, goodbye Pap-Pap’s truck, goodbye garage, goodbye fort!” And then he ends it with “see you oomooorrow”

~ Has something to do with cars.  He’s either carrying car keys around, or driving a car, or talking about a car, or making car noises…he loves motorized vehicles!

Sometimes:

~ Calls us Mommy & Daddy!  For all this time we have been Mama & Dada, but recently he has started to say Mommy & Daddy which totally melts our hearts! 

~ Tells us when he’s “peein” or “poopin”.  He even has his own potty now that he sits on (with his clothes on) and tells us he’s “goin potta”.  Gotta start somewhere!

~ Can be dramatic!  He has perfected the faint move where something doesn’t go his way so he falls limp to the floor and cries!  That’s when operation “ignore that child” goes into full effect.

~ Asks me to read him stories out of his “Jesus Book” before bed.  He gets SO excited when we get to a page with Jesus on it!

~ Tells us what he wants to eat.  Usually he just eats whatever we’re having, but on occasion he’ll wake up and ask for pancakes for breakfast, or spaghetti for dinner.

Never:

~ Watches TV!  He used to watch his Praise Baby movie before bed, but ever since he started walking, he won’t even have anything to do with that!  He’s just not interested in TV at all, which isn’t a bad thing, but he definitely doesn’t get that from me!

~ Says I Love You!  It seems like he can/will say or repeat anything in the world, but he has only said Love you like once or twice…EVER!  I think he knows that he’s holding out on us and is doing it on purpose! 

~ Likes to swing!  Do you  know any other child that hates to swing?  It must have something to do with him feeling unstable, but he hates to swing or be thrown around.

~ Sleeps past 8 am…and that’s pushing it!  He usually wakes up around 7, but has never ever not once slept in past 8!  He goes to bed at 8pm though, so I guess after 11 or 12 hours, he’s just done!

~Says Yes to anything!  He substitutes the word “okay” for the word “yes”.  So our conversations go “Ryder would you like some milk?” “No” “Would you like some juice?” “okayyyyyy”.

 

Ryder will ALWAYS be the most important thing in our lives, he can SOMETIMES be a little mischievous, but he will NEVER be able to comprehend how much his Mommy & Daddy love him.

1st Appt for the New Baby

Today I had my first Dr. Appt for baby #2!  It was pretty routine, they did a pregnancy test…still positive!  And we just talked about my last pregnancy and some things that will be to come for this one.  First of all, I should NOT have started that diabetes diet.  The Doctor said that your sugars go a little crazy in the beginning of your pregnancy anyway, so for me to try to regulate them while my body is trying to regulate them is a bad combination and I could have fainted…which is exactly how those dizzy spells were making me feel.  I will be tested for diabetes early in the pregnancy, just not yet.

I will definitely be having a repeat C-Section which they will schedule for 1 week before my due date.  I have a sonogram scheduled for next Monday so that they can measure the baby and get an accurate due date. 

Of course we talked about Ryder and the complications that came with his pregnancy and birth.  I was shocked to hear the Doctor say that he has never had a patient whose child has had a stroke before!  That’s how uncommon it is…and with that said, I don’t want to hear any statistics during this whole pregnancy.  He is going to call the high risk Doctor and see how soon I need to be seen by him. 

And that’s about it…until next Monday :)

2010 Kidney Walk!

Wow, what a great time we had today!  First of all, we have been talking to Ryder about the Kidney Walk and about Team Ryder all week to get him pumped up.  Of course he repeats everything we say so when he woke up this morning he told me “Tidney Walk here!”  He remembered that it was today and was ready for it as soon as he woke up!

We had an amazing turnout!  Over 50 people showed up in their Team Ryder gear.  Thank you SO much to everyone who came out to support us and the National Kidney Foundation.  It really means a lot to be surrounded by such a great group of friends and family!

Team Ryder is so awesome!  So far we have raised a total of $2,477.00!!!  That doesn’t include the cash donations we turned in today.  I think it’s safe to say that we well surpassed our $2,000 goal!  Thanks to everyone who donated, you really helped make a difference.  The Kidney Foundation actually surpassed their $80,000 goal which for them means they will have funds to do things above and beyond what they already offer…more grants for kidney patients, more kidney disease testing sites, more money to go to research…BIG things. 

Since we were the Honorary Family at the walk this year, they announced us and told Ryder’s story, then we got to lead the walk.  Here are some random pictures of our walkers:

 

   

   

Ryder had a blast riding on his Daddy’s shoulders during the whole walk!

 

He was so adorable in his Team Ryder gear!

I hope that when he gets older he realizes how very special he is, what an inspiration he is to others, and that without him, there would be no Team Ryder!

Blog Party!

We had another get together with all of our blogger friends over the weekend.  We always have so much fun with these Moms & Kids.  It’s really neat to watch them all interact as they get older and really get to know each other.  I didn’t get many pictures because now I have a 1 year old to chase around, but here was the best I could do:

Mikayla going down the slide (as graceful as possible!)…

 

Ryder’s favorite thing was playing in the sand box:

And here are some group shots of the kids:

 

Some candid belly shots!  At our last get together, it was just Moms and our Kids, this time, there are FOUR pregnant women!  We’re having a blogger baby boom!  (be careful, you might catch the bug!)

 

Of course, me & Ryder were both exhausted afterward, but that just means we had LOTS of fun!!!

6 Weeks!!

I seriously feel like I blinked and then a week went by!  Probably because crazy long work days mixed with sleepless nights are a bad combination, and leave a pregnant-working-mommy in quite the daze as the days go by!  Here is what Alpha Mom (www.alphamom.com) has to say about week 6:

Your baby:

• Has tripled or even quadrupled in size and is now three or four entire millimeters long! Godzilla baby!
• Is working on growing a nose, some ears and a mouth.
• Is also growing flappy little leg and arm buds.
• Has a heartbeat that can be seen on an ultrasound — 100 to 160 beats per minute.

You:

• Are maybe moody as hell.
• Are getting up in the middle of the night to pee.
• Food cravings and/or aversions can be pretty strong at this point. If salad with a prenatal vitamin chaser makes your stomach flip and your esophagus burn, then for goodness sake skip the salad and eat something that sounds appealing, be it chicken nuggets or black olives straight out of the can. There’s no need to be the Healthy Salad Martyr Pregnant Woman, nobody likes her anyway.
• Depending on the state of your digestive system and appetite, you may have gained a couple pounds already — or you may have lost weight. Don’t stress either way right now. It’ll probably all even out in the end.

Hmm lets see…Moody? check! Waking up in the middle of the night? check!  Food aversions…thank GOD those have not started yet.  I haven’t had any bouts of nausea, which I am dreading as I wait for that phase to arrive.  For now I’m just trying to figure out what is causing these major dizzy spells I have been having.  My guess is that it wasn’t a good idea for me to start the diabetes diet yet, so cutting out all of my sugars and cutting back on carbs was a bad idea!  I took my blood sugar after a big dinner the other night and it was only 78 (should have been around 140!)  Needless to say, I started eating sugar again.  I can’t WAIT for my appointment on Monday so that I can quit self-diagnosing myself and get some advice from a professional on how to handle pregnancy #2! 

Update on Lefty

I’m happy to report that Lefty has made lots of progress since this LAST POST where we checked in on him. 

Ryder has had about a 2 month gap in Occupational Therapy, which is where they work pretty directly with his left hand.  This really started to worry me because I want him to have the best chance possible at recovering use of his hand.  Now that he has Medicaid we were able to start OT back on Friday and we are thrilled!  His new therapists name is Abby and I can already tell that she is going to be great with Ryder and we’re going to see great results from working with her! 

As Ryder learned to walk, I noticed that he started fisting his left hand and holding really tight to his chest again.  I felt like this was moving WAY backwards from where we had come, but I now realize that he just resorted back to that for comfort and stability as he worked on his new skill.  Now that he is a professional walker, he has started relaxing his hand and actually using it A LOT more!  See for yourself (sorry I didn’t edit these videos to show you just the examples, he’s too cute to cut out all of the conversations!):

In this first video you can see how far he has come with being able to pick up a round cup without handles, using both hands.  Of course, once he gets a good grip he always lets go with lefty, but before he couldn’t even get his left hand to cooperate to help him lift it.  MAJOR progress!

In this next video you can see how well he is using his left hand to manipulate objects now.  He used to do everything one handed, but now he realizes he has another hand and uses it to help.  Basically his right hand does all the work for whatever he is trying to do, but he allows his left hand to assist.

In this last video you can see that he is finally able to pick an object up and release it with his left hand!!!  This is HUGE.  He has always initiated everything with his right hand, then handed it to his left, then forgot about it and dropped it.  But now he is getting a signal from his brain, not only to pick an object up, but also to release it!!  This brings so much joy to my heart!  He will only do it if his right hand is occupied holding something else, but it is proof that he has made major progress.  You can see that his fingers still don’t work independently of each other, he doesn’t have a pincer grasp and cannot point, so those are things we will continue to work on.

We are so proud of Ryder and Lefty as they work so hard in therapy and are constantly being pushed to their limit.  All of the hard work pays off though, as you can see, and Ryder is such a good sport through it all.  He is truly an amazing child!