baby update

Three weeks to go.

Or so I thought...

Monday I had my 37 week appointment in addition to another ultrasound to measure the baby. With my past history (Landen's shoulder dystocia at 8 lbs and Reganne tearing up my cervix at 9 lbs), the doctor wants to make sure this baby doesn't get too big. Well, the ultrasound measured him at 7 lbs, 15 oz, although that could be off a pound either way...so the kid is somewhere between almost 7 lbs and almost 9 lbs...that tells us alot. But in addition, he's measuring closer to a 39 week baby, not 37. So the doctor suggested doing an amniosis to check if his lungs where mature enough (wouldn't tell us anything about ACD-Landen's problem) and possibly induce this week.

YIKES!

I am NOT ready to have this baby. In my head I still have three weeks to go. That's three weeks I need to get ready still. Three weeks to enjoy being a mother to just my two girls. Three weeks to find all the baby stuff. Three weeks to meet with our new pediatrician. Three weeks to enjoy (somewhat) a full night's sleep. Three weeks. (I must sound crazy, what pregnant women wouldn't LOVE the opportunity to get her baby out early?)

But then the evening comes and my back hurts, my pelvic bone aches...night comes and I can't get comfortable to even sleep. My shoulders fall asleep throughout the night but it hurts too much to roll over to my other side. Can't even think about sleeping on my back. Then there is the pinched nerve thing in my butt.... Morning comes and I wonder how I made it...and how I'm going to make it through another day.

It wouldn't be too bad if he came a bit early....so I guess I'm not that crazy....

We decided however to give it another week, at least. I have my next appointment Monday and we'll go from there. Where, I don't know, but we'll go from there.

FYI-the ultrasound showed this little baby with alot of hair. Why is it that my boys get the hair and my girls are bald? Does that seem fair at all? (And no, I don't get heartburn ever...heard that was what gave babies hair.) Oh, and it was again confirmed that this is in fact, a boy.

3 years and 18 months

Just before moving, I finally had the girls' pictures taken.

Marryn (3 1/2) did really well. Reganne (18 months), not so great.

But we got some cute ones nevertheless.

two weeks

Well, it's been officially 2 weeks since we moved into our new home. Things went really well. LSI, Joey's company was relocating him, so they paid for almost everything (realtor fees, closing costs, points on our new mortgage, moving expenses, etc...). It really was an incredible blessing for us. And I really liked having movers not only move our stuff, but pack it all as well. The three packers showed up at about 8am on the Tues before our move and were done, packing all our stuff by noon. It would have taken me a week to do what they did. Of course they were not as picky about "where" stuff was packed. Our basement stuff is that biggest mess. We haven't unpacked it yet, but have had to open just about every box looking for odd things we needed. Then on Wed, the movers moved everything out into a big semi truck. Joey and the girls slept on the floor that night, while I bunked over at Brian and Brandony's on their futon. It was the best sleep I've had in a long time! Then that next morning, Thursday, Marryn went to her last day of Preschool and we started finishing up last minute cleaning when the rain came. Then the wind. And hail. We didn't have a clue what was going on until Brian called us (to ask us to check on Brandony because she had left her phone in his car). Tornadoes. A tornado had just ripped through Windsor. And other tornadoes were touching down around us. We were suppose to be at our house's closing, but with the storm, couldn't get our cars loaded up. So we just sat tight. Later we discovered that the cell that hit Windsor went right over us (explains the marble and golf ball hail we got), but no tornado touched down on us. We did see big trees ripped up and power lines down around us, but nothing too major. Although Joey did witness a wreck at a downed stop light. But we made it out alright and by that night were in Colorado Springs. We stayed in a pretty crappy hotel (we thought we'd have to pay for it, so we went on the cheap; turned out the relocation was covering it...too bad). They tried to stick us in a smoking room, and as Joey tried to explain that he did NOT ask for it, the receptionist kept arguing that he requested it! With his pregnant wife and 2 young kids with him. They moved us, right next to the smoking rooms...oh well, it was only for the night. The next morning we did our final walk through of the house and then went on to the closing. Things went smooth and our movers showed up with our stuff that afternoon. Only a couple things were broke; the girls small white table and 2 plastic tubs. Not bad. We'll get reimbursed for them. I secretly wish more stuff was broken though...I don't know what it is about a new house, but it just doesn't look right to put old, run down furniture in it. Although last night we did go buy a new TV. Nothing too huge (40inch), but definitely nicer then what we had (24inch). Now we need a new entertainment center because it's too big to fit into the niche....

Well, slowly but surely things are getting unpacked and put away. I've only got 5 more weeks before the baby comes, so I really need to get a move on. This house isn't really too much bigger than our last one, but we sure do have more room! I just love it! There are a few quirks here and there (our master bath doesn't have an exhaust fan, only a window; our garage entry door into our home has already put a hole into the neighboring coat closet door; my free washer is really small; etc) but overall, every night I sit down and look around, just so amazed that we live here! The house is so beautiful! I never imagined I'd live in a house so nice so soon. I dream about my dream home all the time, but it was always just a far off dream. This isn't my dream home, but it sure is a dream come true!

happy birthday landen

Sunday, June 1st, we celebrated what would have been Landen's 5th birthday. Marryn helped me make some cupcakes and we all sang "Happy Birthday" and blew out 5 candles. The girls both got a small present as well, just as if Landen were here with us. This is the first year we haven't been able to put out flowers and balloons on his grave, since we recently moved, but the first year that we had a "party" for him. We've decided to make this our little tradition, especially as Marryn and Reganne, are getting older, understanding more who Landen is. This was not a sad day. Just a special day.


I know that we haven't talked alot or told many people about our first child. It's not that we don't like to bring it up or talk about Landen, it's more that we don't like to make other people uncomfortable. We have found great peace through the gospel of Jesus Christ in the short life of our son. We know that this was the plan of our great Heavenly Father.

Landen Joseph was born full term, 8 lb 4 oz, after a seemingly uncomplicated pregnancy. I say seemingly because at about 35 weeks, I thought that my water had broke. I went in for an exam, and was reassured that I was fine. About 6 weeks later when I went in labor, my midwife tried to break my water to speed things up, only to find no water sac. In fact, she could feel the baby's head, full of hair. He was later born with very little water, and a head full of curly blond hair. Delivery was rough. I opted for the epidural only to find the hour of pushing horrific. His shoulders got stuck, which only made the pain worse, but he finally came out. I wasn't able to hold him at first, but he was kept in the room with us while he was cleaned up and given oxygen. Then before they took him to the NICU, I was able to hold him briefly. Never at this moment did we or any of the nurses and doctors expect anything more than just a rough delivery.

Within hours, the oxygen hood he was under was failing to provide him with adequate oxygen and he was incubated. Within hours of that, it was clear that it wasn't working as well. Soon a call was put out to The Children's Hospital in Denver and by that night, he was on his way there. Joey and I left the next morning and met with a specialist there. It was determined that he had Pulmonary Hypertension and would need to be on ECMO, a lung and heart bypass machine. In addition, his lungs were very small, a byproduct of low amniotic fluid. Landen was on ECMO for about a week, before taken off. He did well for a couple days, then started to deteriorate again. By this time the doctors knew it was probably something else that was causing the Pulmonary Hypertension. First test, a lung biopsy determined what they feared. He had Alveolar Capillary Dysplasia, a very rare and fatal newborn disorder. The air sacs and capillaries in his lungs did not line up and therefore could not exchange oxygen. There was nothing we could do for him and within a few days, we took him off life support at just 20 days old.

Losing Landen had proven to be the most difficult thing we have had to go through. But the worst may not be over. The cause of his condition is not fully understood or known, but it is thought to be a genetic condition, in which every child we have has a 25% chance of having ACD. Although new findings are questioning that, but not necessarily in a positive way.