A Walk with the Wards: December 2009

Tests...tests...and more tests...

This has been a very busy month, with the holidays, work, and dr. appointments and test for Noah. Noah has had reflux issues since he was a few months old. He would go 12 hours without eating, scream at the site of a bottle, spit up, hiccup, gulp over and over with his eyes turning red, etc. Our doctor tried 8+ different medications for reflux, bowel spasms, etc. We were referred to a GI specialist at Integris who found microscopic blood in Noah's stools. This is something I would have never been able to see. He felt it was probably from his esophagus or a food allergy. We changed to good start formula and were eventually weaned to only prevacid daily. Any mother knows how difficult it can be to give a baby medicine. It was a nightmare to give him 4-5 doses of medicine a day, so when we went to once a day I was relieved! In September Noah's monitor went off, signaling that he had stopped breathing 15-20 seconds 4 times in one weekend. Our doctor referred Focus Home Medical to set us up with an apnea monitor (I may have blogged about this before...bare with me, I'm am too exhausted to remember, not too concerned about blogging about it twice to check, and yet too tired to sleep right now so I will continue on...make sense? I didn't think so). SO back to my story, we've had this monitor since September and have had three month long studies done. Noah did not pass the first two and we haven't received the results from the third (which they just took last Friday). Our pediatrician believes that the Apnea may be due to his reflux and he referred us to Children's hospital for a 24 hour long ph study and a sleep study. Yesterday morning we had to arrive in outpatient surgery services at 7:45 to get a ph probe placed in Noah's esophagus. This was such a horrible experience, watching them restrain your child with sheets as they fail to get it placed the first time. They finally placed the tube and glued and taped the wire to his face, looped it around his ear and ran it down his shirt. This tube is attached to a fairly large box/monitor that is placed in a backpack...weighing about 1/2 of my child's weight and they expect him to wear this backpack???? So I am exhausted, in every way, from staying 100% alert and watching my child's every action making sure that he didn't pull this probe out. We borrowed gramma's baby walker to help keep Noah entertained. We also went to the mall to walk around in the stroller for another activity. It is very hard to find things to keep a child off the floor where he can't pull away from the monitor and rip the probe out.

We had to go back to the hospital at 7:30 for a sleep study. We had to wait an 1.5 hours later than expected to get his probe in, and then we could only feed him every 4 hours, with NOTHING in between, so this kind of threw off his schedule! They finally got all of the 19 wires placed on him and wrapped his head to keep the electrodes intact by 9:30ish. Noah just laid in my arms for over 30 minutes looking at me, not making a sound, just staring. I felt so bad because I know he was so scared. We made it through the night with only a few meltdowns. They wouldn't let me pick him up out of the crib after they had all of the electrodes placed so it was hard to comfort him, especially since he woke up several times in a strange environment wrapped all up in tape. I am so thankful this is over. We won't receive the results for another 7-10 days, but I am believing that he is perfect, healthy, and whole and they will dismiss the apnea monitor!

The tests are over!! Yay!

Special Sundays

Sundays are always special. We, as a family, go to church together, enjoy lunch together, and always spend quality time TOGETHER. I love Sundays! This past Sunday, we had our sibling Christmas dinner! This is a tradition that Seth's family has done for years. The siblings all choose a meal that they would like (this year it was brisket) and they sit together for a candlelit dinner and the Christmas story (read by Larry).

This year, Halle wanted to bake brownies for the dinner for brownie fudge sundaes!

Ready for Church

After church, daddy turned Noah's carseat around! He does much better in the car now that he can actually see what's going on and watch a movie with sister. He enjoyed the trip to gramma and papa's house! You can even see his grin through his binkie!

Sister wanted her picture taken too, of course!

playing at gramma's with the gator golf club. He didn't let this go! And I must say he has pretty good hand-eye coordination! =)

playing at gramma's...underneath the ping pong table. Even uncle adam got in on the fun!

Emmerie, Conner, and Halle

last, but not least, two of my beautiful presents that my precious daughter made me!!

My little ballerina

On December 19th, Halle's little ballet class had their pajama Christmas party and ornament exchange. Halle has the sweetest little girls in her class and had a great time at her party!

Halle and Miss Lexie

Time to stretch...noah wants to join in!

Letter from Santa

Halle received a letter from Santa a few days ago. I wish I had my video camera to record her response! I never expected her to react the way she did! Seth helped her open the letter where she found stickers, reindeer food, and a letter encouraging Halle and congratulating her for being a good big sister, picking up her toys, and listening to her mommy and daddy's words. She was so ecstatic and called her gramma and her nana to tell them of her letter! Here is a little sample of her response.
Halle: "OH MY GOODNESS!! I CANNOT BELIEVE this!! A LETTER FROM SANTA?! I'm SOO Happy!!! Are you SERIOUS?! A letter from SANTA!! I CANNOT believe this! I need to call him and tell him THANK YOU! (because yes, she has talked to santa (aka grandpa disguising his voice) and heard stories about the reindeer and the north pole) I thought there was no way she would fall for that, but grandpa has done a great job.
I didn't really have any expectations of her reactions to this letter I had sent to her for $5.00. I think I would have spent a hundred to see her that happy! She definitely knows the reason for the season and sings happy birthday to Jesus several times daily...but this is the first year that she is really excited about Santa. Seth's family never really did the "santa" thing, so he was kind of hesitant about it. After he saw her joy and excitement with the santa letter I am sure we will let her believe in Santa as long as possible!

"What is it mom? Can I open it??? Please??"

"I CAN-NOT (stressing the pronunciation!) BE-LIEVE THIS!!"

Holding her very special santa letter and a packet of reindeer food!

A special Christmas gift

Each year all of Seth's siblings go in together to pick a gift for his mom and dad. This year we decided to take pictures of all of the grandkids and "make-over" the living room with new paint and pictures! Debbie loves having pictures up of her grandbabies, but it has been a while since we have brought them all together for pictures. It would be impossible to hire a professional to take pictures of these monkeys so I decided to try to get some pictures myself. I didn't take very many of Halle and Noah because we just had their pictures taken recently, and are framing those as well for them. We went to the park over a month ago but I am just now able to post them since we gave her a slideshow of the pictures during our sibling Christmas dinner. She was very emotional when she opened the dvd and started crying saying "I think these are pictures....oh I hope these are pictures!" She has watched the slideshow several times since then! I think we chose something that she will cherish forever! We framed 10 of these pictures and will surprise her with those on Christmas morning. I know there is no way she will check my blog before then because she is running around like crazy trying to finish her shopping and wrapping for 8 children and 7 grandbabies! I feel very blessed to have such wonderful in-laws and I hope they enjoy it!