I have been trying to scrapbook Jacob's pictures lately. It is something I have been working on for a long time. It has brought back so many memories. He was so tiny. I don't know why, but in the hundreds of time I have looked at his pictures, I never noticed how bruised up he was. He was such a miracle. He saved Joshua's life. The doctors told my husband that right before the boys were born Jacob gave some of his blood to Joshua through the placenta. They said that sometimes twins will do that...the bigger stronger twin will give the smaller one some blood. That extra blood made Joshua stronger..the doctors said Jacob saved Joshua. When they were born Jacob looked about a week ahead developmentally than Joshua did. If either of them were to die, we thought it would be Joshua. The visitors that came spent most of their time with Joshua because he looked like he would die first. My mom noticed this and spent extra time with Jacob, so he wouldn't be alone. To this day, I am so grateful to her. I was too sick to see my babies until the day Jacob died. My mom sat where I couldn't sit. She talked to my sons. I am glad Jacob wasn't alone.
I am really grateful Jacob's nurse took so many pictures of us with Jacob as he died. He was so tiny, but even being so small, from the pictures I can tell what features he had. It is also physical evidence that he was alive...that he was mine.
I talked with a woman about two years ago about her son that was born stillborn. Every year around his birthday she was sad. Her son, David, was born around 1980. After all those years she still loved that baby and remembered every detail. I felt so bad for her because she couldn't talk to anyone about missing David. Her husband told her that he was gone and to get over it. I can't even imagine. Even if a woman has an early miscarriage it is such a loss. Part of you is lost...your arms feel so empty...even after you have more children that live. That woman has now died and gone on to be with her son I am sure.
My grandma told me once that when one of my great aunt's baby's passed away shortly after birth, that she an another aunt dressed him for burial. They took lots of pictures of the baby. It was in the early 70's so that was not commonly done. My grandma saved those pictures for years and years. She knew that someday my aunt would want to see what her sweet baby looked like. Years and years later, the time was right and she gave her the pictures. She was so grateful! My aunt has now passed on and I am sure spending time with her sweet child and husband who also passed on.
I showed the kids some footprints the nurses took for me of the boys. They placed one of Jacob's prints right next to one of Joshua's prints. Joshua got a kick out of comparing his foot now to his foot then. Wow. How can somebody that small live?
Now on to the appointments I wrote about last week. Joshua's appointment went well. It took a total of about three minutes to do the x-rays and CT scans!! We were so surprised. He just held still and smiled. I had been prepping him before we went by telling him how much fun it was going to be to get pictures taken of his bones, brain and shunt. I guess it worked! Later that day we went to see the neurosurgeon. Josh's shunt looks great. It was set to the right flow (it didn't get reprogrammed by accident!). The doctor always shows and explains Joshua's scans. His ventricles were really small. They were small like an average person's ventricles. Josh's have always been quite dilated and large. They were small partly because his brain is growing and also because he was dehydrated. Getting Josh to drink is quite a chore and the formula he drinks has so much protein it can easily dehydrate a kid. So, the reason Josh has been so ornery and tired is because he didn't have enough fluid in his ventricles. We are to give him extra to drink and have him lay down if he starts complaining, so the shunt won't drain as much. That makes sense. When I had to have a spinal once for a cerclage, the hole didn't close up so I got a spinal headache (when too much cerebral spinal fluid leaks out). It was one of the worse things. I had to just lay down otherwise I would throw-up. I ended up having to go back in to the hospital to get a blood patch(they put blood in your spine to clot the hole). Anyway, poor Joshua. I definitely know what it feels like to have low CF. He is probably used to it.
Hannah's appointment went well also. He lung medication is working just right for her. Yahoo!!! She and Josh now weigh the same and are almost the same height.
All of my kids are sick right now. Josh got sick on Friday. We could tell because he started gagging and trying to throw up. He does that when he is getting a cold. It is scary. We quickly got him hooked up to some albuterol and soon he was breathing much better. He has been on the extra breathing medication ever since. So it seems like he is hooked to the nebulizer constently between the albuterol and his daily pulmocort. He also takes singular daily. He has also developed a fever that comes and goes. It hit 103 degrees one evening. This morning I noticed he has a fever blister on his lip!!! I hate those things. He has only gotten them twice before, but it is hard to keep the kids from sharing cups (they just hand over their cups to share..which is really nice and thoughtful, but yucky if you have a cold sore). He has really been through a lot the last several days. Today he told me he was fine so he could go to school, but I can't send him knowing he will need breathing treatments. I am so glad we know how to give the treatments so we don't have to go to the hospital every time he gets a cold.
Nate has been having a pretty hard time with the cold also. He wouldn't go to sleep until 10:30 last night. Then he woke up off and on through the night. He was up at 5:30 AM ready to play. Maybe my husband and I are the ones having the hard time? No sleep!!!!!!!!!! Ha ha ha We almost called the doctor yesterday because Nate's nasal congestion was green!!! Ahhhhh. Yuck!! It is getting clear now, so I'm not too concerned about an infection. I keep watching him and giving him his tylenol for the fever.
Hannah is just starting to get sick. I hope she does o.k. and doesn't require nebulizer treatments. I just love my kids and we want more if possible(we had originally wanted seven), but when they are sick it is so hard. What would it be like to have seven kids sick at the same time? It is so hard to see them feeling lousy and and you just want to take it away from them. It is also really yucky to deal with all the "boogies". Don't you just love it when you finally get to take a shower and you get dressed in nice clean clothes and then your kid wipes his nose right on your sleeve? Ahhhh!!! Ha ha ha. Motherhood....I wouldn't trade it for anything...even the the "boogies"! I am SO grateful they don't have the stomach flu right now!!!!!
Gee, I guess I wrote a novel today. It is really nice to get out my feelings and to share memories as they pop up in my head.
Thanks for reading.
Tiffany
I didn't get to post my blog earlier today when I wrote it; so I thought I would write a few funny things that happened this evening with the kids before I post this blog. First off, I was building a fairly large train track with the kids today. I looked down and noticed that my last pair of jeans has a hole in the knee. I guess it is time to go jeans shopping. Arggg. My husband said I could just wear all my holy jeans and I would be right in style. So true, but I would like to stay warm this winter. I don't ever remember my pants getting holes in them when I didn't have kids. Maybe it was because I didn't spend so much time on the floor? Or maybe because I had a lot more clothes, so they didn't get worn out as quickly? Why buy myself a lot of clothes if I can buy cute little clothes for the kids? So as the evening wore on, I was trying to clean up the house. All of the sudden I hear Joshua frantically calling me. He was doing the big job in the bathroom. I ran in and he was standing there on a stool pushed up to the toilet with toilet water streaming down onto his feet!!! Yuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He said, "Mommy, I used too much toilet paper and I flushed and flushed and it wouldn't go down." Seven towels, a bath, disinfected bathroom floor, and fifteen minutes later the bathroom was cleaned up. He tried so hard. It is really quite funny when I think about it. He has only been potty trained for about a year....there were times when we thought he would never achieve that goal(we didn't even know if he was physically capable). So, a few huge toilet water messes here and there are O.K. by me.
OK, I am finally done.
Goodnight
Tiffany
:asleep:
