The Mystery Misadventure

So, by now you're familiar with my son, Tyler. I talk about him, oh, just a little bit! This is another blog about him. The little guy has been doing so well lately. He's had a little congestion from the weather changing, but nothing we couldn't deal with. He finally started sleeping through the night too! Well, Sunday morning proved a whole new beast. It went something like this...

3:30 am Tyler wakes up screaming. Since we are attempting sleep training (not feeding until it's actually time to get up, simply putting the pacifier in), we assumed it must've just been a little wakeful period in his night. I get up and go in there to give him his pacifier. That works for a little while. Then the piercing screaming begins just shy of 5 am. Now the whole house is awake. We're trying everything. Diaper change, rocking, singing, walking the house, everything. Finally, I give in and decide to feed the little buger. That calms him down while he's eating, but as soon as he's done, the wailing starts again. The problem remains a complete mystery.

By this point I've sent my husband back to bed because there's no reason for all of us to be awake. After poking, touching and looking all over for something that could be wrong with this child I decide something must hurt and I give him some Tylenol. This appeases him and he takes a nap (and so do I) until about 7:30 am. As soon as he wakes up, it's on again. At this point I just feel so bad because I have no idea what's wrong and can't do anything for him. After taking his temperature and attempting another feeding (which he would have nothing of until an hour later), we determined that he's running a fever and maybe has some sort of bug. We know now that we have to keep him hydrated after our last ER visit (See the Misadventures in Health for more on that) so we're making sure he is eating and giving him water here and there. After his temp gets up to 101.3, I call the pediatrician (or page one, rather, since it was a Sunday). While waiting for the call back we decide maybe it's teeth. I mean, sure he's only 5 months old, but some babies teeth that early. I wasn't one of those. I didn't get my first tooth until almost 18 months and they had to do xrays to make sure I even had any (they had never seen this before at my dentist and ironically, a few years later his very own daughter had the same thing happen).

So Tony looks more closely in his mouth and there it is! A tiny little white speck poking through his top gum. Amazing that something that little can cause so much anguish! So out come the cold teething rings, vibrating teethers and everything else we've got in our arsenal. We kept up the Tylenol every 4 hours and he seemed to be getting much more congenial by the minute. The pediatrician called back and said that's what it sounded like to her as well and to make sure his temp stays below 102, otherwise we'll have to come in for an office visit. Luckily, so far, so good. The fever is holding below 100.

That's the latest misadventure in mommyhood. And boy it really was a mystery until we got it all figured out! I'm just glad we did!

The Great Birth Misadventure

Tyler Nicholas Pleasant in the NICU

Tyler and Mommy in the NICU

For this post, I'm going back several months, but it's definitely still a story worth telling. Strange as it may seem, the birth of my son was quite the misadventure! I was reminded to tell the story after a recent reunion with all of his hospital buddies from the intensive care unit.

7:50 am: It started like a typical Friday on May 6th, 2011. I got up (34 weeks, 4 days pregnant, so it was a slow process) and got ready for work. As I went to put my jeans on, my water broke. At first I wasn't sure what was happening because we still had 5 weeks until our little guy was supposed to be here! After deciding yes, I was in fact in the beginning stages of labor, I got my husband out of the shower and told him it was time to get going. Of course we had nothing packed and hadn't even installed our carseats! That was all on the list of "Things To Get Done in the Next Week or So." Afterall, it had only been a week after my graduate classes finals, several weeks after my baby shower and only TWO DAYS after my maternity photos had been snapped (Thank you, Jana Johnson for getting those done just in time!)!

8:04 am: A little shaky, but under control, Tony and I both began to walk about the house packing any and everything we could think we might need at the hospital. Strangely enough, this was almost a peaceful, organized process, but I suppose if you know us you know we're generally pretty level-headed. We even had enough wits about us to find the list the doctor gave us of things we'd need to take along. So, we gathered all of that up, spent several agonizing minutes deciding exactly what we should put in our bag for the baby to come home in and got the carseat installed in my car. Phone calls were made to both sets of parents (soon-to-be-grandparents!). Now it was off to the hospital.

8:50 am: But first, we had to make a pitstop to Walgreens because we didn't have everything on the list. Tony ran in while I waited in the car with my beach towel. It had now been a little over an hour since my water had broken. Several minutes later, Tony returned with everything else we needed in hand. He said, "I must've had that 'dad-on-the-way-to-the-hospital' look because the clerk saw me in the aisle and said, 'having a baby?' I told him we were and he said, 'what's on your list?' and proceeded to help me gather it all up." All I can say, is bless that man's heart.

9:18 am: We arrive at the hospital emergency room and are immediately directed up to the birthing center floor. Of course it was Friday and my OB/GYN is out of the office on Fridays. I was sure they'd have to page him, he wouldn't answer and I'd be stuck with someone I'd never met. After the nurses determined, yes my water had broken and it wasn't something else (duh!) they hooked me up to a contraction monitor and told me to wait a few minutes. Low and behold, I hear my doctor's voice. My husband peeps around the corner and there he is! He waved him over and he came to see me. I don't think I'd ever been as happy to see someone at the right moment as I had been to see him then. He checked me out and determined they'd probably try to stop labor and hold me a few more days.

11 am: My parents are now on the way to Charleston with Tony's not too far behind. The doctor had now determined that they were going to need to transfer me to a hospital in a bigger city (Champaign, for those of you who are familiar with our region) because if they couldn't stop my labor, they would prefer that hospital for their neonatal services. So, they'll send an ambulance, I'm told. At this point we're still thinking I'll be on hospital bed rest for a few days, if not weeks.

12 pm: I'm starving, but of course they won't let me eat. Now the ambulance is here to get me and the nurse is getting me ready to transfer onto the stretcher. Of course they send two male ambulance personnel to assist so all I can think about (and say out loud) is, "Please keep my butt covered!" For whatever reason, although you pretty much lose all dignity during the birth process, I became obsessed with no one seeing my back end! I get to the ambulance and tell my husband to make sure he gets something to eat on his way up to the next hospital (it's about a 45-minute ride) since we don't know when we'll get the next meal. As soon as I get in the ambulance I'm talking to the nurse about the hospital bedrest and such and she just looks at me and says with a smirk, "Oh no, honey, we're having this baby today!" WHAT?! That's all I could think. "Today, you mean, like this afternoon?" Yes, it would be this afternoon, well evening. My poor husband in the car behind us has yet to gain this piece of knowledge...

1:15 pm: We arrive at the larger hospital and I'm taken to my room. Contractions are stronger now. They're going to do an ultrasound. The ultrasound is fine, baby's lungs are fine, no steroid shots needed. My husband is now in the room and is about as shocked as I am that we are going to have this baby today (by C-section because the stubborn little guy was breech, just like his momma).

2:30 pm (I think): Both families have arrived and heard the news. Now it's time to wait and bide our time.

5:30 pm: Finally, an operating room is open and Tony and I get suited up to go in. It's cold as ice (yeah, I'm singing that song now too) in the operating room and I'm splayed with arms out on the table like some kind of posable doll. Now I'm shaky because I've had the spinal block to numb my bottom half and the whole thing is getting very real. The nice and very enetertaining anesthesiologist gets me a blanket and they bring Tony in after what feels like forever.

6:34 pm: They wheel over the most precious, perfect little person I've ever seen (5 lbs, 6 oz, 19 in. long) and let Tony take a few pictures before he is whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). I'm taken to recovery where Tony graciously waits for a while before I tell him to please go talk to the families and go with the baby. I fall asleep.

This is where the timeline gets away from me. I was pretty groggy, but the long and the short of it is I got wheeled to the NICU in my hospital bed, they took a picture of our new little family and then my family and Tony's came to visit me in my hotel room until I got tired and sick from the anesthesia and everyone went home so we could sleep. It was just about the craziest day I've ever had but it was worth it a million times over.

My poor little Tyler had to stay in the NICU for a total of 18 days. Luckily he was never sick, just still developing. He ate mostly through a feeding tube until we could get him used to a bottle. They called him a "grower/feeder" since he didn't have any health issues. He had an IV for one day and oxygen for one day and then he was on his own unless you count heart monitors for the rest of the 18 days. Only me, Tony and both sets of grandparents could visit him (to keep germs to a minimum), so it was hard not to be able to show him off, but it made it that much more exciting when everyone could finally meet him. It was hard to leave him in the NICU (we stayed at a house on the hospital's campus for a few days, it was a free service and wonderful, but after a while we decided to go home and drive back and forth) but he's home now and almost 5 months old doing great! He's definitely my favorite (mis)adventure to date!

We recently had the plesure of attending the NICU reunion and seeing some of the babies that were  with Tyler in the NICU and others that were there while we were. It's nice to see them all healthy, happy and outside the confines of a hospital. It was also wonderful to see the nurses and doctors that provided such wonderful care for our favorite little guy!

Tyler Nicholas Pleasant

4 months old

A Misadventures in Mommyhood Moment

Brought to you by the letter "P" for poop!

As you've probably discovered, I'm a new mom. I definitely don't take that job lightly, but it definitely has it's lighter moments. Here is a recent one.

So, on a recent morning I'm doing my hair in the main bathroom of our home. My husband and I have decided that we need to be better adults and maybe try getting up even before our son is awake as opposed to using him as our alarm. What happens when we do that is we tend to already be behind before our day even gets started, so we're both up getting things done. When my son wakes up we take turns getting ready and then switch so the other person can get ready for work. But, I digress.

I'm in the bathroom doing my hair and the door flys open and my husband is standing there with my son. I thought to myself, "What could possibly get them away from their morning Sports Center session?" Then it hit me. The smell of a little gift my son often makes for us. My husband usually brings my son to me when it's time for the big diaper changes and I don't mind but this became funny really fast. He was holding the baby horizontally and when he lifted him away from his body and pulled away the burp rag hung over my son's behind I could see that there was poo-poo on my husband's shirt and pants and all over my son's leg. After I stopped laughing I took over so my husband could go take a shower.

Now, for anyone who has ever dealt with a blow-out you know it's hard to decide where to start. These are zip-up jammies my son is wearing so in order to get the diaper in the first place I have to remove his feet from the little footies of the pajamas. Oh yeah. Not pleasant. So, I'm covered in it, he's covered in it and now my husband is laughing. But we get that all cleaned up and manged to get all wiped down and smelling good. I dress my son and the day goes on as planned...gather up, load up and head to daycare. On our way out the door we decide we need to soak the jammies and throw them in a sink after discovering our washer doesn't really have a soak cycle per-se. You can only imagine what my house smelled like by lunchtime. Let's just say I'll leave it at that!

Misadventures in Health

The Pleasant Family is generally a healthy crew, well, at least they were until last week. I can honestly say last week may have been one for the stress record books. It really began on Monday, although we didn't know that then.

My husband, Tony, works in an office. Apparently he went to fix something on another computer in that office and misjudged a chair, we'll call it. You know, like when you go to step down off a step and it's further away than you thought? It was that, just with an office chair. This created a sharp pain in his abdomen he told me when he got home that day. Luckily, the pain went away that evening. So, he wakes up the next day and says he's a little sore, but nothing else.

Fast forward to noon the next day. After complaining of a few painful spasms, he calls me at noon and says he's headed straight to the emergency room. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hello?"
Tony: "Hi, I'm on my way to the emergency room."
Me: "Ok, are you okay? Can you wait for me to drive you?"
Tony: "No, I've already left home I'll just meet you there."

So, I jet off from work to the emergency room a little more than slightly worried, because for my husband to go to the ER, it must really hurt. He told me it felt like it might be his appendix. To make what could be an even longer story short, they do bloodwork, a CT scan and determine that it's not his appendix (whew!), but it could be kidney stones. So we wait a little while longer and they determine it's not that either. The diagnosis works out to be a severe muscle strain, from, yep the chair incident! It's not funny (okay, it's maybe a little funny), but they gave him pain killers and naproxen for the muscle spasms causing the pain.

Now, many days later, this leads to heartburn. The poor guy now has consistent heartburn and stomach pain so he quits taking the meds and goes to our regular family doctor (because 48 hours of persistent heartburn is not normal!) who informs him that the naproxen is causing that and it'll be another 7-10 days before that lets up. Needless to say, he will have to suffer some more, poor guy.

But, that can't be the end of this little misadventure! Two days after this little incident I'm sitting at work and my daycare calls me to inform me that my son has neither eaten or made a wet diaper since he's been there (he was dropped off at 8 am, it's now noon). So, I call his doctor and get no one. I leave work to go get him and the little guy can't even wake up or pick up his head. This has me scared to death, but luckily my husband shows up and we take the baby right to the doctor. No one is there (can they really send an entire office of pediatricians to lunch at the same time? Apparently they can!). We procede to the ER for the SECOND time this week. By this time Tyler is awake, but still groggy. They give him chest xrays, which he did not like, and an upper respiratory virus test, which he really didn't like.

All tests come back negative and it turns out he just has a chest virus. The grogginess was caused by dehydration from not wanting to eat. The worry is less, but the poor guy now undergoes saline nebulizer treatments and a whole lot of nose sucking to help relieve the congestion. He should return to normal in a few weeks. I also had nebulizer treatments when I was little and boy, have those machines come a long way! Ours looks like a little puppy now. When I was little, it was a big, scary box with a handle!

Anyway, that's the end of this misadventure, let's just hope we don't have to have anymore like it in the near (or far) future!