Three Months New

Have you ever taken a look at your life and wondered where time has gone?

Today I did just that.

My little Dash is 3 months old today. She's growing like a weed, too. In the last couple of weeks she's started laughing and holding on to nearby objects, like my shirt or the straps on my ergobaby carrier.

Her head control is still coming along nicely and she now spends a good half an hour in the exersaucer each day, sometimes more.

I keep forgetting to place her on her tummy to develop those necessary muscles and to help with the curvature of her spine and for that I feel like a "bad mommy". I had a similar problem with my other 2 children. It seems like I'm in a constant battle between the baby just eating and not wanting to put pressure on her tummy while she's got a full stomach and waiting too long, so she's tired and doesn't want to be anywhere but in her bed.

Perhaps tomorrow I will remember?

At her 2 month well baby visit, I asked the doctor if I could get Dash tested for the MTHFR gene mutation. I knew through my repeat pregnancy testing that I was negative for the mutation but my desire to know if Dash had it, inherited through her father, was enough for me to subject her to a blood draw.

Yes, the mutation is that important to me. I have learned so much about what MTHFR can do and the impact that it might have on vaccinations that I simply needed to know. In short, the mutation alters how a specific enzyme works in the body. That enzyme has some very important roles in the body and when it's mutated, certain processes in the body don't work.

Here you can learn what that a decent list of health problems are associated with MTHFR, including depression, ADHD, autism, migraines with aura, certain cancers, early miscarriage, and bi-polar disorder.  It's an important gene mutation and the medical community seems to be picking up on that slowly but surely.

According to this site, 98% of those with autism spectrum disorder have at least one of the MTHFR gene mutations. Roughly 40% of the American population has one of the mutations. The difference between those two populations (MTHFR mutations vs no mutation) is huge.

Can you see why it was important for me to know??

The results from Dash's test came in a few days ago: Negative for MTHFR gene mutations.

Phew!

With this in mind, I will soon be pursuing the immunizations I had skipped before. It will be a slow process, and there will be vaccines along the way that I will skip, but at least now I am less concerned about adding stress to her body in a manner she may not have been able to handle before.

I have no scientific studies to back it up, but I believe that immunizations are a link in the chain that causes autism. I also think that additives such as folic acid (which those with the mutation do not handle well) and high levels of heavy metals are other links in the chain. When the body can't process things, they build up to toxic levels, causing damage to the brain.

Am I right? I don't know! But I have known a few mothers who have reversed their children's ASD diagnosis through dietary and lifestyle changes in conjunction with therapy.

But without the gene, this is one less thing for me to worry about (but still something I am keeping my ear on because it matters).

Wherever You Are

Board books and I do not get along very well and it's entirely my fault. Perhaps it says something about me more than anything else, but I tend to find the abbreviated stories in most of them to be pretty watered down. Others are too congested with pictures of objects filling every tiny little space, leaving no white space whatsoever.

They're cluttered and nonsensical.

In the 9 years I've been a parent, there have been a very select few that I like.

And only two that I love.

One of these two precious books was a gift for our baby from my husband's baby sister. The book is titled Wherever You Are my love will find you. It's written by Nancy Tillman.

I've never cried reading a board book and I certainly wouldn't have guessed that such a benign looking book would leave me sobbing as I attempted to read it to my 11 week old don't-want-to-stop-crying baby last night.

The book opens with the line, "I wanted you more than you ever will know, so I sent love to follow wherever you go." I should have known with that opening line that my emotions would surface quickly, but I was still caught off guard.

The rhyming continues as I, the reader, told my daughter just how many feats my love can accomplish. With each new way that I told her how my love will find her, my emotions bubbled up until tears were flowing freely down my face.

In many ways, it felt like I was bearing testimony of my love for my daughter to her. The words, though not mine, rung with truth and I know she's young, but she was absolutely paying attention to me. Her crying turned to a whimper then to a quiet, wide-eyed calm and she tried to make sense of what was going on.

Through my tears I kept reading until the very last line, a phrase I've held close to my heart since childhood, "you're never alone".

The drawings are simple and elegant, easy for a young baby to focus on with animals and nature scenes that match the poetry. They were just what I love to see in a children's book.

So if you need a good cry, or a simple gift to share with another, here is a good place to start . . .

And thank you, sweet S, for such a wonderful gift.

Honoring Our Past

I typed this yesterday, but didn't get it posted:

Three hundred sixty five days ago, my husband and I had the worst 36 hours of our lives. In that time, our son passed away, we received medical confirmation of his death, we told his sisters, and then we went to the hospital so that I could give birth to him.

It was an experience many families have had and for each of us, it is a painful reminder that pregnancy and birth are truly amazing.

If I had known that day what the following year had in store for me, I would have wanted to believe it so very badly but I would have been incredibly skeptical.

But here I am. A mother with 3 living daughters. My dear little Dash has brought peace to my heart and I can't imagine my life without her.

She was always meant to be a part of our family. I know this with every fiber of my being.

Even knowing that, I couldn't let Jackson's birthday pass without taking some time to remember him. And so it was that with 6 children in tow, I walked across the street to Giant (our local grocery store) and purchased 4 balloons with the intent of releasing them in the park and watching them drift into the sky. I wasn't sure what colors I wanted at first. . .

Blue & black?

Blue & white?

Pink & blue?

Pink & black? 

Looking at my daughters I chose 3 pink balloons and one blue, one for each of the children I'd given birth to.

The weather decided not to cooperate today. Winds are gusting over 30mph with steady winds around 12mph.

Have you ever tried to push a triple stroller with an infant in a carrier on your chest, while holding 4 balloons in gusting wind?

It isn't easy!

 . . . But it was so much easier than losing our child.

My absolutely amazing mother-in-law drove to the park to take pictures. I probably have the best mother-in-law anyone could ask for. My husband definitely got his awesomeness from his parents.

She is also the only family member who held our son after his birth. Jackson was her grandson and she has acknowledged his presence in her life in many small ways. . .and today she came to take pictures.

As with many things in my life, even this couldn't go smoothly.  We were about to let the balloons go when I realized they'd blow right into a nearby tree, so we moved back so the wind would blow them up and over the tennis courts instead.

Right as we let go, the wind switched directions and the balloons tangled in the tree! It's not the kind of tree that can be climbed, so unfortunately, those ribbons will be stuck there for quite some time.

Over the next hour, as the children ate some lunch and played at the park, each balloon popped as it was blown into the budding branches. Jackson's blue balloon was the first to go, followed by each of the pink ones.

The entire event felt little too much like my life's allegory.

******************

The reason for the delay in the post was that another thing went wonky with my day. I couldn't get either the desktop or laptop computers to recognize my 9 year old SLR or its memory card. I have a lot of pictures of our balloon release, but currently no way to upload them.

Isn't that just fitting?

I went to the mailbox this afternoon and was surprised to see cards from two friends, one local and one who lives 3,000 miles away. Each has a very heartfelt message inside that put me in tears.

Thank you, to both of you, for your amazing thoughtfulness. And to each of you who shared your candles for my son once again, I thank you, too.