Annual Physicals

All three of my daring girls were due for check-ups so 2 weeks ago, I took them all in.

Dash had her 18 month check-up and a couple vaccines, the Reader had her 10 year old check-up, and Spitfire had her 6 yr old physical as well.

I scheduled them for the same time and on a day where I only had one daycare client, knowing that it would be a longer-than-normal appointment.

A student nurse practitioner did the bulk of the appointment and my favorite nurse practitioner came to double check and ask/answer a few follow up questions.

All 3 girls are doing really well. The Reader has developed scoliosis and we'll start seeing Dr. Randy with Advanced Spinal Care for treatment in October. We'll need to come up with a long term plan for her but also for me, since I continue to have issues with my headaches.

The appointment, start to finish, was 2 hours long! It was definitely longer than I'd planned. Dash was awesome the entire time and even told me part way through that she needed to go to the bathroom, more or less showing off for the NPs. It absolutely put a big smile on my face!

Dash had xrays done the following morning on her hips and femurs, to check for any abnormalities because her feet overpronate quite a bit and it's causing some issues with clumsiness and has prevented her from learning how to run. At her age, she ought to be able to run already and she can't. She walks quickly, but it causing some significant stumbling and she's bloodied her face more than once because of falling.

The x-rays came back normal so at the advice of a friend, I'm trying something "out of the box".

Dash is walking around with her shoes on the wrong feet. It is changing her gait enough that her dad, who hadn't seen her in a week, commented on the change. We'll keep this up for a couple of weeks and watch for changes.

When the Reader and I begin chiropractic care again, we'll ask about Dash's feet. Because the rotation is all the way up through the knee and into the hip, I suspect there's some sort of sublaxation or a muscle that's too tight or too loose (a butt muscle or tendon?) that's causing it.

I could be totally wrong, but it's definitely something to ask about when we start seeing Dr. Randy.

Now for the fun part: Stats!

Each of the stats for the girls was a bit of a surprise for me because they've grown so much!

The Reader is 82.4 lbs, which is 70th percentile. She's also 5' 0.25" tall, which is 98th percentile.

Spitfire is 42 lbs, putting her in the 31st percentile for weight. She's always been tiny, so this wasn't really a surprise. Her height, however, was a bit of a shock. At 46" tall, she's 62nd percentile! She's pretty much never been above 50th percentile for anything other than intelligence, so she must have just finished a growth spurt of some kind.

Dash continues to grow nicely, too! She measured in at 27.4 lbs, 92nd percentile and 34" tall, which is 97th percentile. Now, how in the world did she grow that much?!?!??

If you recall, she's had some serious fluctuation in her growth percentiles since before birth. In her early appointment, I think the technique for measuring was the culprit. This time, unless their ruler is hung wrong, was an accurate reading. They use a pull-down tape measure that is suspended from the top of the wall and it rests on their head, parallel to the floor.

No marking the foot and head on a piece of paper then use a tape measure . . .

It is possible that when The Reader goes in for her 11 year old physical, she will be taller than me! Her feet are already bigger than mine, so I guess her height should follow that, right?!??

June Update

My time is quite limited today but it's been a couple of months so I wanted to take 5 minutes for a quick update.
Dash is now 17 months old, fully potty-trained, and starting to talk!!
She mimics quite a few words and signs a few others. Today in the car, clear as day, said, "Thank you!"
It made me want to cry. She's a little speech delayed, like her biggest sister was, so to hear something so simple really made my day.
She still won't call me mama, but I'll take progress with other words instead.
She'll get there.
The Reader celebrated her 10th birthday last week. We also found out she earned a perfect score on her Math and Virginia Studies SOL exams and a 520/600 on her Reading exam. Her Reading exam was interrupted by a raging case of hand, foot, and mouth disease so I'm quite impressed that she did as well as a 520. The first day of testing she was sick but we didn't know it. By the next morning, she had over 20 sores in her mouth. She missed a week of school.
Spitfire has her birthday tomorrow. I am having a hard time believing she'll be 6. She's reading up a storm and last night I had to tell her to put the book away during dinner. I don't allow reading at the table for dinner time. We use dinner as a chance to talk as a family and books prevent that.
Also, let's face it: There are 3 kids at the table and food gets spilled all the time. So for the sake of all our books, they aren't allowed.
I am hanging in there okay. We made a half-hearted attempt at ttc this month but I highly doubt anything will come of it and that's okay still. We have some unique challenges ahead of us between now and the end of the year and although I'm ready to be pregnant one last time, it would really be better timing if we waited until January.
But you can believe that come January, we're putting all our cards on the proverbial table. I'll meet with my OB or possibly Shady Grove before then to get the meds I need to ovulate. I'm already monitoring my BBT because I had surprises and my cycles aren't even close to regular, especially when I'm breastfeeding.
And breastfeeding is still going really well. Dash nurses 3-4 times a day is all and is finally getting her appetite back. She also had hand, foot, and mouth disease and refused to eat solid foods for several weeks afterwards. Her weight is down a full pound from her 15 month check-up and I'm hoping we'll be able to get it back up before her 18 month check-up in a few weeks.
She sleeps in a toddler bed now, too. One of these days I'll go on my parenting high-horse about that but not today!
I have dishes to wash, a floor to sweep, and a daycare interview to prepare for. Wish me luck!

Change of Plans

My husband and I will be celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary next week! Fourteen crazy years . . .filled with so many ups and downs it's rather hard to think of them all.

Our lives have, as I've mentioned before, a completely different shape and path than the one we both set ourselves on the day we said, "Yes."

We envisioned having 4 children fairly close together, I'd stay home once he finished law school, and by the time we were 50, our kids would be out of the house and we could travel with all the money he'd made.

HA! That's sort of the exact opposite of what's happened.

I've spent some time writing about attempting pregnancy again because that goal of having 4 (or even 5?) children to raise isn't something that I've given up on and it still feels like another child is in the cards. We had talked about it a couple of months ago and I had come to the conclusion that we could officially start trying this month but when I hit cycle day 1 and it was time to start my preconception medications, something felt off. Not horribly off, but just a small nagging presence. . .

I have learned to listen to that feeling and spoke to my other half about it late in the morning and we discussed it that evening and the following day as well, allowing time for both of us to pray about it on our own.  The meds I needed could be started on CD2 if needed, although that wouldn't have been as ideal as day 1.

One of the aspects of marriage that I truly treasure is when we pray individually for answers and both come up with the same, or at least very similar, responses.  Receiving the same revelation is comforting in a way that little else is, even when that revelation isn't what either of us wanted.

In the case of attempting pregnancy, we both got what I'd call the "non-answer," meaning that Heavenly Father wants us to decide for ourselves but He would rather we ask again later. Since I still haven't felt the overwhelming urge to attempt pregnancy like I experienced month after month since 2003, I put the meds back in the cupboard and we'll kneel together in a month or two to see if anything has changed. 

My husband still wants a son. The pain and frustration is still there. When he talks about having a son, I can see something in him that is unique to him. It's not something I've ever seen in him before and I've known him for almost 20 years. Imagine dreaming of something your whole life and then realizing that your dream may not ever come true . . . it's soul crushing.  That kind of pain can ruin a marriage or cause the sufferer to treat others with a lesser degree of love.

But not my husband. He cherishes his daughters, and me, and I see that in his eyes when he looks at us, in his language when he speaks to us, and in his actions as he serves us in all the ways he knows how.

I want to see him hold his living son in his arms, kiss his forehead, get peed on in the way only an infant boy can pee on his daddy, to build with Legos, watch football, and use a saw.

I want my husband to be able to teach our son how to serve God, how to follow the promptings of the Spirit, how to prepare for a mission and a temple marriage.

I want my husband to see his dreams fulfilled.

But not yet and possibly not ever and that's something we will both have to live with.

The gender of my children is not a big deal for me but having a son matters to me because it matters to him.

15 Months

Dash is 15 months old and potty trained. The last week everything truly came together. It's entertaining when she tries to tell me she needs to go. Sometimes she comes and grabs at my thighs but she's starting to try and sit on the potty by herself, almost always ending up with a foot IN the little potty! Today she even picked up the potty and brought it to me.

I got the picture loud and clear.

She had her check-up yesterday. Not only were the nurses shocked that she was in panties, but add to that her reaction to the vaccines and I'm pretty sure she was talked about for the rest of the afternoon. Three injections and not even a whimper, just a little pout where she curled her lower lip, stared at them for a second, then looked at me for reassurance.

Easy.  She slept a little rough for the first half of the evening last night but once midnight hit, she slept through to 6:00.

Truth be told, the band-aids they put on her bothered her more than the shots did.  She was not happy when I took those off her last night!

Based on her measurements, her height at her one year check up must have been off.  She measured 30.5" tall, placing her in the 48th percentile, closer to her measurements before birth and for the first 9 months.  Her weight on the other hand? Not so little!  She weighs 25 lbs 9 oz, which is 94th percentile for weight.

Since she's no longer wearing diapers I can gauge her size a little better. Her waist is clearly a size 3 and since we're now in shorts weather, this is perfect. For cooler days, her size 2T pants fit much better now without the diaper taking up a lot of room, but only the stretchy 2s fit.  Anything else is just too snug around her midsection.

There are 2 things we (doctor and myself) are going to keep an eye on in the next 3 months: Dash's speech and her turned out feet.

If she's not using 8-10 words regularly by 18 months, we'll be referred to the Child Find program for an evaluation. Since The Reader was in speech therapy, our doctor knows that I'd rather start therapy sooner if it's needed rather than waiting it out.

So we shall see!

What Loss Does to You

It's a nice, peaceful afternoon here. I sat with a few of the kids and had a picnic lunch in the yard while a couple of the babies slept in the stroller. The weather is so beautiful and that adds to the peace I have felt through most of the day.

The daycare children are napping and so are Dash and Spitfire.

I'm the only one awake and that is a rare occurrence.

I decided it would be a good time to call our bank and set up a savings account for Dash, as all the necessary documentation was right in front of me from finishing our taxes.

Our account doesn't have the option of doing ongoing automatic transfers without an end date, so I kept clicking the month forward button and picked a random day in 2019. You would think that's not a big deal, but this is what repeat pregnancy loss does to you:

As I pulled up my online calendar, making a note in 3 years' time to renew the automatic transfers, I thought to myself, "I hope she's alive and well because it's really going to suck when I see this if she isn't."

What parent actually thinks that when they have healthy children?

A loss mom, that's who.

Second Stillbirthday

Today is our son's second stillbirthday.

Last year I felt like I handled it really well. I had my sweet, new little miracle to hold, cuddle, and do a little crying with. I took all the girls and we bought balloons and set them free, watching as the wind changed directions and blew them into a nearby tree, entangling those little strings for months.

I'm not doing anything like that this year. One major reason is that I felt guilty for littering and could see the evidence of that for months when I took the children to the park.

The other is that it's again very windy and a little cool. I don't have it in me to walk across the street with the kids and buy balloons, head to the park, and let them go.

I'm too depressed/sad/grief stricken to do much of anything today. I did get 25 minutes of my normal 30 minute work-out completed, but I couldn't even finish that last few minutes.

I feel  . . . raw . . .  exposed . . .alone . . . unprepared.

For reasons I don't understand, the grief has hit much harder than I expected. I thought that the first stillbirthday would be the hardest but I was very wrong.

It's so much worse this year.

There is someone that woke up thinking about Jackson.

My loving husband. I am so grateful that we chose each other as spouses and have both stayed committed to loving and serving one another through the good and the bad. It hasn't always been easy for either of us.

The loss of a child can be devastating to a marriage. Based on a couple different studies I read (you can find them here and here), chances of divorce go up 7-9% over the rest of the population after the death of a child. I don't know the statistics for stillbirths but I can say that of the 7 couples I know who have lost their babies in the last 3 years, 2 have since divorced.

My husband posted this scripture on my facebook wall this morning before I woke:

"Can a woman forget her nursing child,

And not have compassion on the son

of her womb? Surely they may

forget, Yet I will not forget you."

--Isaiah 49:15

There ought to be a law against making one's spouse cry before 6am. (Kidding!) 

My husband thought about me . . . about our son . . . and took the time from his morning routine to let me know that he was thinking about us. Things like that make me fall in love with him even more.

Birthday Musings

Dash's birthday has come and gone and another month has passed as well. Time seems to be accelerating as I get older and I really don't like it much. My own birthday is just a couple of weeks away.

Thirty six. I will be 36 years old. To put that into a little crazy perspective about where I am in life compared with my ancestors, I'm going to share a little family data.

My great-grandmother was born in July, 1920. A month before her 17th birthday, she gave birth to my grandmother. That grandmother had my dad 9 days before her 19th birthday. This means that 6 weeks prior to her 36th birthday, my great -grandma became a grandmother.

By the time she was my age she was a grandma.

Now I realize that this is not exactly modern day normal, but I know it's not incredibly unusual, either. I had an acquaintance my freshman year of college whose mother was 35 and I have seen demographic information that indicates that being a grandma at my age isn't really that rare.

And that makes me feel old.

Other things that make me feel old are knowing that my own mother was an empty-nester the week of her 45th birthday. ALL her kids were grown and out of the house when she was a mere nine years older than I am now.  Add to the list that my grandfather will be celebrating his 20th anniversary, to the dear wife he married when I was a senior in high school, that this year's college freshman class was born after I met my husband, and students beginning Driver's Ed later this year have lived their entire lives with America fighting the war on terror. . .

Yes, I feel old.

But I'm not. Not really!

I'm healthier (for the most part) than I was in my 20s, my energy remains with me throughout most of the day, my family is making some serious long-term planning that makes me feel young and excited, and getting up at night with my toddler doesn't have me dragging the next day.

Toddler. *sigh* It's hard to say that because she's not a baby anymore.

So before I forget, I thought I should share her 12 month check-up stats. After a week of illness, Dash weighed in at 23.8 pounds (85th percentile) and although I don't remember her height, the CNP said it  was 95th percentile. She has outgrown size 18 month clothes everywhere except sleeve length. Those short arms in-utero have stayed with her. She's not walking, which has been a frustrating surprise. She'll walk holding onto my finger with one hand, but the moment I let go, she bends her right knee to get down and steady herself. I know the walking will come with time, but I'm so very ready to finish potty training her and doing so before she can walk seems like more effort than even I am willing to put in.

The doctor is a little concerned about her speech; a concern I share. She is saying "Dada" and "Mama" but not consistently. However, she added a new word this week: babble. A few times a week I put on one of three speech videos that came recommended to us when The Reader was in speech therapy. The series is Baby Babble and it is very loved around here! If I ask or mention that I'm putting on Baby Babble, Dash will say "babble", although it sounds more like "bab". If she hasn't shown improvement by her 15 month checkup, I'll look into having her tested. Multiple studies have shown that early intervention has distinct benefits over waiting it out. You can find more info on there here if you want.

The last thing to mention is probably the one that makes me the most "smiley" on the inside: Spitfire is reading! She can easily work her way through the level 1 readers and is quickly advancing to level 2. She joins in our family scripture study, too, making sure that as we go around, she gets her chance to read a verse, too.

Her favorite line from the Book of Mormon is "And it came to pass" but she can read some of the harder names, too, like Gadianton, Kishkumen, and Pahoran. Words like "thought", "might", and "desolate" require a little help but if she keeps progressing as fast as she had, they won't need help for long.

I have one daughter learning to walk, one learning to read, and one who is learning to lead (more on that later). I am one lucky (not too old!) Mama.