Land of the Dulldrums

That is just how I have been feeling lately. I am just sort of in a funk. I think there is just so much going on in our lives right now and with the pregnancy on top of that and the stress and worry over this new baby my mind just went into a fog. It is so hard to motivate myself to do anything all day.

I have an ultrasound on Friday to try and determine how far along we are in this pregnancy and I think that will make my mood better. At our last midwife appointment when I was supposedly 12 weeks we were not able to hear the heartbeat on the doppler and my uterus was not measuring 12 weeks. Which isn’t too alarming on its own since I didn’t feel like I was that far along anyway. I think I am closer to 8-9 weeks pregnant. However, last Friday I had some spotting and that was stressful. I have never spotted before in a pregnancy and even though it wasn’t red blood and they say it can be normal it has stressed me out since we haven’t heard the heartbeat yet. So, we’ll find out on Friday.

Mike’s parents are also most likely moving in with us at the end of June. One of them needs to find a job up here with health insurance and so that is what we are praying for right now.  It is also possible that Mike’s sister will be moving in with us in August. It may become a rather full house, but that is okay. The more the merrier. Right? :)

We’re also having a hard time being able to see Mikayla right now and that is frustrating. We haven’t been able to see her since April and she doesn’t even know we are pregnant yet. We’re supposed to have her this weekend so I am crossing my fingers that it all works out.

Honestly what is stressing me out the most is Garrett and this pregnancy. We just found out that Garrett has developed 2 new allergies in addition to the ones he all ready has. He is now also allergic to rice and sesame so all of his allergies include: wheat, dairy, egg, soy, peanut, sunflower, pea, sesame, rice and dog (he doesn’t eat dogs but if he gets licked by one he breaks out in hives).  So far we don’t have to take rice out of his diet (they want us to continue unless his reactions get bad) but I still cried the whole way home. Usually I’m a pretty good sport about his allergies but on Tuesday I definitely had a “why me???!!!” day. I am very worried that this next baby will also have extreme allergies like Garrett and it is frustrating beyond belief that no one can give me an answer on what to do/not do to prevent allergies in this next baby. And it is the same with Garrett, so far people can only tell us what he is allergic to and we have not been able to make any progress in healing his gut or reversing his allergies. I just pray that time will eventually heal his little body and that he will eventually be able to eat most foods. I am interested in visiting a local NAET specialist in Bellingham just to give it a try. Honestly, I’m very skeptical about this allergy elimination technique but at this point we’re willing to try anything. I’ve just got to come up with a way to pay for it since insurance won’t cover the treatments and unfortunately, they’re expensive. I am thinking of doing some fundraising this summer to raise money for a few trial treatments to see if it makes any kind of improvement.

Well, I think that is all for now. I can not wait for this fog to lift so that I actually feel like doing stuff. Right now I just want to sleep all day.

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No More Diapers for Garrett

Well, it is now safe to say that Garrett is officially potty-trained for daytime. He’s been going diaper free during the day for the last two weeks or so (even at nap time) but I thought I’d wait awhile to post it here so as not to jinx myself. He is 21 months old. We are still using a diaper at night and he is peeing in those about 40% of the time and the other days he wakes up dry. I’d imagine within a few months or so he’ll be completely potty trained.

Overall, I really loved our E.C. (elimination communication) experience. I took a pretty laid back approach to it and decided we’d try it but that if it didn’t work out for us, no biggie. We had an expected set back around the 11-14 month range which I expected after watching the experiences of my friends. Most kids that are E.C’d go through a phase in which they want nothing to do with the potty because they’re figuring out their own independence, busy crawling/walking, etc. I just diapered him through that phase and waited and it worked out great.

Recently Garrett was potty trained during the day if he was naked (that’s been for the last several months) but he can now wear underwear and clothes and remember to take them off first before sitting on the potty. If he can’t get it off by himself (footie jammies for example) he will tell me he has to go “poo poo” or he will goo “psssss” which I think is absolutely hilarious since that is how we cued him with the “pssss” sound when he was an infant but I have not used that cue sound with him since he was six months or so. It amazes me that the cue sound is still in his memory. In fact, the whole E.C. thing in general is just amazing to me. The amount of control that Garrett has over his bladder and his awareness of it is just really impressive, not because he’s some magical kid or anything but just because we are taught that young children don’t have control or awareness over it when in fact, they do if we don’t teach them to ignore it at birth. Garrett can hold it for hours and hours and hours and he will even tell me while we’re driving in the car that he has to go potty and if I told him to wait for a minute, he can!

Anyway, it’s been a great experience and I’m happy we’ve done it. I realize it didn’t “officially” potty train him that much sooner than kids can potty train anyway but to me it made a world of difference in so many other areas and really he has been potty trained for a lot longer he’s just needed help with the aspects his fine motor skills couldn’t control yet.

I plan on taking the same E.C. approach with our next baby. We’ll give it a go and if it works great, if not no biggie. :)

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