Party!

The little guy had a great time last night at the Chase BBQ! He danced, flirted, ate, drank some formula, and then refused to go to sleep until he was in the car. He didn't wake up till 8:30 this morning. And lucky him, so far it seems that he has Daddy's natural mosquito repellant. I on the other hand managed to get 12 bites before Bea and Rob took pity on me and found me a jacket and bug-be-gone. We're going to go camping next weekend, and I'm going to go invest in the wipes she gave me to use. I've always hated the sprays, and the lotions don't seem to work. But just one wipe got all my exposed skin covered in the citronella scented repellant. It sayed oily for quite a while, but I found it kind of soothing on the bites I already had. I wonder if they make a kid/baby version?

Daddy and I also had a lot of fun. I love seeing hubby enjoy himself like this. If you had told him two years ago that he could have this much fun without drinking he wouldn't believe you.

Cheese!

And Again

Kid: (to Rick) Oh, you do lessons? What's your name?

Rick: Rick

Kid: Are you Tom?

......

I'm sick to death of being so stressed all of the time. Why can't anyone just give me an answer (preferably a good one) so that I can move on to dealing with it? If someone doesn't figure it out soon I will probably start tearing muscles in my jaw again. Well, I guess going on a soft diet for 6 weeks to let them heal would help me lose weight.

Why is it that no matter how many people say "Call me anytime you need to talk" when you actually do really need someone to talk to no-one is available?

Seriously

We just got a call from a kid about some replacement parts for a strat.

Rick: So, is this an american strat?

Kid: Yeah, it says right here "Made in Indonesia"

really.

My Big Boy!

6 Days Old

3 Months Old

6 Months Old!

Kiddo is 6 Months old today! Woohoo!

I'm hoping that Antonella leaves tonight, but the H-Male factor is going to be higher than ever even if she's beaten two songs with a knobbly stick. On the other hand Melinda looked and sounded like a professional singing "My Funny Valentine"-which is a song I've never been crazy about. But these two girls show the difference between beating a song into submission and owning it. And, except for Gina, I could punt any of the white girls out without feeling bad. Though they really do need online voting. The network says it would be too difficult, but it worked for Rockstar and Dancing with the Stars. . .I'm thinking it has more to do with sponserships.

Yay for results shows!

Cheese!

Eating with the idols

Little guy is eating everything we put in front of him, except his captopril. The pharmacy tech who mixed it was a lazy a** and made it as a water solution instead of sugar. Hubby didn't want to wait another hour and a half for the guy to do it so he just took it. Personally I would have waited, but then I was the only one who had to give him this form of meds before. It only took one try for him to figure out why I was upset. They told me that I could mix it into other things to make it taste better but the kid isn't fooled. suckage. But he's chowing down on bananas and sweet potatos. He had no intrest in rice cereal before, but he kept trying to get into other people's food. So I gave him a little bit of a banana I was eating. For whatever reason he likes the rice now that he's tried other things. But I don't feel like he's nursing any less. We feed him gooshy food until he's done, and then he nurses like he hadn't eaten at all. I'm hoping that he's gaining wait a little better because of it. Last month he'd finally hit 13 pounds. Right now he's giving me a big ol' smile every time I look down.



Breathing on his own again.


He may not have been smiling yet, but you could tell he was excited to see us.


Right after we found out that we were going home without the NG.


Sixteen days post-surgery

So hubby was right, Antonella made it through American Idol last week on the horny male vote. And who knows how Sundance survived. Last night though, he did much better. Though someone needs to give the guy a copy of "The Commitments". Mustang Sally sounds pale every time I hear someone else do it now. After last night I would get rid of any of three guys, AJ, Nick, or Brandon. Nick's "Fever" was bland. Brandon's "Time After Time" was pretty boring and he makes me want to clear my throat, it sounds like he's got a cotton-ball soaked in cranberry juice stuffed in there. And AJ, didn't have the growl or the soul to pull off "Feelin' Good". I know the judges liked him, but I didn't. I liked Sanjaya, but if he makes it through this week maybe he should ask Chris S. to help him make a smarter song choice. Overall the guys did much better this week





I'm not going to bother reading the reviews posted on Yahoo by "Television Without Pity" anymore. I don't think the guy knows enough about music to fill a mixtape. And I don't think that he's capable of being objective. Though he is right about Phil being similar to Magni from Rockstar:Supernova. I'll stick with the MSNBC site from now on.





On to the girls!

He'll always be my # 1

I've actually got lots of post-surgery pictures, but I don't think that I'll post most of them.


It's hard to tell in these pictures, but they had to leave his chest open for a few days after surgery. The white-ish thing was a thin plastic sheet that went down into the wound to protect it. I was really glad that they put the opaque mask there, because it was disturbing enough to be able to see his heart moving that clearly without actually being able to see it. Then over the top was that yellow-ish film thingy keeping every nice and sterile, and I think the second sheet lower down on his chest was to keep his ribs from spreading too far. The swelling never got too bad but there was enough room to put my pinky under the second film into his chest.


This was after they closed his chest for the first time. But he did so well that they opened him to remove an assisting device later that day. The little guy kept fighting the sedation and trying to breathe on his own.

It's funny how much I couldn't wait to hear him cry again.

There are times when I'm frustrated with him, and it's good for me to remember that.


On a lighter note, I fell asleep when I got home last night and missed the first twenty-something minutes of AI. But the girls were sooo much better than the guys. Only one girl did badly enough that I would be surprised to see her make it through. And there were at least five that I want to hear again. But I'm confused as to how many people will be leaving tonight. 6? 4? 2? of each? Total? I dunno, guess it doesn't really matter.

I need to get to work. I'd be able to do this at home if I could just get someone to put the desk together.

Cheese!

I wanna sit in a coke-bottle lounge too.

I've actually been watching American Idol this time. Before I'd only watched a few episodes, and last season I actually kept up with the post-show reviews online. But while I was nearing the end of my pregnancy we got hooked on Rockstar:Supernova. Hubby and I had a great time listening and giving our opinions every week. So we've either been watching this together, or I've been taping it so he can watch it later. (except these last two weeks, moving, no VCR) So last night they had the 12 guys sing. I figure Sundance and the first guy to sing are gone, and I hope that the beatboxer, funny Chris with the fuzzy hair, and the guy who missed his daughter being born make it. Other than that I dunno, I thought that the judges were hard on the indian kid - but then I don't know the song he was trying to sing.

I'm looking forward to the girls tonight. The only problem is that I'm super-tired and don't feel that great. The boy is teething I think. But he is showing more enthusiasm for eating bananas. I just wish he didn't like them so ripe.

I should be working.

Cheese

Asleep in grandpa's arms on Halloween. The day before we took him into the doctor's for the "Well-Baby Visit of DOOM!"

The day/night before surgery. They had to tape the arm with the IV to a board so he wouldn't yank it out.

These super-cute pix were my favorites when I had to pump every three hours. I've now used both and I can say that I like my hand-pump better than the electric one at the hospital and RMH. Of course when my super-sweet hubby brought to to SF he forgot to bring any bottles to pump into so I was stuck for two weeks. But I now undersand why so many pumps have some sort of picture frame attached. It really does make a difference.

OOops!

Ok, so it's been a while. But I'm back at work pretty much full time now. We are almost done moving out of the apartment into a BIG house and the boy is doing great! I just wanted to try putting up some pictures now that I finally hooked my camera up to a computer.

These were taken when he was two days old. I'll put up more if these work.

Cheese

typing one-handed

quick update:

We would have been able to leave before the holiday weekend but not eating for a week messed up the little guy's eating habits. So we were almost sent home with a feeding tube. Close enough that that they made me practice putting it in and checking placement. Not fun, but it is easier to do on a baby than an adult.

So, we've been back home for a week. (ya know, that place without internet access) As of today he's 10 lbs. that's just one ounce short of where he was when this whole mess started. The cardiologist said everything looks good and took him off of the lasix, but he's going to have to keep taking the captopril and digoxin for an undetermined amount of time. Maybe forever. That's OK with me, having to give him meds three times a day is do-able. His scar is just a red line down his chest (Dad says that for the rest of his life he'll always be "#1") and the bruising around it is almost gone.

Now if he'd only say amused by his mobile long enough for mom to get some work done. one handed typing is tedious.

cheese!

chuggin' along

As of last night things are still going really well. The day after he started eating the nurses let me breastfeed him again. It was a very scary thing to hold him again when he looks so broken in the middle. But by the second feeding he was back to laying on his side without a problem. The problem, was, that after I left he wasn't eating from a bottle well so while dad and I were gone for the night they put in a NasoGastric tube to feed him. (they did call us to let us know they were doing it) And yesterday when I got in there and tried to feed him again he would eat for a little bit, but then he would just lay there and cry. The nurse told me "sometimes babies just cry" but He just doesn't do that. In the two months I had him he only ever cried for a reason. Sometimes he just wanted to be held, but if your holding him and he's still crying there's a problem. After a bit he coughed up a whole bunch of frothy white mucus. The nurse said "Oh, he just needed to cough something up." Duh. The thing that irritated me was that she didn't listen when I told her that something was wrong. Clearing his lungs was something she couldn't have helped with but she could have listened to me instead of totally discounting what I said. I was probably a touch irritable too from trying to sleep in a chair at the baby's bedside again. I'm not going to to let myself be bullied into that again though. They have plenty of milk in the freezer.

Anyway, they pulled out the arterial line, and both of the remaining drains. And shortly before we transfered him out of the PCICU someone suggested that he might be irritated by the NG tube. So I got them to agree to pull out the tube after they ran a feeding into his stomach so that the next time I could try to get him back on the boob without the tube running down the back of his throat. So Last night he ate beautifully with the tube gone, and I'm hoping that he ate enough from the bottle last night that they didn't put it back in. So with that tube gone the only thing left in him is the PIC line that won't come out till they discharge him. Fine by me sine it allows access both ways and they won't have to stick him again. The poor kid has Mommy's skin and veins.

So in this ward they are going to be concentrating on getting him ready to go home. The main thing that they'll be looking for is how well he's eating. He has to be putting on weight again before he can leave. When this all started he weighed 10 lbs 1 oz, last night he weighed in at 9 lbs 7 oz. Not too bad considering that's he's barely eaten in the last week. We might go home as early as monday, but it'll probably be a little bit longer.

One more cool thing about living at RMH is all of the donations we get. From all of the day-olds at the closest starbucks (including chocolate croissants and cream cheese muffins) to free services from the local businesses. The closest salon offers free haircuts to residents. So I took advantage of it and got a haircut that I really like. I need to take a shower though, and I don't currently have access to a hairdryer so I'm a little sad. When I told all that to the night nurse she asked which salon it was. According to her haircuts there cost "a fortune". So I got the most expensive haircut of my life for free. Cool.

More news later.

Today was a great day

Yesterday wasn't bad either.

Hubby had gone home the night before to be able to go to class in the morning so my cousin came back up to keep me occupied. By the time we got to the hospital they had removed his catheter and the rectal temperature probe. And two or three lines that were going into various limbs. They put in a PIC line that would eventually replace one of the lines that were going directly into his heart. And they were letting him wake up more.

This morning when they were doing rounds they decided to go ahead and remove all three atrial lines one at a time so that they would be able to let him off of the sedation. When we arrived they had already removed the Left one, and after a bit we decided that we would head back to RMH to shower/shave/eat. They said that they were going to remove the two going to the right atrium and then give him time to wake up from the sedation. So they didn't expect to be taking him off of the respirator for a few hours. An hour and a half later I'm in the shower and they call to say they're about to extibate (is that how you spell that?) Little butt is breathing on his own and ate two ounces of breast milk from a bottle before zonking out. We were so happy we smiled all of the way back to the House, despite the crazy woman cursing on the shuttle.

Gotta go, Southwest Airlines is serving an early thanksgiving dinner at any moment, and we have a whole lot to be thankful for.

Thank God for McDonald's

I'll probably start posting very frequently with updates since I now have internet access in the sitting area 20' away from my front door.

Right now I'll just give the short, short version of what's been going on:

September 1st: Had the most beautiful baby boy EVER by emergency c-section. 6lbs 1.4oz 18.5 in. The perfect picture of health was a wiz at breastfeeding and was only held back by the bedridden mess he knows as "Mommy".

November 1st: We went to the two month well-baby vist. First the doctor noticed a high breath rate, then I mentioned that his feeding was a little off since sunday, THEN she heard a murmur. Tests were done at our home kaiser office and they found that he had an enlarged heart that was basically causing congestive heart failure. CHF! In my georgous, happy, two month old baby! They were unable to find the reason and I ended up in two different ambulances with my baby until we were in the PCICU at UCSF. Luckily we have an amazing cardiologist here who found the problem right away. The found a "Misplaced Coronary Artery" (officially, abbreviated something like ALPACA, or ALCAPA) on the 2nd. Surgery on the 3rd, and today they closed his chest. The staff at the hospital is amazing, and they're always using the word "great" to describe how he's doing.

I'll try to expand more later, but right now I'm just trying to stay awake till my laundry is done.

My baby is "great" and the Social Worker at the hospital is a blessing.

She found Hubby and I a place at the SF Ronald McDonald house. It has everything we could need. We have an "apartment" with it's own bathroom and a big walk-in closet. There is plenty of food in this amazing, huge kitchen, and there is also reserved fridge and cupboard space for room. And other groups come by and make meals for the residents a few times a week. They have big washers and dryers in the basement (and 35cent cans of Coke...in San Francisco!!) There are electric breast pumps on each floor just like the ones at the hospital. Books, magazines, internet access.

And as long as he's in the hospital we can stay here. . .for free.

Next time you go by McDonalds, please throw some change in that little clear box.

Almost forgot. My BIL brought his laptop this weekend and blogged about what was going on.
http://www.myspace.com/joesilvasr

g-night

I'm not insane, this is perfectly normal.

Irritating a pregnant woman is like teasing a starving Lion by sticking your fingers through the bars. The only thing that will be surprising is how you ended up missing your whole arm.

I really should get a computer for the apartment before I'm arrested for maiming.

I'm irritable, and you're stupid. . . This can't be good.

Sometimes you just want to tell a customer: No, you just suck.

getting a better quality nylon string will not help you learn how to tie it better. There is no magic string stick-um that will appear. Buy a ball-end string or go back to the boy scouts. They might also be able to help you learn how to tie your shoes.

I find it amazing that people will look at a pick display for ten minutes. And THEN they can't seem to figure out how it works. It's a bunch of little drawers. I'm sure that these people have seen a drawer before. So can someone tell me why you would stare at the front (where the "handle" and specimen are) and then reach around to the back and try pushing out all of the upper drawers trying to find the one you want? Or why you would stare at something an inch from your hand and expect me to spend my time pulling them out so you can look at them. Saturday a kid asked me
"Do you have any of these?" (placing his finger ON the drawer)
"Better yet, you could pull it out and look yourself"

I suppose I could have been nicer, and granted, it's no longer 114 degrees outside. But it was still over a hundred, and here I am; entering my ninth month, obviously sweating and miserable, with feet that are swollen bigger than my calves propped up on the counter. Why yes! Mr. Thirteen-year-old-with-a-bad-haircut, let me just hop up and help you with this item worth a quarter! Nah, I figured it was better to remove myself from the situation before I lost total control and tried to stab him with a sharpie.

I'm also thinking about printing out a flyer to hand to kids who are dropped off by their parents to waste time. A car will stop in front of the store just long enough for a couple of kids to jump out, and sometimes you can even hear Mom yell: "I'll be back in two hours/when I'm done shopping/ when I can stand the sight of you!" Or maybe I should just make up a baby-sitting invoice. . .Here kid give this to your mom. Tell her she owes me forty bucks for making sure you stayed out of trouble for the last three hours.

It's too hot to be this pregnant.

Post #100! How to torture the hormonal woman.

I'm still alive!

I know it's been almost 2 months, but I've been busy. We still haven't gotten any kind of internet connection at the apartment. And since I arrived back at the family music store we've gotten a new computer and switched over to DSL. I'll tell ya, it's reeeeeeally nice not to have to stop whatever I'm doing so that someone can use the phone or the credit card machine. But I still don't have the free time that I did at the last job to stay looking busy. Here I can actually find plenty of things to do.

I think I'll start making a list of rules for the music store as they come to mind. Starting with:

#1. If you can't tune the guitar, don't plug it in.
If you can't tell that it's off key, you won't get anything out of listening to it through an amp. (Willing to make exceptions for the Very Rare new player who wants to buy a signature Strat after only three months of lessons.)

I'm two months 'till my due date. That's a VERY scary thing. My ankles have dissapeared, I haven't worn a ring in weeks (except on a chain around my neck) I failed the first glucose test (by 4 flippin' points!) and had an abnormal draw ONCE on the fasting glucose test, so I'm going to have to go in and get a lecture on things I already know from the nutrition counselor. Luckily I'n normal enough they're not going to make me do daily testing and all of that crap. And can someone tell me, why, if they know they're going to have to draw blood four times in the next three hours, WHY can't you just put in an angiocath. When I asked the girl who was about to do the first stick I think she thought I was joking. Especially since she found a vein in my right arm without too much trouble. . . Yeah, that would be the one that everyone ends up using. But she was good at it, most phlebotomists can't catch my veins without a butterfly, or extreme discomfort. Left side was not nearly so easy. She alternated arms, and when she returned to the right for the the third stick, she actually said "You do have Other veins, Right?" ummm. . . not really. She ended up having to re-use the same veins with butterflies. I can't imagine what it would have been like with someone less capable, seeing as the fourth one felt like the average single stick. nrg. . .

Anyways

Cheese!

Please Stand By

I might not be posting for a bit.

I'm leaving my current job to go back to the family business.

Still don't have the internet at home, and the store is currently between computers at the moment. That should change soon, but I need to better behave myself at work anyway.

So I can't tell you just how long I'll be, but in the meantime. . .

Go put a tack on the Boss's chair for me.

Death by Cute.

Sometimes when you are being crushed by waves of stupid and/or homicidal-hormones, the best thing to do is enjoy the cute.

My stomach, AKA: Audrey II

*Feed Me*

For the most part my appetite is back to normal. Hungry somewhere around three times a day for a normal-sized meal.

Then, for no apparent reason. . .

*FEED ME*

I haven't been this bottom-less since high-school. A few days ago I was a little hungry. So I made my self a bagel with cream cheese and some grapes. By the time I was done it had become, Bagel with Cream Cheese, 2 BUNCHES of grapes, a frozen burrito, a bowl of ramen, and 6 warm chocolate-chip cookies. Luckily, I only become a garbage disposal every few days. But I have finally started to gain weight. And I remember why eating chocolate chip cookie dough is a waste of time. just wait 10 minutes and you have a warm gooey wonderful thing that is soooo much better than a blob of greasy dough with cold hard chips that could potentially carry an added bonus of salmonella.


My baby hasn't even been born yet and Hubby has already taught him an annoying habit. A few posts ago I mentioned that Hubby thought it would be funny to press on my very full bladder right before a sonogram. The baby followed suit when he was done and kicked it. Now, very often before I'm aware that there is anything in my bladder it is being kicked. Yesterday it felt like I was only feeling him move when he wanted me to use the restroom. This is not amusing.

Cheese!

Sonogram #3

Profile at 21 Weeks. Yes! My baby has a brain!







Ok, these next two aren't showing up quite as nicely as the last one. But,


This sure LOOKS like a boy in this picture. What you are seeing are his knees and. . . well you are looking at a view from the bottom, so yeah, looks like a boy to me.





We've got a whole bunch more, but at the end, after being prodded around for a good ten minutes we got to watch our newly male baby rub it's eyes and yawn. Hubby just about wet himself, and the tech got a picture of the second one.




So, I now have a digital camera thanks to Hubby. It was the one thing I really wanted for my birthday (last Monday). I really prefer to be surprised by presents, but this was something that we were going to have to get soon anyway. I just haven't gotten around to reading most of the instruction manual, or sneaking it to work and doing some covert uploading. :)

For Hubby's B-day (Last Friday) I got him (with huge help from Dad) This Tascam 8-track digital recording mixing board thingy. . . Eh, I could probably think of the correct name for it but that would take more brain than I want to invest at the moment. He was BUGGING me about the 4-track version that records onto a regular cassette tape for WEEKS. To the point of asking me about it every day. He went into the store and made sure Dad knew what he wanted, so that I would get him the right thing. Dad surprised both of us by giving him the (much) nicer one. I still need to give him money-but that's an advantage to purchasing gifts at the family store- a very flexible payment plan :) So, to warn you, if you visit anytime in the next month Hubby will herd you into what has become the baby's room/recording studio. Though I must admit, the "World's Biggest Desk" almost works in there.

Cheese!

Wait. . . Strike that, Reverse it.

Last night we had another sonogram.

Did you know that a baby is not officially "diagnosed" as female until 24 Weeks?

Our baby appears to have suffered a misdiagnosis.

'cause that SURE LOOKS like a scrotum now to me.

I think we just had a better tech this time. I think the last one saw that I was 17W 6D and blew us off. This one did the measurements and said. . ."What are you having?"
"They said it was a girl last time" She gets a funny look on her face. "Why? Does it not look like one now?"
"Well. . ." She turns the monitor so I can see and points "THAT sure looks like a boy to me"

When we brought Hubby in he just about choked on his tounge.

Serves him right. As we were about to go in he pressed on my stomach as a joke. NOT very funny considering that you are supposed to have your bladder as full as you can stand when getting this ultrasound. Better yet was this terrible feeling that followed. . . a couple of jabs of extreme pressure that were almost too much to hold. It took me a few seconds to realize that the baby was kicking my very full bladder. J o y .

I'll post more when I add the pictures - there are a lot, and only one that looks disturbingly skull-like. But it probably won't be till monday.

See you soon!