Thursday, December 11, 2008

I bought a Goat!!

I don't usually go out and buy strange and smelly animals but this one was for my son. Besides, a goat does not make a good pet. They are, however, good for their milk. Raw goat milk is the next best thing to breast milk, though it also makes you smell like a goat. Since I can't breastfeed and formula has pesticides in it, my baby is eating raw goat milk. Not easy to get here in Colorado. It is illegal to buy or sell raw milk in Colorado. So the way you get around that is to buy a share in a goat and pay boarding fees. I think I called every goat dairy in the metro Denver area to find on that had raw goat milk available. Its the dry season or the time of year you stop milking in order to prepare the goats to give birth, so it was hard to find a goat dairy with any milk. Only two had milk and one of those had shares available. The owner of Fetchin Farms put me ahead of 3 other people to make sure my baby has something to eat. It takes almost an hour to get to her farm, but its worth it. Plus, its a little less expensive than formula. So I didn't really buy a whole goat, just part of one.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

My Baby is Cuter than Your Baby!!

I finally have pictures for all of you to see of my adorable baby boy. When I was in Utah, we got the Boo photographed with his cousin Kristen. Aren't they cute!!


Do worry, there is one of him smiling.







If you look really close they are holding hands. They were just laying there and Kristen just grabbed his hand. Its so cute.





Of course, our album wouldn't be complete without him in a Broncos outfit. In this one he is holding up his index finger. After all, the Broncos did win their game on Sunday and are at the top of their division.







Call me a geek, but I thought it would be cute to where our Broncos jerseys in our family picture. I'm not the traditional "lets get dress up" kind of girl. If I could have managed it, my cat would be in the picture too. He loves watching football too and he has a blue harness to go with his orange fur that makes him a Broncos Kitty. My husband says if the Broncos make it to the Superbowl again he is getting a blue mohawk. If you want one, e-mail me your address, this is on our Christmas card.

As you can see by the time I will post this, it is the wee hours of the morning.
I didn't choose to be up this early and the Boo is actually asleep, too. I'm having an EEG this morning. I went bed to at midnight and got up at 4am. I'm supposed to fatugued for the test, during which they are going to try to make me have another seizure. Its a very good sign if I don't. I still have to be on medication for at least three month and I can't drive for that long, but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Monday, November 24, 2008

My Husband Saved My Life

Last Thursday in the wee hours of the morning, I had a seizure that made me bite my tongue so hard that it rolled back in my throat and cut off my airway. My husband woke up to me gurgling. He described it as the sound you make when all of the air is escaping your body. Thank heaven he is a First Responder. He preformed mouth to mouth and called 911. There is a fire station very close to my house so they probably arrived within minutes. I was taken to a hospital just to the south, in Parker, CO. I remember being aware of being in the hospital but I was very groggy. My husband said that I kept asking for my baby but I could not remember what his name is. Sometime later I was sent to ST. Joe's in Denver, where a bunch of tests were preformed.

All this time my four-month-old baby was at home with my mother-in-law really freaked out. He was in my bedroom when the firemen came and took me. It really scared him. I was told that he was upset all day and only smiled once and my baby is a pretty happy baby.

When I was finally released from the hospital it was only after a I finished an IV bag Dilantin, an anticonvulsant drug, which burned when it when into my arm. So they hooked it up to my other arm and it still burned but I had no other choice if I wanted to leave. Plus, the second arm the drug went in was left sore and bruised for days after.

So now I can't drive for the next three months, because that is how long I will be on the Dilantin and it can cause drowsiness and dizziness, both of which I have experienced. I can't breastfeed any more either because the Dilantin might hurt my baby too. The doctor in the hospital said it would be safe, yet I have to be on a very reliant birth control because it causes major deformities in fetuses and in a study of infants who where breastfeed while their mother were on the drug 7 our of 10 experience intestinal distress. So it could be safe, but I'm not going to take any chances and put my baby at risk. So now he is eating raw goats milks. Amazingly it costs less than formula and doesn't give him gas. I also have had some memory lose, mostly short term but some of my long term memories are little fuzzy too. Sometimes it take longer than usual to recall memories or do normal tasks like writing this blog.

The doctors aren't sure what caused my seizure. I have a bunch of tests next week to find the cause. I think it was caused by stress. But we shall see what the doctors say.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Don't ya just love HOA's!!!

I went to the annual HOA meeting in my neighborhood the other night. I was amazed how few people showed up. Out of 1087 homes in the HOA only 160 voted on the board member election and even fewer actually came to the meeting. We were told that our HOA is one of the most active in the area, but it seemed to me that very few home owners participated. Oh well, easier for me take over. Yes, I am going to take over my HOA. I'll get to that in minute. First I thought I'd tell you about some of the funny or disturbing things that happened at the meeting. The Sheriffs Dept. sent representatives to talk about safety and answer any questions. One women told us that she has been finding cats with their head severed and asked if that was gang related. The deputies said that it wasn't. They said that an animal had actually severed the heads of the cats and plays with it like a soccer ball. And that is why my cat stays inside. Then another home owner said that his house backed up to a street and asked why his fence is backwards. Apparently the horizontal slats are on the street side of the fence making it easier for one to climb into his yard and harder for him to climb out of his yard. Now that is great construction.
Then some how the fact that the fees for violating the by-laws had gone up considerably. One man was especially mad about that, because it was "interfering with a man making a living." From the sounds of it, his house was not well maintained and he was not able to pay for the violations. This brings me to why I am going to take over the HOA. On the day I went into labor with my son we received a violation for weeds in our front yard. The complaint was made over a week before we received it. Not to mention that the weeds had been mowed down the week before. So we sent a naste-a-graham with our response. A few weeks later we received another violation for hanging clothes in the tree in the backyard. The dryer wasn't drying and the tree had some perfect horizontal branches. Can we say 'petty'. I think we can. It might take me a few years, but I think I can pull it off with help from members of my ward. I would say that close to half of the HOA is made up of my ward members. So there you go, the first step to taking over the world... I mean HOA.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

To Immunize or Not to Immunize.

I took my son to his 2-month check-up this week and my baby is not so small any more. He weighs 8 lbs and 11 oz; and is 21 1/2 inches long. That puts him in the 2nd percentile for his height and weight. But really these check-ups are to start his vaccinations. I chose not to get him vaccinated yet. I want to wait until he is older and bigger. Yes, I am scared that vaccinations might cause autism. Yes, I have been influenced by family and friends who know people who's children seem to have had some horrible side effect they blame on vaccinations. My neighbor's son developed type I diabetes shortly after his 1-year immunizations. He believed it was caused by the vaccinations.



I just want to do what is best for my son. My doctor seemed to think I was doing the wrong thing and tried to convince me or scare me that the vaccines are indeed safe. She told me all the things that could happen if my son isn't vaccinated at 2-months; how sick he could get or that he could die from preventable disease. She also told me the side-effects of the vaccines; which sounded just as scary or scarier than if my son wasn't vaccinated at all. Honestly, I think that five shots at one time is too many for my son's small body to handle at one time.



My sister had a baby girl 12 days after I did and she is not going to begin vaccinating her daughter until she is a year old. One of my aunts didn't get any of her children vaccinated. I have a cousin who never had one shot until he was 19. There are lots of people who, for religious or other reasons, also don't get their children vaccinated. Are they doing what is best for their children? Am I doing what is best for my son? Or have I been swayed by claims in the media and the opinion of family and friends? I hope that I am doing what is best for my son.

Wordless Wednesday!!


What can I say, it was a really stinky diaper!!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Delivery

All was going well during the delivery until the end, of course. I never thought I would loose my modesty, but I was numb so I didn't care. I'm very grateful for drugs. I had four doctors and all of them had to poke and prod me. Why so many?, you ask. Well, I had two doctors and they each had a resident. After about an hour and half of pushing, my doctor told us that pushing was not working because the baby's heart beat was dropping dramatically when I pushed. She said that we going into the OR and giving me one final chance to push. If the baby was not delivered then she would use forceps and if that didn't work than she would do a c-section. I was little scared but I had faith in this doctor whom I'd never met until that day. Aren't HMO's wonderful. So Boo was delivered by forceps and I spent an hour getting sewn up.

All seemed well, until that night. Boo was not breastfeeding at this point so the nurse made me bottle feed him. At his 12am feeding I had the nurse take him to the nursery for the night. A short time later she returned with the news that he was being admitted to the NICU for low glucose levels. Not the worst thing that could happen, but it was at that point. So the nurse took me the NICU where they were about to put an IV in my son. They asked if I would like to watch. No, no, no. No need to tramatize us both. For the next three days Boo was hooked up to an IV and was a strict three hour feeding schedule. It wasn't so bad compared to what I would go through over the next 4 weeks.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Hello Blogger World!!

A good friend and blogger Brillig, told me that I just had to create my own blogg. Well, here I go. First I would like to introduce you to my world. I am the new mom of a very handsome little boy, Boo. I have been married two years in October. My husband is a police officer, which will be the subject of a lot really funny stories because people can be really stupid. He just survived the Democratic National Convention. I have a red tabby cat who is a bit on the weird side, to say the least. Also, we just moved into a new house; as did my husband's grandmother. My mother and father-in-law sold their house the same time we were moving. Plus, one of my brother-in-laws just bought a townhouse, which he is renovating. Things are pretty crazy, to say the least.



So being a mom of an infant, I have learned to survive on very little sleep. I was not very happy about this at first, but I'm getting much more sleep now. Except on days like yesterday when the Boo didn't sleep all day until about 6pm. So stupid me wakes him up at 8:30 to feed him thinking I'll keep him up so he well sleep that night. Wrong. He stayed up until 2am and then slept about 2 hours. Today he has slept for almost 6 hours. I just checked on him and he is still alive. Boo was born 3 weeks early, little complications. In fact, I went into labor the evening of my birthday and delivered him about 30 hours later.