More Crazy Times in the Williams World

First, let me say that David has 3 job interviews today tomorrow and Thursday.  Praise God!  Unfortunately, (you knew it was coming, right?) it seems Natalie and I have been hit with a stomach virus.  Natalie is pretty happy with some occasional wimpering but she’s also going number 2 LOTS!  I’ve been in bed all day except to feed her and just ‘lost my lunch’ so to speak.  I’m feeling better so hopefully it will be short.  I would just ask for prayer that David would NOT get sick so he can go to his interviews.  We are also hopeful that his job search will be quick. He’s pretty bummed about the possibility of missing our vacation to stay home and continue searching.

Back to bed I go.

Amy

I know the plans I have for you….

‘For I know the plans that I have for you,'

declares the LORD,

'plans for welfare and not for calamity

to give you a future and a hope.

When Natalie was born, that was the verse that helped me through all the lonely middle of the night pumping sessions while she was still in the hospital.  I wrote it on her wall so I could see it while in her rocking chair.  God still has those same plans for us.  Even though we had some bad news today, those plans are for our welfare.  David was to finish his last day at Muzak tomorrow and start a new contract position on Tuesday.  The contracting company called today to say the bank lost it’s funding and they no longer need him.  He has had lots of calls throughout his job search process and is optimistic that something will come soon.  Such timing can only be God’s perfect plan.  We earnestly covet your prayer for us as we live in this stressful season that God will show us where David should go quickly. 

Amy

Lego Mania!

Zach’s birthday party was fun though crazy as usual.  I got the cake done on Friday night, thankfully, because Natalie woke up late that night with a croup-like cough so we had to let her sleep in the pack-n-play in our room.  Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep so it was good most everything was done before we went to bed.

We started out with ‘I Spy the Lego Guy.’  8 Lego men cutouts were hidden in our living room and the boys had to find them.  Zach and Julia played the night before and thought it was a lot of fun until Zach started hiding the Lego men under pillows!  Next was a Lego relay race and then on to the piñata.  I made a piñata out of a diaper box and 6 tin cans.  I covered it with green crepe paper and watered down glue.  The whole process gave me very green thumbs but still not much is growing in our yard!

After we finally had to rip it open by hand, we moved on to pizza and cake.

Zach patiently waited for pictures of the Lego cake. 

 

 

 

 

I took a 9x13 chocolate cake and cut a sliver off the end.  I cut the rest in half and stacked the two pieces on top of each other.  Natalie’s bottle tops served as the Lego bump pattern.  Then, the whole thing got covered in green icing- the birthday boy’s favorite color!  We decorated it with people to add some interest and hide some of the icing imperfections.

Make a wish, Zach!

Natalie was in and out of sleep in her infant seat the whole time.  Thought she looked a little like the Lego Man plate I made.

 

 

 

 

 

After lunch, David got the boys building with Legos in what supposed to be a ‘creative collaboration’ but they just wanted to all do their own thing and it was still fun. 

The Lego pinata is in the background of this picture.  Most of the close up pictures of it had me in it too that I’d rather not see again ever.  Also, the lego man plates are on the table.  I took square yellow plates, cut out some rectangles for the Lego head bump, and drew some faces on them.  Zach’s plate was ‘Clutch Powers’ (a lego hero) and I had to make a special ‘girl’ face for Julia.

Zach had fun so it was a success.  I’m glad I only do one party a year, though!

Amy

10 Books a Day

Natalie had her first speech therapy session yesterday and we have lots of homework!  We are to talk and sing as much as possible, go on listening walks, and read 10 books a day.  The speech therapist suggested we have a stack of 10 and anyone who comes in the house is required to read one book to her.  I looked after the speech teacher left and we have 8 picture books left from Zach and Julia that I could read daily.  I’m not one to save things and since storage is low around here as soon as Julia grew out of some things, I gave them away.  So, I’m on the lookout for some board books that will be good for Natalie but not drive me crazy.  I just went through Honey for a Child’s Heart and ordered a few of their recommendations from Amazon but if anyone has suggestions, send them my way!

Yesterday, Natalie was irritable but mildly so.  She wouldn’t smile much.  I thought it was strange so since she had a cough and a low fever too, I ask the doctor to look at her while we were there for Zach’s birthday checkup.  Sure enough, she has her first ear infection.  They’ve told us it could happen a lot.  I gave her some Tylenol in the afternoon and by the time David got home she was all smiles again.  When the Tylenol wears off, though, I can tell she’s not feeling well.  I also think she’s having a hard time going #2 still.  She had a small amount on Saturday but before that, it was last Wednesday.  She keeps grunting and crying and passing gas.  We’ll see the surgeon Thursday that repaired her duodenal atresia so hopefully he’ll agree that it’s just one of those things like the other doctors have been saying.

Will post later about Zach’s Lego party.  Our friend, Melanie, took lots of great pictures so thought it should be a separate post.

Amy

7 years, 4 months and where can we get health insurance?

Ok, since I’m often told, “wow, that was a long post”  I thought I’d just go ahead and group all this stuff together and make it another long one.

First- Happy Birthday Zach!  Zach is 7 years old today.  Unfortunately, this is his 6 year old portrait because we rarely get a picture of him anymore.  Natalie and I took a cookie cake to school and we celebrated with his favorite mac and cheese for dinner.  Of course, presents had to wait til after Daddy got home so Zach tried to squeeze in some new Lego building before bedtime.  I can’t believe how fast 7 years have gone.  It’s been amazing to think how much he’s learned since he first arrived.  He still can be very sweet and cuddly.  Today, all three of them rocked with me while I sang Natalie to sleep.

Next- Natalie is 4 months old today.  She did great at her checkup but we have to go back later for her shots.  I was running late to get to Zach at school for his birthday treat so had to cut the visit short.  She’s up to 11 lbs 8 oz and 23 1/2” long and is in the 75% for Trisomy 21 kids in height.  She even registers on the regular grow charts though in a low percentile.  The doctor said she looked great.  She had 2 poopy diapers today so hopefully I was just being a worried mommy last week.  Natalie was baptized on Sunday so Nana and Papa, Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Jill were here to help us celebrate.  I started crying during service thinking of how far she’s come in the last 16 weeks.  When we got up on stage, I just kept looking at her.  She kept grinning back while we were waiting so I forgot to be sad.  Still want to try and get some better shots of the dress but don’t think it’ll happen this week.  Got to keep working on Zach’s birthday party stuff and every day counts!

Third- David accepted a new contract position at Wells Fargo last week.  Huge praise!  Unfortunately, we are having a hard time finding affordable health insurance.  With epilepsy for him, thyroid cancer for me and Down’s syndrome for Natalie, we are an expensive family to cover!  He can get insurance through the contracting company but they have a yearly cap per person.  If we were healthy, that wouldn’t be a problem but Natalie’s hospital bills from this year already make us think it’s risky.  We are waiting to hear from another private company and a third he tried wouldn’t cover him at all.  We don’t exactly know why and they wouldn’t tell us for 21 days so that’s not going to work since we need to get this figured out by next week.  If anybody has any ideas, we’d love to hear them and we especially need prayer that something will work out.

Again, I’m up too late so better cut this short and get to sleep.

Amy

To the Doctor’s Office again We Go

I feel like we are always at the doctor!  Natalie went in on Saturday because her eyes had so much goop, they were sealed shut.  Zach had just finished antibiotics for an ear infection and Julia was 5 days behind him on antibiotics for an eye infection.  Today we were back at the doctor because Julia has had a fever for several days.  Motrin knocked it out so she seemed normal but then at the end of the day she’d be voluntarily taking naps and the fever would be back.  We went to the doctor Monday afternoon and she has strep throat.  Zach had some similar symptoms on Saturday and Sunday but no fever.  He tested for strep throat too.  Neither one of them has had a sore throat, just a headache and slight stomach ache.  I asked and the doctor said it was almost impossible for a baby to get strep throat so maybe Natalie will make it through at least for this round.  Still no poop coming through but she’s been happy.  The picture above his what she looks like while we are eating dinner and she is waiting for hers.

We had the speech teacher and teacher for the deaf come on Monday to evaluate Natalie.  The speech teacher thinks that Natalie’s challenges with learning to talk will mostly be from the Down’s syndrome and that the hearing loss won’t hinder her much.  Since she does have mild hearing loss, though, they will start working with her now.  Cool how God works, huh?  Early Intervention wasn’t going to start speech yet just because she’s eating fine.  Miss Margaret (speech teacher) is talking about me working with Natalie daily on specific sounds right now, though.  In the evaluation, Natalie was on track for her age in the sounds and responses she’s making.  Natalie even had a few things she was doing ahead of her age group.  The speech teacher said Natalie was very bright.  Julia was home while they were here so I talked to her a little bit yesterday about how we need to read to Natalie and talk to her to help her learn to talk.  I caught Julia describing to Natalie in detail all the toys in Natalie’s gym today.  I called Julia aside and told her what a good big sister she was by doing that.  I then decided to tell her about the Down’s Syndrome.  I had talked to Zach about it previously and his response was pretty much, ‘great, now what’s for dinner.’  I talked to both of them about it more Monday.  Julia got a little sad and looked worried.  I told them both of all the great progress Natalie’s made, how healthy Natalie is compared to things the doctors have told us could go wrong and how lucky Natalie is that she has them as an older brother and sister.  They are going to teach her so much!  I told them it was why I was crying so much when she was first born but now I know that Down’s Syndrome is not as bad as I thought.  I mentioned how important reading was for her and Zach said, “we’d better get back on it then.”  It’s been awhile since David has read a chapter book.  Instead, he’s been reading smaller books each night and sometimes feeds Natalie while he does it.  Now, we’ll have the kids asking to read to help Natalie out too.

Got a call from DSS yesterday.  They said they were submitting my application that they had previously thought was a duplicate for January’s bills.  I found out that social security is examined for the date you call about it.  Since I didn’t get around to calling until February, that is why we can’t get it for January.  Still have hope that the state will approve us for a retroactive decision, though.

Experimenting with a video link on this blog.  Hope it works so let me know!

Amy

Medicaid and Stomach trouble

Ok, so Medicaid is NOT solved yet.  I called to give the hospital Natalie’s Medicaid number today and they said she was coming through as ineligible for the dates of service.  So, Social Security still maintains she is eligible for SSI from 1/11/11 to 2/11/11 and, therefore, eligible for Medicaid while she receives Supplemental Social Security.  Social Security says they do not administer Medicaid so they can’t tell me why it is coming across as ineligible so I should call social services.  After I got all this, I called up one of our DSS case workers and was sobbing by the time I got her on the phone.  Why is this so confusing?  She felt very sorry for me, I think.  It looks like the retroactive Medicaid application was perceived to be a duplicate application.  I was supposed to have it turned in by 5/4 so of course now it’s after that.  The case worker said she had a record of receiving our duplicate application on 4/19 so hopefully she could get the right people to accept it.  The particular case worker doesn’t know the rules about retroactive decisions so she couldn’t tell me what the answer would be but at least was trying to help me find the answer.

All that to say, I’m VERY confused about government programs right now and VERY discouraged that it might not come through.  The case worker told me she’d try to have an answer by the end of day tomorrow.  Please pray that Natalie would be eligible for Medicaid for 1/18 to 2/1.

Also, Natalie has not been pooping as much as usual- something like 3 to 4 times this week.  She’s seemed ok and still her happy self.  Right when I hung up with DSS, she woke up screaming in pain.  I’ve never seen her so hysterical.  I couldn’t call her down.  Her stomach felt hard, she screamed when I touched her scar, she screamed when I bent her legs to get gas out.  I finally decided to try and feed her and it helped a little til she fell asleep.  I called the pediatrician and they suggested a hot bath to try and see if it was blocked gas.  I’ve done that and some massage to expel gas.  She’s called down and happy again but it does make me nervous that her stomach is getting blocked.  Can’t believe I’m saying this but please pray that should would start pooping again.

Amy

Plugging along

Ok, I skipped the post last week but, in my defense, what little time I have to write a blog was taken up in searching for Julia’s white fluffy.  It was magically found by Zach a few days after it was lost but only after I’d wasted several hours cleaning things out to find where it had been hidden.

So, why so busy around here?  I can’t honestly say except adding work into the number of balls to juggle has made things a little harder.  I do feel like it’s easier to fit work in now than when I was pregnant with Natalie so things are getting better.  Natalie has been sleeping through the night for almost two weeks now so any day now I’m hoping to feel less tired.

Natalie has really developed a personality in the last few weeks.  She smiles A LOT and loves looking at faces.  She has her brother’s love for ceiling fans.  Today, I put her on the bed under our bedroom ceiling fan so I could get ready for the day.  She was almost laughing at it.  Several people have predicted that she would be a tomboy because Julia is so girly.  Could this be the first sign that the prediction will come true?  Kindof funny.  Zach and now Natalie both have seemed about to explode with excitement over the fan spinning but Julia could have cared less. 

Natalie saw the lactation consultant last week.  She was10 lbs 4 oz at her 14 week birthday.  She’s probably gaining about 4 oz per week which is a little lower than I’d hoped but still good.  Natalie currently takes 120 ml from the bottle and she was able to take 100 from me within the 30 minute time limit!  So, I am trying to nurse again.  I have been able to nurse her a few times a day and NOT PUMP AFTERWARDS!  Amazing!  The first time I nursed several times in one day, though, she woke up in the middle of the night.  The lactation consultant had told me that Natalie might need to eat more frequently if I fed her from me more.  Feels like a tough decision- do I go back to less sleep and hurt less or sleep and feel not so good from pumping all the time.  The pain is not unbearable but I can not wait to stop pumping when the year is up!

We met with Early intervention for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing on Monday.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but looks like they could be pretty helpful.  A teacher for the deaf came and a speech therapist.  They said they would teach me ways to speak and sing to her to help her learn to talk.  Natalie has a mild hearing loss in the higher frequencies which could mean she will have trouble hearing some consonants like f, s, th.  The speech therapist agreed that a hearing aide was not necessary for Natalie with such a mild loss but she did think monitoring fluid in her ears was important so more temporary hearing loss from the fluid didn’t delay her speech.  She also saw her PT last week.  Debbie was really encouraged by how much Natalie’s improved with tracking and watching faces.  Debbie thought her neck strength was much better too.  We see Debbie every other week and she thought that Natalie would probably have her head well under control by the next visit.  Her baptism is scheduled for 5/15 so I’m hoping she’ll have her head under control enough that she won’t flop out of the pastor’s arms.

Didn’t get very far on the wall project.  Here’s last weeks picture.  I was almost to the point of putting the dirt back but we decided it would be helpful to even the ground out a little but maybe not make it completely flat.  Zach is having a birthday party in a few weeks and I was determined to at least get the mulch down before the boys come over but looks like that won’t happen.  We now have a pick axe from David’s dad to try and break up the rocky clay/shale that is our soil.  I told David he looked like he was working on a chain gang when he was swinging the axe the other night.  He muttered something clever about how hard his wife makes him work but I’m choosing to ignore that one!  :)

Our new backyard adventure.  David screwed the old slide to the deck rail and voila- we have a water slide into the plastic pool!

That’s all for now- off to bed to start the race again tomorrow!

Amy