2 years

Why do I torture myself? Yesterday someone on Facebook put a link to a you tube video of their friend's hlhs baby's memorial video. It was really nice, sweet and actually amazing timing because from it I also found a song I love and is pretty much exactly how I feel. However from this I spent some time today looking at video's of hlhs babies. As crazy as it sounds I actually started to feel jealous of the parents. I was jealous that they got to spend time with their baby. This is the part I've struggled with the most about our decision.
I'm really thankful this blog has lead me to Lacey. After feeling this I thought about one of our many conversations (which I often do when I'm feeling down) and reminded myself of the reasons why we made the decision we did. Her heart was unfixable. We felt (and still do) that it would've been cruel to make her live those few short days knowing what would happen in the end. So as much as I wish I'd gotten to hear her cry, feed her or see her looking at me I have to remember she was very sick. I gave up the chance to do that so she wouldn't have to be in any pain but sitting here my arms just want to hold her again.

I now hate saying how I wish it could've been different. I feel like by saying that I'm wishing away Lauren for Hailey so now I'll simply say....... I wish I could have them both.

Here's the song lyrics:

In my dreams, you are alive and well

Precious child, precious child

In my mind, I see you clear as a bell

Precious child, precious child

In my soul, there is a hole

That can never be filled

But in my heart, there is hope

'Cause you are with me still

In my heart, you live on

Always there never gone

Precious child, you left too soon

Tho' it may be true that we're apart

You will live forever... in my heart

In my plans, I was the first to leave

Precious child, precious child

But in this world, I was left here to grieve

Precious child, my precious child

In my soul, there is a hole

That can never be filled

But in my heart there is hope

And you are with me still

In my heart you live on

Always there, never gone

Precious child, you left too soon,

Tho' it may be true that we're apart

You will live forever... in my heart

God knows I want to hold you,

See you, touch you

And maybe there's a heaven

And someday I will again

Please know you are not forgotten until then

In my heart you live on

Always there never gone

Precious child, you left too soon

Tho' it may be true that we're apart

You will live forever... in my heart

By Karen Taylor

8 months

Weight: 20lbs 10 oz
Length: 71cm (28.5 in)

- Said her first word. I never knew when to count her first word. She says mum and nana and recently dada a lot but never looks at us when saying it so I think it was just words she picked up. To me your first word is when you associate that word correctly. She said mama with outreached arms toward me on the day she turned 7 months.

- Had her first swim. Lauren absolutely loves the pool. I was nervous about putting her head underwater but she doesn't cry when I do it like I see a lot of other babies at the pool doing. I think she's a bit of a water baby.

-First tooth! It poked through on the 20th (or at least that's when I noticed) I think she's also getting #2 in.

- Went to her first hockey game. Dan's work bought tickets for everyone and their families. We had a good time. I wanted to leave Lauren at home but Dan thought we should bring her. She had a nap in the 2nd period missing 2 goals which I'm surprised the loud noises didn't wake her and happily watched the game or people around her the rest of the time.

- She is so very close to crawling! Overnight she started getting from sitting to crawling position and the past few days can now get back to sitting position. The problem she has is that she panics and lets her legs slide out so she lays on her stomach. This is really frustrating to watch because she can't get from lying to sitting on her own. 

-Lauren loves to walk EVERYWHERE. If you try to sit her down and she doesn't want to it's impossible. She'll go stiff so you can't bend her and she'll get really mad and cranky if she wants to stand/walk and no one will take her around. I'm hoping (and so is my back!) when she learns to crawl and can get around a little better the demand to walk will be less.

-She had her second cold. It was more of a sinus cold but it was pretty bad and she had trouble sleeping and breathing. She spent a few nights in our bed, in fact the first 2 were spent sitting up as it was the only way she could breath. Unfortunately she got a little too used to sleeping in our bed and we're struggling with getting her to sleep in her crib at night (7 times she woke up last night!) It was worth it though. It was really scary to hear her wake up gasping for air because she'd stopped breathing.

7 words

It always amazes me how quickly your life can change. Car accident, phone call or in our case 7 words "Your baby has hypoplastic left heart syndrome." 2 years today we heard those 7 words that changed our lives forever and there's no denying how different we are from hearing them. I've been finding this time of year hard. I'm so thankful for Lauren and love her so much but it reminds me of how different our lives could've been. How different we thought are lives were going to be 2 years and 1 day ago.

I think back to the girl I was and shake my head. I was so young, carefree and naive. I thought I was invincible and that bad things wouldn't happen to me, it was always someone else. Those 7 words hit me like a ton of bricks leaving me speechless and lost. That day I learned that just because you've made it half way through a pregnancy doesn't mean you'll get to take a baby home from the hospital. We learned that babies can survive in vitro with fatal defects thanks to their mothers. We learned we were 1 in 100. We were 1 out of an average 10 cases in BC a year.

I guess that day wasn't all bad. We learned we were pregnant with a baby girl. We got to see that baby girl on screen for a few hours (little did we know it's not good to get such long screen time.) We knew walking into that hospital there was a possibility our baby was sick. We just never imagined how much our lives would change that day.

I'm going to take flowers to the grave today with Lauren. Dan has to help move equipment for archery (he did ask me if it's ok) and when I asked if he wanted me to wait he said it was fine. I don't think he likes going out there very much. We do have her ashes here too but I find the cemetery peaceful and a place I can grieve. Truthfully I prefer going by myself anyway.

update on how babysitting went and more

I know this is really late.  The last post was about my worries with my father looking after Lauren. Of course everything went fine but I'm glad I wrote it when I did. I've always wanted to keep the blog honest and these were the feeling I had leaving Lauren. If I were to have written it after the fact it would've been written differently with less worry. It's funny because as the time got closer to us leaving it became easier. I was less worried/stressed and more looking forward to some time alone with Daniel. We went to lunch, then a movie and stopped off to pick up a potty. In total we were gone for a 4.5 hrs. Poor Lauren wouldn't take a bottle (she did that last time too) so she was very hungry when we got back since it had been 6 hours since I last fed her. I didn't want to waste the milk that had been warmed and she took the bottle from me. She's really turning into a mummy's girl. I just needed this first time to go well and now I'm much more relaxed about having my dad and his wife look after her.

Lauren has had a bad cold the past few days. At first I thought it was teething (she got her first tooth the other day!) but the runny nose turned into a snotty/blocked nose. She slept with me Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. Her nose was so blocked she couldn't breathe and would wake up gasping for air. I found that if she was sleeping on an angle she could breathe a bit better so Thursday we slept propped against a pillow in bed so we were practically sitting, Friday night she could breathe as long as her head was on my arm and last night she could sleep laying down flat. Tonight she's back in her crib. Hopefully she'll stay there all night but who knows how her breathing will be when she wakes up for her feeding.

I've also tried switching back to cloth at night. We do cloth full time during the day and were doing it at night until she started sleeping longer. During the day I change her ever 2 hours (I could go longer because she rarely soaks through them but I find 2 hours easy to remember.) I don't change her when she wakes up at night unless she's pooped because if I do then she's WIDE awake afterwards! I've noticed she's filling up less of the overnight diaper so decided to give it another go. Last night I put in 3 hemp/bamboo inserts (I do 1 during the day)and she soaked through them all by morning. No rash or anything just a little wet on the back of her sleeper. I'm trying again tonight hoping that maybe it was just a bad night. I'd really like to go back to cloth full time again.

Grandpa babysitting

My dad phoned today. He wants to look after Lauren and offered to pay for us to go skiing today. Since it's March break this week we said we'd decided against skiing but will go to lunch and a movie. In all honesty....... I'd would love to go skiing but don't want my dad to look after her that long and us be that far away.

I thought I'd write this now instead of after it happens since I guess this worry is all part of being a parent. Here's the thing. I trust a stranger to look after Lauren more then my own father. Dan agrees with this statement and gave his input as to why. We trust a stranger to do as we ask a lot more then we trust my dad. He is spot on. I could go on and on with examples but I'll just leave it at this. Numerous times I've specifically asked him not to do something and he says ok or will try to argue with me that really it's ok if he does. Most of the time he will then try to do what I've asked him not to. I say try because he'll actually do this maybe 10 minutes after our initial conversation right in front of me and I'll stop him and tell him off and we'll argue again about why it's not a big deal if he does.

I do NOT care if YOU think something will be ok. I'M the PARENT, you are the GRANDPARENT. Please, please, PLEASE respect my decisions on how I want raise MY DAUGHTER!

One of the big issues we've been dealing with since Lauren was a few months old is food. I want to slowly introduce food to Lauren. I want to do so safely and within most guidelines. The reason for this is that Lauren seems to have many skin sensitivities and I fear this will also be the case with food. The past month Lauren has broken out in a rash from baby eczema cream and I recently bought a hazelwood necklace to try to help with the eczema but it only lasted a few hours before she had a reaction to the clasp. Wether these guidelines actually effect allergies or not I'm choosing to follow them on the chance they do. No harm will come from Lauren waiting until she's 9 months to have yogurt or a year to drink cow's milk. Lauren will be perfectly fine waiting a few days between new introductions of food. I just used examples of yogurt and milk, an example of what I'm talking about with my dad  would be how in October he tried to give her a piece of his cake. She wasn't even 3 months old and he tried to give her chocolate cake! This is what I'm up against.

My other stress with this is that he wants to have her for longer. He wants a whole day with her. I get that he loves her and wants to spend as much time as possible with her but he seems to want to go out and do things with her. I haven't asked details because I tried to brush it off but I think he expects me to leave him our car with the carseat and take his. WHY? Why can't he spend a few hours at our place with her? Want to go the park? It's only a 10 minute walk. Want to go to the mall or grocery store? It's a 10 minute walk. He thinks he's a great driver but in all honesty he's not. He's way too easily distracted and I can only imagine what he'd be like with Lauren in the car. His driving was part of the reason my sister and him didn't talk for a few years. They went on a road trip together, which was a terrible idea to begin with considering they hadn't spent more then 30 hours together since she was 5. From what my sister says most of the arguments were about his driving. He was playing with the gps or his laptop or radio more then paying attention to driving (also she says he wouldn't stop to see wildlife but that isn't an issue with me at the moment!) Dan and I have followed him before and the number of times he goes over into another lane is too often for me to feel any comfort having Lauren in the car with him. Also, Lauren doesn't enjoy being in the car. All she wants to do lately is stand. She hates sitting and being stuck in her seat and will protest at the sight of her jacket in my hand.

I really do love my dad and I really do want him to spend time with Lauren. I just wish I could trust his judgement and respect for our parenting more. We've decided to let him watch Lauren some days when I return to work. I've put a condition on this that the moment he suspects his wife is off her meds (she's a paranoid schizophrenic) she's no longer allowed around Lauren. Problem is we don't actually trust my dad's judgement on when she is off her meds. We suspected months before my Dad did the last time she was off her meds when Lauren was born but we figured we'd give it a try and the moment we fear for Lauren she and potentially he will no longer be allowed alone with her. I hate that I even have to worry about this but he's changed the past few years too. He's gone a little strange to the point where Dan and I joke that she's putting something in his food. I really hope he's ok. I worry about him too.

Ok rant over. Hopefully now that I've gotten it out I'll be able to get some sleep. An update from my last post about the weight loss........I've had a cold and haven't been feeling or sleeping well so I put the 30 day shred on hold after day 2 :) 155 just seems to be the weight I can stay at without having to diet or exercise and although it's not my ideal weight I am happy with it.

Weight and body changes

I thought I'd do an update on how my body has changed. We started our pregnancy journey over 2 years ago and my body has definitely changed. My weight the past 10 years has always fluctuated between 150-160lbs depending on my eating and exercising habits, in other words I'd start exercising when my weight started creeping up to 160. Here's my weight story in pictures:

Summer 2009

11 weeks pregnant with Hailey (Feb 2010)

Both taken 27th April 2010 before leaving for the hospital (185lbs)

Oct. 2010, month I became pregnant with Lauren (165lbs)

Lauren's due date, 22 July 2011 (215lbs)

 

Taken Friday

Looking at that last picture I'm quite happy with the progress. Not a pretty stomach and will not be wearing a bikini any time soon, or likely ever again. I'm now at 155lbs and feel like I've plateaued. Now that I'm back to my pre pregnancy weight and have reached that goal my motivation has decreased so Thursday I started the 30 day shred. Hoping to do it every day this month. Will update the progress next month.

7 months

I'm starting to realize Lauren's no longer my little baby.

-She sits unaided and now rarely falls over, stands with support and LOVES walking around (with help of course.) I'm slightly concerned with her feet though. I think she's bow legged. Maybe this is just a learning thing because I've noticed the left side getting straighter but the right stays the same. I'll try to remember to bring this up at our next appointment in 2 months. 

-She's getting close to crawling. She lifts her legs and bum up but can't figure out how to get her chest up at the same time. I think she's doing amazingly well with the crawling process considering she hates tummy time and hasn't gotten nearly as much as she should've. I don't think I mentioned last time but the doctor told me at her 6 month appointment to keep doing the tummy time because she was starting to get a flat head. Well that's near impossible considering she can roll over when she wants and unless we distract her that's exactly what she does. I'm hoping it'll be ok now because she sits or stands most of the day unless she's sleeping. I've also switched the strollers too so she no longer sits in the car seat when we go for walks. I'm hoping since she's able to lift her head and look around it'll help a little too.

-We're still struggling with trying to find foods Lauren likes. The list is still very short: Apples,  Bananas. We tried butternut squash yesterday and she ate half the container so I'm hoping this will be added to the list. She didn't mind sweet potato either so I've got some more to make up and will hopefully be up to 4 fruits and veg she likes. She also tried some chicken and mince this week (she liked neither!) I've been trying to let her feel the food and she enjoys playing with it but it never goes in her mouth. I find this very strange because everything she touches goes into her mouth.....except food!

-We're also still struggling with her eczema. It had gotten better using the Vaseline base but it's now flared up again. The hazel wood necklace I ordered online shipped yesterday so hopefully this'll help. I should add that I don't believe in the "healing" of the necklace but am at a lose of what to do so am willing to try anything at this point. *I've just received a call that Lauren has an appointment with a dermatologist early next month!*

-She's all over the place in clothing sizes. Anywhere from 3-6 month put to 12 month depending on the brand.

It was my Grandmother's 90th birthday this month so we had a great big party for her. This meant that we also got to see my cousin's baby who was born 3 weeks ahead of Lauren. Man is there a big difference.  She was held 90% of the time so she can't even sit up unaided yet. I don't know if I could handle still having a baby that needed to be held all the time. I'm enjoying the freedom of Lauren happily playing on the floor too much.

Here's some pics for the month:

 Banana! Even with banana she'll play but not put in her mouth

 Getting ready for bed. Still swaddling her so she can't itch her chin

 Playing with Dad

Walking. Notice the feet?

 Hated being in the park swing!

 Playing with Nana

The weather's starting to turn nice so more walks in the park!