My baby boy is sick again...correction he's still sick. He stays sick to one extent or another. But now he's got the runs (I couldn't think of a nicer way to say it) and he's got a cough like a old sick man. He's not eating like he should, and I'm not sure why. It may be because of the intestinal issues or because of the fact that he sounds like he's drowning when he eats. I hate, hate, hate the dealing with Medicaid. It's the biggest soul sucking, time wasting, ball of bureaucratic red tape I've ever seen. And who gets the short end of the stick in all of it....the patients of course. If Squeak was on my PPO insurance we wouldn't be having this problem. I could take him to a good doctor that cares. We wouldn't be going into the 2 month of fighting to get this child well with little to no help from his doctor. I had to leave work early yesterday because he was running a high fever at daycare, and we had a horrible night of things coming out from both ends of the baby. Rob took off today to take him back to the horrible doctor because that's the only doctor I could get him an appointment with before next week. I'm hoping and praying that since it's close to the holidays that the doctor won't see him. I hope the nurse sees him because she's much better than that pompous ass of a doctor. I'm so beyond tired of my little guy being sick. I just want him well.

Christmas shopping

It's odd, but I have no idea what I want for myself for Christmas. My mom asked me what I wanted Saturday, and I had no clue. I haven't even really thought about things for myself which is odd because I usually have a couple of things floating around in my head that I want each year. I do have one thing that I really want for Christmas, but you can't buy that only God can bless me with another baby. We're still trying on our end, hoping for another Christmas miracle.

I've been looking around trying to figure out what we can get Squeaky, but that's about it. I haven't given much thought to myself or anyone else. I know that I'm not spending a bunch of money on him since he will only be 5 months old then, but I still want to get him something fun. I want his first Christmas to be special. He's finally at the playing and grabbing stage so that helps a little bit. I'm hoping he will be sitting up better by then too, but if not we've got our trusty bumbo seat.

Since I'm almost completely done with my grocery shopping for Thanksgiving I can turn my attention to my Christmas shopping list. I will be giving all of grandparents and great-grandparents a nice framed picture of us that we're planning on taking this weekend. But with the economy being so shitty and no one knowing what their finances will look like from day to day I will be scaling back on my spending this year. I'll be hitting sales even harder than I usually do. I'm hoping and praying that our company will be giving us bonuses again this year because that really helps with the gift buying.

Today my parents have been happily married for 40 years. I hope that Robert and I will be together that long. My parents (mainly my mom) didn't want a big fuss made for this anniversary since it's not the 50th. But to me it's amazing to be married 40 years too, and should be celebrated so I'll take them out to dinner tonight.

Happy Anniversary Mama and Daddy. I hope you both have many, many, many more. Love ya'll!

Freddie and Bobbie- 1976

September 3, 2005

Recovery

I'm completely exhausted right now. Last weekend we packed up the car, and went to Dallas for my brother and his girlfriend, Janet's baby shower. The trip there wasn't that bad. We left town about 9 and got there about 3. Squeak did really well in the car, thank God! He slept most of the way except when we stopped and wake, feed, and change him. The shower started at 6 that evening so we didn't get any rest after being on the road all day. We had fun, and it was a great shower, but we were ready for it to be over a long time before it ended. I was dreaming about getting the bed and going to sleep, but we couldn't since we were staying with my brother instead of in a hotel. I will probably never make that mistake again because there was no way to get Squeak to sleep with a party in the next room. So he took a couple of cat naps through out the party, but he was still up after midnight when the party finally died off. It took me over an hour to calm him down and get him to sleep only for him to wake up a couple of hours later. He was even worse the next night.

That Sunday afternoon we all went to the new Babies R Us, and had fun shopping. This was my first opportunity to go to one, and I was in love. The selection of baby stuff was amazing. I could actually touch and feel things that I can only find online usually since we don't have a real baby store in our hometown. I finally found a rug to complete the nursery, and it was on sale for $50 from it's original price of $100! Janet and my bro bought Squeak a cool portable and adjustable space saver highchair and several outfits to wear this winter. Then we chilled out that night eating wings and watching the Cowboys play. Janet and I went through and tried to organize all the tons of gifts she's gotten from her 2 baby showers. Squeak kept me up most of the night with coughing fits and just not wanting to sleep. I finally got him to sleep for a couple of hours swaddled in his car seat sitting next to our bed.

The trip back home was good too. S had gotten a new toy that hangs from his car seat handle with a couple of squeaky fish, a big bright smiling sun that makes a crinkling noise, and a whale shaped teething ring. He loves that toy. He will play with it and play with it. It kept him happy most of the time that he was awake while we were on the road. I had been battling a sinus infection the week before we left, and I thought it was mostly gone. But Sunday morning I woke up in excruciating pain. It felt like someone was driving ice picks into various points in my head. My neck was killing me too. By the time we got home I was worn out from dealing with that for 2 days. I took some more medicine, and within an hour I was throwing up and dealing with some other issues that I'll leave out. I stayed that way for the next 2 days. My body ached and ached. I could barely hold my baby. It took until Friday for me to be able to eat food besides soup and clear liquids. I went back to work the day after all of this started and felt horrible the whole day, but the amount of paid time off I have left is very low. Everyone I work with avoided me, and I can't blame them. I looked like something the cat coughed up. I finally feel better and my sinus pressure and drainage is mostly gone thank God. I hate getting older. I used to pop back from illnesses a lot faster and easier. :(

I still hope to get some good sleep the next couple of days before Thanksgiving. My brother, his girlfriend, and her son will be coming for Thanksgiving so I have to cook stuff for that dinner plus make dishes for the Thanksgiving lunch with my in-laws at my house. And then there's Black Friday. I've only skipped the madness 1 year in the last 15+ years that I've been partaking in this insanity. I'm praying that I can keep myself out of the physical stores for the most part or at least avoid the huge stores and the mall. Hopefully the internet and QVC will be my friend, and I can shop from the comfort of my couch. ***Keeping fingers and toes crossed***

My Flower

I still can't believe it's been 2 1/2 years since my daughter was born and died all in the same day. It seems like yesterday when I was pregnant with her, yet it seems like forever since I've seen her. Her little face used to be so fresh in my memory, but now she's like a dream. I used to wonder, more like hope, the whole thing was one huge bad dream. I wanted to be like a soap opera star and wake up after what seems like years and years with nothing wrong. I would wake up still pregnant with my little princess, and my world would be whole. I still fantasize about how different my life would be now. Thinking about this brings me back to when I was in 7th grade our literature teacher had us read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, and also we had to memorize the poem that Ponyboy recites in it. I've never forgotten that poem by Robert Frost, but I never truly understood it until Madison became my angel.

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

-- Robert Frost

I'm back (Long Post)

I can't believe so much time has passed since I posted on here, but I've been so busy. Right now everyone in the house is sick so that doesn't make things any easier. I've basically gotten into the routine of getting up, getting S ready, running out the door to drop him and Rob off before I trek back across town to work, working 8+ hours a day, picking S up from daycare, picking Rob up about an hour after that, then coming home to try to find something for dinner. Then we're trying to spend some time with S doing tummy time and time in his B*umbo seat. I feed him and get him ready for bed then I may have another hour or so before I go to bed because morning comes very quickly now. Once he's in bed we try to get the kitchen cleaned, his bottles cleaned, and formula ready for the next day. Fun!

We've been in a never ending battle to find the right formula for Squeaky. He started out on E*nfamil Lipil with Iron, but he was being changed to the Soy formula when he got moved to us. His doctor was changing him to soy because of gas and fussiness. Once he was completely on the soy it was fine for a few days, but then the constipation started. We tried everything and the only thing that really worked was giving him about 4 ounces a day of full strength pear juice under doctors orders or a suppository. This is not the route I want for my baby. I want him normal and not dependent on juice or other things to have a BM. So I changed his formula to the Gentle*ease after talking with some other parents. He did pretty good on it and became regular again, but he was spitting up a lot. He would go through 3 outfits and countless bibs everyday from the spitting up alone. So I talked to the nurse at the health unit about it, and she suggested Lacto*free. She gave me about 4 days worth of samples, and he's been doing great! He does still spit up up, but that's to be expected. But it's no where near the amount he was doing. So I think we have a winner in the formula war.

Now on to my other battle. S has been congested since we got him in September. We tried all of the home things we could do for him like cold mist vaporizer and a wedge under his mattress so he would at an incline. We suction that child's nose constantly, but nothing got rid of the congestion. We finally got his medical records moved and got him into a new doctor that diagnose him with a severe case of thrush that was in his lungs causing the congestion. We treated that, but the congestion never went away. About 2 weeks later his fever spiked to 103 one night out of no where, and we were able to get it down but he kept a fever for 2 days. Rob took him in to the doctor, and they said he had a cold. She gave Rob a list of things we could do for him and a list of over the counter meds we could give him. **Red flag #1 on this doctor's office: All of the meds on the sheet have been pulled from the market a while ago.** I was able to get him some Little No*ses decongestant spray, and that helped for a couple of days. But he still wasn't getting any better. Then last week he started getting worse. His cough was horrible and he would wake himself at night because he was drowning in mucus. His appetite dropped significantly. We were so worried about him. So we both took off early Friday to take him to the doctor again because I was afraid he had RSV or somethings more than a cold.This visit we were actually going to see the doctor and not the nurse practitioner. We've never seen his doctor at all. In he walks and tell us that S has a cold or "Louisiana Sniffles". He didn't even look at him before making a diagnoses. ***Giantic Red Flag on Fire*** This quack proceeds to tell us that he sees this all the time and it's from the pollen, mold, and roach poop. WTF? Are you saying that I have roaches in my house or my daycare has roaches? He then tells me to put the baby on the table so he can look at him.

He listens to S's chest for a second while he's being a rude pompous ass to Rob. He has the stethoscope in his ears while Rob is talking to him. The doctor looks at me and tells me that "If he's talking to me tell him I can't hear him with these in my ears." The quack then says that the baby is just fine keep giving him nose drops and suctioning him. It took everything I had not to rip his fucking throat out. You could hear the arrogance in his voice. How are you going to tell us about LA weather and how it makes you sick? We were both born and raised here, but listening to his thick accent you could tell he wasn't. How dare you talk down to us or any of your patients? Is this how you treat all of your patients or just the ones that use Medi*caid? I told him that since he wasn't going to do his job and help this baby then I was going to take him to the hospital to get some help. He then asks me do I want a referral to see another doctor in the hospital clinic to get a 2nd opinion. I said yes and he left the room without another word. I should have knocked him on his ass.

We left and took S to the other clinic. They were much better and listened to us. They prescribed him an antihistamine and decongestant syrup. And S has been doing so much better. What was so fucking hard about listening to us and giving this child the medicine that he needs? No one should have to suffer just because they don't have state insurance. How can anyone that calls them self a pediatrician let a child suffer needlessly? I will be sending a compliant letter about this. I'm still fuming about that whole situation.

Well, we're getting ready for our first road trip with a baby. I've been making my lists in hopes of making this a nice trip. We're leaving Saturday morning for Dallas to go to my brother and his girlfriend, Janet's baby shower. I'm excited because this will be the 1st time they've met S. We'll be staying at their house this weekend, and we'll even get a night to ourselves to go out. Janet wants to get in some practice with a little baby again since it's been a while for her. Her only other child, Alex, is 15. So S will serve as a nice refresher course for the both of them. I'm so excited to be an Aunt soon. I can't wait to meet her!

I know I promised some Halloween pictures but I forgot to take some that didn't show his face. But if I know you just email me, and I'll send them to you. S went as my little chili pepper. Too cute! But I do have some pictures from this weekend that I can share on here, and I promise to post more often too.