Letter To My Son – Adam – 4 Months Old

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Dear Adam

Today you are 4 months old.  I was hoping to say that you managed to stay out of A&E for this entire month but, alas, it is not to be.  You were there just after your second set of jabs to have your lump investigated.  You can read the whole story of that here.

This has been quite the month otherwise as well.  You’ve been laughing up a storm, really starting to sleep through the night and even thinking very hard about rolling over.  Your Daddy and I can just tell!

What we’ve learned this month:

  1. You love sitting up.  The bumbo is great for that: –

    2. SDC10553

  2. You have started drooling.  A lot.  But still no signs of teeth.
  3. If Mummy thinks you are too tired and doesn’t sing to you, you won’t go to sleep until she does.
  4. You hate wearing a hat. Even though you look so cute in one

    5. SDC10557

  5. You can take your dummy out of your mouth.  We are just waiting for you to be able to put it back in!
  6. The best toy in the world? Daddy’s fingers: –

    7. SDC10540

Winter is rapidly moving in here in Belfast, so mummy is getting ready to move you into a more sit up version of your pram.  You see, that version has a warm sleeping bag like thing that attaches to it, so you’ll be very snuggly warm this winter.  Also, you are definitely ready to be able to look around as we go about our day.

Mummy was recently diagnosed to fibromyalgia, so, once again, she has to ask for your patience.  She might not be able to be as active as you as you get older as some mummies can be, since she hurts quite a lot.

But she promises she will always be there to hold you, or pick you up, no matter what.

Love

Mummy

Diabetes…Anxiety Disorder…Borderline Agoraphobia…And Now…

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Some of you might remember that about 2 years ago now I started have trouble sleeping.  As in waking up for the day at 4am.  No matter what time I went to bed.

After a few months of various sleeping pills didn’t work, I was sent to the rheumatoid clinic.  I was tested for every known type of arthritis.  I had x-rays.  It was determined that I have early degenerative disease in my left knee and hip.

And then I got pregnant.  And any possible proof that I might have what they thought I had (fibromyalgia) went out the window as who can tell if you’re not sleeping and you hurt all over because of fibro or because of the big belly and kicking baby?  So we agreed to postpone diagnosis until after the baby was born.

Yesterday was that diagnosis appointment.  I have fibro.

So what makes today different from yesterday?  Today my aches, pains and exhaustion have a name beyond ‘you have a 4 month old son’.  The occasional weakness in my right hand has a cause.

Of course there is no cure for fibro. In the UK there isn’t even an approved drug for treatment.  In fact when I mentioned to the doctor I saw yesterday that my mom has fibro and she takes some sort of medicine for it, he actually rolled his eyes and said ‘there is no drug that treats fibro.’  I raised my eyebrows at him, but let it drop.

The treatment is what I already do; ibuprofen/paracetamol, gentle exercise and plenty of rest.  I can do all but the last. See aforementioned 4 month old son!

So I’ll keep popping ibuprofen at night and in the morning.  I’ll keep taking walks with the pram.  I’ll keep doing yoga.

And until the landlord finally gets the plumber here to sort it, I’ll keep yelling for Simon to turn on the cold tap in the kitchen on days my hands are too weak to manage it.

And avoid doing the washing up when he isn’t home…

Yikes, Its Been Nearly A Week Since I updated!

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Sorry about that my (all of 10 or so) faithful readers!

No reason except for a baby who will not nap most days.  Who has been very cranky this week (we think its his teeth) and just general not much to say.

I am, of course, working on a newsletter for Adam’s 4th month.  So there will definitely be an update on him in 3 days!!

I Would Like To Say, Right Up Front

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that I know Simon and I are incredibly lucky with how much Adam sleeps.  He’s always slept fairly well at night and he’s recently begun sleeping through from 730 or 8 to about 530 the next morning.

That being said…

I think Cry It Out sucks.  I think its a stupid idea and cruel.  I do not think it teaches a child to self sooth.  I think it teaches a child that no one is coming to comfort them, so why bother to cry?  My son? Self soothes.  He takes a pacifier that he spits out automatically when he’s fully asleep.  That is self soothing.

I became totally against Cry It Out when I heard a story from a mum on a board I used to frequent.  This mum told the story of her (approximately) 2 year old daughter crying in the middle of the night and the mum let her cry, because that’s what you do.  You let them cry.  They couldn’t possibly, at 2, need you for anything in the middle of the night.  Well, when she went to get her daughter the next morning the child and her cot were covered in dried vomit.  Whether the child had cried so much that she’d made herself sick or had cried because she had been sick the mum didn’t know.  Because she never once checked on her once she was in bed.

The story is bad enough.  What’s worse is the response of the other mothers on the board.  Who all told her that she had no way of knowing that her daughter had been sick and so she shouldn’t feel bad about leaving her to cry. What?!?!?!  Of course she could have known.  She could have taken a peak at her daughter and made sure she was okay, which she so obviously wasn’t.

Now you know one of the reasons why I don’t read at that board any more.

My next Cry It Out story is recent and I heard it long after I had made the decision to never let Adam Cry It Out.

Its Dooce’s story about Leta.  Now, you have to watch the Momervision video to find this out, because Dooce doesn’t mention it in the blog post, but its not just that they let Leta cry herself to sleep at 5 months.  Its that it took thirteen nights of her crying most of the night before Leta slept on the 14th night.  So for almost 2 weeks, Dooce and her husband left Leta lying in her crib, crying.  13 days of it.  How is that not cruel?  How is that teaching the child anything but that mummy is never coming to comfort her?

I do understand sleep deprivation.  Although Adam sleeps fairly well, he was still waking up at least once a night until, really, this past week.  And sleep deprivation isn’t just no sleep, its no consistent sleep.  Its never getting more than 3 or 4 hours in a row for day after day after day.

What I don’t understand is treating a child like that.  Of ‘teaching’ a baby that mummy isn’t coming, so you’d better just shut up and go to sleep.

I try to respect other’s parenting styles, I really do.  I don’t want anyone to judge me, so I try not to judge others.

But 13 days? Is entirely cruel.

And makes me wonder if that’s the real reason Dooce checked herself into the mental hospital not to long after she let Leta cry it out.  I’m not saying Dooce doesn’t have Mental Health Issues, lord knows I have enough myself.  I am saying that I think she set herself up for her crash.  By, yes, I am going to say it, the guilt she created by torturing her daughter.

Dooce will probably never read this.  She has no idea who I am.

But I’ve lost a little respect for her now.

And I’m happy for her that Margo is a better sleeper than Leta was.

Although Today Was Incredibly Hard and I am Exhausted

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it is days like today that make me grateful for 1 year of Maternity Leave.  In the States I am pretty sure I’d be back to work already.

Today was a day with an upset baby all day.  He was beyond cranky.  He was screaming crying off and on all day.

And all I could think was, God, what if he was with a babysitter or at a childminder?  Not only would they not have the time to sit on the sofa all afternoon and hold him, they wouldn’t have the patience.  Or the love.  Its something only a mummy would do.

Because that’s what I did.  I sat on the sofa all day, gazing at the internet and playing a game so my son could sleep in spurts between crying his eyes out.  He wasn’t hungry.  He was dry.  He was obviously a bit tired, since he kept falling asleep.  But mostly he was just being a baby.

I, of course, had to leave him to cry on occasion.  I needed the loo.  I needed to eat lunch.  I needed a break.  But mostly I sat here all day with my son in my arms, being miserable.

And when Simon I got home, he took over.  Adam ate a bit more for his Daddy, but not a lot.  And he had more moments of laughter.  But not many.  Daddy mostly did all evening what I did all day, hold on tight to a baby that was miserable for no discernible reason.

He might be teething, as his pacifier seemed to help.  I looked but I don’t see any teethy pegs yet.

And he went to bed for the night at the same time as he usually does.

So we’ll see what kind of night we have.

And tomorrow is another day.

The Saga Of The Lump…

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So, when Adam fell out of my arms at 3 weeks old one of the things that he had, along with his cracked skull and broken rib, was a little lump on his side, under his left arm.  We were told it was a sub-dermal haematoma caused by his rib bleeding when it broke and that it would go away on its own.

Instead, it started to grow.  It started out about a centimetre across and a centimetre high.  By the time he had his follow up with the Paediatrician who treated him when he fell, it had about doubled in size.  We were still told not to worry about it.

Well, at his first well baby and jabs check up 4 weeks ago, it was doubled in size again.  And the GP was concerned.  However, since it didn’t bother him, the GP decided to wait until his next set of jabs, which were this past week.  And it was even bigger.  And we were sent over to the A&E department at Children’s Hospital to have an ultrasound and get it checked out.

After 4 hours, lots of poking and an ultrasound, we found out it measures 5cm across.  And it has blood flow.  And some cyst bits.  And they have no idea what this thing is on my son’s side.

So the next step is an MRI. Now, I’ve had an MRI, they don’t hurt, its completely un-invasive.  However, Adam is a baby.  You can’t just ask him to lie still for an hour while they scan him.  So they are going to have to put him under a General Anaesthetic.  With its usual dangers.  Neither Simon or I are pleased about this, but I really want to know what the heck this thing is on my son’s side.

The part that really worries the two of us, though, is what are they going to do about it, once they do know what it is? Is my little guy going to need an operation? Are they just going to leave it alone and keep checking it?  Or what?

And we won’t know that until after the MRI.  So we wait.  Hopefully not more than about a month.

But its the NHS…so who knows for sure?

Its Been A Hell Of A Week

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Starting with Simon getting home late on Monday, seguing into spending Tuesday afternoon with Adam in the A&E about the lump on his side (more on that in another post), winding up with Adam having two off days in a row due to his getting his next set of injections.

All three of us were in bed by 10 last night.

I think its going to be a quiet weekend.

I May Have Ranted About This Before

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but I am going to rant about it again!

I take two meds for my mental health issues; Xanax, for anxiety and Trazodone for depression.

Each of these meds has been mentioned on TV shows I watch.  And misrepresented.

Trazodone was mentioned on NCIS once.  Abbey claimed that someone on it would be so knocked out by it there was no way they could have killed themselves.  Not necessarily true.  Yes, it makes you sleepy.  But I take it every night, granted at a low dose for the moment, and still wake up fully as soon as my little man needs me.  Perhaps at massive doses you’d be completely knocked out.  But I used to take a much larger dose and it still didn’t make me incoherent when woken up from it.

Xanax was mentioned on West Wing.  Abbey (heh, both characters are named Abbey.  I just realized this!) takes a Xanax in front of Leo.  Leo gives her a lecture on addiction and meds, comparing Xanax to Valium.  Um, not the same thing.  At all.  Yes, Xanax is addictive.  Yes, you have to wean yourself off it. No, it will not put you into rehab.  You see, with Valium, you have to keep upping the dose to get the same effect.  This is not true with Xanax.  When you find what dose works for you, you can stay at the dose forever and it will continue to work for you.  And as Abbey was taking it as needed (a very common occurrence with Xanax) she probably never took more than .25mg. A teeny tiny dosage.

So, listen up TV people.  Maybe it makes better drama to give NCIS a reason to suspect suicide was actually murder and to make it seem like the First Lady was going to be a drug addict.  But it does nothing for the image of mental illness.

The key word there, you see, is illness.  It is an illness. Whether anxiety, depression, MPD, schizophrenia or what have you.  The person is ill.  My mental illness is just as much a treatable illness as my diabetes.

And I work hard to treat both of them.

My Day Off

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So yesterday, for the first time since Adam was born, I took myself shopping by myself for more than an hour in a row.

I left the flat at 11.  I bought a few necessary things at Boots.  And then I went shopping!

I wandered through Marks & Spencer’s with no one looking bored or getting whiny.

I wandered through all of Victoria Square Shopping Centre, including a stop for a long leisurely lunch and a stop in all the women’s departments at House of Fraser.

I spent 30 minutes choosing new notebooks at Paperchase.  30 minutes! And no one sighed at me!!

Then I went on a bra and knicker shopping spree at Debenhem’s.  None of my pre-pregnancy undies fit and I am sick and tired of shapeless already worn out maternity bras.  Just cuz I’m a mummy doesn’t mean I can’t have nice undies!

So it was a lovely day.  All to myself.

Man did I miss my little man!!!

Last Night…

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a miracle occurred.

Last night was my night off.  I woke up, on my own, at 0715.  And I’m thinking, how nice.  Simon let me sleep in.  He must be wrecked, poor boy.  And he won’t have much time to go back to bed since I have a doctor’s appointment at 0945.

So I peek into the front room.  And Simon is on the sofa, sipping a cup of coffee.  And Adam is in his chair, happily kicking his legs.

And Simon said, ‘He slept until 630.’

And I fainted.  Dead away.

Okay, not really that last part.

But the rest of it? 100% true.

Adam Jacob, aged 3 months and 2 days slept the night through!

Tonight is my night off again, since Simon is on holiday this week and is doing two nights in a row.

I wonder if the miracle will occur again…