05 November 2012

A Baptism, Family and Friends

Last Weekend was a lot of fun, but very tiring for this Mom.  Since my husband had responsibilities in Nebraska, Samuel and I made our way to Wisconsin for my cousin's son's baptism.  Thankfully, my cousin, Anna, and her husband were willing to drive with me.

Stranger Danger:
We spent a lot of time at my Rachel's (my cousin whose son, Josiah, got baptized) house, with lots of family and friends.  With how Samuel has been starting his stranger danger phase I was reasonably concerned that I would have a little cling-on the whole weekend.  My Dad arrived at my house on Thursday so he could caravan with us on Friday and his arrival proved to me that my concerns were valid.  Samuel did not warm up to his Opa until he played cello for him, then he was more willing to go him.

On Saturday morning when we first went to Rachel's house, Samuel was somewhat apprehensive, so I kept him with me mainly at first.  I was very thankful that he didn't burst out and cry the minute he saw someone new!  As the day went on he warmed up nicely to everyone that was there.  I was even able to hand him off to someone without him fussing at all!  The rest of the weekend was that way.  He was held by plenty of family without me even in the room and didn't fuss at all.  Thank you Lord for a calm baby!

He may have been a calm and happy baby around people, but he wasn't really much of a sleeping baby, the entire weekend.  Friday he started his night early due to the car ride and after getting everything set up at the hotel and fed it took him 45 minutes to fall asleep (normally he falls asleep within 5).  At least it was more of just an off and on whimper and not a full out cry!  Then when 4am came around he was ready to be up and awake!  So I held him in a sitting position after feeding him thinking to myself, kid, I only got about 3.5hrs of sleep....  He did let me sleep a little longer so I was able to start the day feeling reasonably rested.

On Saturday he barely napped however.  Which when he barely naps it never bodes well for the night. We did drive over and see my college flute teacher and I dropped my cousin Anna off at CUW to see some missionary friends that were there for the missions conference.  While there she get to be part of a historical event.  A deer jumped through a window into the cafeteria (which apparently sounded like several stacks of coffee cups piled to the ceiling had just fallen over), ran around the cafeteria for a while and chased a student before jumping back out a different window.  Oh and by deer we mean buck!  If you are a facebook friend of mine a posted a video that I found on another friend's wall of it.  How fun would it be to be the student that could say, "Remember when we were eating supper and the deer chased you?"

Back to the topic.  :-)
So Saturday night was theoretically a great night because we got to turn our clocks back and get an extra hour of sleep right?  Not for me.  Samuel woke up just about every hour being somewhat inconsolable, so that extra hour just made a long night longer...  Ahh the joys of being a parent!  Needless to say I was rather tired yesterday after 2 days of very little sleep.  In fact I had an eye twitching all day I was so tired.  It was then that I was very thankful to have gone with my cousin and her husband, it would not have been safe for me to drive home!

At Church on Sunday I ran into two of my college friends.  Which was not really random.  One of them was a missionary in Taiwan with my cousin Anna and was in her wedding and the other has also been a missionary to a few places and know my cousin, Tim.  So it was very good to be able to catch up with them and hear about how things are going for them.

The baptism went very well, Josiah didn't even fuss for it.  That afternoon we welcomed him into God's family with a huge lunch!  All afternoon it seemed people were stopping by to say hello and congratulate the family.

All in all, despite the huge lack of sleep, it was a very good weekend.  Thankfully after I fed Samuel when we got him he went right to sleep and stayed asleep until his normal wake-up time (despite the time change even, we are soo thankful!).  The last thing both Ben or I wanted to do was be up with a baby with how tired we both were from our weekends.  So thankfully Sam played along with that idea quite nicely!

01 November 2012

Winter Months and RSV

Winter is coming!  Though it really doesn't seem that way...  My car read 70 today and I thought to myself how odd it is that it is November 1st and the car reads 70.  I would say we have had very mild weather overall this year, especially considering it is not uncommon to have already seen snow (I know, it's a dirty 4 letter word to some...).

I just wanted to use a post to talk about RSV one more time (yeah I kind of already talked about it a few months back, but it wasn't RSV season then, so I thought I should just revisit it really quickly.  Some may think the snow is the worst part of winter, but I think this year for me it is having a preemie and winter meaning RSV season.  Thankfully our doctor told us yesterday that there has not been much RSV in the area as of yet, let's just pray it stays that way.

We also have a situation that greatly reduces the risk of RSV, by that I mean that I stay at home with Samuel and therefore he isn't in daycare.  It also helps that he has no older siblings in school that could get it and bring it home.  Basically in older healthy children and adults RSV seems just like the common cold, so what is the big deal about RSV?

Well, with babies that are high-risk for RSV it is unfortunately not as simple as a common cold.  RSV frequently lands a premature baby or a baby with other health concerns in the hospital over night or longer.  I think the desire alone to not spend another night in the hospital with Samuel is a big enough one for me to be protective!  Basically high risk babies (like Samuel due to being born premature) have big problems breathing due to RSV and RSV can cause complications that can affect them for many years.

The good news for Samuel is that he thankfully qualifies for synagis, which I was recently told is actually an antibody and not a vaccine.  Synagis does a lot of good in preventing the more severe symptoms and complications from happening when a baby gets RSV.  So it does not necessarily prevent RSV, but tends to make it more manageable.  Synagis is VERY expensive, so we are happy Samuel qualifies.  It's expensive because not it cost $800+ per shot, but it is a shot that has to be given once a month during RSV season, that means Samuel will likely get 5 synagis shots this winter, that's $4000!!!  Thankfully our insurance will help pay for it, if it did not we would not be getting it because that is just really expensive.  We'd probably just never go anywhere with Samuel during RSV season.  :-)

There is a blog I read geared towards everything preemie.  Recently one of the Mom's wrote a really good post about RSV, please click this to read it.  This is also a really good blog to pass onto someone you know has a preemie, is going to have a preemie or knows someone who has a preemie.  It really is written primarily for the parents, but if you want to have a better understanding for all things preemie, it's a good read.

I guess I just wanted to let people know that I am not trying to be mean when out in public and I don't just pass Samuel around (besides he's going through stranger danger right now anyways, he gets very unsettled with the wrong people...), I am just trying to do what I need to do to keep my son healthy.  Don't worry he does get exposed to other people and I don't mind when people hold him and play with him in a smaller, more private setting.  Just with him being a preemie I'm not comfortable with playing pass the baby until we get out of this RSV season.  Then I will be able to breathe easier knowing that he is bigger, stronger and more capable of fighting anything he catches himself!

His 9 month check-up went very well if you were wondering.  He still growing fine and the doctor said he looked healthy.  Based on what we told him about Samuel's development his ped would say he is developmentally on track with a 6 month old, which is perfect because that is his adjusted age!

Until next week...  Have a great weekend!