Our (Neurodiverse) Family

Other than her birth story, Livia hasn't had a post dedicated to her. (1) She's three months old now. (2) We call her our little butterfly because she has a birthmark on back of her head (hidden by her hair) that looks like a butterfly. We like to think it's a butterfly kiss from her grandpa in heaven. (3) When Livia was born, the general consensus was that she looked just like Stephan did as a baby. Nowadays, strangers say she looks just like me. Currently, the agreement is that she looks like a brunette Kate. (4) Had I made it to my due date, she would have been just about the exact same weight Stephan was when he was born (on his due date, incidentally). At birth, he was a half-ounce shy of nine pounds. Yeah, I think I'm glad she came early. (5) Whereas her sister was always long and lean, she seems to be going the short and chubby route. (6) Snuggles. She loooves to be snuggled. (7) She has my lips. Take that people who like to say she didn't ge...

...it's me.... Hello from the mother SIIIIIIDE!!!!! Check it out, I'm being relevant. I think? Yes, it's been almost three months since I last updated. I've been a bit busy. (1) Two kids. Need I say more? (2) Okay fine, I'll elaborate. My days are spent nursing the baby, changing diapers (only for the baby, thankfully. Yay for Kate being potty trained), taking Kate to and from preschool, and keeping Kate from destroying the house and/or killing the baby. (3) Between all of that, I have to figure out how to keep the household running and put dinner on the table when Stephan comes home from work. Needless to say, we've ordered a lot of pizza these last few months. Or I've done breakfast for dinner. Yeah, we've eaten a lot of breakfast for dinner. (4) Despite me saying that I have to keep Kate from killing Livia, Kate really does love her baby sister. She just doesn't know how to be gentle, and well it's hard going from having all ...

The Friday before I was induced, I went in for my twice-weekly NST. I had my blood drawn a few days before to check my Bile Acid and Liver Function a few days before and I asked the nurse who did my NST if she could check on that. She found my test results, and my BA level was 45--five points above "severe". This was with me being medicated. I was rushed into an appointment with one of the midwives--she consulted with two of the OBs and it was decided that we would still go forward with the plan to induce the following Wednesday. On Labor Day, I found out that I was #5 on the hospital's induction call list. Somehow the next day, I moved up to the #2 slot so I woke up extra early (not that I slept much the night before anyway, because I had THE WORST itching that night) to wait for the call. At 7:30, my phone rang and the nurse said that my induction was scheduled for 9 a.m. So, we got Kate out of bed, loaded up the car, took her to my mother-in-law's house...

As if this pregnancy wasn't throwing me enough curveballs. Spotting in the first weeks, not finding little baby on ultrasound, holy food aversions and nausea Batman, subchorionic hematoma...and then being diagnosed with cholestasis at 28 weeks. In all of this, Stephan's dad was going through his last months, which brought emotional upheaval of its own. I thought I just had to deal with a few more weeks of itching hell, get induced at 37 weeks, and be done with it. My gallbladder had other ideas. I hit 35 weeks yesterday, and to celebrate, my gallbladder decided it had a death wish. Admittedly, I've been eating a lot of junk recently (sleep deprivation and stress does that), and my gallbladder must have decided that it couldn't take it anymore. At around three-something yesterday, I had a snack that I probably shouldn't have had because I really wasn't hungry (stress eating not a good idea). At first, I just felt really, really full. Then, the Right Upper Qua...

Things have been a bit crazy lately. Just a few weeks ago, Stephan's dad passed away after a long battle with leiomyosarcoma Wait, what?! We had known for some time that my father-in-law was dying, but I kept quiet about it here and on social media in general out of respect for my family's privacy and because he lived with the cancer for much longer than the experts expected, we had no idea when he would go. The last several months have been some of the hardest we've experienced as a family. We pretty much put our lives on hold so we could say good-bye when the time came. Kate started to become scared of Grandpa because of the pain drugs he was taking and the equipment he needed to function. First it was a walker, then a wheelchair, then he needed a morphine pump, oxygen, and finally a hospital bed. Some people have told us, "Oh, Kate is old enough that she'll remember her grandfather!" I'm not sure how I feel about her remembering her grandpa bein...

Kate doesn't get ill often, but when she does, it's usually only for a few days tops and then all is right in the world again. So, when she woke up in the wee hours of Sunday morning last week with a fever, we thought that it would be over in a few days and we could continue on with our lives. We were wrong. Sunday, we all stayed home from church to keep Kate from spreading germs. She seemed to want us both, so it was good that we were all home together. She slept a lot, we dosed her with children's Tylenol and Advil, etc. Monday, the fever was still there and again, she slept a lot. She drank lots of water and lemonade, but didn't really want to eat. Then she threw up--that's when I called the doctor. By the time we got to the doctor, she was acting pretty normal and her fever was under control. The doctor said it was just a bug and that she would get over it soon enough. She never threw up again, thank goodness. On Tuesday, she didn't go to presch...

We found out in May that we're having another girl. First name has been chosen, but we're stumped about middle names. Kate is VERY excited to be getting a little sister. Due date is now September 30, but I'll probably go sooner than that with my track record. Kate is going to summer preschool twice a week! She loves it and I enjoy the two-hour break for me...heh heh. I've also got her enrolled for the fall. We're hoping to get a second car in the next few months before baby girl comes. Preferably a mini van. I have no shame. So, we're trying to save up for that. I've been nesting. A lot.  My OB closed his practice because of family stuff, so I followed my midwives from last pregnancy over to their new practice (which is where almost EVERYONE in my ward goes). It's a lot closer to where I live and right next to the hospital I'll be delivering at, so I think this is all for the best.  I've started itching a bit again. I had bloodwo...

Kate had her first ever dentist visit just over two weeks ago. Truth be told, I put it off too long mostly because I was scared of her being traumatized for life from the dentist. I mean, come on, dentists are a child's worst enemy right? Except, my dentist growing up was actually very nice. He even had a daughter the same age as me who I went to elementary school with. Even still, going to the dentist isn't fun the first time...right? Well, these fears proved to be unfounded. Kate did VERY well at the dentist. The hygienists and the dentist were so sweet and gentle with her. I was floored at how well Kate was handling everything--she seemed curious about it all. My first memory of the dentist includes me screaming, but remember that I was speech delayed and was going through more than my fair share of medical tests at the time. Unfortunately, Kate had a lot of cavities. In fact, one was so deep that she was going to need a baby root canal. They thought she ...

If you read my last post, I mentioned having a subchorionic bleed  several weeks ago. Basically, it's a small pocket of blood near the placenta--approximately 20% of women experience this during pregnancy. Most of the time it's harmless especially if it's small, but bigger ones can cause more problems. One Friday, when I was just about 11 weeks pregnant, I went to the bathroom and discovered blood. Red blood. Naturally, I panicked. I left a message on my doctor's voicemail asking him to call back, and when he did, I told him what was happening. He told me that chances were good that everything was fine, but because of last summer's miscarriage, we would arrange for an ultrasound. He called the order into the hospital radiology department and then I made an appointment to go get an ultrasound...at seven o'clock at night. Did I mention that it was his day off when he did all of this? Well, it was. Stephan came home early in the meantime because I was freakin...

I'm too much of a perfectionist about doing just run of the mill family updates like other blogs, so here's just a general update on family life. Stephan was released as the ward clerk last week after serving in that calling since August. Yeah, it was a short tenure, but honestly it was welcome news. It was great when he was out of work because he didn't feel completely useless, but after he started his new job with longer hours and commute, it was just making everything crazy. He is now the ward technology specialist which is basically perfect for him and we are enjoying having Daddy around more, especially on Sundays! Of course, we had a lot of people asking (before he got his new calling) if we were moving closer to his job because of our ward's transient nature.  Truth be told, we were seriously looking into moving closer to his job because of our one-car situation, but everything we found was either in a great location but had ridiculously high rent or had ...

For those of you who are not Facebook friends with me...surprise, I'm pregnant!  That's the big reason why I haven't been around much recently--dealing with first trimester yucks mostly. I'm due October 2, but it will probably be earlier than that. For those of you who are nosy, I'll answer the standard FAQs about pregnancy right here. How are you feeling? Now that I'm 11-ish weeks pregnant, I'm doing a lot better. Earlier on in the pregnancy is another story though. Food aversions have been THE WORST this time. From 6-8 weeks I could hardly eat anything except cold cereal, pop tarts (the thought makes me gag now), and cooking was out of the question. We got a lot of take-out and frozen meals during those weeks. I'm afraid this one is going to be a super picky eater.  I'm able to eat more foods now and cook a little more, but I am tired all the time. Last time I could just take a nap whenever I wanted, but this time I have a th...

Being inspired by my brother-in-law's most recent blog post, I decided to make a year in review. I think this is especially fitting because admittedly, I wasn't the best about blogging in 2014. I hope you don't mind me copying you, Alex :) January Stephan's brother Alex came home from his mission in Pennsylvania and finally got to meet Kate for the first time, since he left just a month before she was born. She called him "daddy" for a while because he and Stephan look a lot alike. I reluctantly decided to have my antidepressant dosage upped to a mid level rather than the really low dose I had been taking. February Stephan caught the flu for the second year in a row. Kate and I did not because we had flu shots.  I shared my depression story with Megan at Brave Hearts . Kate turned two years old. At her two-year checkup, she had gone from being in the 90th percentile for height to the 95th percentile. Pediatrician astounded at her verbal...

If you look closely at this picture of Kate, you will see a small pinkish-red birthmark on the right side of her forehead. It was much more noticeable when she was a baby, and people would often say (after commenting on how cute she is), "Oooooh, do you have an owie?"  Her birthmark has never bothered me, since it hasn't caused problems, but the questions about her being hurt got old. Even a friend who saw Kate frequently blurted out one day, "Is that scab ever going to heal?!" I more or less yelled at her, "IT'S A BIRTHMARK!" Stephan and I have affectionately called her birthmark her "little ruby." Kate has recently become more aware of her physical features, and one day while looking in the mirror she pointed to her birthmark and asked, "What's that?"  I told her, "That's your little ruby. You were born with it." She smiled and exclaimed, "My little wooby! It's ...