An article “Premature babies feel pain but don’t show it”

This article was on the older preemie online group today. It talks about the pain scale for infants may not be entirely correct. Currently medical professionals look for facial grimaces, changes in the heart rate and desats. The article says that not all infants react this way. They said the brain response for pain without any physical signs. For most parents of preemies this is not surprising news. I have long believed that all the procedures J had in his first few months of life affected his pain sensitivity. I can’t imagine what he went through. He had a heel prick every day and when he was not doing well they pricked him multiple times a day. That is just the tip of the iceburg of what he was put through. I have always thought he has a diminished sense of pain or at least does not appear affected by pain. It has always worried me. How will we know if he is really hurt or not? Now that he is more verbal our fears a bit less, but I still worry.

We were supposed to have J’s “testing” by the behavioral psy. tomorrow. I had asked the office manager to call me back last w/ the price of this testing. It would be out of pocket so I really wanted to know. She called and told me it would be $850. (I am so in the wrong line of work) So, I in turn asked her what would we be getting from this “testing.” We had also talked w/ 2 depts (neurology and the developmental disability clinic) at Texas Children’s about getting him tested there. I know the neuropsych eval in the neurology dept would help a lot with educational planning. The testing in the DDC is a full battery of tests psy and medical. These both are more expensive than the $850 but see a worth to them. So back to the test scheduled for Monday. The office manager tells me that we will get a feel of what J’s maturity level is and if a dx comes out of it we could talk about that. In a nicer way, I said “are you freakin kidding me.” I told her that I did not know if their testing would best benefit us. I have a REALLY good grasp as to where J is maturity wise and have a pretty good idea of what dx he may be given. This information would benefit me very little. I told her to cancel his appointment and we needed to explore all of our options before I shell out close to $1000. So back to square one.

As for adoption news, we have our home study on Wednesday. Do you think we are ready? Absolutely not! We did accomplish some big projects this weekend, though. Thanks to little brother, J now has a fan installed in his room. The nursery is now back a nursery. It has been the junk room for the past year. The office/playroom is also clean. It has been junk room #2 for the past 2 years. I tried to finish J’s bathroom (installing the towel rack and toilet paper holder) to no avail. We could not get the towel rack secure. Where the old one was is on the other side of the wall from the light switch. When hubby tried to install the toilet paper holder the lights flicked so he must have hit something. Did not want to mess up the wiring so we have no place to hang the hand towel or toilet paper. This bathroom will be my demise.

Thankfulness

Tonight I had one of those moments of thankfulness. Hubby had something going on tonight, so it was just J and myself. J was letting me do something on the laptop (which is unusual). He then came up to me and gave me a kiss (unprompted also unusual). Next thing I know he is curled up next to me on the sofa sound asleep. It was just so sweet.

It seems that last few posts have been me just complaining and whining. I have been so worked up on the delays and why have they not responded as quickly as I think they should have, etc. It’s all about me, right? Hubby brought things into perspective a couple of days ago. He reminded me that everything happens in God’s timing and that we are already blessed with one amazing little boy. He said I need to remember the desperation we felt w/ the infertility issues and wanting to be a parent. He reminded me that we are the only couple with our agency with a child and again the timing is not our own. He reiterated that we are already blessed and that eventually home study/ paperwork will be done.

I don’t know why but this sweet gesture made me step back and just be thankful for what we already have, J.

I am watching So You Think You Can Dance and Joshua and Katee are performing. I have decided Joshua is the one to beat. I love him. They did such a great job.

Oh, BTW found out our crib has just been recalled. It takes 4 wks to get the voucher. I guess it is a good thing that we do not have a baby currently sleeping in it. J has had a twin bed for a couple of years w/ a really bad mattress. I bought really firm mattress (too firm) thinking that it would be a good transition from the crib mattress. Since he has been coming in our room in the middle of the night (don’t judge) going on a year, hubby has become banished to the sofa. We upgraded J to the full bed that was in the guest room/nursery. He was so excited. You would have thought it was his birthday. He is still coming into our room but at least now hubby has a comfy bed to go to.

Home Study Scheduled

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!

I guess my email did the trick. I spoke with our assigned social worker today and she was told that we have had issues (I don’t really think that we had issues but whatever) and wanted to get together with us as soon as possible. She was apologetic that we could not get together this week b/c she was going out of town. Not her fault b/c she only heard about us on Friday. Anyway, we are having it on July 2nd. That is ok w/ me b/c it gives us next weekend to really get the house in shape.

So, it seems we are back on track.

Protected: Tide is turning (hopefully)

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Protected: It should not be this hard

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Please go and sign this petition

As most know our Vietnam adoption is on hold indefinitely. We were told we would have our dossier returned to us when the countries suspended the adoptions in Sept 08. Well there is this petition on line to have our dossiers remain logged in. This would hopefully mean that we would be able to continue with the adoption after our “on hold” status was up. We would still be looking at years but not never. **It asks for a donation but you do not have to donate. Your name will have already been added to the petition.

Jennifer since you have loved being involved in the political process lately ; it looks like Sen Landrieu is one of the names listed feel free to let her office know what you think. I plan on doing it.

I does not change our plans for the domestic adoption. I am pulling out my hair b/c they will not assign us a social worker for the home study update. I will just give them a call every day until someone returns my call.

Happy Father’s Day

Hubby gets kuddos b/c he spent all afternoon cutting the grass and cleaning the house. We have are hosting our Church small group tomorrow night and the house needed to be clean. W/ a 4 yr old, it does no good cleaning too far in advance.

Just reading some of the blogs of families with special needs children a lot of great stories of devoted fathers to hard to raise kids. I see this a lot in my line of work. Single moms raising special needs children b/c the “dad” could not deal with what ever disability. I am very lucky to have a great husband and J is lucky to have a very hands on and loving father. I need to say thank you and appreciate him more. To end I have a funny story. One night we were watching Extreme home makeover. It was about a single father who was hurt in the war and wife left him when he returned. We were talking about how could someone do that and hubby likened it to when fathers leave disabled kids. Well we had been having a couple of bad days with J and that night we went to bed. In the middle of the night, hubby woke up (I use that term very loosely) and said “it is too hard and I can’t take it anymore. I guess I have to leave.” I knew he was still asleep and laughed at him. The next morning he had no memory of that conversation. I like to tease him still about that.

It can all come back in an instant

One of the preemie list-servs I am on posted an article for us to read. It is a speech from a March of Dimes event, and it is a micro-preemie parent of twin from Dallas. I am always amazed at how quickly and easily I am brought back to that time in our life 4 yrs ago. It is nice to read these articles b/c it reminds you of the others out there that have similar experiences as us at least the three month roller coaster of the NICU. I also instantly brings me to tears remembering how hard it was. The stress during the adoption has also been hard, but no where near what the NICU was like. It is really weird to me how vivid the memories of that time remain. They have not diminished over the years and now I doubt that they ever will. They will always be a part of our story. Cheesy as it sounds and is, it’s the truth.

**side note As I write this, I flip the channel expecting the news to be on and catch the last 30 min of The Notebook. Glutton for punishment right.

We took J to the Behavioral Psychologist this week for an evaluation. Basically, they want to do further evaluations on him. So I was sent home with 5 more extensive questionnaires to fill out. I guess we will do that in July. The one thing we did talk about was J having skills (intelligence) beyond his age but speech/maturity years below his age. She said it is hard for parents to wrap their head around this b/c of the gap between intelligence and maturity. I took that to mean we need to lower our expectations for his behavior. I do not think I can do that. That is part of the further testing she wants to do. To see exactly where his maturity level is. We shall see.

The Accidental Adoption

I am totally stealing/borrowing/coping the from Chandra. I thought it was cute and wanted to share.

Wife: Honey, sit down. I have some news for you.

Husband: What is it?

Wife: Well, I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just come out with it. I went out to the mailbox today and . . . well, we got an I-171H.

Husband: A what?!?! An U.S. Immigration I-171H adoption approval form?! As in, we’re going to have another baby?!?

Wife: It looks that way.

Husband: But how? We’ve been so careful! I put away all the blank I-600A forms. Didn’t you hide our home-study?

Wife: Of course I did. But don’t forget, there was that one night . . .

Husband: What night? (pauses) Ohhh, that night. But it was only once. We were just messing around. I didn’t print clearly. I didn’t even use black ink! (pauses again) But it was kind of fun. (giggles)

Wife: It was, wasn’t it? I’ll never forget how cute you looked getting your fingerprints taken.

Husband: So now we’ve got our I-171H, eh? But that doesn’t always mean you’ll adopt, does it? I mean, shouldn’t you see the agency or something, make sure everything’s okay?

Wife: I already did. I’m five documents along.

Husband: Five documents!

Wife: And they’re all notarized, certified, state sealed and authenticated! There was just one small scare when the agency couldn’t see the notary’s middle initial, but it showed up just fine under the magnifying glass.

Husband: Thank goodness! And you, honey? Are you feeling okay?

Wife: I’m feeling fine. As long as I know you’re happy about this.

Husband: Happy? I’m thrilled! It’s always a shock at first when something like this happens, but of course I’m happy.

Weight Loss Milestone made

Followers of the old blog know that I started weight watchers at the beginning of January. As of Friday’s weigh in, I have lost a total of 30 lbs. I did not know I even had 30lbs to lose. Almost there, not much more to go. I had to go buy some new shorts b/c nothing fits. Horrible problems to have right?  It is hard to keep hubbie focused b/c he has already reached his goal and wants to start adding back in our diet bad/good tasting things.  I have to keep reminding him that I am not there yet.

I have also made a few changes to the blog.  Took out our names and changed my post name.  I had to delete a few comments that mentioned names.  Sorry.  Just trying to make ourselves less obvious as to who we are in real life.