On Hold

All of the stockings, blankets, and hats have been delivered! Now that our Stuff the Stockings project has come to an end, I'm tired. Okay I've actually been tired since June, but I'm ready to rest. I am behind on many, many things. I haven't finished sending out birth announcements or thank you cards for my showers. If you haven't gotten your announcement or a thank you card, it is coming. I just ran out of envelopes and steam. They are coming, I promise. I am also behind on birthday presents for both of my sisters whose birthdays were at the beginning of December. I want and need to do these things, I am just putting them on hold for awhile. Don't worry, I probably won't put the blog on hold because this is my brain and how I remember things.

I'm putting them on hold so that I can rock my baby while he still wants me to. And play card games with my husband. We used to play board games and card games all the time.

I hate having things hanging over my head so someday they will get done, just be patient with me. And also, while I'm at it, I'm sorry if you have written/texted/facebooked me and I haven't responded. I really do read them all and appreciate them. When I read them I often think about what I would say in response and then I think I count that as actually responding. Thank you all for being so kind and understanding. For now, I am putting things on hold so that I can spend some quiet time with my family and try and rest.

Fear

So, since I was pregnant with the boys I have had this problem with fear. Most of our pregnancy was filled with fear. The birth of our boys was scary. After losing Carter, I found myself even more fearful. I would often leave the NICU with a huge amount of fear in my heart that Cohen was going to die while I was gone and that I wouldn't be able to get there in time to say goodbye. I would leave for the evening, make it to the hallway, and then go back in and tell Cohen that I loved him one more time. Having lost someone so important has affected my whole life. I am still scared that I will lose Cohen or Danny. If I don't get to say "goodbye" and "I love you" to Danny before he goes anywhere I get this nervous feeling and I have to call him and tell him.

The other night we were in bed and we kept hearing all these weird noises and Danny kept getting up to check the house. Cohen has been sleeping in his own room for awhile now but I set up the pack n play that I had finally taken down and brought Cohen into our room. I was scared for him to be alone or that something might happen to him. We finally figured out that the neighbors were coming home with a Christmas tree (at 9:30 at night?) but I still wanted to keep Cohen in our room.

I know that the chances of something happening to one of them are slim, but I also never thought that I would lose my child. Sometimes it just feels like if I could lose my son, then I could just as easily lose my husband or my other son.

I know that I am not in control of this life and that worrying doesn't do me any good, but I still struggle with the fear. The fear of losing someone else that I love. I know that worrying and being afraid aren't going to change anything for the better. I know that just like with Carter, God has each of our days numbered and they are not in my control. But, I am human and it is something that I am dealing with at this point in my life. I have been trying to focus on a few verses:

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."   John 14:27

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?...Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."  Matthew 6:27 & 34

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

We actually did decorate the house a little while ago. My mom and Karen came over and helped me decorate. We put on the music and decorated and then had hot chocolate afterwards. I just couldn't quite seem to get started by myself so it was great to have them come over and help (and by help I mean do most of the work). These pictures probably won't be that interesting to most of you, but I like them and want to remember Cohen's first Christmas.

{Cohen's nativity set}

 {Wild little Christmas tree with snowflakes}

{Entryway table with flameless candles, oh and there I am too}

 {Even Cohen's toys got decorated! Don't worry, he can't actually touch the lights but he LOVES to look at them}

 

 {This is probably my favorite part. Sparkle snowflakes in the kitchen}

{Little tree by night}

 {Little tree in the day and no I'm not wrapping Cohen's presents :)}

Dear Santa

Cohen Update

A few updates on the little man:

Cohen had an eye appointment last week and things are about the same. The eye Dr said he isn't sure why Cohen's eye isn't mature yet (when they are mature then they stop worrying about them) but he thinks it may have something to do with the fact that Cohen is still on oxygen. His eye isn't worse, but it isn't getting better like they hoped it would. So we go back again next month. Have I mentioned that I hate these appointments? I have never heard Cohen scream so hard. He cries and cries the whole time and then the minute they are done the poor little guy just passes out.

Cohen had an Occupational Therapist come out and evaluate him. While he is on track for his adjusted age obviously he is behind based on his chronologic age so that qualifies him for OT. We are happy with where he is at, but I don't think it will hurt to have someone following him in case he does get behind or have things that he needs to work on.

 

{Before Drs visit}

Cohen also had a visit with  his pediatrician today. He weighed in at 12 lbs 6.5 oz and is 24 inches long. His Dr is quite happy with where he is growth wise and developmentally. He was due for his 6 month vaccinations but I asked to have him only get 2 instead of 4 and his Dr was happy to do that. So he got his flu shot and his Tdap. Those were the ones that she thought were important to have first since whooping cough is out there in the community and obviously the flu too. He cried when he got them but he was more mad when they poked his heel and had to try and hold his foot to get blood out to check his iron levels. I gave him some Tylenol before we took him in in hopes that that would help. He fell asleep in his carseat on the way home and is still there sleeping now. Poor little guy, although it didn't seem to phase him too much. I guess when you are used to getting poked and prodded it's not too big of a deal.

Cohen is finally going in for his Synagis (antibodies for RSV) on Monday. We have been working on this since he left the hospital. First they told me he would get it before he left the hospital, then by November and finally in December! I will feel better once he has gotten that.

Oh, and also, Cohen is teething! He has been drooling quite a bit lately and chewing on his hands all the time so his Dr looked in his mouth and said that he was in fact teething. It may be awhile before his teeth actually come through though. I can't believe my baby is teething...crazy.

 {2 shots, 1 blood draw, a major bottle leakage while eating and an outfit change later...}

And lastly, Cohen goes in to see his pulmonologist at Children's on the 21st. We are hoping that they will let him go to only wearing his oxygen 12 hours a day, but we will see what they say.

We are really happy with how he is doing. I keep telling his doctor that we are proud of how far he has come and with everything he is doing but it's hard to know what he should be doing. He is our first baby and I don't know when regular babies do things much less a 6 month old baby who is adjusted to 2ish months but acts 3ish months. Oh, well! We don't want to get caught up in whether Cohen is "behind" or not, we just want to know whether there is something else we should be helping him with. He has already come so far and we are so proud of him.

The Stockings are Stuffed

We finally stuffed the stockings last night and we made....47 stockings/gift bags (our original goal was 15)! Amazing! Thank you all SO, SO much for helping out with this project. I wouldn't have been able to do this without all of your help.

Lots of you have asked about the actual delivery of the stockings and we are planning on doing that next week. We were going to take them in closer to Christmas, but as I mentioned before we are trying to make this year as simple and stress free as possible. This has been a really fun project but I am ready to pass them into the next hands.

 

Also, when we go down we will not personally be delivering them to each family. There are a few reasons for this. First, I want to make this as easy as possible for the NICU staff, I don't want to add another thing to their already large workloads. In order for us to deliver them they would have to go around and ask each family if we could be their "guest" in order to give them a stocking. That sounds like a lot of work for them. The other reason, and I'm not sure if this will make sense but I will still try to explain it, is that I just want the families to get a little gift without any strings attached without them feeling like they have to thank us. We were given so much that we will never be able to thank everyone for or repay. This is a way that I can kind of say thank you to all of those who have supported us by hopefully helping someone else out.

{All finished}

Odds and Ends

Some of you have been asking for a Cohen update and I was going to do one today after his 6 month check up with the pediatrician but it got moved to Friday so I will do it then. For now I will tell you that he has been sleeping through the night in his big boy crib in his own room for a few weeks. Danny got the sniffles a little while ago so we decided it would be best for Cohen to be in his own room away from the germs. Cohen decided he rather liked his crib and hasn't missed us so he gets to stay in there.

Tomorrow night we will be stuffing the stockings so I will share some pictures with you when they are done.

I am working two days this week, only 4-5 hours though.

The house did get decorated thanks to my mom and Karen (and Christine in spirit :) and it looks great. I didn't have nearly as many decorations as I thought I did so they brought some of their own over to share with me.

We are trying to simplify our Christmas this year. I have a really good article from GriefShare about "Surviving the Holidays" that I may put up later. But we talked about being allowed to say no and deciding what is really important to us this year and doing those things and letting the rest go. So we got a small Christmas tree and we aren't putting lights up on the house. My Christmas shopping is done, I did almost all of it online. We are going to stop by Danny's parents on the 21st when we go down for Cohen's pulmonology appointment and then we will spend Christmas Eve at my parents. We will take other activities as they come, but please don't be offended if we say no. It's been a long year and we are just trying have as little stress and as much rest and relaxation as possible, especially during Christmastime.

In Griefshare we also talked about starting some new traditions. Since this is our first year having a baby we really don't have too many old traditions, which is kind of nice I guess. One thing that I really wanted to do to kind of start new as a family was to get matching stockings. Danny and I (and Russell) each have our own stockings from our parents, but this year I decided I wanted us to have stockings together as our new little family. So I ordered one for each of us, including Carter. Stockings have always been one of my favorite parts of Christmas so I think this will just be a nice new thing for us.