Update on Logan's Therapies

We had Logan's 1 year Early Intervention meeting the last week of May. We got together with our service coordinator and Logan's speech and occupational therapists (his developmental therapist could not make it) as well as a coordinator from our school district to speak to us about options after he ages out of Early Interventions when he turns 3 in October.

Since speech was our main concern I will start there. As of Logan's last speech evaluation he is 6 months behind of where he should be, and is catching up a little more each week. He has made tremendous strides in his speech in the past year and both his therapist and Matt and I are very happy with his progress.Logan is only delayed in two areas and the delays are I think around 23% according to the tool used to asses him, and to receive therapy through the Early Interventions program you have to be delayed 30% in one or more areas. Since he was previously in the program, his therapist is able to over-ride that rule so he can keep going until he ages out. We are very happy that he is pretty much all caught up now. He will continue to do speech until his birthday in October and at that point if his therapist feels he should continue he will be evaluated by the school district and if need be he will go to speech one or two times a week after he turns 3 through the Early Education program. We don't know if he will even need that at this point so it's something we will address as the time gets closer.

As far as occupational therapy goes, Logan has excelled and at this point his OT doesn't feel he needs to continue with OT. Logan has a few little things we can still work on, but he is no longer delayed enough to be receiving services technically. His current OT is taking a leave of absence starting this month, and a new OT should be taking over in the next weeks, and she will take a look at him as well, and it sounds like if anything he will go down to twice a month OT sessions. His sensory issues have really resolved and like all this therapists have said he is a new boy now.

We had a coordinator from the school district there as well to talk about the options for when he ages out of Early Interventions at his 3rd birthday. They do offer a preschool that would be five days a week but it is more for kids who need a lot of therapy, have autism/autism spectrum/neurological disorders, have physical disabilities, etc. As we talked during the meeting it sounded like if anything Logan might need more speech therapy and if that is what is needed he can do therapy through Early Education once a week. Everyone at the meeting thought that it will work to Logan's benefit that he won't start preschool until he us almost 4 because of when his birthday falls so we don't have any pressure to get him ready for preschool this coming fall. Logan will keep going to his Mother's Day Out program this fall, which has helped him tremendously and he is very happy there and we are happy with the program and he will continue to go to Gymboree as well which is also very good for him.

Logan's developmental therapist couldn't make the meeting and we hadn't had his evaluation done either at the time of meeting because Logan had been sick and then Memorial day was thrown in there, so he just had his yearly evaluation for developmental therapy two weeks ago and we will go over that once we get a copy, but looks like he will continue until his birthday, and we may talk about going down to twice a month like with occupational therapy.

Overall is was a very positive meeting and we are so proud of Logan and all he has accomplished in the past year.

It's a......surprise

Well we went into our 20 week "big" ultrasound this morning all ready to find out if we were having a boy or a girl (if you remember with Logan we did not find out). We are planning on finding out this time, but still keeping it a secret from family, I know we are cruel. Once we got going with the ultrasound it was pretty clear we were not going to find out today. The baby was in a very weird position and the tech wasn't able to tell at all. Baby was laying on it's back with it's legs above it's head, legs tightly shut, some of the umbilical cord stuffed down in there as well as one of it's hands, this baby really didn't want to make itself known that's for sure. The ultrasound tech also was not able to get all the anatomy shots she needed due to the baby's position. So we will have another ultrasound at our next appointment in 4 weeks and hopefully baby will be positioned better to see everything. What they could see, looked perfect and baby is measuring just about a pound which is where it should be and I am measuring about 21 weeks, which I will be on Wednesday. Blood pressure is holding steady at about 122/78 the last two visit's, it was up in the 140's for two of my visits with my old doctor, I have since switched to a new doctor that is VBAC friendly and overall just a better fit for me, we are very happy with our new doctor and I think my high pressures were due to the stress I felt going to the doctor I had been seeing, he had been making us feel very uncomfortable about our choice not to do an automatic repeat c-section and we were just not meshing well so hopefully those pressures were a fluke (I was on bedrest with Logan for the last month with high blood pressure and treated as a pre-eclampic while in labor). That is all for now, here are a couple of photo's, not to great this time, hopefully we will get better pictures next time. The first picture is the baby laying on it's back with it's legs above it's head, the second picture is the baby's arm above it's head, and the last one is a shot of a foot.

Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day this year, thanks to my sweet husband and son. I was treated to breakfast in bed by both of them, they made eggs benedict...yum it was good! When I came downstairs Matt and Logan gave me my Mother's Day gifts which included a poem from Logan (with some help from Daddy) chocolate covered strawberries and a gift card for Old Navy so I can go do some shopping and get some new maternity clothes. We did some shopping after we all got ready and then headed out to see Matt's mom. We had a nice time going down to the park by there house and Logan had fun throwing rocks into the pond and playing at a new playground. Then we headed over to my mom's for Mother's Day dinner which was very good and of course all the men folk to care of everything for us so we could relax. Logan had fun playing basketball with his uncle's and running around Grandma's yard. We were all very tired by the time we got home, but it was a wonderful Mother's Day and it didn't even rain!

Some New Logan Pictures!!

Happy Easter!

Easter fun started the weekend before when we all went out to my Mom's to see the Easter Bunny at the mall (Logan was not a fan) and to dye Easter eggs. Logan only did 2 eggs the first of which he drew on a little and then threw into the blue cup which already had an egg in it...crack went his first egg. I helped him with his second egg and then he had, had enough and was off playing at Grandma's. I ended up dying the rest of our eggs and I had fun. Later on Logan decorated egg cookies with lots of sprinkles, which he really enjoyed.

We had a wonderful Easter weekend, Matt and I had his family over the Saturday before Easter. Matt cooked a yummy ham and I made southern potatoes and candied sweet potatoes. Everything turned out wonderful and we had a nice night with Matt's side of the family. Easter Sunday we decided to forgo church this year with Mr. Terrible Two's so hopefully next year we will be able to get to church a little easier with Logan being 3 1/2 by then and the new baby won't be a problem (hopefully). Logan had a blast Easter morning opening his Easter basket from the Easter Bunny and he also received a new tricycle from Mommy and Daddy which after crashing and burning the first time, started to get the hang of it in the days following Easter. Logan had more interest in finding Easter eggs this year and he was very happy to find them filled with "beans" (jellybeans) he has a good sugar rush going nice and early in the morning.

We headed down the street to Grandma and Grandpa Blume's for lunch, Logan started to get crabby having been up a few times the night before and waking up at 6am, so it was the start of a challenging day with Logan. We had nice lunch over there and got to watch some t.v. on the new big screen. Later in the afternoon we headed up to my Mom's house for Easter dinner with my family. Logan did sleep a bit on the way out but once again he had a major melt down and one point so it was stressful, but that's life with a two year old. We had a good dinner and Logan perked up enough to open his basket at Grandma and Grandpa's and have a little fun, but soon Logan (and Mommy and Daddy) were ready to call it a day.

Logan caught up on his sleep in the next few days and had fun with all his new Easter loot!

The Good News Keeps Rolling In!

As if a healthy pregnancy wasn't good enough news for us, Matt received awesome news yesterday that the job he applied for at the library was his!! He had his first interview last week and was asked back for the second on Tuesday and they wanted him so he found out yesterday, so it was a fast decision.

Some background: about a month ago his current company did big time layoffs/shutting down divisions etc, luckily he wasn't effected and was told he was safe, but really for how long is what we were saying since he was now the last one hired after they got rid of the editor they hired after Matt. So the same day that the layoffs happened, Matt went to his part time job at the library and was called into his boss's office (you can imagine what he was thinking) So she tells Matt that she is taking a new position at the library and that Matt is her first recommendation to take over her job. To say the least Matt was a little shocked that this all happened on the same day. He was walking around this the same expression that he has whenever I tell him I am pregnant haha.

Matt had been talking about trying to get into a library career which is hard to do without a Masters in Library Science. Well this was his in and now with this job opportunity he will be able to go back to school with tuition reimbursement and get his Masters which will hopefully lead to moving up in the library world. This job was such a blessing to us both. He will be making so much more than at his previous job, enough that he will only be working 1 job now!!! With baby #2 on the way we couldn't have gotten better news. To put it in perspective, Matt would have had to work at his current job 8 years (assuming they are giving raises each year which they didn't last year and most likely this year) to be making what he is now going to be making at just one job. Oh and he gets another week of vacation, so now he has 3 weeks each year instead of 2 which is also awesome with the baby coming. He will be able to get into the IMRF, which is great for retirement, he is somewhere now that he could stay forever and move up and all that kind of stuff. I am so proud of him, getting this job was big time and of course he did it, because he is great at everything he does.

So Matt will now be the manager of the biggest department at the library (circulation), he even gets his OWN office, good bye cubical life haha. This job will offer so much more stability. As the economy gets worse, the libraries are booming, it's really a recession proof job and after going through two rounds of layoff's at his old company (both while I have been pregnant just to add to the stress) he is ready for something more stable. I just can't say enough what a blessing this is to our family.

So congrats to my wonderful husband for always doing his best to support our family. I know you will do awesome in your new career.

Life is good right now, and we are way over due for good.

Baby #2 is on the way!

Matt and I would like to FINALLY announce that we are having another baby! I am 12 weeks and 1 day along and due September 30, 2009. Baby is doing very well, after a rocky start again, but this little one kept fighting and we are so happy to be able to finally let everyone know our wonderful news! It has been really hard keeping it a secret this long, but with our loss this summer we were and still are very nervous, but there is no hiding it any longer being my third pregnancy now, I am showing!

We had a rocky start again which made us even more apprehensive to tell people. I was diagnosed with a uterine bleed during my sixth week, however the bleeding started during the fifth week. Basically they think the baby implanted and then detached found a better spot and attached on again causing the bleed. So this issue had no relationship with what we dealt with this summer. I was put on limited activity bed rest which wasn't too bad, but annoying enough and since I was on progesterone I was at the advantage of having the bleed heal up quicker, which it did by the ninth week. This baby is sure a fighter. I am feeling very tired, but now in the second trimester that should ease up, I am also off my progesterone starting today so that should bring me out of zombie land and back to the living.

The details so far:

When I first found out I was pregnant I spent two weeks going in and having blood draws again, to check my progesterone and my hcg level, my numbers started out much higher than with the last pregnancy so we were very hopeful. I have had 4 ultrasounds so far, but I only have pictures of 3 of them. When I first started having problems we assumed I was miscarrying again, so I called and went in for a blood test. If my hormone numbers were going down from the last time they checked we were going to try to let things happen naturally and not do another D&C, but to our wonderful surprise my numbers had gone up and I went in the next day for a very early ultrasound I was only 5 weeks 6 days. Everything looked good during the ultrasound, she didn't see a baby yet, but all other things that should be there were (fetal pole, yolk sac) and then right before she was done she found this little line that was pulsating and she said it's too early to put it in the report, but that's your baby. It was truly amazing to see a baby that early on. Unfortunately, Matt had to skip that appointment since Logan was sick with the stomach flu, going to that appointment by myself expecting the worse was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

I went in again at 6 weeks and 4 days and we saw the baby 100% for sure and we heard it's beautiful heartbeat for the first time, this ultrasound was the one in which she found the uterine bleed. It wasn't to big of one which was good, it was close to the baby though and the worry was that if it got bigger faster then the baby did, it would cause the baby to detach and thus a m/c. So I was put on limited activity bed rest, full pelvic rest and we hoped for the best. At 9 weeks 1 day I went in for my official first ob and another ultrasound which showed the bleed had healed. We were pretty relieved, baby looked great and we heard the heartbeat again, such a reassuring sound.

Today I am 12 weeks and 1 day, we went in for my NT Scan which is an ultrasound that measures the folds in the baby's neck and that measurement along with a blood test can tell if you are at risk for genetic abnormalities and if so you can then decided if you want to do a CVS test or an amino to know for sure. My measurements were low which is good and we will get the full report in a few days. My ob appointment went well and we go back in three weeks for another genetic screen blood test and my 16 week appointment although I will only be 15 weeks, not a big deal though.

We are going to attempt a VBAC (vaginal birth after Cesarean) so it could be a September baby or another October baby for us. If for some medical reason I need a repeat c-section and we know ahead of time, I will for sure be having the baby in the last two weeks for September. Either way I foresee Logan and his new sibling sharing a birthday party or two haha.

I think that's about it for now!

Here are some pictures of our journey so far!

Found out on January 17, 2009

Yes we have been keeping it a secret longer than I thought possible!

6 weeks 4 days. The arrow is pointed to the baby, the circle next to the baby is the yolk sac which is what feeds the baby in early pregnancy.

9 weeks and 2 day, everything looking good! Matt said it looks like a jellybean and so this baby is now our jellybean!

12 weeks and 1 day! Kicking around like crazy for us. Heartbeat was heard and was at 160 BPM.