Thrifty Decor Chick Giveaway

We interrupt this regularly scheduled issue of not blogging to mention a fantastic giveaway.

I love this blog!!! thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com
http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/2010/11/silhouette-craft-cutter-giveaway.html
I love everything about her house and her ideas are affordable and adorable. This weekend she is giving away a Silhouette. Wouldn't you like to win it? Of course, that is if I don't win it. :)

August 25

Hi. It's been one year. What do I do with today? I remember ALL of today last year, so it keeps distracting me. I even remember what I was wearing, where I parked at the hospital, etc. I keep tearing up, but I'm really glad how it all turned out. It's nice to go through today and not think about the great chance of losing my baby today. You might laugh or think us weird, but we are going up to the hospital today as a family to eat dinner. The food in the cafeteria was pretty decent and held a lot of memories for us. I want to go up to the NICU to say hi but I always get nervous thinking they forgot about us. We'll see. One thing I know for sure is this August 25 will be miles better than last year. Knock on Wood

Random Important Numbers

39-days I spent in the hospital

107-days Sara spent in the hospital

8-number of rooms I stayed in

2-number of awesome parents that stayed with Noah

$880,000- rough estimate of Sara's bill (I still think that is way too cheap.)

39-number of times I went crazy

1-number of paint by numbers I completed

### (lost count)-number of awesome friends and family who showed their concern through cyberspace (That's you!!! :) Thanks.) and face-to-face

Thanks everyone.

I'm in LOVE!!!

....with coupons!!

Last week, someone I know posted that they got 40 boxes of pasta for free!! Well, about $.10 per box since she bought a mass amount of coupons off of ebay, but still!!

I was so intrigued because I have always wanted to use coupons but they truthfully intimidate me and I didn't know you could buy mass amounts of coupons.

So, I went on and bought coupons for pasta, beans, and Mission products. Guess what I was able to get for $27???? 51 items!!!!! I know. Wow. :)

10 boxes of pasta (spaghetti, linguine, & rotini)

17 cans of refried beans

4 cans of black beans

6 cans of pinto beans

2 large bags of tortilla chips

6 30pks of corn tortillas

6 10pks of flour tortillas

51 items=$27

I know it's not an all-time record in couponing but I am pretty tickled pink with myself. It makes me giddy. Now on to next week's deals. I know Danny is wondering what he got himself into now.

Here is a picture of all my beauties:

Medical Woes

We have definitely had a busy week when it comes to our children's health and well-being.
On Tuesday, Sara had to get some tests done to see if her surgery worked properly. She had a surgery (only on Dec 28) to prevent her "life-ending" acid reflux. Since she no longer had acid coming up, she also could really have no burps coming up. A few weeks ago she started burping and now burps like a grownup. She hasn't burped since the day of the surgery so it worried us. Though she's probably grown out of the reflux by now, "life-ending" is still a worriesome thing. Of course I could of gotten the results back yesterday but her doctor decided to take the whole week off so we won't hear anything back until at least Monday. I know at least the examining doctor said it looked like she had a hernia. Not trying to think about it, but if it was serious she might need surgery. Again. The hospital. Again. But we'll go with no for now.
On Wednesday, Sara was assessed for a helmet. She preferred her right side in the NICU and since she was there for 3 1/2 months, that side became significantly flat. Attempts at home to correct it with holding her up more often, repositioning her, etc. have proved fruitless. Now she will get a helmet because the flatness is affecting the growth of the rest of her face.
Now today, both my children screamed all day. That was fun especially because I'm starting to not feel well. Sara has a goopy eye, cough and runny nose. Noah had a runny nose and a cough and REALLY irritible but that was it. Danny and I took them into the walk-in clinic (since stupid doctor was out). I was mainly concerned about Sara because of her past. Well, she ended up getting meds and Noah is currently in the E.R. with Danny. He was having trouble breathing and his saturation levels were low. So far I know that they've given him two breathing treatments and an X-ray. The X-ray showed that he has pneumonia so they're going to give him a steroid, wait an hour, and then decide if they need to admit him or not. I'm exhausted but can't sleep. It's already 10 at night. I know it's a rule that children do not get really sick until it's nighttime.

I've often wondered if I caused my children to be so sick so often because I have had a lot of problems and I am ALWAYS the sick one out of Danny and I. I wonder if children just get sick this often, if it's the season, or if it's me. I mean, my kids get sick at least twice a month. I'm tired of it and just want a miracle cure but that would be too easy now wouldn't it? I'm going to go stare off into space now because I can't sleep.

Morale of this story: Please stay healthy and medically boring. Thank you. :)

Noah's Hats

Throughout Noah's life, he has loved having something on his head. Granted, sometimes we put something on his head (like the yellow one below) and he didn't know to object. Truly, that's about the only one he would actually dislike. Some of his hats are traditional. Some are different. I can't even find pics of his two FAVORITE hats: a halloween bucket and a bowl-like thing that has faces on it. I must say the first picture with Noah & Danny was taken by the wonderful photographer Elise Taylor. I'm not that good at taking pictures. You can see in the pictures as Noah got older his taste in hats became more creative. He may soon sign a contract with Target....

Noah presents his hat collection:

(These are in no particular order in his life.)

Wow

In getting our taxes ready (you can count medical mileage), Danny and I figured out that during Sara's and my hospital stays we drove at least 12,000 miles!!!! 3 zeros at the end!

Wow.

Place Your Bets

Ok.....so more like place your guesses. The word "bet" seems to imply that if you win you get a prize. Yeah.... We all know how on top of things I am, so I don't want to leave another person hanging. (And yes, Priscilla and Tara I am aware that you are anxiously awaiting your prizes. They will come...eventually. Just don't hold your breath. They are in my house. The prizes just seem to lazy to leave. I'll have to kick them out soon.)

Danny & I are still awaiting Sara's final bill from her hospital experience. "Experience" sounds more fun, doesn't it? So I'm curious, what do you think it might be? I will give you a little background to help you form a decision.

-My hospital bill for basically just sitting on my butt for almost 6 weeks, a few tests, and giving birth was around $119,000.

-With the few partial statements that have trickled in, Sara's bill is up to at least $300,000. (Mind you, the statements barely cover anything.

-Sara was in the NICU from October 1, 2009 until January 15, 2010. Danny & I once read in an OLDER book that a bed in the NICU could run around $2000 a day!!!!

-For at least 2 weeks, she was on a ventilator. This is the most intensive breathing aid. (She wasn't breathing on her own.)

-What was written on her discharge papers as her "discharge diagnosis"(everything she had or experienced):

-ASD (basically a hole in the heart)

-prematurity (30 weeks)

-Suspected NEC (necrotizing enterocolitis, literally means "death of tissue" and "inflammation to the small and large intestines" This was NOT fun thinking she might have it. The small progress she was making at the time was set back pretty far.)

-anemia

-apnea of prematurity (short episodes of stopped breathing)

-unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia (Don't you love medical terms. To put it simply: jaundice)

-Retinopathy of prematurity (potentially blinding eye disorder)

-suspected sepsis

-apnea and bradycardia, Respiratory Distress Syndrome

-massive reflux (They finally thought Sara might have bad acid reflux after they tried to discharge her twice & on both those days she decided she didn't want to breathe anymore. I believe they said around 7% would be a high amount of acid reflux occurence. Sara had 50%.)

-Coxsackie/Rhinovirus infections (hand, foot & mouth disease and the common cold, When she had these, we have to dress up like doctors with the mask, gown, & gloves. I was quite amused by playing dress up.)

-Sara had numerous tests including ultrasounds, echocardiograms, Xrays. She had to have 2 spinal taps. I lost count of how many IVs she had. Remember, they would charge for every material they used on her. One time, it took them at least 5 times to get an IV in. Grumble, grumble.....

-Finally, due to Sara's acid reflux causing "life-ENDING episodes" she had to have surgery to basically wrap the stomach around the esophagus to prevent acid from coming up. While they were there, they also fixed her umbilical hernia.

So, do you have a guess? Did you get lost in all of that? Sorry it was so long but she was in there for a LONG time and rest assured I know I am forgetting some stuff.

What do you think?

PS We have occasionally received notices of how much the doctors would charge to look at her for about 2 seconds to 10 minutes. These would range from around $250 to $1800. Yes, you read that correctly. :)

Sara's Birth

I have been ultra lazy in posting this. Sara turned 5 months old yesterday (3 months next week with her corrected age). Anyhoo. Like I said before, everyone thought I was going to give birth that week at 25 weeks. If not, they would let me sit there and stay pregnant until I was 34 weeks along then induce me unless of course something went wrong. That would have meant 9 weeks of hospital bed rest!!!!! That would have been Oct 27. I went into the hospital on August 25. That didn't happen. I sat and sat and sat. After 5 weeks of sitting there, I remember being really excited about reaching 30 weeks gestation. I'll be nice and withhold some info here. The next day I started exhibiting a few more signs that I might go into labor. The docs didn't believe it was anything. I was excited because I had reached that day which meant Sara would be born in October. I had remained pregnant throughout all of September. On October 1, I became really uncomfortable. I sent Danny a text saying I was having some Braxton-Hicks contractions but I thought it wasn't anything. (He worked at least 1/2 hour away). His parents just happened to come into town that day and my mom was here as well.

All afternoon I was really uncomfortable but what pregnant lady isn't at some point. I had Danny go downstairs and get my the really good potato soup since I wanted to feel better and you can only eat hospital room food for so long. (They had two separate kitchens. Stupid.) I started having contractions around 7 that night. I had had an IV in off and on for the last 5 weeks so they had taken it out a few days before to give me a rest. That night they tried to put in another one because of the contractions but the veins kept blowing. They said nothing was going to happen so they didn't try again. After her birth, I was SO happy that I hadn't been hooked up to an IV. I had been on IVs there for so long that I actually became allergic to the tape. The contractions became so uncomfortable and intense so quickly that I wasn't able to eat my soup or watch "The Mentalist" (I was mad b/c it was one of my favorite shows.). I told them I wanted drugs. Yes, I'm weak and I'm proud of it. With Noah I was only in labor for 3 1/2 hrs and my whole family is quick so I knew I needed them right then. They were slow and finally gave me Percoset (?sp?). Danny tells me that's a pretty good drug but it did NADA. Zip. They checked to see if I was dilated and I was only around 1 cm. That convinced them they could be even slower in getting me stronger drugs. I know they can only go with what they see but I think doctors need to listen to women more. We KNOW what is going on with our body. Do NOT argue with a lady in labor.

Of course, I all of a sudden wanted to push. Danny ran for the nurse. They came not believing me so they went to check me again. The resident doc said she couldn't tell how dilated I was. The other doc checked and well what do you know...They couldn't see because there was a head there!!! Chaos ensued.

Did I forget to mention that I was on the 7th floor and labor and delivery and the NICU was on the 8th floor? I wasn't allowed to push. Hmmpph. Imagine this (especially you moms that know the feeling). They had to wheel my actual bed all the way down the hall, up the elevator, had to pause to make the construction workers get out of the way!!!!, had to wheel me in, transfer me to another bed (ARE YOU KIDDING ME? MOVE WHEN I WANT TO PUSH! AARGH!), get things set up and get the NICU nurses there all the while I was NOT allowed to push. Needless to say, I had to close my eyes and pretend it wasn't happening. No drugs and a few minutes later Sara was born. This labor duration was about the same as Noah's. They whisked her away. They finally had to just stab two needles into my leg with pitocin (to help with final contractions) and with morphin. I'm weird and I was actually amused by this because it reminded me of those doctor shows that are so over-dramatic and unrealistic. I LOVE morphin!! I don't know if it was my body already knew how to handle birth or I just do so well with morphin, but I felt peachy after giving birth. I had no problem recovering.

After they fixed me up, they finally took me to the NICU and I finally got to see Sara for the first time an hour after her birth. I wasn't able to hold her for the first time until she was 5 days old. That was such a weird feeling to be so detached from your baby like that. She weighed a huge 3 lbs 5 oz and 15 in long at 30 weeks and 2 days gestation. I can only imagine what weight she might have been if she was term because Noah was only 6 lb 9 oz at term. That 5 1/2 weeks truly helped her. She didn't breathe on her own for a while and she had a million cords and IVs hooked up to her but over all she was wonderful. Labor was not. :) I would still see those docs in the halls later on and I would grumble in my head while I would smile at them.

Sara's Pre-Birth Story

Ha. That's probably what you are thinking. Sara is 4 months and 1 week old now (2 months tomorrow as her adjusted age). Why are you barely posting her birth story now Lindsey? Because. That's why. Anyhoo....:)

So as you all know, I was due with Sara on Dec. 8, 2009. Minding my own beeswax, I woke up at 4:30 am on the morning of August 25 because I thought I had peed my pants. The day went on and it just wouldn't stop. I called the doc and they told me to go to the hospital to get it checked out. I was bummed because Danny & I were going to keep looking at houses that day. I went to the hospital and there were a couple of us getting checked out for the same thing. They were hoping that mine was just a weak bladder because I was the earliest along. Of course, nope. My water was leaking. They immediately put me on an IV and said they had to send me to a different hospital because they didn't have a high level NICU like UMC did. I got to go for a cool ride in the ambulance (no lights :( ) to UMC. I was all over the place at the time. I felt calm, scared, and confused. Danny and I thought the chance of a baby surviving at 25 weeks was only 5-10%. I went to UMC at night and since we were still fairly new to Tucson, I had no clue where I was. I didn't know until I left in October. Weird feeling.


This is me at 24 weeks, exactly one week before I went into the hospital.




We got to UMC at around 9 pm. Danny didn't get there until later because they kept giving him bad directions and wouldn't let him in because I wasn't in the system yet. Man was he annoyed. They immediately put me on steroids to help the baby's lungs and two meds to stop my labor. They would only stop my labor for 48 hours and then it was just up in the air. They fully expected me to have the baby within those first two days. I was so scared when I came off of the meds. I was convinced I was going to have her within a couple of hours. We were relieved to find out that she had a pretty good chance of surviving (80-90%) but her chance of complications were about as high. They gave us a tour of the NICU and that was so overwhelming. It was just a blur but I felt so sad knowing that was going to be our life. Both my sister and I were preemies. I was 6 weeks early and she was 8 weeks early. I turned out ok but my sister had a lot of problems early on including bleeding in her brain. Imagine my fear thinking my baby was going to be 15 weeks early!!

From the night of August 25, I was on complete bed rest except for the bathroom. My life was completely halted. I went from chasing my active toddler to sitting with NOTHING to do. I don't mean I didn't have anything to occupy my mind. Many people brought things to do, including the nice nurses. I had no purpose. Everyone kept saying "you're growing and protecting your baby". Yes that's true but all I had to do was sit. Luckily, both Danny's mom and my mom alternated every 2 weeks watching Noah. Lifesavers!! I was only able to see Noah and Danny for a few hours a day. A hospital room is no place for an active toddler. Danny would work until around 4 and it would take at least 45 minutes to get to the hospital and he also wanted to see Noah at night at home. It was very lonely.


I was so nervous about going into labor. With Noah I was induced, so I didn't know if my labor would be so different coming naturally. I'd heard that induction contractions can be more painful but I had no idea either way. The doctors were more surprised each day that i stayed pregnant. They said unless something went wrong with the baby or with me they would let me stay pregnant until I was 34 weeks along. That would have meant 9 weeks of bed rest! Imagine to yourself 9 weeks of just sitting there. I miss the easiness of it now, but to stay that long.... I hated it!!

This is me at 27 weeks after barely being in the hospital for 2 weeks. You can tell I'm already bored out of my mind. At least the nurses were very nice, and eventually gave me a private room with a view. For most of my stay, I stayed on the post-partum level (7th floor). L&D was on the 8th floor along with the NICU. This hospital was older. Post-partum women usually had to share a room. Yuck!! There were a few private rooms which I stayed in most of the time since I was long-term. During my stay, I moved 8 different times!!! At least it gave me something to do. I was on the 7th floor so I could see the city fairly well.

Every so often, people from church would come visit but again, we were fairly new and barely knew anyone. Most everyone at church was probably thinking "Who the heck is Lindsey?" or "I didn't know she was pregnant." That's because I was still so early and didn't show. Eventually, all the things I love to do to relax, such as reading or painting, became not so interesting because they became my work. It's hard to explain, but you enjoy them partly because you can't do them all of the time. There, that was all I had. Surprisingly, the days went really fast. That is partly because I just learned how to zone out. I became an insomniac (still am) because I had no reason or need to fall asleep at night. I could just sleep during the day. It was just wait, wait wait.....

This is way too long, so I will post the actual birth story next. Maybe after that I will be able to post Halloween 2009 by October of this year. :)

Back to Normal

Today (well, technically yesterday because my computer is stupid) my momma left after spending 2 weeks helping me get adjusted with the two squirts. No more grandmas are coming. :( This is the first night that it is just me, my husband, my son, and my daughter (& a cat). Either my mom or Danny's mom has been helping us two weeks at a time since August 25. They were a lifesaver when I was in the hospital and then every day when we went to see Sara. This is the first night we can sit at home. I don't know what to do with myself and all of this time. I feel so lost. I don't have to go anywhere, see anyone, or stay apart from my family. Now I am back to babble and screams instead of adult conversation all day. I am tired, overwhelmed, lost for what to do (yes, I know I have two kids :)) and still not believing it is finally over. Sara will be 4 months old (1 1/2 adjusted age) on Monday. I realized even though she has been home for two weeks, we hadn't taken a family picture. It is by no means the best picture but we are TOGETHER. Good night. :)

One Year

It's been one year since Pat. I can't believe it's gone that fast already.