Tomorrow

Tomorrow is Levi's 2 week doctor's appointment, and I have to say, I am not looking forward to it. I HATE having a chronically ill kid. I hate the fact that tomorrow is the first appointment in a long line of appointments that will require ultrasounds, blood work, and painful things for my little man. I also hate that he grows slower than most other kids, so I'll get lectured about that, and that we're going to have to attempt to find a new formula for him because the one that we're on we can't get here in town. I know that God gave us Levi because He knows that we can handle everything, but right now I feel like a run-down mama, not an empowered one. I need prayers for tomorrow. I'll update his stats and such later this week. Also, I have a friend that was expecting her baby girl on Monday, and she's still not here. Pray that she comes on her own before the doctors have to serve her with an eviction notice (induction).

Birthday Week

Today officially started Birthday Week! We have 3 birthdays in my family in a week's time span. My dad is TODAY 11/26, my sister, Mary is 11/27 and I'm Monday 11/28. People always ask us if we mind sharing our birthdays, and truthfully, we don't! It's always been fun to celebrate together and enjoy the time with each other. Last year was hard because it was the first time that we weren't with each other. None of us were together. I was in Kansas, Dad was in Texas, and Mary was in Afghanistan. This year will be nice to have Mary here with me. Another very important birthday this week is my best friend, Kelsey! I know we fit together because she's in birthday week, too. I am so thankful for all of these people that have touched my lives and that I'm lucky enough to celebrate Birthday Week with! God has blessed me with so much this year, I cannot wait to see what this coming year has in store for us!

Also happening on Monday, Levi turns two weeks old! I can't believe that he's already been here that long! We had our one week check up last week and he's already back up to 4lbs 12oz. This week we both have appointments, I have one to check on my incision and Levi has his two week check up. I'm fairly certain that my appointment will be smooth sailing, I'm feeling great and the incision is looking good! Unfortunately, I think that little Levi will rarely have "just a check up". This week we're looking at a renal ultrasound, a hip ultrasound, and getting blood drawn for labs. They're look at his renal system to see if things are still looking okay there, his hips to see if they're out of place, and labs to check his creatine levels again. Please, pray for his renal system above all other things. If it looks like there is increased back-up due to the reflux, or if something looks enlarged, I fear that they may send us back to the hospital. With breech babies, sometimes their hips are popped out of the socket because of their legs being crossed and curled up for so long. If they find this on the hip ultrasound they'll have to pop them back into place. The blood work is hopefully going to find that all of his levels look good and we can go about our merry way. God has been so good to us, and I know that at some point we will have to face "scary" days again, but I pray that those days are not this week!

Levi is Here!

Levi Douglas was born on 11-14-2011 at 7:40am. He weighed in at 4 pounds 15 ounces.

We've spent the week in Kansas City at Children's Mercy Hospital making sure that his renal system is working, and we are hoping to be released tomorrow. He has done great. Here are some pictures of him this week. I will post more on our "adventures" here and the results of everything soon. I have to say that through all of this, one thing is perfectly clear, God is great!

Negative

Forewarning, this is a negative post...

I'm getting sick. I'm tired. I'm done being pregnant. My house is a mess. All I want are snacks, ny-quil, sleep, and a maid. The end.

36 Weeks/Carson's Go Cloth

Well we've hit the 36 week mark! Technically we should have 4 weeks left, but in all actuality, we have a week. Levi's little kidney still isn't doing what we want it to, so we're having him at 37 weeks. We decided that we would rather deal with him being small than risk something happening to that kidney. This week we have a lot to do to prepare for Levi, yet I have no idea where to start! i know that i would really like to get the house cleaned. Although this seems to always be something that I want to do, it's something that I never really have enough motivation to do! I did get some organizational stuff done yesterday, that was good.

As for the Carson's go cloth part of this blog post, we got our stash of cloth diapers! At least the first part of our stash. We've decided to cloth diaper based on a few factors. Disposable diapers gross John out. He HATES them. He has had some gross experiences with them. Another factor is the cost. To cloth diaper will cost us about $200 total. This can get us through 2 or 3 kids. Disposables can cost us to $2000 per child. Since we plan on having more kids, we will come out ahead. Something else that influenced our decision was the fact that it won't cost us anymore in laundry. We have an HE washer and dryer, so an extra load every two days won't make a difference. We had been discussing cloth diapering for a few weeks and then I met someone who cloth diapers in real life. These people are few and far between! once we got to talking she showed me a few tricks of the trade, then ended up GIVING me her entire newborn stash! This means that until he hits 18 lbs, I probably won't have to buy anything. We will be what I call a "hybrid family", meaning that there will be occasions that we use disposables. These will be times when we are traveling somewhere where we won't have access to laundry facilities. Also, when we use the daycare at the YMCA, I'm not sure what their guidelines are on cloth diapers. I will get some pictures taken soon of our diapers (probably once he gets here) and I'll post more information on the type of diapers that we got. I am very excited about cloth diapering, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them, I'll try to get them answered as quickly as possible!