Babies and Puppy Dogs

Golly, I haven't blogged here since September. Not really sure where to start so I guess I'll just update you on everything, not that anyone's really reading this or cares. Pumpkin is still in remission and at her next appointment in May I'm really hoping to reduce her medications because I really want her off of them and to do well on her own without more chemo drugs in her system. She can run, hop, jump, dance and spin around now. The other day I watched a video of her learning to walk again from last year and I was amazed at the progress she's made and continues to make every day. Praise the Lord! He's taking good care of my Pumpkin.

The Gosling is sprouting like crazy and popped out a second baby tooth today. She was so disappointed to learn that she wasn't done teething at one tooth. She wiggles, giggles, sits up by herself, grabs everything screams if we don't feed her people food and makes talking sounds. Her current favorite is "mamamamama!" And she gives me wet open mouth baby kisses that are so sweet. She's so different from her sister; I sit there watching them, mentally comparing them to each other at the same age and feeling astounded at how different the same DNA can be. God knew what He was doing when He made those two treasures.

Husband is working two jobs, one of which has him up at one in the morning three days a week so
he's a bit tired now and takes naps with the girls when he can but he's doing better. We're working on how to manage our stress together, as well as the on going budgeting issues and finding a new car. We're still in the same tiny cabin but we're praying everyday for a bigger house and waiting on the Lord. And we got a puppy for Christmas! Our husky mix is a sweet girl named Pepper who plays with Pumpkin and guards the house at night. She's a fuzzball.

Mama is slowly changing the family diet by taking out dairy and adding in more fruits and vegetables. We made a delicious ham and potato with celery and garlic. It was surprisingly good, considering I made it from scratch. With two babies and a puppy to keep me busy, writing has taken a backseat but hopefully not for long.

Pumpkin and The Gosling

The case is closed! And also, I had a baby.

Let's backtrack. We started Pumpkin on her methotrexate at the end of June with a check up scheduled for early August, right before court. That suited me just fine and let me focus on having Baby. I thought she was for sure coming on July 4th due to bloody show but nope, she wasn't done cooking yet. But late at night a few days later contractions started and my water broke at midnight. This was all super exciting since my water didn't break with Pumpkin {the idiot doctor did it}, and we sent Pumpkin off to stay with her auntie. I had sharp regular contractions till about eight in the morning when everything pretty much stopped. My midwife said not to worry, that my cervix was just tired and things would resume that night or the following day. I was in panic mode since I didn't even know that something like that was possible and I was really worried about having to have an emergency c section. My friends helped calm me down and then I had a nap. We decided to keep Pumpkin at Auntie's though she did come visit me. Around eight that evening the random contractions started to bunch up and become painfully regular. My poor husband raced around getting things ready for me and at eleven-forty, Baby was born! And she was born asleep since apparently that birthing tub was all nice and warm. I was just happy that I only threw up twice {instead of eight times} and that it only took three good pushes to pop the tiny girl out {instead of two or three hours of pushing followed by a nasty episotomy}. Recovery was a lot quicker too. Pumpkin wasn't too sure of the new baby but after staring intently at her for twenty minutes, she seemed to decide that the baby could stay.

Fast forward a little. The joint doctor told us to start Embrel but he'd give us another month on just the Methotrexate but apparently the lawyers didn't like that so they kept the case open another three excruciating weeks and minors court sent an investigator to see our house. That went surprisingly well after two weeks intensive stress cleaning and lots of prayers. We went back to Pumpkin's doctor in early September and got the prescription for the Embrel. He said she only has a little active arthritis in a few joints and her markers in her blood are normal. He's  hoping that by the next appointment in November we can take her off of the Naproxen and Methotrexate but keep her on the Embrel for awhile longer. She's close to remission in other words. Praise the Lord! And she's doing very well with physical therapy too. All in all, mama's happy.

The new baby had a major growth spurt in the span of three days and sent me scrambling for six month onesies. She's got a bit of colic going on but nothing serious. I'm hoping to have time to blog more often in the next few months before the holidays but we'll see. Till another day!

How Is She Doing?

When people ask me, "How are you?" I usually smile and say, "Oh, I'm good; how are you?" Lately I've been saying "hot" or "tired" and at nine months pregnant, that's pretty true. But when people ask me how my toddler is doing, I smile and say, "She's fine," and try to change the subject. In all honesty, she is fine. She has no idea that she has Juvenile Arthritis, no idea that that's why her knees hurt when its cold in the mornings, no idea that she needs all the medications and supplements she's taking {98% of the time against her will because she's only two; what two year old wants to get stab in the arm once a week to suppress her immune system because it's attacking itself?}. To her mind, she hurt herself and stopped walking but now she's better and is learning to run. She doesn't know that she still needs all the medicines and physical therapy or that certain idiot doctors can't figure out that she's tall and skinny instead of their ideal weight for her age. She isn't aware of any of that.

And she's completely oblivious to mama and daddy's problems. She can't read the power and gas bills that are unusually high because we missed a payment. She doesn't know that the reason there isn't an abundance of yogurt, strawberries and whatever her current favorite dainty is in the fridge is because we ran out of food stamps and cash to supply that food and have to wait for the card to reset. She doesn't read the renewal notices for the food stamps or insurance. She doesn't know that diapers are more precious right now than lotion or facial scrub or shampoo. She doesn't know that mommy is out of pregnancy supplements and hasn't replaced them because its more important to have Pumpkin's needs covered. Mama had juice for lunch the other day so Pumpkin could eat the bread. And she doesn't know that her parents try to schedule all her appointments on one day a week so that Daddy can work as many hours as he can get at his part-time job. She doesn't know that we were late to one of her appointments because he was interviewing for another job last week. And she doesn't know that at the end of those long appointment days running around in the heat with no A/C that mama's feet are swollen. She knows that she has a sister arriving any day now but no idea of how stressed out mama is about the impending changes and trying to clear the schedule as much as possible so she can be home on bed-rest with the two babies. She doesn't know that mama is hiding a tiny stash of snacks to surprise her with once the baby is born and mama can't run to the fridge every two minutes to find her something to snack on.

Pumpkin isn't aware of any of this. To her, every day is a new day with something new to see, do and learn. Her vocabulary is expanding by leaps and bounds, leaving mama exhausted trying to keep up. She has a series of stretches and exercises to do to help strengthen her legs that we try to do with her every day, on top of all the walking, running and climbing that she does by herself. All day long she's in and out, up and down, and back inside then outside again a hundred times. She refuses naps, trying to cram as much as she can into her days. This just backfires in the evenings when she either passes out at eight for a fourteen hour sleep or she gets so tired that she refuses to sleep at all. And the past few days she's been under the impression that she can sleep full time in our bed again, so she refuses to sleep in her bed and wakes up several times at night to tell us that she's unhappy with the arrangements. The other day she got us up at three-thirty and kept us up till six, spending an hour screaming in her crib when we tried to put her back to bed. When I gave up and went back to sleep; she climbed in with me and stared at me till she fell asleep.

So yes, Pumpkin is fine. She's responding well to her methotrexate though the benefits won't be viable for another three or four weeks. She's eating well despite the lack of favorite foods, she's gaining weight and she won't stop walking or talking for anything. She has learning to violently throw things when she's mad and that kisses and cuddles can be a good bribe for either parent if she thinks she's in trouble. Meanwhile, in the bigger realm of things, her parents make sacrifices and wait for things to even out and get better, trusting in the Lord that He has a plan and will pull us all out of the storm soon.

My Joy

One of the reasons why I haven't been posting nearly as much as I'd like is that my sweet toddler has Juvenile Arthritis and its been a real roller coaster ride the last six months since we found out. She'd sprained her ankle in Oct 2015 and gradually stopped walking over the holidays, alarming us and {after an insurance issue}, sent us to the urgent care to see what was wrong. They bounced us around a little and two exhausting weeks later we learned she has Arthritis. Since then we've been doing everything we can to ease her pain, lower her inflammation and get her back on her feet. She's several doctors {some good, some not} her diet has changed and she's improving.

We've placed her on a Weston Price/anti-inflammatory diet with no gluten, soy, dairy, corn oil, processed foods and reduced sugar {all of which is hard to communicate to a two year old with a roving appetite}. We discovered she's allergic to soy and citrus so we immediately removed those from her diet and began to see immediate improvement in that area. She's seeing a nutritionist and a physical therapist regularly, and I'm happy to say that she has been walking independently for some months now and is in the process of trying to run. She still has a few kinks to work out though. We just started her on immune suppressant therapy which should help. We're hoping and praying that that combined with everything else we're doing will have her in remission sooner rather than later and she can go about her life in a happy pain-free toddler way once more.

And just in time too since she'll be dealing with a whole new challenge of having a baby sister here very very soon. Another reason for my lack of posts. Anyway, the reason I'm writing about all this now is partly because I just can't remember if I posted about it previously or not, and partly because I need your help. Some of you may have seen this lovely post over at In The Bookcase; my blogger buddy Tarissa kindly wrote it up for me and it says so clearly what we need; we need, help, we need funds, but most importantly, we need prayers and to get the word out about this sweet little girl who is going through so much at such a young age. Please hop over to her blog and check out the post, and then click Share. Also, please please share the GoFundMe page made just for my Joy. Anything and everything you can do to help is greatly appreciated. It's at difficult times like this that God tests us and shows us His grace. Please keep us in your prayers. Thank you.

An Update and a Plea for Help

May has been a fairly uneventful month overall, giving Mummy and Daddy time to relax and get other things done. But June is just around the corner and with it are coming several big changes in Pumpkin's life. First and foremost is the beginning of her immune suppressant therapy next week. I'm particularly worried about this since methotrexiate is a chemo drug and she's only two. I don't know how she'll respond and I'm really hoping and praying that she won't have any complications and will go into remission sooner than later so we don't have to keep giving her this drug for the rest of her life. All of the blood draws and long drives will take their toll, cutting into my husband's work and my sleep as the pregnancy progresses.

Which is another big change in Pumpkin's life. In just over a month Pumpkin will have a new sister! I'm bracing for little help around the house as my husband and sister work, I'm bracing for long fussy days with Pumpkin as she adjusts to her new sister and not being able to have Mummy at her beck and call anymore, I'm bracing for the normal nastiness after childbirth and for running around to appointments for Pumpkin much sooner than I probably should be. I'm also stressing over not being as ready for Baby's arrival as I wanted to be; I was hoping to at least have gotten a new diaper bag by now but due to limited funds, I'll be lucky if we can afford the newborn diapers themselves!

There's more going on but these are the two main issues on my pregnant tired mind right now. Hence the lack of posts. Pumpkin is walking and talking, seeing her physical therapist regularly and only has one nasty vaccine left which is scheduled after she begins immune suppressant therapy {weird, I know}. I was able to put together a GoFundMe page for my Pumpkin, so if you're feeling generous or just want to share our story in a convenient way, please click the link and share all you wish. We could really use any and all the help we can get. Thank you.

A Hopeful Outlook

Blogging has taken a low shelf in my life lately and sometimes that's fine {I really don't have much room on my plate right now anyway} but sometimes it really bothers me. I get the urge to write about something or I feel like I'm way behind in blogging and will never catch up again. Normally I'd go have a shot of vodka or a glass of wine at that point but since I can't, I eat all our ice cream and clean the house. And even though I get a clean house {mostly, toddlers are so messy}, I still didn't actually do any writing or blogging and part of me feels unfulfilled by that knowledge. It's worse when my brain starts writing a really interesting or witty post and I realize I'm not actually typing it up, I'm just scrubbing dishes and folding laundry.

On the plus side, I think things are starting to even out. The whole vaccine issue seems to be resolved, although sadly, not in our favor so poor Pumpkin has to go get her shots and then some nasty heavy duty meds for her arthritis. I'm really hoping that it works and she doesn't have any bad reactions to the shots or the medication. Her diet is still tricky to pin down but I'm working on Step 3 which is to increase her fruit and vegetable intake. We made pizza twists and a salad last night for dinner. She sat there at the table and ate a bunch of olives, some bell pepper and some parsley so I was happy. At least until she started smushing the kiwi into the table and throwing olives at her new puppy.

Speaking of, my mom surprised us on Sunday with a cute little puppy for Pumpkin. The puppy is a girl and two months old, a funny sort of Chihuahua-pug mix with dainty white paws and floppy brown ears. She looks to be more Chihuahua than pug which is disappointing to me {I've wanted a pug for years now} but the baby and the puppy get along pretty well. Pumpkin knows that the puppy is hers, even if she's still learning how to interact with her, and she likes to have her puppy with her during naps and "quiet time." The puppy seems to sense that Daddy is fun to play with and that I'm pregnant so she'll wrap herself around my belly for a nap. It's very cute. Poor Daddy now has four girls {counting the one on the way} and is sadly outnumbered but he doesn't seem to mind too much. He rather wished it on himself years ago anyway.

While our house situation hasn't yet changed and the job situation is still just covering it, the emotional roller coaster we've been on seems to be nearing the end of the tunnel. At least, I really hope it is because I don't think it's been doing Baby much good and she's not even born yet. Pumpkin is settling down and seems to be improving; she can stand freely and walk on her own a little now which is great. I feel comfortable enough to start picking up my hobbies periodically and wrote in my food journal for the first time since October the other day. The entry was all about Pumpkin's new diet and how I plan to make it work, along with what we've already done in that department so far and surprisingly, we've managed to do quite a bit.

We'll see how this springy calm lasts and for how long.

A New Year and New Challenges

I don't think anyone has really noticed the lack of new posts on here but I know I have rather missed blogging and want to get back into it, even if it's just random little things here and there. The problem is that this new year brought with it several unexpected and slightly unwanted challenges, namely involving our two year daughter Pumpkin. My old term for her as Baby is being regulated to the new arrival we expect in July, so she gets to be known as Pumpkin in the blogging world from now on {unless I forget what I'm doing}. 

Anyway, Pumpkin had injured her ankle in October last year and we were treating it as a sprain. But when it didn't really heal like a sprain should've, we became concerned. And when she stopped walking, we brought her into the local urgent care place to have her looked at, thinking it would be something minor. Well, three x-rays and a blood draw took us to UC Davis for four days and an MRI and more blood draws took us to UCSF in San Francisco for a week, all leading up to the lovely announcement that our daughter has Juvenile Arthritis in multiple joints. And if that wasn't bad enough, because we didn't agree with the vaccines the hospital staff wanted to give her and left against medical advice, CPS became involved and is taking us to court over the vaccine issue. I don't feel like getting into details regarding that challenge at the moment {a much longer detailed post will probably cover that}, but we are looking into natural alternatives to the heavy duty immune suppressant drugs the doctors want to give my Pumpkin and we're researching the vaccines. Aside from the sheer gross factor of the ingredient list, we're still on the we-don't-want-to-vaccinate page of things at the moment.

So for the beginning of 2016 we have a happy new pregnancy, a toddler with arthritis that she'll be dealing with for the rest of her life, diet changes for both challenges {no more alcohol for Mummy for awhile}, a court issue over vaccines {of all things!}, we're on the hunt for a bigger house before July and my husband is working part-time while looking for a full time job. On the happier side of things, we were able to use our tax refund to buy a bigger car which is a blessing.