7/09/2008

Where To Begin

Wow. So much has happened in the last couple of weeks, I don't even know where to begin.

First - thank you to everyone who has sent congratulations and well wishes. We are extremely happy and excited to be pregnant again. Kelly is doing well - although some pretty severe morning sickness has taken hold. Even with the prescription Zofran that she was given, she is still getting sick every couple of hours. So far it is slightly controllable with food, but even that doesn't help sometimes. My driving makes her sick as hell, so I'll be the passenger for the next nine months. The other thing for her is food aversions are high right now. It's funny - the jokes are always made about women craving food...but so far, it's been all about what she can't eat. She's existing right now on different types of soup, toast, fruit and cheese sticks. Not much else is going down. And at any given time, she can only keep about a half cup of food in her body. She's eating just about every hour to try to prevent sickness, but it doesn't always work. So that is rough...but we're still super happy about the pregnancy.

Second - over the weekend, Kelly went five rounds with a tricycle and lost. Big time. In fact, while attempting to yank a wheel off the tricyle, she slipped a disc in her back. Five hours after it happened (this was on Saturday afternoon) she let me take her to the ER. Slipped discs heal on their own and are really not treatable, except with pain management medication. Because she is pregnant, she cannot take most of the available drugs. They prescribed Tylenol 3 with codine, but that really isn't safe either. And it makes her her extremely queasy. With the morning sickness, the Tylenol really wasn't an option. Her doctor told her it was fine to take low doses of Motrin for pain, but she's been a bit worried and so has resisted except when the pain is unbearable. The injury puts Kelly out of commission for the time being. She is back at work today, but I don't think she should be. She's still in a lot of pain. It goes without saying that she can't pick Bailey up right now - her weight is just too much for Kelly's back.

Third - Bailey has decided to use this week as the week to begin throwing some very serious temper tantrums. Think full-on crazy tantrums. On the floor, screaming her lungs out, throwing whatever she comes into contact with, rolling her body all around, kicking, batting at anyone who comes near her. And she will do this for a long, long time. Over the weekend, on tantrum lasted about 45 minutes. Our response to this wretched behavior is to sit on the floor near her and talk quietly to her - letting her know that when she is ready to pick herself up off the floor and come to us, we will comfort her. We don't pick her up. We don't give her whatever it was that caused the tantrum in the first place. We don't walk away and ignore the behavior. We work through it with her. Finally, last night, we had a break through. It took about 25 minutes, but she picked herself up and came to me, putting her head on my shoulder and calming herself down. Then she was able to eat. 30 minutes later, at 6:30 PM she was sound asleep in bed and we didn't hear her again until she woke up this morning at 6:15 AM.

So...with the combination of full-on "morning" sickness, Kelly's back injury and Bailey's temper tantrums, our home is experiencing a bit of stress right now. This is when not having family around is very, very difficult. We could use some help. We have some friends who have pitched in where they could, but in the end, it's just difficult.

There is no doubt that we will get through this rocky time - but man, we're both exhausted, annoyed with Bailey's behavior and irritated with each other.

LOL - how's that for a happy post?

1 comment:

MaverickMama said...

Tantrums are not fun. I have found that the technique you mention has the best result. Usually baby boy is just super frustrated and will run around screaming until he get's tired and then climbs in my lap and sobs for awhile. It's pitiful. As long as he is not being destructive to me or our things I let him work through his upset while I sit there ready to comfort him when he is ready.

Sorry about the sickness. Yuck. Been there got the t-shirt...and the baby.