no sleep for a whole month?!

Well, as you know, our sweet and precious Isabella has finally come home and her medical problems have all gone away. However, my sweet princess, is unable to find comfort and unable to sleep. Poor thing doesn't sleep longer than 45 min at a time. Which means I don't get more sleep than that either. Even less, since I can't sleep during the day. We went to the doctor last week and he prescribed us with prevacid and a whole week later and we aren't seeing a difference. I think she slept 1 or 2 naps for about 2 hours but thats about the only change. I figure its not just colic since it the entire day and night. And I don't think it's GERD since she not projectile vomiting, isn't even really spitting up too much. I've changed my diet, we've tried all the tips and advice (sometimes unwanted) we've been given. LOL. We've swaddled her, we've rocked her, done the swing, the fan, the dryer, the car (which makes things way worse), the shushing, the singing, the sling (she absolutely HATED), the backpack, the vibration, the teddy that sounds like a heartbeat, everything you can absolutely think of. So, since the doctor says she's healthy, we have just got to learn to life with a very high maitenance little princess. Well, I do. Matt and the kids sleep thru it all. They don't even stir. Me? I wake as soon as she hiccups or whimpers. There is no drowning out the screaming. LOL. I know all babies are different, but I sure would have LOVED to have my first this high maintenance, instead of my fourth! Because my other 4 are up at 6 in the morning. In addition, they are all under the age of 4, so there is no resting, napping, and barely even any sitting down during the day since they need me so much. At least I have 2 of them potty trained, that does help. I just gotta make it to September. Then Hailey & Luke will both be in preschool and a couple days a week I will nap with Hunter and Isabella. LOL. So how is life with 4 under the age of 4? Well it is total chaos. And I love it. If you know me, then you know I am totally anal retentive about certain things and let me tell you, nothing shows you how to not sweat the small stuff when you have to hold going to the bathroom for hours at a time, and find it a luxury to sit down to eat during a meal, let alone have a meal. LOL. But I think it's also to my advantage because I am a super organized person. We have a set schedule for the day and for the week. Certain days we do certain chores, certain activities, run errands. Kids live by a predictable schedule from meals, to baths at the same time, as well as our little "circle time" and "work time." This isn't just for me, but for Hailey as well since autisitics thrive in scheduled environments and go completely nutso without it! I not gonna lie and say there aren't days when I wanna pull my hair out or when I just sit there and cry along with Izzy. BUT those days and times are quickly erased by all the joys that my angels bring. Like today, Hunter started dancing for the first time. I mean he's like bobbed his head and shook his hands before. But today he got up and started shaking his hands and waving his arms and head and moving in circles all to the beat. And the best part, he was laughing so hard he almost couldn't breathe. It was priceless! Another great thing, Hailey is learning to read!!! She has already memorized a ton of sight words, but she also taught herself the word "Mars" and "bird". For an autistic 3 year old, I am SO very proud!!! She is still autistic, and still struggling with lots of communication and social skills, but I am feeling very confident that she will be able to live a normal life. Just gotta keep working with her, she is such a brilliant little girl. As for Luke, well he is learning his alphabet, and numbers and is SO much harder to work with than his sister. She will sit there for hours doing flashcards and answering questions, and playing games as long as its learning. His attention span is all of like 5 min, which I'm thinking is probably typical for a 2 year old. But he humors mom and does his work time before running off to play. My favorite thing about Luke right now is his LOVE! He adores Isabella and "wants to hold it" everytime he sees her. And he is all about hugs and kisses now. All the time, to anyone who will let him and dish them out. He will hug and cuddle for hours! I know that this won't last long and I wanna relish in it as long as I can! What a sweetheart! He keeps his sweet loving personality, he is gonna make such a great husband one day! Matt is still in shock that we have 4 kids under 4 and repeats "I don't know how you do it" more than I can count. He loves wrestling with the kids and gets out all their wiggles and is still working his butt off. Right now he is working on building a playhouse for the kids, although the weather has put a damper on things (darn you afternoon madness) it's almost there. We just take it one day at a time, and I tell you, without spending so much time on my knees I wouldn't have made it this far. One of these days I will get some sleep and O it will be cherished!

The life of Isabella, poor princess.

Tanning bed at 2 days old?

So my little princess decided to be quite a handful the morning after she was born. All my kids have high levels of jaundice, for whatever reason and usually have to have a bout with bili lights their first week. Well Isabella proved no different, however, she was quite the extreme of all my kids. And not just with the bili. Right after she was born they noticed her O2 levels weren't quite where they wanted them and so they put her on oxygen and kept her in the nursery for the first 6 hours. Then I went to go feed her and to my surprise she was all hooked up with ivs. Apparently she also tested positive for an infection and they were filling her with antibiotics as well as the iv since I still hadn't nursed her and they wanted to try flush her system. So by the next morning she was off oxygen but they'd have to continue the ivs for at least 4 days, until another they got back a test result and Her bili levels shot to 18.7. Usually bili doesn't get this high until a couple days old. Well if you read my last blog, the hospital was hoping that day with 8 new babies born that morning and me and my sweet bella were not high priority. The doc came in at 7 that morning and told us they were gonna put her on lights right away. At 1pm the nurses still hadn't brought the lights. Around that time I buzzed for a nurse, probably for the 10th time that day but this was the first time anyone answered. Izzy's anitibiotics were done and beeping to be taken out of the iv. The nurse who came in, came in while talking on a cell phone, and not only took out the antibiotic but turned off the iv. Well she wasn't supposed to be off the iv, just the antibiotics. But like I said, she was on a cell phone, didn't even look at me and left. So I called for the nurse. 2 hours passed and still no nurse, so I finally went out and pulled the nurse out of the nursery and asked her to check on Izzy. Well no surprise but her iv had clotted since it was closed for 2 hours. So now they had to do another iv on my poor baby girl. Not to mention since her bili levels were so high they had started doing bili serums every 4 hours, so by the end of her second day her poor little feet looked like hamburger all cut up and swollen it was so sad. The next 2 days her levels jumped as high as 22.8 . The doc said at 25 you have to worry about brain damage and should do a type of dialysis that filters all the bili out of her blood and then puts it back in. But of course, they don't have the capability to do that out her and she'd have to be transferred to primary childrens' hospital in slc. So the next day is spent on pins and needles waiting for her levels. They stayed the same, even under the lights, didn't go up but also didn't go down. By the next morning she went down to 22.1 and doc said as long as she doesn't go up we will keep her here. Which had me torn, cause I obviously didn't wanna have to go to slc, but on the other hand, if they could give her better treatment, maybe it would be worth the ridiculous medical bills we'd have to pay. Of course, since I had no complications at all, I was released the next morning 36 hours after I'd had her. But she was to stay. There is nothing so lonely or empty than going to the hospital pregnant and leaving without your baby. The doc put her on formula since breast milk sometimes causes jaundice to go up so I wasn't even nursing. It was really depressing. Matt was already back at work by the time I got home. She was supposed to be fed every 2 hours, but of course I go home and try and get some rest and when I went back almost 5 hours later she hadn't been fed. You see my reason for wanting to take her to slc??? SO i went back every single 2 hours to make sure she was getting fed. Now matt went back to work, so I was awake pretty much constantly. Next 2 days her levels stay in the low 20s and never went any higher, but also weren't going lower. So the doc ordered more lights and put her on 3 banks of lights, and upped her feedings to every 1.5 hrs. We finally got her levels down to the mid teens and were able to bring her home, but had to bring lights with us. Doc said I could nurse finally but I'd have to only take her out of the lights for feeding and put her right back in and go back every day for another bili serum and weight check. First day home her levels were down to 13 and so doc said take her off the lights. So we did, next day levels jumped to 19. So back on the lights another day. Then back off, finally her levels were at 13 for 2 days in a row and he said we could ditch the lights but it looked like she was losing too much weight and I needed to feed her every 1.5 hours. If you ever nursed then you know it takes at least a half hour, to nurse 1 side, change them, nurse other side. And then you supposed to start from when you first started feeding, so me and her weren't sleeping more than 45 min to an hour at a time in between feeds. Went back to the hospital the next day and the scale had been off, she had actually gained more than her birth weight and she wasn't even 2 weeks old yet. I was excited, yet mad that me and her were up all that time for no reason! So finally she was home, off the lights, and I could hold my little yellow baby whenever I wanted. O ya, the infection seemed to respond to the antibiotics and the culture came back negative, so everything seemed ok. I thought finally I'd be able to get some rest and relax at home with babies. Little did I know that the madness was just beginning!!!

Could it get any crazier???

So it has been quite awhile since I've done the posting thing, but I had an excuse since I was prego and I have my 3 other monsters to chase around. Pregnancy went well, except for one night about 6 weeks early I went into preterm labor. Matt was working but raced me to the hospital and i had dialated to a 4, they hooked me up to IV and gave me some terbutaline to stop contractions and there I stayed. Once the contractions stopped I went home, against doc's orders, but Matt had to work and i had the 3 crazy little uns. I was prescribed "bed rest" which we all know when you have 3 other kids is a crazy joke, but i did try to take it somewhat easy. Little did I know that my sweet angel was either coming that day, or waiting till the very end. At 39 weeks I saw the doctor who said i had made absolutely no more progress and he didn't think the baby would be coming any time soon. So we talked about going in the following week for an induction. I went home and cried to Matthew, each baby stays in longer and my pregnancies seem to go on forever, when my first 2 were more than a month early, that last month sure drags on. The next day after the doc appt was me and Matt's anniversary. For our anniversary Matthew decided to get us a new tree for the front, since our landscaping in the new home is still rather lacking. We waited till after Hunter's nap, then went to the local garden place, my new favorite place since spring started. We picked out the perfect tree and then headed home. We had the van, so Matthew was gonna go back with one of his friends and their pick up truck. When we got home, I had packages waiting for me. I have been ordering all our landscaping plants online and getting them shipped bareroot. Well I had about 30 plants waiting for me. Now by the time I got home I was noticing some contractions, not too much, not too strong and not too frequent, but enough to make me tell Matthew I think you should stay home for a little, just let me get these plants in the ground. After all, bareroot stuff has to get planted right away and if baby did come soon, Matthew would have gone crazy trying to watch 3 kids and plant stuff. He not exactly a gardening man. LOL. So out I went, now the thing about Roosevelt, is its windy in the Spring. I mean rip shingles off of houses and throw trashcans, and swing sets done the street kind of windy. And of course it was one of those windy days. Yet I kept on. Before I got the first 3 planted I noticed my contractions coming real consistent, not painful yet but very steady. But I kept going. About hour later I had gotten all but about 5 planted and the contractions were even closer and every once in a while they were pretty painful. I went inside and told Matthew, you better not go to friends, just in case. I went back outside and tried to get the other plants done and only got 2 more in the ground. By now they were right on top of each other and I was covered in mudd and dirt. So I went inside and showered and tried to lay down and time contractions. They were about 4 min apart, but I couldn't remember if I was supposed to wait till they were 2 min apart or 5 min apart. Now remember, not even 24 hours before I saw the doc and he says I'm nowhere close. So I'm thinking, I really don't wanna go and be sent home. I mean this is my fourth, I don't wanna go unless I'm 100%. So I tell Matt, let's wait another half hour. He told me NO. Now, if you know Matt and me, I'm usually the one that says NO outright, I am the stubborn one, he usually goes with the flow. But today he said, NO I'm calling Melinda to watch the kids, and we are going to the hospital. Now knowing me, I argue, I didn't wanna go and be sent home and he says "who cares." If we get sent home at least we'll know, I'm not delivering this baby here. So we got our neighbor to watch the kids and off we went. We pulled in the hospital pkg lot at 7pm. They sent Matt to check me in and they put me in a room and had me change. About 10 min later, the nurse comes in and hooks me up to monitors and says she's gonna check me. Well, remember I'm thinking they are gonna send me home. So she checks me and says, well, let me have the doctor check you. So I'm thinking, they are going to send me home. SO I start crying and I'm mad at Matthew, I told you we should have waited! 4 kids and I can't even tell I'm in labor! So about 715 the doctor comes in, and checks me. He smiles and I'm rather mad cause I'm thinking he sending me home. And he says, "Kimberly are you ready to have a baby?" I say, "ReallY?" Now I'm excited. So I say, "Gonna have her today? How far am I?" And doc says, "9 plus." I says "9? As in no time for an epidural 9?" He says "No, no epidural." So I say, "Ok, how about a local?" He says, "Kimberly, you don't even have time to down a few motrin. Tell me when you need to push." And he starts putting on his gloves. Well, let me tell ya, as soon as he says that it starts hurting. I mean this whole time, I felt it, but it wasn't bad. But then, at that moment, it hurt. It hurt bad. I didn't scream, I just said "Ow." Over and over and over. He says Kimberly I need you to breathe and not say "ow" that doesn't help. Well it helped me and I didn't wanna breathe! LOL. So about 5 min of this pain and saying ow over and over I feel I gotta push. He tells me, don't push. What in the world you mean don't push? I'm not pushing, she is coming. He says just a second, don't push, they getting instruments ready. Well, any woman in labor knows that when baby is coming, baby is coming. I wasn't pushing but she was coming. So I did yell at the doctor. "I'm not pushing! SHE IS COMING!" So he says, ok, go ahead and push. 1 push and her heads out, 1 more and she's all the way out. Isabella Marie Pratt, born at 7:22pm. 22 min after the hospital. Only about 7 min of pain. And yes I yelled, and was in pain but once she was out, it was like, "That's it?" I imagined something a lot worse! And then, I was figuring my body would be in so much pain and agony, all exhausted and muscles sore. But to be honest, it wasn't that bad. Not gonna say I wasn't sore, but it was really no big deal. After the epidural I remember every muscle in my body hurting, probably from pushing so hard, since I couldn't feel anything. But this time, I didn't have that. I will say tho, that those after contractions sure hurt worse than labor. So I gladly took the motrin and percocet they gave me the first 24 hours, but then there were 8 babies born in 4 hours the next day and me and Isabella were no longer high priority and to be honest I don't think a nurse took my vitals or answered any one of my calls that next day. So not by choice, I delivered with no drugs, and was off pain meds in 24 hours. My labor of love, sweet Isabella Marie Pratt, 6 lbs. 9 oz.

These are the only pics taken at the hospital with me and matt's cell phone. The next week things got a little wild....