Some Points To Consider…

 

1. It’s a girl.

2. We moved house. Bit of a disaster but we survived. Bit weird but we are settling gradually.

3. Seren turned 18 months – worthy of a separate post. To be continued.

4. The blog requires a revamp, a jushing up, and a new name. I’ve come to realise there are too many blogs called Across The Pond (even though their Blogspot address is something different) so I’m all ears on name suggestions. I’d just like to be a little unique, if it’s possible.

5. 27 weeks and some change. I can feel the 3rd Tri creeping up on me. Still addicted to sugary drinks and chocolate ice cream bars. It’s a wonder I passed the 1hr glucose test. It’s no wonder I need new maternity jeans.

6. Easter soon = pretty Easter dresses = pictures of miserable toddler in pretty Easter dress = first Easter egg hunt downtown. Time to dust off the DSLR.

7. It’s a girl!

8. The husband wants to name her Nerys. Send help please.

9. When you type the name Nerys, Word wants to autocorrect to Nerds. I feel this is a sign.

10. Nerys is almost Seren spelled backwards. Even more reason to call her Joan.

It’s a…………………?

Nothing ever seems to go as planned.

I was looking forward to my 20 week scan (albeit 18 weeks along, shhh) for weeks, I couldn’t wait to find out what we were having. Rich, myself and Seren were all in attendance, Seren had her Big Sister T-shirt on the go (complete with fold lines, it literally turned up in the mail 30 minutes before go-time). We were all ready.

 

 

So we get to the office and find out my insurance information is invalid so we can’t go anywhere or do anything. Rich gets on the phone to his HR department who call the insurance company, all the while our appointment slot is slowly ticking away. Seren is using the waiting room as an Olympic training ground and running from one end to the other, knocking into people and getting in the way of the doors. She has already messed up her t-shirt, her hair bow is nowhere to be seen. Finally the HR people called back and said there was an administration error, the insurance office had moved and so had our policy details; nice to be told! We got the info and hurriedly went into our room for the scan, with a very unhappy-looking ultrasound technician.

I get on the bed, lights go off. Cue massive screaming terrified crying fit from Seren. Daddy cannot calm her down, daddy cannot hear mommy telling him where the pacifier is in the bag until mommy screams ‘IT’S IN THE EFFIN SIDE POCKET YOU MORON’!! I know at this point the technician is wondering why on earth we are having another child. Another proud mom moment, mental note. Seren is still unhappy so out comes my iphone and Peekaboo Farm – the technician now hisses this will mess up the u/s machine. Sorry. Seren is now sobbing and reaching for mommy, who cannot hear a word the technician is saying but apparently the measurements are good. Seren ends up lying on mommy’s face which was the only thing that stopped her from crying. Oy.

At this point the technician tells us she can’t get a good view of the ‘goods’ so we can’t find out the gender, but  her best educated guess was a girl because she couldn’t see anything else there. I’m pretty certain this was code for I can’t take listening to your child whining another second so y’all need to go home, because we got a good shot at the start of the scan. Except the only thing everyone was concentrating on at that point was the screaming, snotty child and the non-use of electrical items in the ultrasound room.

So we go back in 4 weeks to find out and to finish off the measurements. Maybe we’ll get a babysitter that day.

M is for Milk Allergy

Time for a bumper Seren update – and backstory, seeing as I’ve left out a few things these past 6 months :-)

When Seren was 12 months she visited an allergy doctor after we had discovered she was getting a hives-like rash after eating anything dairy. It was also causing her a sore throat from the reflux caused by ingestion. They did a skin test (OMG worst thing ever) and the test confirmed a massive positive reaction to milk, plus a small reaction to peanut and egg. Wonderful ::insert sarcasm::

Fast forward to last Friday, the doc wanted to do the skin test again to clarify the egg and peanut – and hurrahs she is negative on both!! So apparently the first nurse was just too gung-ho with the skin needle. That’s a happy thought I am left with for the rest of my life. But we also have a plan of attack on the milk, we are having bloodwork done (remember I just said worst thing ever? I have a feeling this will surpass that) to double confirm the negative peanut and egg reactions and also to get a full look at the milk allergy; we are hoping to have good enough results to start introducing dairy in baked goods, much as we have been doing with egg thus far.

The first skin test results looked like this -

 

M = milk (duh), E = egg, F (actually a P) = peanut, + = histamine (control) and – = saline (control)

 

The worst part was having to hold her arms away from her for 15 MINUTES so she didn’t scratch herself silly and jeopardize the results. I did not want to do this again (little did we know, eventually we did).

So yeah, she had a bigass reaction to milk alright. However the second time we did the test the E and P results looked much like the saline – she really must have plunged my poor kid with the needle this time though?! Ugh.

Here’s hoping we get to take her to Goodberry's sometime in the near future. Fingers crossed.

 

We also had her 15 month wellness appointment last Monday – what a fun week she’s had, right? She had put on weight and grown almost 2 inches so basically although she’s still a skinny minny the growth is constant so I can (slightly) relax about having an underweight child for the moment. We still have to feed her formula until 18 months though which is a total PITA but we were given the green light to wean from the bottle. Started this last week and OMG she is not a happy camper about it! Baby girl loves her bottles and pacifiers. I think it’s going to be a work in progress. Then we had the injections and a day of low grade fever but she’s all fine now.

That’s all I got today!!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, etc etc etc.

 

Well it appears I royally sucked at blogging in 2012.  The past few months have been so hectic and I have been so tired, plus I haven’t taken many pictures at all since Halloween so there hasn’t been much to share. I’m going to plan to do better this year though, so bear with me!

Seren has had a lot of goings on since the last few times I posted. She has had food allergies confirmed (Milk, Egg and Peanut) so we are working with an Allergist on this. We hope her situation is different at 2 years so we can start to introduce these foods but for now they are off limits. She has also recently been diagnosed with Mild Oral Dysphagia, which explains her eating issues and lack of weight gain. We visit an occupational therapist at Carolina Pediatric Dysphagia once a week and do various oral exercises and they assess her reactions to foods, etc. Her 15 month pediatric appointment is coming up next week and I’m hoping she has put on enough weight to remove the bottles, maybe even the formula, but I’m not sure yet. I weighed her myself and she has put on a pound in a month which is good for a toddler, but I guess it depends on where that puts her on her growth curve. All very stressful indeed.

Other than that, and the husband starting a new job and looking to move in the next 2 months, not much to report!! We definitely have a lot on our plate right now.

 

Anyway on to the holidays -

 

Here was our Christmas morning; the little lady had (amongst a plethora of other things) a table and chairs set. Which she loves. And thank you Pottery Barn for pre-assembling the chairs for us, and only requiring 8 screws to fit the table together. My husband has given the green light to order anything I like from you in the future. His toolbox currently houses a screwdriver and a can of WD40 so he appreciates it greatly.

 

Presents, please. Like right now!!

 

 

That the best you can do??

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then began the chair acrobatics.

She fell off and cried so it was promptly moved to the (carpeted) playroom.

 

The present acrobatics didn’t go much better either.

 

I tried to get a picture of her in her Christmas outfit, courtesy of Aunt Claire, but every time I try to take a picture these days this usually happens -

 

So yeah, no success there then. We had a good day, a good meal, and an early baby bedtime thanks to little miss no naps so all was….. good.

 

Anyways, speaking of Christmas – Mary and I had a little something in common this year. Well almost.

 

Presenting to you, ‘The Immaculate Conception’.

 

 

Without giving you the gories, this was a total shock/surprise to us. I honestly didn’t think it was possible.  ‘Tis a Christmas miracle. Well a Halloween one actually seeing as that’s when we found out.  He/she does look a bit like a ghost thanks to the oldest ultrasound technology in NC available at my OBGYN clinic. I hope some of my ten gazillion dollars it will cost to have this baby will go towards some more up to date equipment. Thumping a machine to get the screen to work is not quite what we all have in mind, is it?

Due in June, which is a hell of a lot better than September because I’ll be missing out the 2 hottest months of the year being a fat miserable whale of a woman with inhuman-sized cankles. I’m still trying to burn  the Myrtle Beach trip of July 2010 out of my memory. But at least I can wear flip flops and not try to squeeze my feet into proper shoes. Hurrah. I’m trying not to focus on the calamity that will be us plus 2 kids this year, the idea gives me to heebie jeebies right now. God knows how we will survive, I have already planted the nanny idea in the husband’s head, just waiting on that to grow.

 

In other news, I would like to thank the residents of the greater Wakefield area for setting off fireworks from 8pm to way past midnight on NYE. Thank you also for allowing your dogs to bark relentlessly throughout the night due to the sounds of the explosions. And thanks again for letting your car alarms go off and off, I guess you were partying too hard to hear them eh?

Do I sound like a new parent??!?!! Thought so.

How times have changed.