life changes – Down Home with the Irrs

the bug.

i am currently writing this post from the couch, eating ice cream, watching real housewives of dallas and resting my back. no judgements please. man, being pregnant the second time around while trying to wrangle an almost 30 lb, 17 month old is physically draining. this time around, my back is not loving me, so here i am trying to take a break while i have a house with endless to-dos staring me in the face.

here’s an update on where we are at this week. nothing new to report medically as it relates to little bug. i am officially 27 weeks. woah. however, little bug and i got hit with a big whammy of a stomach bug.

we enjoyed a wonderful visit with Mike’s parents and just finished afternoon at a tip-off event for the new season, when WHAM!, i was hit with a stomach bug.

20180929-kop_03282 — pre stomach bug happiness

at first, i thought it was food poisoning (because where would i have picked up this bug), but then 48 hours later Mike got hit. then, the worst of it, Landon woke up Tuesday night after vomiting all over himself and his crib. major panic for me and my momma heart. the little guy didn’t understand what was going on and we could not get him to stop throwing up. with Mike down for the count, i called in my mom for reinforcements so i could at least put him down and clean up the mess. THESE ARE THE MOMENTS I AM GRATEFUL TO BE BACK HOME!!!

sparing you all the gory details, but we ended up in the ER with Landon late Tuesday night to get him some zofran. poor guy just could not stop the sickness. after a dose of the meds, my little man was back to his usual self flirting with the nurses and smiling.

it honestly took a week for our entire household to recover. i spent the next couple days sanitizing everything in sight. after both the physical and emotional exhaustion of the week, we decided to hop in the car with my parents and head to the beach for a couple days. a little fun in the sun is just what the doctor ordered! and the sweetest beach naps.

and just when we thought we were all recovered, WHAM!, my mom got hit with the bug. this dang bug. i pray y’all do not get hit with this thing!

other life things going on this week other than being taken out by the stomach bug – the house is still in shambles. there is not a single room that is complete, but i will say i have some visions and plans that i just need to execute. little bug is KICKING a lot. he’s just happy as clam in there. we have not made any progress on the name front (just haven’t had time to think about it), but did make progress with pediatrician research and information interviews. i will keep y’all posted about that. i know i will feel more at ease when i choose a pediatrician.

emotionally, this week really took it out of me. i don’t know if it’s the extra focus on down syndrome due to down syndrome awareness month (which is incredible, so please don’t misunderstand me), or the buddy walk that took place in Atlanta last weekend, or just the result of being overly tired and physically exhausted, but i ended the week in tears. i am in a valley again for the time being. feeling totally unprepared for life with two under two, unprepared for a baby with special needs, unprepared to become a “special needs mom.” just overall unprepared and feeling majorly guilty. so i am trying to give myself some grace and trying to remind myself that this too shall pass.

my goals for this week – take care of myself a little more, keep calling preschools/parents morning out programs for Landon (so far on 3 waitlists…ugh), and embrace this pregnancy a little more. i may even take a bump picture…

a new season

this week has been another crazy week here at the irr home. we are entering a new season in many ways – a new weather season, a new life season, a new professional season. and all the new seasons are colliding!

at home, we are in a new season of life and homeownership. it’s been a busy week of more appointments and phone calls – calling repairmen, reporting claims for property damage (very minor stuff), buying all the equipment and essentials, and trying to completely unpack a single room (still working on this). we love our home, but man, it’s tough to keep up with it all while simultaneously juggling a toddler and a career that takes a very important member of our team away from us for the majority of the week. oh, did i mention we also have squirrels in our attic? flying squirrels to be exact. and one that managed to find its way into our wall just in time to scare me while Mike was away. hello homeownership and goodbye money! and a big OH, we also have an owl in our backyard. pretty cool, unless you have seen the Michael Peterson Dateline….i’ll just leave it at that…

a new NBA season has officially begun and i am not ready. i am never really ready for the season to begin, but this year really feels like it popped up on us fast. i don’t feel like we really had a summer off (probably because we have been a little busy) and that is draining on us all. it’s also a very strange feeling to be entering a season as the newbies. it was always great to see familiar faces and our NBA family after a summer apart, but now we are those people entering a new team and not really feeling connected at the current moment. i know time will change all of this, but with so many other aspects of life being in transition, it’s tough feeling when we will be spending so much of our time together and away due to the team. i will say i am hopeful! i am grateful to have met a couple incredible women who i know will help ease this transition and also grateful for an organization that really puts a large emphasis on family and support.

a new season of life literally began this week for Mike. we celebrated our favorite guy’s birthday and were lucky to be able to do so with both of our families. in this next year for him, life is really changing and we are embracing the opportunity to get another year together to see what is in store. we checked in with little bug at the perinatologist this week and all is looking great! he is measuring right on target and, other than his heart defect, looking perfectly healthy. thank God. i am now being spaced out 5 weeks between visits unless something changes.

i have been asked several times how i am feeling. physically i am feeling pretty good. i am exhausted, but to be expected. otherwise, pregnancy symptoms are minimal and all is well physically. mentally, i am feeling a bit unsettled. i am feeling unprepared for a second child, any child, let alone a baby with special needs. i am feeling guilty that i have not focused as much on this pregnancy as i did with Landon. i keep putting things off because i have “time” with the pregnancy and these other life matters have been more pressing. it’s officially time for me to stop procrastinating and get focused.

on deck for me this week – call around for interview appointments with pediatricians, focus on the name search (we have one we love, but i want to be 100% certain), look into Gigi’s playhouse in Atlanta, start figuring out what we need for baby #2. i should also start thinking about a design for his nursery… but that might be another week or two before i can really focus on that.

things i am thankful for this week: a healthy toddler, a healthy husband, a healthy baby boy growing inside me. my family, who continuously help us through this transition. Mike’s family who gave me a much needed break this week and helped us with more house items. a roof over our head, even if it’s filled with squirrels. a loving home. and a God who continues to provide for us.

official birthday celebration pic before L’s shirt was stained at dinner…

the waiting weeks 3.0: life changes

i’m still working hard to get you guys caught up to the present – 23 weeks. WHAT?! is this normal second pregnancy problems? time is FLYING and i haven’t taken a single bump picture… but first, back to weeks 18-20 aka the waiting weeks 3.0

anyone else a Thomas Rhett fan? the song Life Changes seemed to pretty much be my anthem then (and still now). never in my wildest dreams did i think our lives would be where they were/are.

Ain’t it funny how life changes
You wake up, ain’t nothing the same and life changes
You can’t stop it, just hop on the train and
You never know what’s gonna happen
You make your plans and you hear God laughing
Life changes, and I wouldn’t change it for the world, the world, oh no
And I wouldn’t change it for the world, the world, oh no

weeks 18 and 19 we found ourselves in a whirlwind of life, attempting to settle in. all of a sudden, we were under contract on a home and doing the necessary inspections to make sure we were 100% certain this was it for us. we were busy getting Georgia licenses and tags, finding new doctors for Landon and i (which is more challenging than it seems), and setting up those necessary appointments. we did get to throw in a quick weekend trip to Hilton Head, which helped recharge our batteries a bit. needless to say, waiting the 10-14 days for the amnio results was not that difficult.

we had already accepted the results from my NIPT prior, so we were really just waiting for a confirmation, a true diagnosis doctors would recognize. i had my first appointment with my new OB before the results came in. she was wonderful and caring. and for the first time this pregnancy, i did not feel like i was being treated any different than a mother expecting a typical baby. i don’t know why, but i cried at that appointment. it was probably a combination of life stress, emotions running high with this little bug, and just being hormonal. i promised her i would not cry at my next appointment… whoops!

the outcome of that appointment was exactly as i expected. i needed a referral to a new perinatologist where i would get my 20 week anatomy scan done to check on the health of little bug and continue to monitor the “abnormalities” found at previous scans.

a week later, we were in the perinatologists office for the ultrasound and armed with our amnio results. we are having a SupIRR baby. little bug is confirmed T21 and Klinefelters. i’m not sure if you have been keeping count, but make that a whopping 48 chromosomes to your typical 46. boom. he’s superhuman 😉 like i had mentioned, it is extremely rare to have both syndromes, but both can peacefully co-exist. the Klinefelters markers will most likely be overshadowed by the Downs and that is perfectly okay.

upside of the amnio results, now we had a diagnosis and doctors would stop looking at our baby with the typical lens and instead look at him in the spectrum of health related to these syndromes.

the 20 week ultrasound was probably the first time we went to the doctor and did not get any more “bad” news. little bug actually made some good progress! his growth was great! the signs of the brain abnormality seemed to go away (which was always a possibility) and the echogenic bowel was no longer present. PRAISE GOD! little bugs heart was still showing a defect, but this perinatologist felt more optimistic about it than our last. we were referred to a pediatric cardiologist for a fetal echo which would be done at 22 weeks (more on that later). all in all a good appointment!

Landon had his 15 month appointment (a little late), but 3 shots later, we were all caught up on life things at the moment.

i feel like i need a nap just from reliving this moment in time! looking forward to getting you caught up to the present. we’re probably one post away from that!