30 before 30!

Boy, has my 28th year been a doozy! Tomorrow is my 29th birthday, which means the dreaded 30 is just around the corner. I am pretty ready to go out of my 20's with a bang by embarking on the ever so popular trend of completing a 30 before 30 list. So after careful consideration many middle of the night feedings with Griffin, I have prepared my list. Now it is your responsibility to hold me to it!

So here goes, in no particular order...

1. Lose 20lbs. I am already 6lbs less than what I was beginning my pregnancy with Griffin, so I am excited to keep this momentum going and really making this a goal.
2. Take a 5 year anniversary vacation. This one is mostly complete in theory, just have to actually book it and go, Mountain Song Inn, here we come!
3. Complete a 30 acts of kindness project with my boys. This may not happen until the actual day of my 30th. Although we are always looking for ways to share kindness with others, I would like to spend my birthday next year completing these acts all in one day.
4. Take the boys camping at Crabtree Falls. I would really like to make this an annual trip as this was one of my most favorite places as a child.
5. Run the monument 10k. With my weight loss goals, hopefully this will be an easy one to check off.
6. Decorate our bedroom walls..finally. Using my pinterest boards and of course the beautiful photographs taken by the lovely Carmen of Carmen Doherty Photography. (If you would like to take a peek at our album, you can view it here, password is rice2013.)
7. Learn to use my fancy camera. I know I will never be as good as a professional, but I would like to at least attempt to get some nice shots of those everyday moments that happen in a house with my amazing boys. I have some built in items on this list to help with this like #8, #14 and #18.
8. Complete a month photo-a-day challenge. One day, I will actually do a 365 day challenge... I think I may have planned to do it this year. Yeah, that was a little overzealous of me. This time we are going to attempt a month and go from there.
9. Start an edible garden. This one I will have to enlist my handy husband. Thankfully, Cooper is on my side, as he has asked Daddy to help him plant carrots and bananas!
10. Learn to knit. I have tried this about 100 times, this winter, I will actually do it and I can check "Knit a Scarf" off my bucket list, too!
11. Get a brother-sister tattoo. Bryan and I have been talking about doing this since I was 16. We are actually going to do it in September. Finally. It would be even cooler if we could convince Kaira to join, but I know tattoos aren't her thing! :)
12. Go on a wine tour. No, I can't believe I have never done this either.
13. Take a cooking class. Do I really need to explain this? This would make my husband's life.
14. Make an ABC photo book using family photos. I saw this on pinterest and LOVED it! Maybe I will get even fancier and make a family book like this one, too!
15. Learn to make baby food. There is my gift to my sweet Griffin and to our bank account. I'm doing the whole nursing thing and hope to stick with that for his first year and I would really like to give baby food a shot. I have the tools necessary, let's hope my determination is there, too. This will be the first real step (along with #9) to getting Rick on my healthy organic train. Who knows, maybe we will have our produce delivered weekly by my 30th birthday and have a compost bin with our edible garden (this would be lots of checks on my bucket list) but let's not get ahead of ourselves here...
16. Go somewhere I've never been. I wanted a few super vague ones to be left up to the right moment and time.
17. Read a classic. In light of The Great Gatsby coming out, I have chosen it. I half read it in high school but I think I will appreciate it more now. My reward will be to see the movie!
18. Catch-up on the boys' photobooks. I know, I know, Coop is almost 3. Better late than never.
19. Make a new friend. Just felt like a good idea.
20. Throw Coop a birthday party that is triple the fun. He says he wants a train party or a dino party. It will probably change 100 times between now and August. Either way, it is going to be the best damn party. Ever. Poor guy hasn't ever had one.
21. Do something extremely out of my comfort zone. There are tons of quotes and cartoons that illustrate that you grow the most outside your comfort zone, which is the whole purpose of this, right?
22. Write/blog weekly. It's my therapy and a passion. I need it.
23. Share my love for theater with Coop. Virginia Repertory Theatre does a lot of awesome shows and Cooper is finally old enough to go and begin appreciating live performance art. And I just discovered Go, Dog, Go is coming and that is Coop's FAVORITE BOOK. He has all kinds of back stories about all the dogs, in fact, we rarely read the words because he tells me those stories instead. I can't wait!!
24. Get a blog-lift. I am dying for this. I love this blog, but you sure can't tell.
25. Discover a skin regiment that works. I am almost 30. This has to be done so I don't look like I am in the wrong decade!
26. Learn to ask for help. It's time I learn that I can't do it all. I mean I did have seizure and the consensus is that it was stress induced. So if that ain't a sign, I don't know what is. 
27. Say thank you to the St. Mary's NICU in a big way. I am the mean mom who doesn't let her kids get birthday presents... I think Griffin's birthdays will be centered around doing things for the NICU at St. Mary's and maybe March of Dimes in the future. Giving back starts at birth! :)
28. Bake a new recipe each month. I just love baking. And my coworkers and husband love when I do. Sounds like a win-win.
29. Plan regular kid-less date nights. I am not sure what regular means except to be serious about not forgetting the relationship I have with my husband separate from him being the father of my children. This is just as important as his role in my children's life and I think we forget this sometimes.
30. Choose joy. No explanation necessary.

So there you have it. I really wanted to add some more items from my Bucket List like heading to New Mexico for the International Hot Air Balloon Festival but some things will be better enjoyed when Cooper and Griffin can enjoy them, too!

Griffin's Birth Story - the facts.

As you remember, I had a team of doctor's calling the shots after my "seizures". I guess I can take the quotes away from the word now that it has been officially said, although I guess nothing seizure related is truly official until the DMV is notified.

By calling the shots, I mean deciding what the best thing was for Griffin and I. It was decided we would deliver at 36 weeks which would have been Wednesday, March 27th. My c-section was set for 12:00pm and all of my pre-surgery lab work would be completed on Tuesday, March 26th at 8:00am.

So my mom and I went to St. Mary's that Tuesday. Coop's new schedule started so he was home on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He and my mom wandered the halls and hung out in the gift shop while I went through all the pre-op paperwork, complete with directions on how to prepare for my c-section the following day, completed my lab work and was sent on my way.

My mom dropped me off at my house after the appointment to pack and get myself ready for #2 and to get Coop's stuff organized for his mini vaca at Grandad and T-mas. She took Cooper with her since Delaney was here and they had plans to go to the CMoR later that morning.

I began organizing all of my clothes as I wrapped up the laundry. I laid on the couch to watch a show and maybe nap a little (my morning dose of anti-seizure medicine was still making me feel a little groggy mid-morning).

As I started to doze off, my phone rang. It was the nurse I had just met with saying some of my lab work came back funny and they needed me to return and repeat it. I asked if this was something that I needed to return immediately for or if I should just set up a new appointment. She said as soon as I could get there would be great.

You can imagine the feeling pulsating through my veins. 

As I was getting off the phone with the nurse, my OB-GYN was beeping in. She had just gotten the lab work back as well and she wanted me back at St. Mary's as soon as possible. She said that with a platelet count as low as mine, there was no way they would let me get a spinal which meant full blown anesthesia. This would be less than ideal being that this would cause Griffin to go to sleep as well and with his "wimpy white boy" lungs as they call them, this just wasn't the best option.

I know I have mentioned this a few times before, but this was one of those moments where I felt like I got smacked across the face, totally blindsided (much like this time and this other time). I immediately called my mom and could barely talk, trying to explain to her what was going on.

Ten minutes later my dad was out front ready to take me back to the hospital. They informed my a normal platelet count was in the 150,000's. Mine was 59,000. They wanted to repeat the blood work and see if there was any change. Meanwhile, my OB was on the phone trying to get in touch with my neurologist and neurosurgeon to see if my medicine could be a cause.

The second round of lab work showed my platelets were up to 81,000. My OB met with the anesthesiologist and they decided if we could get a platelet count over 90,000 they would go ahead and give me a spinal and let me deliver the baby today. Nobody seemed really comfortable waiting until the following day for fear my platelets would drop again and we would have to go with plan C, full on anesthesia. 

Of course, you would've guessed that Rick was 2.5 hours away. I had called him when they called to tell me we would need to repeat my lab work. He being the wonderful husband he is, offered to drive back right then. I told him not yet, we needed to figure out what was going on. It is a good thing he didn't listen to me.

This sounds like it all happened really fast, but it was in fact all of the morning and a lot of the afternoon. I had many nurse changes throughout this, was obviously starving, not having had anything to eat since breakfast, and was hooked up to a fetal monitor the entire time (having some pretty intense contractions mind you). My OB even sent in a UVA medical student in to come hear my story, since obviously it is quite the unique one. (Apparently, us Rices really like to be remembered, particularly at St. Mary's!)

My 3rd platelet count came back at 93,000. They set my c-section for 4:00pm and called my brain doctors to be on standby. Looks like we were having a baby! Rick arrived at about 3:00pm, with an hour for us to say on repeat... "Holy moly, we are having a baby. TODAY." about 1000x! It was the fastest day of my life.

By 4:03pm, we were in the OR preparing for Griffin's delivery. They had their OR team together, the neonatologists were in the corner by the baby warmer ready to assess Griffin and his wimpy white boy lungs, and my sweet husband was by my side.

I had all kinds of crazy feelings during the delivery. Each time, I voiced a symptom, it was either met with the reason I was feeling that way or I was given a drug to battle the symptom. But mostly, I found myself ignoring Rick and trying to listen to the doctors. Because there was a medical student observing, my OB was talking through every step so I always knew what was happening. I think I was just so worried something would be wrong and I just wanted to hear Griffin's sweet cry.

My sweet Griffin Scot Rice was born at 4:32pm after what felt like a day. He cried louder and clearer than I recall Cooper's crying but his lungs were in much worse shape. At 35w 6d, he just didn't have the lung capacity required to get rid of all of that fluid and was only given a few seconds with us before he was whisked off to the NICU. But he was finally here and although it felt super scary, he would be okay. He was just acting like a 35weeker should.

Griffin came in at a whopping 7lbs 8oz and 19 3/4 inches long, which isn't much smaller than my sweet Cooper, who at 4ow 6d came in at 8lbs 11oz and 21 inches long.

Here began a long week of physical and emotional healing for the both of us. It definitely wasn't easy but with lots of wonderful support and a bag full of tools we had collected through all of the other difficult situations recently, it could and would be done. This was meant to be just like the arrival of our sweet Cooper.

This crazy Rice life reprise

Here is the part I left out of the previous post regarding the Respiratory Chronicles of Cooper.

Cooper's most recent case of pneumonia was back in December. It was just a bad cold and probably a little bit of the fact his lungs had taken a serious beating over the summer and weren't completely healed.

This case consisted of an 8-hour ER stay with 3 double nebs and 2 IV antibiotics and only 2 days of missed school. This was actually an improvement from our recent ER turned days and week long visits to the PICU. I can remember sitting in the office with Coop's pulmonary specialist realizing why everyone was so freaked out from his recurrent pneumonia that would. not. go. away. because this case seemed to be resolved in a day or so.

So out went the pneumonia and all that was left was a horrific case of sinusitis. It sounded like Coop had laryngomalacia worse than ever which was actually a collection of his backed up sinuses. Its really gross so I will spare you the details. 

That was back in January. We are now in April and this sinusitis wont. stay. away. The antibiotics work and then 5-10 days later all the symptoms are back. Let it go an additional week and Coop's belly gets so full of junk he won't eat. So here we are starting on round 3 of antibiotics, this time 21 days of Omnicef. If this doesn't work, well its back to the ENT and possible adenoid surgery.

Phew!

It just wouldn't be our crazy rice life if we didn't have one thing after the next! :)

Eliminating Stress on the Brain.

I feel so behind on posts! I really need to post about what an amazing big brother Cooper is and what an amazing baby Griffin is, not to mention Griffin's lengthy and drama filled birth story and then some. I will get to it. But right now, sleeping when the baby sleeps is more important.

I say that like that is what I am actually doing. 

I typically sleep during one of his naps, the other naps I am working from home on the few projects I have held on to from school, or working on those projects we started around our house but never finished, or spending some much needed QT with my sweet Cooper.

Today, during Griffin's early afternoon nap, we met with the neurosurgeon.

Dun dun dun....

It was originally scheduled for Friday, but since the timing was not ideal for Rick's work schedule, I called to see if we could find a different day for the very first appointment or the very last. They called me back yesterday and said they could see us at 3:45 today.

We looked at the MRI's. (It is SO WEIRD looking at pictures of my brain.) We discussed options and Dr. Alexander let us ask a million questions. Some of which he knew the answers to and some he didn't know the answers to but had enough confidence to be honest about it.

He said right now the risks of biopsy for a "lesion" that has made absolutely no change in the last 5 weeks outweigh the benefit of us knowing what this lesion is. When I asked him about the 2nd abnormality, he led us to believe that was of zero concern.

He said the 2 episodes I had in the hospital were classic left brain seizures. My symptoms followed the order in exactly the way a textbook left brain seizure would. He said, you just can't make up stuff like that. With that being said, my 6 months of no driving as set by VA DMV laws began February 21st. So the next time I will be able to drive will not be until August 21st, provided I don't have another episode.

He said with things like these, you can't really tell if they will always behave so mildly. There are types of tumors that turn aggressive and need intervention and there are other types that never change, that the individual probably has had all their life and never cause another issue. We are obviously hoping for the latter. 

So we go back in 3 months for a follow-up MRI and if that is the same as the most recent, we will get a longer leash, like 8 months and then probably just follow up yearly. If things do change, well there is no point in crossing those bridges until we get to them, if we get to them.

Obviously, weighing the benefits and risks will change if more symptoms or episodes arise. For now, he said I need to give my body time to adjust to delivering a baby after a major surgery shortly after having 2 seizures back to back. He said whether or not you feel stressed or worn out, your body just ran a triathlon so to give it time to relax. He obviously doesn't realize relaxing is not my strongest quality.

So here I am realizing this message was sent louder than necessary was sent LOUDLY because it was one that I obviously wasn't hearing. So I got the message, I guess the next 6 weeks would best be spent figuring out how I can eliminate some stress in my life and hopefully eliminating the stress on my brain as well.

Reflections from Griffin's first week.

First off, I owe a fact based post about how everything happened. I owe a post that will probably end up being one of my favorites about Griffin meeting his big brother for the first time. But for now, I need to just reflect on my emotions. The roller coaster I rode this last week has been the rockiest of all rides. One that I knew would end, but was scary nonetheless. 

We have had some pretty intense weeks in the last year. Between Cooper's respiratory issues and my brain troubles, we just can't seem to catch a break.

I am not angry about it. I choose not to be. I choose to look at it in such a way that gives me strength to overcome it, in a way that I take it as a compliment because God sure wouldn't be giving us these situations if we couldn't handle it.

But that does not make it easy. Phew! This has been the week of all weeks.

When Cooper was sick as a newborn and as a 2 year old it sucked. It really sucked. I hate that word but it really is in the only word that fits how I feel. I had to go through those things with Cooper to be able to halfway handle what has gone on this past week. I do know that to be true. But the difference is that I was with Cooper every second. I slept in his room, I was there for almost every nurse assessment and every doctor visit. I was there for the breathing treatments, the lab work, the iv changes, the tests upon test upon tests, the incident where Cooper stopped breathing and had to get a nasal piece with oxygen, I was there for all of it. I didn't have to fill in the idle time with mindless tasks and I was able to hold Cooper when he was scared and take a break from it all when I was too scared. (My wonderful husband and father would swap out so I could run home to grab a shower, usually to melt down, so I could be strong at the hospital and grab clean clothes for Cooper and I.)

This past week I had my own healing to do. I had just had a major surgery to deliver my littlest man 4 weeks early in order to figure out what the heck is going on in my head. My sweet baby Griffin was in the NICU hooked up to so many machines, I couldn't even hold him. When I first met him after delivery, I had to be pushed in a wheelchair and sitting up made me dizzy. They weren't going to let me go if I told them the room was spinning so I had to lie. I had to learn to be away from my sweet baby. I sat in the hospital room and cried because I felt like I was in the Antepartum unit 4 weeks prior except now I didn't have my sweet baby safe in my belly. He was out and was gone. 

The day after delivery was when the flood gates opened. I didn't even see it coming, I just kind of lost it. I was crying because I was overwhelmed and sad and frustrated and sad and EXHAUSTED, (I hadn't slept AT ALL on Tuesday night) and sad and so worried that I would be one of those crazy mothers that never connected to her baby.

Here I am in a hospital room, without the baby I just delivered, without any more answers regarding my brain... the whole reason we delivered early, my 35w 6d old baby struggling to breath in the NICU and a wonderfully, finally healthy 2.5 year old son I felt so far away from. It was awful.

Rick didn't know what to do, the nurses didn't know what to do. I couldn't even talk I was crying so hard. Mollie Anderson, oh the wonderful Ms. Mollie as we call her (Coop's pulmonary CPNP) had come to visit and she knew what to do. She said you go see that baby. You go see him as much as you can. 

So I did. Every chance I got. The nurses started joking about how much I was walking. ("We always see you coming and going!") A few times, the nurses called the NICU to let me know I was due for a medicine or that someone was here to visit. Every morning I would go see him the second I woke up and really only went back to my room to pump or  eat. I tried to nap at least once a day as well.

The walking helped my pain from surgery. It helped me get the air out of my abdomen and helped me keep from getting too sore. The visits helped me connect with that beautiful boy. Each day was a little bit better. Each day Griffin had turned another corner.
I used my middle of the night pumping to pray. I prayed for every single baby in the NICU. Every single parent that was feeling the same things I was, and many were feeling worse. When Cooper visited I tried to interact with him as much as I could. I hugged him and kissed him and held him and talked with him. Each passing hour was a little bit easier. I found taking each hour by hour was easier than each day by day. 

I got proactive. I had my OB call the neurologist and move my MRI up and get it out of the way. I asked questions of the nurses and doctors and tried to understand everything. I advocated for my son and learned the goals he had and helped him reach them. I pointed it out when he was maintaining a pulsox of 99 and he could probably stand to turn his oxygen down. I asked about baths and nursing and holding him until they agreed. Giving Griff a bath was so wonderful. I felt better just seeing him clean and refreshed and knew he had to as well. 

Above all I continued to tell myself that we could handle this. My sweet little family was going to be together soon enough and we had this covered. We just got through news of spots on my brain for crying out loud, we could handle two tiny premature lungs and the complications that come with them. We had learned the lesson many times before and this situation was no different. Leave it in God's hands. Trust that he's got it and let go.

The next day, everything turned around. Friday was Griffin's day. He turned the corner and each hour was just a bit brighter. Each time I came back to visit, there was good news to share.Each passing moment was a testament that we could get through this just like everything before it with God's help. We just had to trust him and like always let go.