2007 in Review

[altarflame]

January

-Decided to try to have my 5th baby at The Farm
-Went, as a family, to Kristin's very kickass 30th birthday party
-Lovebird (Lima Bean) died, and we were all sad as heck
-The Farm turned me down, and I hit new depths of pregnant desperation
-Crazy man accosted kids and I with his penis out on a normal afternoon walk
-We went to the Seaquarium
-ultrasound confirmed my girl intuition
-found and talked with Nancy for the first time (thank you HEATHER)
-Annie started taking showers independantly
-Grant got a job offer to spend over a month on a cruise ship in Italy
-Chili Cook Off with Grant dressed up as Red the Pepper
-Isaac started saying "fee"

February

-PATH started to fall apart, and my park's co-leader unceremoniously quit mid-year
-the name "Ambriel" came to me all out of nowhere and attached to good meaning
-Valerie, who we had been planning to use for a homebirth, had a stroke and was no longer available
-Isaac turned 3! He got a big wheel and a cake and was thrilled, even though we started the day locked out of the van with the keys inside
-Grant started a string of OnForce jobs that had us in Key West over and over
-discovered frozen key lime pie dipped in chocolate on a stick (!!)

March

-Jake got really expressive, facially, and started talking more
-We decided we were definitely going to Boston to have a baby with Nancy, and planning that Herculean lot of tasks to make it happen
-Annie spent a lot of afternoons at Kayla's house
-we found Christ Fellowship church
-got into the PATH chess club and went to one member's birthday party
-continued Key West job trips
-Chiro twice a week
-lots of emails with julierocket, that helpful Boston resident
-Annie nearly fainted from a wart bleeding
-PATH camping trip at Castellow Hammock
-started reading Hypnobirthing
-Space bags
-yard sale
-rooftop carriers
-"Dani California"
-Isaac got croup
-President of PATH resigned
-incredible surprise Blessingway accompanied my belly casting; GREAT DAY
-we left, with so much stuff that I felt like a turtle with a house on it's back
-Met Dama! And her kids! Stayed at their house and made friends :D

April

-Cliffs and hills and tunnels, oh my
-SO SO SO COLD
-spent dozens upon dozens of hours completely and utterly lost on crazy streets
-saw snow for the first time in my life
-went absolutely nuts shushing kids, padding floors, and trying to stay gone as many different neighbors complained many different times about "our noise" in a rickety, hollow building with no other kids
-had horrible stomach virus while pregnant
-private, quiet Easter
-found out mother in law has treatable skin cancer and her husband, Chuck, very serious prostate cancer
-TON of amazing playgrounds; they seem to be on every block - geese, lakes, bridges, tire swings
-got more and more overdue; tried to stay calm
-fell completely in love with Nancy, got to know a bunch of people at her house at meetings and lunches
-money started to run out since we were supposed to be headed home by now...
-mother came to help and be there
-went into labor

May

-"this is not ok" - transferred to the hospital; Elise was born via emergency cesarean with bad hearttones, did not breathe, was transferred to NICU and started seizing
-I was closed up with a sponge left in me, though we didn't know it then
-...it was just real bad. MRIs, EEGs, no kidney function, some bowel sounds, "everything that makes a person an individual" destroyed - and she started to sleep, and kept sleeping for over a week
-prayers, gifts, groceries and money POURING IN from friends, relatives and (mostly) strangers allowed us to pay another month on the apt, eat, extend my mother's plane ticket, etc
-during my 6 day stay my incision opened and needed stuffing for the next two weeks. Hemmeroids that were not even FUNNY.
-driving 6 miles through Jamaica Plains and it taking 45 minutes to get there, day in and day out, late night and next day, can't eat anything, sleeping like a brick - just twisting guts, packing wounds, blueberry B monsters and oxycodone with crying, crying, crying
-counseling about G-Tubes and long-term care facilities. Guilt. Nancy being there with food, doing our laundry, coming to see Elise in the hospital, hugging me so much
-intubation, Mother's Day pictures
-devotional journal telling me she'll be fine and me not believing it and Grant saying she'll be fine and me getting pissed that he needs to get with it
-tons of plans to transfer her or not to Miami Children's via Med Flight so we can come home and continue the nuttiness here
-Shaun came to help Grant if that happened; numb Boston duck tour; he went home when blood in her stool pushed her transport back
-she woke up. And nursed. And got disconnected from everything. And got discharged
-phenobarbital, paranoia, "What to do About Your Brain Injured Child", tummy time, grasping practice, music playing, always moving, Dr Ann Becker, hats and blankets and the Ultimate Baby Wrap
-Boston Museum of Science, twice
-she was already smiling, and lifting her head

June

-coming home...bittersweet and already missing Boston, knowing I'll never find another Becker, another Nancy, another Brigham...GREAT weekend at Dama's with a celebration as Ananda turned SEVEN, HORRIBLE time in a tropical storm and losing the diaper bag and phenobarb refills in the wee hours at a hotel in Virginia...12 days of constantly stopping on the road with Elise hating it
-her fever, admitted again but at Miami Children's, spinal tap and blood drawn and when is Grant going to be able to work again? But she seems fine.
-tremors less, tone normalizing, grasping practice, tummy time, music playing, carrying her, talking to her, showing her things, driving her places, always helping her pull herself up to sitting - she's getting good at it
-neurologist tells me he'd never have thought a thing was wrong with her if I hadn't said otherwise, and that we can start weaning off the phenobarb
-cue nervous breakdown of watching her for seizures and jumping at shadows, never sleeping, and a bunch of asshats posting about us constantly in LJusersecrets and getting to me in a way they never could have if I'd been right in the head - I think I was sleeping like 10 combined hours a week in late June and early July, and never knowing if we had the right doctor or if anything was normal
-my great grandmother (Abuela) died
-Aaron turned 6, had a Darth Vader cake and time alone with Dad, among other things

July

-spent an hour or so with across-the-street neighbor Aracelia as she called 911 and paramedics came and took her to the hospital
-AC broke
-washer broke
-Grant flew to California for 3 days with Peter from the Winery, for a seminar
-and then he started struggling with coming off of sugar and caffeine and how it makes him nuts
-we all got sick
-he started working crazy-all-the-time
-Ananda lost her first tooth
-A and A went to a week long VBS at New Beginnings
-AC broke again
-more reassuring ped visits don't help me feel as though we can't possibly be out of major danger with my baby, and the internet is really getting to me in this totally sleep-deprived, nerve-wracked state with G largely absent
-HP7 came out, and we went to the party for it, reading reading
-home therapies with Elise all the live long day
-kids had their VBS show, and then staged a "show" here a few days later
-found Brotherhood 2.0

August

-As Elise starts rolling all over instead of just once here and there, and creeping forward, and sitting independantly, I start to calm down...a little.
-Found out I got chosen to be art for Conscious Woman
-Harry Potter unit study
-started going to Anne's Beach
-first Natural Family potluck
-tons of nightmares
-my brother Bob came to live with us, and also turned out to be very helpful
-reading every neurology-related thing I could get my hands on
-decided on a belly-cast design of Salvador Dali's "Bleeding Roses"
-Miami Museum of Science, with their dinosaur exhibit and our Charlotte Mason Historical Society membership
-Elise's "wakefulness" from Phenobarb wean ended and she started sleeping better, as did I - and she learned to blow raspberries back and forth with me
-She was laughing
-Our high school friend Eric Wooten, who had been over several times in
months passed, died of a drug overdose.
-cajun food with sweet iced tea, silly YouTube videos by Grant and Shaun

September

-karate, ballet and AWANA all started up at once, and we were very busy with all of them
-we were also assured Jake was fine, not diabetic, after I'd been concerned about him peeing as much as 5 times an hour, and then that the lumps on Isaac's neck were just lymph nodes swollen from past illnesses, not cancer or something..and I was dealing with the fact that I was left insecure and panicky by not knowing anything was wrong with Elise while I labored peacefully unaware for hours
-Grant was making so much money that were really catching up on bills and doing well - *never* home, though
-reconnected with my friend Kathy, took Elise over and hung out for a night
-and my friend Jess, down in Islamorada
-Ananda passed her first grade evaluation
-Aaron started reading
-bonded with Isaac in a huge way, after a week of feeling totally hopeless about him
-neuro calls Elise "a miracle" - she was crawling by then
-PATH kickoff at Wannado city
-started being in abdominal pain from what I thought was my hernia - realized my belly never stopped being sore from the last c/s and it should have by then, and that I'd had diarrhea for like months straight. Yes, realized...I had a lot going on, ok?

October

-got really depressed and lethargic - everything was a struggle; wondering about my thyroid, or my moles being cancerous, or any-damn-thing because I was just out of it in a BIG way
-Grant still gone for long hours every day, money still improving
-Jake turned 2 - my sister brought over a cake and some little presents and candles, or I really don't know if he'd have had any of it...I was very grateful, like teary-eyed hug her grateful
-tried to be good to the kids...renounced lj publically like a melodramatic idiot
-Grant turned 26, got a Wii
-Jake potty-trained, pretty much on his own and quickly
-started having nightly bouts of chills and hot flases, intermittent fevers, and crying jags
-saw a dermatologist and then had a mole removed for biopsy another day; saw a surgeon who said my hernia looked fine; saw a GP who sent me to a Diagnostic Center for tests (and all this out of pocket...money starting to drain away)
-Kids were cracking me up, and we went to a Spellbound Books open mic as well as G and I "making time" to watch Scrubs at like 2 am nightly...but alone with kids and having to strive to even get drinks or pbjs, all day every day.
-finally couldn't even eat, or MOVE, and spent a whole Saturday G was here laying on the couch watching tv (which I never do...), and then threw up when I tried to have some soup...off to the ER, where I was admitted quickly and had major surgery within hours. They removed two sections of my small intenstine and started treating me for the massive infection I had from the stupid sponge they left in me during the C/S...
-days in ICU semi-conscious with soaring heart rate and plummeting blood pressure, everyone wondering if I would pull through - HUGE wall up in my brain to block out thoughts of my kids, especially my baby
-platelet transfusion on my birthday helped and I was transferred out to a regular room soon after
-my mom stayed with me, Laura was nursing Elise, and I was a mess as I came home after a 9 day stay unable to do anything and wholly aware of my mortality for the first time
-my kids passed out candy to others on Halloween and seemed happy enough with it
-there were sun-showers, and I got to see them
-Elise started pulling up to stand

November

-follow-up appts, gradual improvement...some silver nitrate for granulation tissue and a phone call to a surgeon both come with panic but end up fine - so not wanting to get re-admitted, ever
-re-establishing all my bonds with my children, each in their own way
-"All I Need" by Radiohead, and being so emotional all the freakin' time as I got my milk supply back and tried to "calm down"
-an amazing, happy Thanksgiving, with so much to be grateful for
-Elise started playing peekaboo and creeping along things like the couch
-Ananda and Aaron working with Shaun's crew on "The Gifter"
-Elise began *pushing carts around*!

December

-Bobby Jones came for a visit for the first time in forever
-stomach virus went around and though I was unscathed, I experienced days in a Sleepless State as I cared for others
-and then I started feeling ok...and cooking food...and taking kids places alone...AND FEELING BETTER!
-And realizing that I was relaxed about Elise for the very first time!
-then my stepmother got put in the hospital up here for heart surgery...we went and visited
-dogs attacked my cat of 11 years, Sebastion, and he died
-Grant had to officially close his business and continue as an independant contractor from the incredible strain of missed time, lost customers, and no money for business expenses
-my mother got admitted to the hospital in Jacksonville, for Menengitis, and stayed in for a HORRIBLE nearly two weeks wherein we *almost* went to Jville again and again, and I kept thinking she might be in real danger
-then she got out just in time for Christmas, and we all went to Lakeland and had a great time together
-Elise took steps by herself! And stood independantly for short periods!


So as I count it, that is (totally unrelated) 4 deaths, one 911 call with ambulance, two cancer diagnoses, and a case of menengitis in our friends, family and pets. "Not counting" Valerie's stroke. Six different hospitals with 15 days in-patient at two of them for me, 24 days at two different ones for Elise. A couple of major abdominal surgeries, G's business of 5 years down the drain and over a dozen doctor's appointments, to boot. Aaaaand a teeny tiny amount of broken sleep. Plus record numbers of people watching it all and some of them thinking we just really aren't handling it the way they think we should.

I would say it's all worth it for the miracle of Elise being ok - and it is - but the truth is EVERYTHING is worth it just for the miracle of being alive to live the life at all. And hey, we even got to travel :p Grant saw BOTH coasts ;) and we saw human kindness reach new levels, which was...really something.

*sigh*

I am sorely hoping G is right and that this intensity is somehow a "2007" thing and not a "the world has gone crazy" thing. I am ready for a new year.

And this is Day 1 refined sugar, refined flour and soft dairy free.