Joshua's gonna be 11 soon....Fun Monday below this post

....so I thought I would give you some more background information about my little crazy one.

Joshua as you know is my second oldest and youngest boy. He and Izzak are 19 months apart. Although they should have been 21 but Joshua decided he was going to come 8 weeks early! His due date wasn't until January and he decided he didn't want to miss Thanksgiving or Christmas so he came before both.

Really we actually knew he would be here a little early I had a condition called placenta previa. I not only had it but I had a complete previa which is the worst one to have because the only way to deliver is through a c-section. It wasn't known until he was born but I also had placenta incretia which I've learned is not unusual with a previa especially like the one I had with Joshua. I was put on a modified bedrest when I was about 16 weeks pregnant with Joshua which was when we found out about the problem. Of course Izzak was just barely a year old and how do you do bedrest even modified with a very young toddler? It was hard and one day I woke up to bleeding and ended up in the hostpital for 2 days of full bedrest once they got it stopped at that point. After 2 days it came back with a vengence and it was known there was no other choice but to deliver him then as an emergency c-section. They had done an amnio 2 days prior to see if his lungs were ready to work if he was to be born then and they knew he was not so they were prepared with a team just for him to help him breath. He did cry when he was born but was weak and having difficulty with breathing and keeping his oxygen sats up so he started out under a bubble type thing were they would blow air in to see if this helped him.

It wasn't quite enough for him but he was born at a hospital that did not have a NICU able to support him so he was transfered to another hospital. Before he left they brought me in to see him. I held him breifly but was very weak myself and had lost a lot of blood during the surgery.

The pictures are actually the only memory I have of seeing him at that point. I was so out of it between the blood loss and the drugs I was on that I actually passed out on the way back to my room. Kelly was a fabulous dad and taxied my milk to him several times a day. When he couldn't my mother did. They also made sure someone was always with him in the NICU as they knew that I wouldn't want him to be alone.

They got him to the other hospital and gave him more oxygen support and more monitors as he was having episodes of apnea. Other then that he did pretty well. He had pretty bad jaundice but several days of light therapy helped clear that up for him.

I had a different dr then my normal one about a week after he was born who asked me if I felt good enough to leave. To be honest I felt terrible and extremely weak. I knew that I couldn't take care of myself even at that point. Being a mom of a preemie in the NICU at another hospital though I couldn't stand the fact I wasn't there to be the one by his side and making all the decisions for him. All I knew was that I needed to be with my baby! I was happy my family was there with him all the time but I couldn't handle the fact it was them with him and not me.

So they let me go (the dr actually got an earful from 2 of my drs though as they knew I wasn't ready) and I went straight to the hospital Joshua was in. I was happy to be with him finally and made sure that everything was done the way I wanted them to and I was getting all the info I needed not the 2nd hand version I was getting before.

He only stayed in the hospital for about 2 weeks then his apnea was better and his jaundice was better and he weighed all of 5lbs 4ozs. To me he was the tiniest baby I'd ever held. It was almost scary sometimes after having Izzak who weighed 8lbs 11ozs! But he was my sweet pea (his nickname as a baby) and I was so glad to have him home.

Here is his hospital picture before he left. He was still pretty yellowish/orange from the jaundice but his numbers were on their way down. In the actual picture he looks more orangy/yellow. he was wearing a preemie outfit in this picture and it was huge on him, he was swimming in it.

The one challenge with bringing him home was that to pass his carseat challenge we had to prop him in his carseat a little differently to keep his body straighter. That was interesting and as you can imagine we didn't go out much with him until it was felt he was okay to be in it just the normal way.

Here he is about 2 months old in his carseat. It was January so he had a lot of blankets and clothes on it made him look alot bigger then he was. Although he always had kind of a big head.

Here he is about the same age (2 months) when we felt we could have his pictures done professionally. Even then it was someone who came to our home and used all of our own equipment to prop him up on. See the quilt he is laying on? My mom made that for him. It was her first quilt and she did a great job with it and he still has it.

The only issue we had with him after getting out of the hospital that we attributed to his prematurity was he had pretty bad reflux and spit up all the time. He was very sensitive to sounds and lights another reason we didn't really take him out to often especially around crowds. He would get so upset if the lights were to bright or too many people around that you just couldn't get him to stop crying. He is still very sensitive to his environment except now it just makes him act kind of crazy!

Just about the time he was 6 months and finally the reflux issues were getting better and he was acting more like a normal baby he fell on the stairs with Kellys dad! We knew something was wrong even though he wasn't screaming about it so we took him to the hospital. The radiologist didn't think anything was wrong before the xray because he wasn't screaming and he said all babies cry when they break something. Boy did it surprise the radiologist when the xray showed 2 fractures in his leg! One just above his knee and the other just below. He had to spend the night in the hospital and had a cast that went from his waist all the way to his knee on one said and the toes on the side that was broken with a bar in between. Can you imagine what it's like to carry a baby around with that? Not to mention clothing him was crazy in a way it was a good thing it was summer and he could go without alot. I don't even want to talk about the diapering thing! He spent 6 weeks in a cast like this.
The picture is a little funny, I think something spilled on it at some point but you can see the cast. Do you like the kitten between his legs? He was always between Joshuas legs when he had this cast!
He actually got pretty good about dragging himself around with his arms and had great upper body strength for a baby. One lesson we learned was that the reason it had broken like it did was because Kellys dad was holding him on his side, like we all do. When he tripped on the stairs he fell back and hit Joshuas leg between himself and the steps. The drs told us the best way to carry a baby when on stairs in in front of you because even if you drop them they are less likely to have any injuries but when you hold them on your side you can fall against them like with what happened to Joshua.

He got the cast off and fortunatly went the rest of the year without incident! Izzak was so excited as he got big enough to actually play with some.

One thing you will notice if you look at the picture below. When Joshua had his cast on he never had anything on the right foot but the cast was on his left. After the cast came off he would not leave shoes or anything on his right foot! Little shoes and everything else stayed on the left one since he was used to it being covered but till he was 2 he was constantly taking that right shoe off and losing them!

I'll show pictures from his 1st bday tomorrow.

Hope you all don't mind me doing the walks down memory lane again with Joshua this time but I kind of like doing it and it's a way for me to journal it and for you to hear about the earlier stories of my kids since you hear about their currents events all the time!