Early Days With Jamieson

****note****
I just found this in my rough drafts. It is two years old and I never posted it, I guess I thought it would be too tough for some people to read, and also that it would be too personal. This is LONG before we found a doctor that would help us solve Jamieson's food allergies. Reading it now, unedited, makes me sad at now helpless we were to help him and angry at the "experts" that kept telling us that nothing was wrong. We begged for help, and were made to feel like we were the ones that didn't understand. At the end, I make a mention of seeing a pediatric GI, I can still hear the snark in the voice of his first doctor "If you REALLY want, you could take him to the GI, but thats NOT going to help... He is just "highstrung"". Ironically that visit that with the GI (Dr. Annette Whitney who is great) is when everything began to turn around. We never went back to that first pediatrician.

Here is the post I composed when Jamie was just a tiny (well, never tiny) screaming bright red klaxon of distress and I was sick with worry for him, Katy and our family.
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What do you do when the two people you love most in the world are in conflict? Not just a normal conflict mind you, but a soul draining contest of endurance versus need that shakes everyone involved to the core and could be described as the hardest challenge any of you has ever faced.

You put yourself between them and try you best to absorb as much of the discomfort as you can take.

I don't know for sure that Jamieson is more needy than other babies of his same age but it would not surprise me to find out that he is. Since he was born, he has on average wanted to be feed every 2 hours (often times less). For short periods of time this has stretched out to 3... but it quickly snaps back. Now consider that it takes about 30-45 minutes to feed him, that only leaves a very short window to sleep and rest between feedings.

Also he cries a LOT. It seems to me like he has problems getting rid of lower gas. He wakes from a dead sleep and will start to kick and flail if he has not passed gas within a few minutes he will become frustrated and begin to cry. These episodes can quickly escalate into massive shrieking freak-outs if he is not quickly comforted. He will still cry, kick and flail for long periods of time even if held and if you do manage to get him to sleep in your arms... you CAN'T put him down. The comfort is like a counter balance to the pain/discomfort in his gut. If you remove the soothing... the tower topples and he is back in crisis. If he starts to break wind... a lot of wind. Then he starts to relax and can sometimes be put down.

So combine those two things and you have a baby that requires a lot of attention.

I have been desperately trying to provide as much of that attention as I can I am a seasoned insomniac... Katy is not. She is learning the ropes of how to survive on so little sleep but it has been really tough for me to watch her get raked over the coals on this. She is a person that NEEDS her sleep.

So for weeks now I have done everything I could to keep him soothed and get her more sleep. Since I don't need much sleep I keep him downstairs with me in between feedings because it is seldom that he sleeps from one feeding to the next. Its MUCH more common that he needs to be held and comforted, often the entire time between feedings. If I am really good, I can keep him asleep for 2.5 hours in my arms... but this usually means that I can't move or do anything else because if I do he will wake up and instantly want to be comforted with food.

So, I am very caught in the middle. He wants and needs to eat and I know that if I take him up to her she will be loosing sleep that she needs! I try to keep him soothed because sometimes he just wants to "snack" for comfort or eat early because he woke up due to gas.

these have been my goals over the last few weeks

1. Make it possible for Katy to go to bed at an early hour. (front load sleep)

2. Keep Jamieson downstairs with me between the 2-3 feedings after katy has gone to bed so that she gets chunks of undisturbed (if not uninterrupted) sleep. This helps her be more alert during the 2-3 late night feedings that I am likely to be asleep during, and hopefully gives her the energy to deal with him when he won't sleep between those feedings. I know that we only got her less than a couple of hours of "up front" sleep last night and she told me she was up with him the entire time between the next two feedings... I have to try harder to keep us on track so that its easier to deal with when this happens.

3. Wake up and take him downstairs between the first couple of feedings as needed. This is great for her catching up on sleep as he seems a bit less "fussy" in the mornings and I can keep him soothed and encourage him to sleep longer, but its also the prime time that she wants to be pumping and since it the time he is lest likely to be cranky its also the best time of day to play with him and have him be a bit more interactive and less distracted by his own discomfort.

4. Change every diaper I can get my hands on. It's a little thing, but I enjoy it and it is one less demand that she has to feel he is putting on her. I am sure she wouldn't mind changing more... she lets me do it because I have made it "Daddy's Job".

5. Soothe him as much as he will let me. Now when I said before that he gets upset, I am not sure I communicated what really happens here... I have seen him will turn dark purple over 100% of his body, go stiff as a board from head to toe and cry so hard and intensely that he seems to forget to breathe. At first, this upset Katy a great deal, I also get very unnerved by it.

I know Jamieson is on the verge of making a breakthrough in his eating and sleep schedule and I just have to wait it out a bit longer... but it is getting to me, I hate that I can't seem to do more for him when he is really upset and I feel like I have to absorb as much of his cranky-ness as I can and try to lessen his impact on Katy when he is being really demanding, That may sound odd to some people reading this but maybe people with difficult babies may understand. She is giving so much of herself to him as it is, I feel I need to deflect the screaming/complaining if I can. when I can't, I feel like I have failed.

I have had to compose this post over several days because I never have a long enough stretch of time to finish a complete blog post without needing to pick him up. Actually he is in my arms now but he is quiet enough that I can type (slowly) with my free hand.

It is now months later (around may 2009)... from a note I started to write someone then decided to not explain...

I know we probably discussed that he has had a rough start, He just has never been comfortable Like something was hurting him badly. I know I may have seemed over protective at the CPR class, But he has me well trained to respond quickly to his signs of distress early and try to stack the deck on the side of his comfort and happiness otherwise he can quickly get upset to the point were people question weather something is dramatically wrong with him. The way he responds to his discomfort can be a bit shocking to people if they are used to babies acting like "normal" babies.

I am sure it would not have surprised you, but I think it would have disrupted your class if he had reached the peak of what he is capable of.

Now all that sounds pretty dramatic, but he is a great and amazing baby when he fells well! So I have every confidence that when he finally "outgrows" the colic completely. Or his little digestive tract gets working a bit better... he will be able to let more of that side of himself shine.

We have been frustrated by our pediatrician and how her answer to everything seems to be "he is growing and thriving, so he is therefore fine" Wow, I sure am glad MY doctor doesn't take that attitude with me. "Oh, Doc you gained 5 pounds so clearly nothing else is wrong with you!" We are just now coming to the conclusion that he is allergic to something that he has been eating and we have finaly made an appointment with a pediatric GI in hopes that they will be able to shed some light on his discomfort.

Early Days With Jamieson

****note****
I just found this in my rough drafts. It is two years old when I am writing this note and I never posted it, I tend want things very chronological... so I am leaving a copy of it posted with the date it was started, and I am making a new post with updated notes published near the date I found it (march 2011).
******

What do you do when the two people you love most in the world are in conflict? Not just a normal conflict mind you, but a soul draining contest of endurance versus need that shakes everyone involved to the core and could be described as the hardest challenge any of you has ever faced.

You put yourself between them and try you best to absorb as much of the discomfort as you can take.

I don't know for sure that Jamieson is more needy than other babies of his same age but it would not surprise me to find out that he is. Since he was born, he has on average wanted to be feed every 2 hours (often times less). For short periods of time this has stretched out to 3... but it quickly snaps back. Now consider that it takes about 30-45 minutes to feed him, that only leaves a very short window to sleep and rest between feedings.

Also he cries a LOT. It seems to me like he has problems getting rid of lower gas. He wakes from a dead sleep and will start to kick and flail if he has not passed gas within a few minutes he will become frustrated and begin to cry. These episodes can quickly escalate into massive shrieking freak-outs if he is not quickly comforted. He will still cry, kick and flail for long periods of time even if held and if you do manage to get him to sleep in your arms... you CAN'T put him down. The comfort is like a counter balance to the pain/discomfort in his gut. If you remove the soothing... the tower topples and he is back in crisis. If he starts to break wind... a lot of wind. Then he starts to relax and can sometimes be put down.

So combine those two things and you have a baby that requires a lot of attention.

I have been desperately trying to provide as much of that attention as I can I am a seasoned insomniac... Katy is not. She is learning the ropes of how to survive on so little sleep but it has been really tough for me to watch her get raked over the coals on this. She is a person that NEEDS her sleep.

So for weeks now I have done everything I could to keep him soothed and get her more sleep. Since I don't need much sleep I keep him downstairs with me in between feedings because it is seldom that he sleeps from one feeding to the next. Its MUCH more common that he needs to be held and comforted, often the entire time between feedings. If I am really good, I can keep him asleep for 2.5 hours in my arms... but this usually means that I can't move or do anything else because if I do he will wake up and instantly want to be comforted with food.

So, I am very caught in the middle. He wants and needs to eat and I know that if I take him up to her she will be loosing sleep that she needs! I try to keep him soothed because sometimes he just wants to "snack" for comfort or eat early because he woke up due to gas.

these have been my goals over the last few weeks

1. Make it possible for Katy to go to bed at an early hour. (front load sleep)

2. Keep Jamieson downstairs with me between the 2-3 feedings after katy has gone to bed so that she gets chunks of undisturbed (if not uninterrupted) sleep. This helps her be more alert during the 2-3 late night feedings that I am likely to be asleep during, and hopefully gives her the energy to deal with him when he won't sleep between those feedings. I know that we only got her less than a couple of hours of "up front" sleep last night and she told me she was up with him the entire time between the next two feedings... I have to try harder to keep us on track so that its easier to deal with when this happens.

3. Wake up and take him downstairs between the first couple of feedings as needed. This is great for her catching up on sleep as he seems a bit less "fussy" in the mornings and I can keep him soothed and encourage him to sleep longer, but its also the prime time that she wants to be pumping and since it the time he is lest likely to be cranky its also the best time of day to play with him and have him be a bit more interactive and less distracted by his own discomfort.

4. Change every diaper I can get my hands on. It's a little thing, but I enjoy it and it is one less demand that she has to feel he is putting on her. I am sure she wouldn't mind changing more... she lets me do it because I have made it "Daddy's Job".

5. Soothe him as much as he will let me. Now when I said before that he gets upset, I am not sure I communicated what really happens here... I have seen him will turn dark purple over 100% of his body, go stiff as a board from head to toe and cry so hard and intensely that he seems to forget to breathe. At first, this upset Katy a great deal, I also get very unnerved by it.

I know Jamieson is on the verge of making a breakthrough in his eating and sleep schedule and I just have to wait it out a bit longer... but it is getting to me, I hate that I can't seem to do more for him when he is really upset and I feel like I have to absorb as much of his cranky-ness as I can and try to lessen his impact on Katy when he is being really demanding, That may sound odd to some people reading this but maybe people with difficult babies may understand. She is giving so much of herself to him as it is, I feel I need to deflect the screaming/complaining if I can. when I can't, I feel like I have failed.

I have had to compose this post over several days because I never have a long enough stretch of time to finish a complete blog post without needing to pick him up. Actually he is in my arms now but he is quiet enough that I can type (slowly) with my free hand.

It is now months later (around may 2009)... from a note I started to write someone then decided to not explain...

I know we probably discussed that he has had a rough start, He just has never been comfortable Like something was hurting him badly. I know I may have seemed over protective at the CPR class, But he has me well trained to respond quickly to his signs of distress early and try to stack the deck on the side of his comfort and happiness otherwise he can quickly get upset to the point were people question weather something is dramatically wrong with him. The way he responds to his discomfort can be a bit shocking to people if they are used to babies acting like "normal" babies.

I am sure it would not have surprised you, but I think it would have disrupted your class if he had reached the peak of what he is capable of.

Now all that sounds pretty dramatic, but he is a great and amazing baby when he fells well! So I have every confidence that when he finally "outgrows" the colic completely. Or his little digestive tract gets working a bit better... he will be able to let more of that side of himself shine.

We have been frustrated by our pediatrician and how her answer to everything seems to be "he is growing and thriving, so he is therefore fine" Wow, I sure am glad MY doctor doesn't take that attitude with me. "Oh, Doc you gained 5 pounds so clearly nothing else is wrong with you!" We are just now coming to the conclusion that he is allergic to something that he has been eating and we have finaly made an appointment with a pediatric GI in hopes that they will be able to shed some light on his discomfort.

Everything I Need To know, I Learn From Alan Moore It Seems

A man goes to the doctor. He tells the doctor that he's depressed. He says life seems too harsh and cruel. He says that he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain.

The doctor thinks about this for a while and then confidently says "Well the treatment is simple! The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him, that should pick you up." The man then bursts into tears, and barely able to speak through his own sobs says "But doctor... I am Pagliacci."



Yes, I am reading Watchmen yet again. Rorschach recounts this "joke" much more simply, as you would expect, so I embellished it some here. It is so beautiful and sad to me because I understand exactly how "the clown" must feel at that moment.

As near as I can tell the joke has existed for a very long time and Mr. Moore borrowed it to deftly use as a very clever device in Watchmen, The more I read his work the more I am convinced he is brilliant.

I was not prepared for this...

My wife has written her own description of these events and I have not yet read them because I don't think I am ready... I had to defer some of my emotion while I was taking care of her and I am still pretty shaken up.

As some people reading this may know, my wife and I were expecting a child. After many many years together we had made the important decision to add a member to our family. She got pregnant very quickly and we both started getting used to the idea that we would be parents. At 6-7 weeks we had a sonogram and saw the heart of our future child beating. I dont know how to describe what that is like other than to say "it changed me". I started preparing, trying to get more done, make myself believe I would be a good father. The love and respect for my wife grew to new heights. The fact that she would choose to start this adventure with me was powerful to say the least. I was proud and I had redefined purpose in my life.

Weeks passed, everything was on track, we had an appointment for a new sonogram in a day or two that would mark her officially being in her second trimester.

One morning about two weeks ago she called me from work and told me she was bleeding a bit and having cramps. I got a terrible sinking feeling like all the air had been let out of my lungs but I acted brave and asked her if she had called her doctor. She said that she was waiting to hear back from them so I offered to come meet her for lunch in order to hopefully offer her some reassurance and take her mind off of it. She sounded very uneasy and stressed.

A short time later she called me and told me that she had spoken with her doctor and that he had said that this happens sometimes and not to worry too much and to call if it became worse. We decided to still meet for lunch. I felt helpless when I saw her, like nothing I said or did would make one bit of difference. We talked about the fact that it may be something that just happens in a certain number of pregnancies and I tried to remind her that a lot of changes are going on inside her and that it may just be normal... but really I think looking back we both knew something was wrong.

She came home early and we tried to distract ourselves but the cramps just became worse over time and she started bleeding more. In the evening I suggested she should call the doctor again. She said that she didn't want to bother them and I reminded her that that was their job and that for once she needed to be put her own interests first. Eventually I convinced her to call and after waiting for the doctor that was covering at that hour to call us back, they gave her more advice that it may just be normal and to watch the bleeding... With the ominous instruction that if it got to a certain level that she needed to go to the emergency room.

Another couple of hours passed and her pain became worse and worse. Now and then she would disappear into the bathroom and I would listen in case she called for me... I was very torn I wanted to be at her side at every second but I also wanted to respect her boundaries. Every part of me was a bundle of nerves. She started bleeding still more and at the first sign that she thought she might want to go to the emergency room I jumped on it and told her "lets not mess around on this... If you think you may need to go, then we are going now" We gathered our stuff quickly, put her in the car and started off to the hospital.

It was some time after 10pm. She was reclined in the passenger side of the car and I couldn't really see her face most of the time so I took her hand and was constantly giving her squeezes like a code. It seemed like I was asking her how she was every few feet of the trip. I have to say that in the dark, driving as fast as I could safely drive, only getting a chance to look over at her now and then I started getting scared... she was weak, she had lost a lost of blood at that point and was in tremendous pain. I have this image in my head of seeing her like that as light from a street lamps played over her and thinking that I could loose her.

We arrived at the emergency room and as you might expect they seemed disinterested and overly casual. This of course pissed me off to no end but I knew that if I wanted to get her taken care of efficiently I would need to not freak out on them. She was in a wheel chair and I kept her close to the desk and stood by her, when I saw a spot closer to the desk and in their field of vision I moved us there so we could get help quicker if needed.

Then my wife very sheepishly told me she was going to pass out. I was trying to get her to lean back when she just collapsed and slumped forward. I yelled her name, I tried to push her upright but she was just dead weight and the wheelchair was not locked. I put my arms around her and started yelling at the desk that she had passed out. They slowly, begrudgingly turned their attention to us just in time to see her start jerking and kicking. Someone said "Is she having a seziure?!" and I just shouted out "I don't Know!" and I think I started saying something like "please help her!" over and over. But it was probably not necessary. They where already in action calling out things to each other like in a hospital drama. They moved slower than I would have liked but I understood that the speed at which I perceived things to be happening was modified by my swelling panic and fear for my mate. It seemed like I answered a question and when I turned around she was being wheeled away so fast I had to jog to catch up held into the wheelchair by the same woman I felt like yelling at a few minutes before because she struck me as flip. She came out of it as they were taking her back and started asking questions. She was very pale and her lips had almost no color. I was terrified that she was in real trouble.

My disrespect for the staff melted while I watched her being made ready to examined and taken care of. At one point the same woman who I had been so mad at seemed to see how worried I was, put her hand on my arm and gently said "She will be ok, they work fast, and they are very good".

Getting her set up and on the monitoring machines was a disturbing, she was bleeding so much and the staff all seemed surprised by this and at times they seemed perplexed by why she was passing out. When they got her on the monitors I started to feel a bit better. They all seemed a bit relived and I asked if she looked OK from what was on the screens one nurse was kind enough to say that her vital signs looked good. I didnt know at that point that the next many hours would be spent watching those little squiggly lines.

We waited for a doctor for what must have been well over an hour. Every so often my wife would start quaking like she was violently shivering. She also could not seem to get warm and we kept asking for more blankets. The other thing that was freaking me out was that she kept saying she was thirsty over and over. I think I brought her 3 glasses of water. I kept thinking this was a bad sign for her to be worried about her thirst when she was in such pain and distress otherwise. We still didn't know for sure what was going on at this point and how serious it was. So these long waits became more and more torturous.

When the doctor arrived he asked a few questions and disappeared again for another 45min to an hour. Thankfully after this first visit, my wife was given some pain medication and was started to relax. She asked to go to the bathroom and insisted on getting up to go. I am struggling with this as I don't want to be to direct... but she lost a lot of material before getting back to the room. She seemed to be in less pain and with all the pain she had been in I was thankful.

On the doctors return he examined her and this was more than a bit hard to take, it was gory and miserable. He told us she was having a miscarriage. Of course we new this by this point and he of course was just confirming what was happening. I asked him if she would be alright because she was in so much pain and she was passing out. Thats when the oddness of it all hit me... This was normal. Rare yes, as most miscarriages happen much sooner, but perfectly normal. And I had no Idea. The hushed tones that people use to talk about such things had always lead me to believe it was a relatively heartbreaking but less eventful process. I asked the nurse if we had done the right thing by coming to the emergency room and she said that it was. I told her I never expected it to be so traumatic and she told me that they see many women and that when its this far along, its a very serious situation.

A sonogram was ordered, more waiting, the sonogram was performed, more waiting, shifts changed and we got a new doctor that told us that the miscarriage was incomplete and to follow up with her personal doctor ASAP because surgery may be required. She was discharged around 3AM and I wheeled her out and was paying the bill when she called out to me that she was going to pass out again. I rushed over to her and it was like the whole thing was starting over again! I could not get her to respond and the nurse that had been tending to her most of the evening rushed over and took her back to a room.

More waiting, the second doctor visited and informed us that they were getting new blood work done and that they wanted to watch her for a while and get an opinion from the "gyno" on call. I made a joke to my wife, pretending to think the doctor had said the "Dyno" on call and explaining how I was imagining a T-Rex in a lab coat with little flippity floppity arms... my wife laughed and I loved her for it.

With this new round of emergency and worry, I couldn't help but think that something was horribly wrong... it just didn't seem right for her to be so sick, so hurt, so weak and in so much pain. I pushed back hard against the thoughts of losing her. While we were still waiting she lost some more material and when the blood work came back doctor #3 told us it would not be necessary to check her into the hospital. By this time it was after 7AM and we had been there for over eight hours.

We picked up her prescriptions for pain medication, antibiotics and grabbed a few supplies, drove home to clean up and then got back in the car to make the long drive to her regular doctor to keep the appointment we already had for the second sonogram... What should have been our second "baby picture" now had the purpose of checking to see if she needed surgery.

So, she is recovering... and I am starting to feel like I can relax a bit and drop out of "protector" mode. We are feeling very close at the moment, both of us seem to go through irrational bouts of guilt, but we have been very good at supporting and loving each other. I have moments of deep sadness that I know will pass eventualy...

The thing I came away from this experience with is that I wish I had known. I know its not something people want to talk about, I know what we went through was a rare extreme example of what can happen, and I know we had the misfortune of it occurring in the middle of the night when her regular doctor was not available. But I don't think we needed to be taken by surprise like that... I held my wife in my arms and thought she was going to die...

And I thought she was going to die because I had gotten her pregnant. I felt like I would go mad. If anyone reads this and is more prepared for the possibility of this happening then its worth the uncomfortable sadness and embarrassment I feel now.

If my wife, my love, my best friend, decides she wants to try this again, I will be ready and experienced. I will protect her with all my strength and love her with all my heart.