Fall is here!!

My favorite time of year! I absolutely love it! Everything is just so beautiful and the weather is perfect. Well, most of the time anyway! It's been a bit colder than I usually like, and little more wet than our typical Fall, but it'll pass - at least I hope!

We went to the orchards this past weekend and had a blast! It was my first time ever going, and I loved it! Aiden had so much fun, and Allie slept most of the time. We got a ton of apples! I also got a lot of great pictures! After we left the orchards, we went up to the market to pay for the apples and check things out. I was little bummed they didn't have any cider ready, but they told us it would be ready in about a week! It's only about 5 minutes away too, so that's a huge plus!

Aiden is getting super excited about Halloween, and will not stop talking about how he can't wait to get his costume. He's decided he's going to be a transformer this year. I swear that boy watched that movie every night, before bed, for about a month straight. He had most of it memorized! lol
As for Allie...I'm not sure. I figure we'll probably do one of those bunting costumes. It just seems easiest for one that little, and a lot warmer than most of these other costumes. Halloween in Michigan can get pretty chilly and nasty, so I figure it'll work best. She'll probably be sleeping the entire time anyway though!

Chev's birthday is on Thursday, so I need to go shop around online and figure out what in the world I'm going to get him!

Relief!

After a lot of reading, a lot of questioning back and forth, and a lengthy discussion with Chev, we have reached a decision which we feel is best for our family.

While a part of me would be just as happy not getting her vaxed at all, I don't feel that it's necessarily for us. So, we've decided to delay her vaccines until she's older. We will then get her titers to see if she has built up any immunities on her own. Once those results come back, we will pick and choose which vaccines she will receive and how we want them spaced out.

I'm listening to my gut on this one. I've never been wrong before, and I don't want to go against it now - especially when it has something to do with my children. A girl on my birth board posted about her decision to delay after her friends baby died within hours of receiving her vaccines a few days ago. These little things keep popping up and grabbing my attention, and I think there's a reason for that. Not that I necessarily feel like Allie will die if I get her vaxed right now, but there's something telling me that something would go wrong if I do.

The next step is actually getting the pediatrician to be on board with us. If not, oh well. We find a new one! I already know of a guy that does it. He doesn't "recommend" it, but he fully supports a parents decision to do what they want for THEIR child. Friends of our don't vax or medicate AT ALL, and he's on board with their plan. I say if he can do theirs, he'll be more than happy to work with us!

You can't imagine the weight that has been lifted off of my shoulders. For a while, I was thinking I was just being paranoid. I would look at myself, Chev, and the hundreds of kids I run into every day, and think how they are absolutely fine. I would then try talking myself into atleast getting her the DTaP vax. That didn't last long. Slowly but surely, that horrible feeling would start creeping back in. That's when I knew we had to decide something! Once we came to an agreement about delaying until she's older, that horrible feeling went away and I'm much more confident about how we're going to do things.

Who knows...maybe these feelings are Cameron watching out for his little sister, and making sure nothing bad ever happens to her. :)

Lots of questions...

Things are going well over over here, and little Allie is getting so big! I'd imagine he's probably pushing 12lbs right now, but we'll have to wait and see at her appointment on Oct. 1.

Her reflux is pretty much under control now - no more projectile vomiting, and her episodes are becoming less frequent. As much as I didn't want to give her the Zantac, it was really the only choice we had. You sometimes just have to do what you have to do, you know? I couldn't stand to see her screaming like that. The Mylanta and gripe water helped some, but nothing soothes her like the Zantac. I'm just trying to make the best decisions for my little girl. It's hard sometimes, and at times, it might not be what I like, but it's what's best for her.

Speaking of all of this, I'm having a real hard time deciding what to do about vaccinating. I thought I wanted to do a delayed schedule, but stupid me got online and started researching all of the vaccines. The thought of them injecting my daughter with formaldehyde and animal cells about makes me sick. We had planned on only getting her DTaP at her 2 month appointment, and that's one of the ones with formaldehyde, animal cells, AND aluminum in it.

I don't believe that vaccines cause autism, but that a good number of people are chemically/developmentally predisposed to being succeptable to adverse body-changes, resulting from the way their body/brain chemistry reacts to vaccines. Then it can all be downhill from there - developmentally and brain/neurological functioning-wise. It can be a bit of a chain reaction in my mind.
You should see some of the brain scans of the toxicity that occurs within the brain after aluminum, mercury, thmerosol, and live-vaccines are introduced. Not cool; and rather scary.

The way I see it, if a person's big "boom" of brain development occurs between ages 1 and 3, why in the world would you introduce toxins during those years; and if a baby is healthy enough to have their immune system defend itself against the vaccine, then it's healthy enough for the baby to go out and "get dirty" and develop immunities naturally, at least for the first 1-5 years or so..

So not it's just a question of: WHAT THE HELL DO I DO?!


Aiden had all of his vaccines according to the recommended schedule. I regret it, but thankfully he's just fine. I didn't know I had a choice back then, and I'm upset that the pediatricians don't offer alternative options to parents, only because THEY believe that getting them at the recommended time is the "right" thing to do. Whatev.

There's just something telling me not to do it. I don't know if it's paranoia or if it's an instinct that I should listen to. Part of me feels like it's paranoia, because of us losing Cameron. I now know that I'm no longer invisible, nor are my children. Is a reaction to vaccines rare? Yes. But so is what happened to Cameron. I was that 1-2% before, and I don't want to be it again - especially if I have a choice. I just look at her, and I think about what could happen, and how I'd never forgive myself. I know of 3 children who suffered from seizures after being vaccinated, but I don't know of one child who has gotten ill/died from any of the diseases they vax against.

I don't know what in the world I'm going to do. I don't have much time to think about it either! Chev is on board with delaying completely until she's older, but he doesn't give much insight about it. It would just help if I got some more POV's on this....

Anyway...

Here's our little princess at 2 months!

What a way to spend your 1 month!

Little Miss Allie is now 1 month old!! I can't believe how big she's gotten and how fast time is flying by!

She had quite the eventful 1 month!

On Friday, I decided to call the nurse at her peds office to ask about her choking/breathing issues. After explaining everything to the nurse, she thought it best that Allie be seen that night to be evaluated. That made me a little nervous, as I was under the assumption that all babies had that breathing issue from time to time - you know, where you have to blow in their faces to get them to take a breath. At least I remember all babies, that I've ever been around, doing it.

So we take her in, they examine her, and decide that she needs to go to the hospital to be evaluated over night. Deep down I knew she was just fine, and that everything was going to be OK, but it made me nervous! We went back home to pack our things and then headed up to the hospital.

We were staying in the pediatric unit, and man was that scary! It was just weird to be in that little isolated room with a crib that looked like a cage. The nurses were amazing, and it really wasn't that bad, but it was still really weird. I've only ever seen that stuff on TV. Then to see the other kids, walking the halls with their IV's in tow - it just made me thankful that we were only there as a precaution and for observation.

They had her hooked up to an apnea monitor and everything went great! It never went off the entire time we were there! So, we learned that she's not actually stopping breathing, she's just holding her breath. Well, actually, I knew that and told the Dr. that from the get-go, but she wouldn't listen. Oh well, it's better to be safe than sorry, right? I had no issue with her being there or having any of this done.

They wanted to do an upper GI on her, but that required her going without food for 6hrs and without her gas drops or Zantac for her reflux. I wasn't going to let my baby be hungry, with gas, and pain from her reflux on topin of that. She's only a month old for crying out loud!
The Dr. was fine with my decision to forgo the upper GI, but then wanted to write her an Rx for Reglan.

Now, all she said to me was, "There can be a small side effect. It just causes the muscles to stiffen a bit." Excuse me? Anything that is going to make my baby girl's "muscles stiffen" does NOT need to be in her little body! Thankfully I had my laptop there and was able to get online and do my own research on Reglan. Quite frankly, I'm appauled that they are even allowed to prescribed that shit to anyone - let alone BABIES!!! I was furious!

*Go ahead and google it or search what the women on BBC say* - I assure you you'll be just as upset as I was!

So, needless to say we didnt' get that Rx filled! It was torn up and thrown in the trash. It just proves my theory that you CANNOT trust Dr's 100%. I never have and I never will. She's my child, and they can recommend all they want, but when it comes down to it, I decided what her care will be and what medicines she will or will not be on.

Her follow up appointment went great, and even the Dr. we saw today said there was no reason for her to be on Reglan at all. She said she has prescribed it to children, but only as a last ditch effort when nothing else can control their spitting up/reflux to the point to where they aren't thriving. She said she has had a lot of kids have reactions to it.

So for now, we're doing things the way I'm comfortable with here at home. She will get her Zantac (I'm working on getting the non-alcohol brand), a bit of Mylanta when she has flair ups, and the occasional chamomile tea or gripe water. She seems to be doing great on that regimen! She's a much happier baby and doesn't seem to be in so much pain anymore! Thank God!

Today, at 5 weeks old, my little chunky monkey weighs 10lbs 10oz and is almost 23"!! She's definitely growing, and her reflux is obviously not affecting her ability to thrive! Basically, my breast milk is the shit! :)

Here's our beautiful little girl at 5 weeks!

Oh and I also bought the angelcare delux monitor for my own peace of mind at home. It was very comforting to have her hooked up to that monitor at the hospital. I slept so much better knowing that if anything happened, I would be woken up!
We had the monitor on last night and I LOVE it!!! Although, I forgot to shut it off when I took her out of her bassinet to feed her. I went downstairs and about 5 seconds later, heard this really loud alarm going off. Oops! At least I know it works though :)