Happy 1st Birthday, Brilee Grace!

Where, oh, where do I begin this post?  I want to say the usual, "I can't believe a whole year has passed already!" but that seems to underestimate how I'm feeling!  I really, honestly, can't believe my little baby is already 1!  Life seems to get faster and faster with every baby.  It went by SO fast, that I just want to go through this past year in pictures from every month this past year (to see for myself how that tiny thing got so big overnight! :)

June 24, 2010 11:57 pm

Brilee- 1 month old

6 weeks old

2 months old

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

10 months

11 months

1 year old!!!

Last night Sean told us, "Brilee let go and walked all by herself without holding onto anything!"  So, I guess Jon and I missed her first unassisted steps!  :/  But, what a special thing for big brother to witness!

Brilee, we love you with ALL our hearts and are so blessed God entrusted us as your parents.  We pray you grow to love Him with all your heart and serve Him faithfully.  Love, Daddy & Mommy

Dependence

As I was walking through Sam's parking lot this morning, I was starting to get a bit frustrated.  I was trying to carry Brilee while holding onto Lilly's hand while Sean was clutching onto one of my legs.  I needed to get my Sam's card out of my wallet and I thought, "when in the world will my hands ever be free?"  But then it hit me out of nowhere--I'm not ready for my hands to be free!  It is the best feeling in the world for your children to be so little and SO dependent on me.  They look to me for everything--which I admit is the frustrating part of motherhood--drink refills, more crackers, please, help me tie my shoes, etc., etc.  I haven't realized how much I really LOVE their dependence until I thought about what would I be doing without them?

At that moment I hugged Brilee a little tighter, tenderly squeezed Lilly's hand a bit tighter, and looked down at Sean and said, "I love you buddy!" to which I got the biggest grin.  That's been the highlight of my day--my children loving me despite my frustration and their desperate desire to cling to me.

How I want to cling to my heavenly father even more.  I don't want my children to be independent of me any more than God would want me to be independent of Him.  Total and utter dependence is what I need more than anything.   This put a different perspective on the rest of my day and all that I need to accomplish.

Finally, these pictures have nothing to do with my blog post, but I've been meaning to do a post about them for a couple of weeks now but just haven't had the time.  I took some pictures of Lilly toting around her purse, which she manages to cram ALL of her most treasured toys into.  She loves acting like a little mommy carrying her purse with her ponies, bunnies & princesses inside while pushing either the baby stroller or shopping cart.  I love this little girl and so happy to be her mommy.

Hashimotos

Over five years ago I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism by my OB/gyn after having a miscarriage.  However, the doctor never did any more thorough tests to determine the cause of the hypothyroidism and I wasn't really given a lot of information about the effects of it except that it might have been a contributing factor to the miscarriage.

My dosage of Synthroid (a synthetic form of the hormone the thyroid would naturally produce) has increased steadily through my 3 pregnancies and I've continued to feel pretty tired and lethargic even though my last test results come back "borderline normal"--whatever that means!

So, I decided to go to our family practitioner instead my OB since I figured that would be the better place to get my questions answered about what is really going on with me and to find out if there is something else I could be doing.

So, last week I went to Dr. Blount at Matthews Family Physicians (Jon and I both really like him and how he takes plenty of time to answer our questions) with a huge list of questions, and he ordered a few different tests related to my thyroid.

I got the test results today, and he said it came back strongly positive for Hashimotos Thyroiditis.  Last week he explained this is one of the main causes of hypothyroidism in women my age.  Here is some information on it from www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/hashimotos:

Basically, it is "an autoimmune thyroid disease in which your thyroid is being attacked by your own immune system via antibodies, attempting to destroy your gland as if it’s some vile enemy.  Hashi’s is confirmed by two antibodies labs: anti-TPO and TgAb. The first antibody, anti-TPO, attacks an enzyme normally found in your thyroid gland, called the Thyroid Peroxidase, which is important in the production of thyroid hormones. The second antibody, TgAb, attacks the key protein in the thyroid gland, the thyroglobulin, which is essential in the production of the T4 and T3 thyroid hormones.  


As the attack increases, you will tend to swing between hypo and hyper, making dosing by labs, and especially the TSH, impossible. Your labs will be high one time, and low the next…back and forth. The hyper is caused by the release of thyroid hormones into your blood due to the destruction. The hypo is caused by the lessening function of your thyroid due to the attack."


After reading up on Hashimotos this morning after hearing the results from the doctor, I really have more questions!  It seems there is a better medication I should be taking-- "We have seen those on thyroxine T4-only (aka Synthroid, Levoxyl, etc) have some success in stopping the attack, but patients who switched to desiccated thyroid noticed even better results, especially if they dosed by symptoms rather than labs."  There is a ton more information on this, but I'm still trying to process it myself right now--and I'm wondering why the doctor didn't mention switching to a different medication based on these results.  


I'm praying for where to go right now since I still have the symptoms of being easily fatigued,  poor stamina, gaining weight easily, etc....probably due to the fact that a "normal" test result on just one lab isn't thorough enough to determine what's actually happening (according to the information I've found today).  Right now, by just monitoring my thyroid levels every 6 months, it is just "watching/keeping an eye" on what's going on.  However, I found this statement:  "IS IT A GOOD IDEA JUST TO “WATCH” IT, AS MY DOCTOR WANTS TO DO? In the opinion of a large body of patients who followed this advice, “watching” your Hashi’s is akin to watching a dog chew off your leg. Allowing the attack to continue on your thyroid can not only last for years, but cause all sorts of problems along the way of its destruction, including adrenal fatigue and Celiac disease. And once you add adrenal fatigue to the mix, you’ve got more problems to tackle. Instead, why not just stop the attack and all the consequences, as explained below."


I'm going to close this post as my kids are getting restless with what I've set them up to work on and Brilee is crying (poor thing has developed the same bad cough/congestion I've been dealing with since Sunday afternoon).  


I'll post some updates if I talk to my doctor again soon.  This is really eye opening info that I need to dig into further...

As our Garden Grows

I wanted to post an update on our garden this year.  Last year's attempt wasn't very successful,  with only a couple of tomatoes, squash, and zucchini. (mostly because Brilee was born in June and it was hard to keep up with the garden and a newborn!)

I think our biggest problem was where the garden was located.  We're really excited about things this year as the plants seem much happier and doing very well.

Sean and Lilly got Sunflower plants

The  squash & zucchini plants have tiny veggies growing on them already and there are tons of blooms on the tomatoes & cucumbers.  Can't wait to start getting produce from the garden!  We have some lettuce and spinach growing in planters and a herb garden where the old garden was located next to the patio.  

11 months!

Where has the past 11 months gone???  I can't believe Brilee will be a year old next month.  Here are some shots from first thing this morning.  Yes, there are too many, but I want to remember her at this- oh so fun stage!

Playing with tools outside

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Clothes Line

I'm SO excited that now I'll be able to save even MORE money cloth diapering by drying them ALL outside!  Prior to now, I've been drying the pocket diaper covers outside by hanging them over our patio chairs but I still had to dry the inserts/fitted diapers in the dryer.  Since the bulkiest part of the dipaer is the insert, it takes a long time to dry them.  I've been talking to Jon about a clothes line for over a year, but we didn't think we had any space for one.  However, today we went to Lowe's and looked to see if they at least had a small foldable drying rack (that some people use inside) but we found something even BETTER!

At first glance this might seem like one of those old-fashioned tacky clothes line, but apparently the design of these things has improved tremendously!   We originally dismissed the idea of a permanent clothes line thinking it we didn't have the yard space.  However, we found this clothes line is completely foldable and is designed to be taken down when not in use!  What's even better is that we have an umbrella stand we're not using right now since our umbrella broke in a wind storm last fall, and the pole to the clothes line fits right in there so now we also can move it around wherever we want!  (The design of the umbrella is for the ground insert to permanently be placed into the ground with concrete so it is flush with the ground and the pole drops in that insert when needed.)  The line is some sort of plastic covered cable--similar to some dog leashes--so it is not the thick metal wire that some older lines used to be made of.  This also allows the line to fold away very neatly.  Jon is going to make some sort of bench for outside to store this inside and so the kids can sit on the bench, etc.  Just to keep from having to walk it in and out from the garage or storage building. 

What's better is that now I'm going to be able to dry anything outside that doesn't matter if it gets the "pinch marks" from the clothes pins--basically anything except our shirts and pants that need to be wrinkle free.  I think I'm even going to dry the kids' clothes outside except their nicer clothes.  It's the little things now that make me happy!