Life as a Wife

We had a wonderful Christmas this year.  It was Alex’s first Christmas, but at 10 months old he’s still pretty clueless about how the presents thing works.  He was more interested in playing with the packages or the paper or his big brother’s presents.  But Robert had a great time.  He was interested in each individual gift and wanted to play with each item.  It took four days to convince him to open all of his presents because he was more interested in playing with what he already had!  That’s definitely a good thing, although I have never seen a kid do that before.

Now that Christmas is over, we are looking toward the New Year with fear and hope.  In October we took Robert to see a surgeon and the surgeon said that Robert needed surgery within 3 to 6 months, although 6 months would be pushing it.  Christopher and I were shocked to hear that news.  We thought that we still had a year or two before the dreaded surgery.  But now it is on the calendar- January 12.  Two weeks from tomorrow.  Next Friday we will bring Robert to the hospital for his pre-op appointment and the following Wednesday we will bring him back for his surgery.  This is the scariest thing I have ever had to deal with.  I was terrified when, hours after birth, the doctors told me that Robert had a heart condition that may need surgery and I was terrified when he actually had that surgery, but looking back, that surgery was nothing compared to what he will face on the 12th.  This is serious business.  The surgeon will take out Robert’s aortic valve, replace it with Robert’s pulmonary valve, and then use a donor valve to replace Robert’s pulmonary valve.  Ideally, this surgery will get Robert through the next 10 to 20 years, but he will need another surgery in the future.  We’ve been told by all of Robert’s doctors that this is the best heart condition to have but that doesn’t make it any less scary for Christopher and me or any less stressful for Robert.  We are blessed and grateful that this heart problem is the only problem Robert has- usually patients with heart disease also have problems with their lungs or other organs- but when the doctor looked at us and told us that our son was in the beginning stages of heart failure, those things were very difficult to think about.  So this New Year we are scared, but we are hopeful because we know that God is good and that all things work together for good to those who love God and who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28) and that is the promise that we are clinging to.  We beg you for prayers for our son and for us as we go through this with him, and we thank our family and our friends who have been our support and have been offering up prayers for our son every step of the way.

I am super paranoid about Robert’s eating habits.  He eats very little food, seems to be extremely picky, and meal times are battles each and every day.  I force him to eat because he is tiny and has not gained more than a pound in the past year.  These past few days I have learned a lot about Robert and about the amount of food a toddler should be eating.  First, because of Robert’s heart disease his appetite is probably a little bit diminished and most of his energy is spent playing all day long.  So when it is time to eat, he doesn’t have much energy for it.  Second, I’ve learned that a toddler really only needs about two meals a day and it’s normal for a toddler to eat only a tiny bit of food at dinner or to skip dinner altogether.  According to www.wholesometoddlerfood.com, a toddler serving is only about “one tablespoon per year of age”.  I was shocked to learn this and to realize that Robert really is getting enough food each day.   I have spent so much time and energy worrying and fighting with Robert to eat and I’m seeing more and more that I need to relax- Robert is not going to starve himself.  Thank you, you wonderful and more experienced mothers for helping me and for all of your great advice.  I am working hard to relax and make meal times pleasant for Robert instead of a constant struggle.

Alex will be 8 months old on Sunday and it is high time he gets used to eating good wholesome fruits and vegetables.  Since Robert didn’t start eating baby food until around 9 months or so (I had my reasons), I had no clue where to begin with Alex.  A friend told me about a wonderful website: wholesomebabyfood.com.  This site is amazing!  It tells what kind of foods baby should be eating and at what age, and it tells how to make these foods at home!  I poured over this site for about an hour and made an initial plan for making my own baby food.  I have a good stash of butternut squash and sweet potatoes in the freezer and I make fruits (bananas, pears, etc.) as I need them.  I need to make a batch of green beans and peas and then venture on to carrots at some point but so far my efforts have been wildly successful.  Alex happily eats what I offer and then cries for more when his portion is gone.  I am so proud of myself for making food for Alex!  I can’t believe how easy it is, and it is so much cheaper than buying baby food from the store.  I bought a squash for $.69 and made somewhere around 20 ounces of food or so from that one squash.  It costs at least $.50 for 2 ounces if you buy squash already packaged.  If you are desperate to cut corners and save money like I am, this is the way to go!

When I got involved in Immanuel Presbyterian Church I was surrounded by mothers who breastfed their children.  I was weirded out by it at first because I never grew up around that, but the more I was exposed to breastfeeding, the better I felt about it and the better informed I became about it.  I will never speak badly of someone who chooses to formula feed her baby because it’s her decision and none of my business but I became a huge supporter of breastfeeding.  When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, I knew that that is what I would do.  And then when I found out that Robert was born with a heart defect, I was adamant about breastfeeding him.  Of course, I couldn’t breastfeed him often since he was in NICU but I was given a pump which I used faithfully every three hours and then delivered my meager supply to the NICU nurses.  Robert had one nurse who fed him formula one time and Christopher threw a fit (or something more manly).  Each time after that, when it was time to feed Robert, if I had not managed to get a bottle to the nurse, she would call me to ask what she should do.  When Robert was flown to CHOP at three days old I was in no condition to fly with him so Christopher and I sent Betsy with Robert and we flew to Philly several hours behind them.  I had to keep up my milk supply which meant that I had to pump in the airport.  I couldn’t use my electric pump discreetly in public where there were outlets so I had to use a manual pump, and Christopher was kind enough to help me.  We went into one of the family restrooms and were in there for 30 minutes or so, I’m sure.  About 10 minutes before we were through, there was knock at the door.  Christopher said “Just a minute” or something like that, we finished pumping, cleaned up the equipment, and then opened the bathroom door.  There outside was an older lady in a wheel chair, her attendant, and her husband, looking at us very angry and horrified.  Can you guess what they thought we were doing?  One part of me got very angry but the bigger part laughs every time I think about that.

When Alex was almost three months old, we took the boys to Christopher’s school to meet some people.  Everyone was commenting on how big Alex was and one man actually asked me what kind of formula I used.  I told him I used good, old-fashioned breast milk and I believed in feeding my child the natural way.  He became obviously embarrassed, but it didn’t bother me a bit.  I know I am doing the right thing for Alex, just as I did for Robert, by nursing him.  See how fat and happy he is!