Baby's Surgery

So sorry it has taken me over a month to write about Baby's surgery. My days fly by and my nights get sucked up in other things too. I wish I could say I've been too busy working, but I haven't been very successful at finding work. It's so hard when I think about trying to leave the baby who will not, for anything, take a bottle. I just need to get more creative here and try and make something work so I can make some money.

Some things that have been keeping me busy: Garage sale-ing the past few weeks. I've been finding clothes and things for the kids and me. Yes, I have an extra 15 post baby and it's not really budging so I needed clothes badly. I have lists of things I want to bring back to Honduras, and of course I want to see if I can find things at garage sales. I've also been scouring Craigslist too. We just bought a bike from there and now I'm on the hunt for a good used printer I can take back to Honduras. Other things keeping me busy have been trying to teach myself to crochet (again). I hope to have something actually made sometime soon. Who knows what I might end up making, but I will tell you, it won't be scarfs or hats. I have also started researching info on homeschooling for Sister next year. After a lot of thought and waffling about what to do. Yes, I will try homeschooling my kids. Somehow, I feel I can make it work and it could be the best thing for my daughter. I hope to be able to try and hire someone to come to the house in the morning to do light cooking and cleaning while also watching Baby and Sister and I will do school. Brother will continue to go to preschool in the morning and if all goes well with homeschooling Sister, Brother will join us in schooling next year for Kindergarten.

I'm off track here so...back to Baby. She had her surgery on April 3rd and she did wonderful. I felt confident in what needed to be done. Minneapolis Children's Hospital is top notch and the treatment we got was wonderful. One thing that was interesting, was that the cyst in her neck had decreased in size very rapidly after I got back to the states. The doctor said this was normal with the cyst Baby had. Turns out though, that it had burst. When they went into do the surgery, they only could take out what was left of it and then they did the repair of the bone that needed fixing so the cyst won't come back.

I'll share some photos to tell the story. She is simply a happy, smiley, light up the room kind of baby.

In the waiting area before going off to surgery in her cute hospital pj's

Once Baby went off to surgery, we went to another waiting area and they have this computer screen where you can see exactly where they are in surgery with little explanations like "starting surgery" or "leaving OR". Really cool and helps a lot with nervous parents.

Sister waiting reading a magazine. I tried to read, but I just sat there and stared at the computer screen with the status of the surgery.

Just after surgery. She was really groggy but breathing and eating well.

She had an IV for fluids. It was in until she wet her diaper so bad the bed had to be changed. She slept A LOT until the next morning when she woke up and seemed to be much more alert. I was the nervous mommy watching her breathing and comfort level all night. The nurses kept her hooked up to the oxygen monitors so I could rest easier, but I still seemed to want to keep one eye on her.

This is Baby a few days after surgery. She had some swelling in her neck tissues. She had a triple chin practically.


It was hard to see the wound because of all that chin under there.

The stitches are disolvable and they are painted with a waterproof glue type stuff. The wound healed so well the doctors commented on it at her 4 week post-op appointment. She did great! I am so grateful that we were able to come to the states to take care of this.

Cutest Baby Contest - Please vote!

This is a shameless plug to ask you to go to this website and vote for our sweet baby in the Cutest Baby Contest that the talented photographer, Tiffany Rajkovich is having.

If Baby wins, she gets a nice professional photo...and let's face it...She's cute!
It was hard to pick just one photo to submit. Go and vote for baby! I believe she is baby #5 in poll #2. The picture is the one on this post.

p.s. Baby is set to have her surgery for the cyst on her throat on Friday, April 3.

Mi Pobresita

It has been a little while since I last posted. It seems that my time these days is quite a bit more divided and blogging takes time and brain power that I just don't have much of. Have you heard about the "mommy brain" syndrome. Yeah...I have that. Big time. I can't seem to finish something I start without some serious effort and it might take me all day to accomplish. I forget what I'm talking about mid sentence on a super frequent basis. Oh! Is is time for dinner already? Oops, I forgot to get dressed today. That is how I work. I am not your type A personality mommy....unfortunately.

But, I will tell you that my life and my brain took a big hit a few weeks ago and it has set off a chain of events that is leading me and the kids back to the states sooner than expected. A few weeks ago we discovered a lump in Baby's throat. Right about where you would find the Adam' apple. It was a little concerning, but at first Papa and I dismissed it as just her throat. She has such a big (cute) double chin it was hard to figure where her throat might be. But when we leaned her back and tilted her head, there is was...a lump. Suddenly, my whole body became tingly and my breathing a tad labored and I just had to bring her back to the doctor - even though she had just been seen for her two month visit. I made it to the next day and got her in to see the doctor. From there things became a little blurry and this poor mama was kind of an emotional wreck for a few days roller-coastering from freak-out to calm. But I've calmed down quite a bit now so can tell you what is going on with a clear head.

Baby has something that is called a Thyroglossal Duct Cyst and it's the most common congenital cysts in the neck. They are cystic dilations of epithelial remnants of the thyroglossal duct tract. Did you follow that? It's basically something that happens when the throat is developing as a tiny embreyo only weeks old. These cysts need to be removed surgically and also require some investigation to make sure the thyroids aren't effected and that the cyst is indeed non-cancerous (rare to be) and all parts of the cyst are removed. Baby had an ultrasound the day after we found out what the problem was, and the cyst in her throat is about an inch wide, but far enough away from her trachea and her thyroids look normal on the ultrasound.

So even though it's a non-life threatening problem, we felt because of the delicate nature of the surgury and the young age of our little one, we feel most comfortable having her treated in the states. In order for Baby to be able to travel, she needed a passport. We had been in the process of getting this already, but in order to gets things ASAP we called the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. A last minute trip to the capital was planned and off we went. We left Wednesday night, had a meeting Thursday morning at the embassy and we were able to pick up Baby's passport Friday morning on our way out of town back to San Pedro Sula. I realize how grateful I am there is a US embassy and that I am a US Citizen.

The kids and I will be flying this Thursday back to MN. Baby has a doctor appointment on Friday morning. Hopefully we will be getting Baby all fixed up very soon.

Now I'm off to pack some more and maybe bake a banana bread for Papa to enjoy.

Time For Change

I can't believe it's been a year that we have lived here. It will be a year on June 19th. I'm surprised at really how well I have learned the city and how to get around. I've had a job, made some friends and probably learned a little Spanish along the way.

Sister has finished her first year in a foreign school. I'm a little nervous about her final grades. The last few months have been a little more difficult for her. I have not registered her in the school she is attending because I honestly am not sure if it is the best place for her. The classes are a little big and she learns better in a smaller more intimate setting. She has some learning challenges. One being writing. We have found that she most likely has something called dysgraphia. Not to be confused with dyslexia, which is what I was thinking for the past few years because some of the symptoms can be similar. This is more of a motor skills problem where she cannot write well. It's like having a constant conflict firing in her brain where it takes all her energy to write even the simplest of things neatly. Her hand tires easily and becomes painful. To top it off she also has hand tremors which get worse when her hand fatigues making the writing all the more difficult.

We joked the other night that Sister's problems are from all the drugs mommy took while pregnant with her. We said it as a joke, but unfortunately it is somewhat true. Back when I was pregnant with Sister I had a severe form of what is known as morning sickness. There is a medical name for it called Hyperemesis Gravidarum. Basically, I could not stop throwing up and had a hard time keeping hydrated. I averaged about 20 heaving sessions a day. I was so scared of dehydration and electrolyte imbalance I would throw up, rush out to drink some Gatorade only to turn around and throw it all up again. The doctors told me that eating and keeping it down for even short periods of time would give me nutrients. So I forced things down and just resigned myself that it would come back up. Plus, actually throwing up things is easier than the dry-heaves -right? Sometimes I had to go to the hospital for IV fluids. I had lost about 11% of my body weight and they told me just one more percent I would have to have the IV shunt put in place to give me nutrients. The thought of that made my stomach turn so I fought with everything to eat and drink. This went on for a good 20 weeks of my pregnancy and during that time I tried many kinds of anti nausea medications to try to calm things down. As a side effect the drugs gave me severe anxiety and I would be sent into almost a psychotic state. A bit traumatized, I was given an anti-anxiety medication which is not recommended during pregnancy. So I did take some drugs when I was pregnant, you see. I try not to think about it because I tried to make the best decision at the time. It really is a state of hell to be in and there are woman who don't make it. It's not common anymore, but before there was good medical care, women died from this. The sad thing is that some woman can't take it and end up terminating pregnancies they had wanted. What scared me was that abortion became a battle for me. I wanted to give my baby life so badly, but abortion became a very real struggle for me. I wanted to end my misery so bad. But God saw me through and blessed me with my beautiful little girl.

Thankfully my pregnancy with Brother was better. I was still sick with nausea but nothing like with Sister. I had heard that what happened with Sister is more common when you are pregnant with girls. With Brother I was able to keep my job and eat food normally. I still was nauseous until about 20 weeks, but I made it through.

I know I am writing a lot about pregnancy here. Maybe because I feel like strolling down memory lane. But actually....pregnancy is on my mind a lot these days because I need to announce that we are expecting another baby. Due in December. Time for change again.

This pregnancy has been easier to deal with as far as nausea than the others, but it's still hitting me. I'm heading into my 2nd trimester shortly so the chance of miscarriage is lower. But they say, the sicker the mommy the healthier the baby. Ugh! I'm planning on the nausea lasting until the half way just like with the others. It makes it easier to deal with being that I don't have a job outside the house. Needless to say, I have been pretty useless around the house the past 6 weeks or so. My cooking is anything that doesn't require too much prep. I have even insisted on eating out more even though we can't afford it, really. But that's what savings are for -right? lol. Those times of emergency. The cleaning...well. I'm not doing too good at that either. In fact, I'm not doing too good with most things. The main issues I'm having are dealing with the miserable heat, the smells in the house, and some bluesy depression from....well everything. I'm not the best pregnant person. My husband is a bit disappointed by this. I wish I could flip on the happy button, but it's not that easy. Things usually get better in the second half of the pregnancy. Adjusting here has been hard enough. Throwing pregnancy in on the mix has made things all the worse. The pregnancy wasn't planned, by the way. But God has a way of seeing things done His way. I wasn't planning on a new little person in my life, but accept the gift and look forward to a new person to love.

I'm heading back to the United States on the 17th and hopefully a break will do me good. I think I need a different perspective and some time away from the heat. Not sure I will be posting too much before the trip and then during the time I am in the states. Actually, the computer makes me nauseous. Go figure! I just thought I'd give a heads up on my posting frequency.

But I'll probably still send some updates via twitter. But who knows. I might have something that needs sharing.