Urology update, playgrounds and the ghetto zoo

Tuesday was our 3 year wedding anniversary. We had an adult evening out, going to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and then stopping at Red Mango and just sitting around and chatting as we had a few hours baby-free for the evening.

Earlier in the day I had to run a few errands and decided to take Jay to Sapora Playworld which is the big local indoor playground area in the same building as the indoor ice rink. They have a baby area with a smaller set of play tubes as well as some squishy mats the kids can play, crawl and climb on too. I thought it might be fun for him and my mom pointed out last week that he should probably spend some time interacting with other kids and babies as he's mostly around adults.

Well, he was a little freaked out and stayed glued to me the whole time.

I tried to sit him down on one of the squishy block mats and he cried so I sat on one and held him on my lap til he got comfortable with the setting and then I sat him down on the mat next to me, with him clinging one fist to my shirt. There were a few other smaller kids there - one little girl came right up by him and he though she was funny. A few 6 year old girls came over and were fussing over him, but kept inquiring why he wasn't crawling if he could do it and why he wasn't playing - why was he just sitting there, watching? My response that it was his 1st time there and he was just taking it all in and that he didn't want to crawl right then didn't seem to satisfy them, lol... I tried to get him to climb/crawl on one of the squishy mats up to the next one but he freaked out instead.

We spent a half hour there though, so maybe if we make it a regular thing he'll get more comfortable and start playing. Under 11 months is free and then it's $1 til he's a little older, but they also do half price Tuesday.

He had another night terror Tuesday night. I was tired and so was he so we both went to bed a little early, however he woke me up at 230am, shrieking. I jumped out of bed to check on him, picked him up, and sure enough, he was having one, eyes clenched shut and no sign of snapping out of it. It lasted a few minutes, however he didn't seem to be able to get comfortable in his crib, freaking out when I laid him back down, so he snuggled in bed with me for a bit til he was sound asleep again. I hate these. He hasn't had one in awhile so I guess we were overdue for one =(

Wednesday night Jay learned how his bottle nipple works and that if there's milk in it, then it probably isn't a good idea to squeeze it with his hands or flick it - while playing with the bottle nipple instead of drinking he sprayed milk all over his face, the couch and my mom's leg, lol... he startled himself too, as he didn't realize what he had done right away - it was pretty funny!

Thursday we got up early and drove up to Madison for his urology appointment with the pediatric urology specialist up there and also had an ultrasound so they could see how it's doing.

Nothing new really - they said his left kidney is slightly more dilated than before, but not much and that it was nothing to worry about at this point. He said he'll probably have us do another check-up around his 1st birthday, then come back for another one 6 months later and then at around 2 years old we'll start discussing doing the surgery. Unfortunately, we're not sure yet if we'll be seeing this specialist again yet - he told us he's transferring in the next few months to the children's hospital in Milwaukee to be the pediatric urology chairman there. He invited us to come see him there, but I'll have to check with our insurance to see if they'll let us go there. He also referred us to his associate there in Madison, whom he had us make an appointment with for next time in case we decide to stay there, and he also gave me the names of the specialists at the children's hospital in Chicago that he would recommend if we chose to go there.

Jay was amusing during his ultrasound - the tech needed to check both his kidneys and his bladder to make sure there was nothing new and while checking his right kidney she needed me to roll him on his side, facing away from her. Well... him being curious like he is, he kept wanting to roll back over to see what she was doing and check out the ultrasound monitor, lol... he laughed when she rolled the wand over his bladder area so I'm guessing he's a little ticklish there (he's also ticklish in his armpits and on his sides - both mommy and daddy's ticklish spots! lol...). She let him stay on his back for his left kidney but then he noticed the other ultrasound wands within reach and their cords and started grabbing for those! lol... He freaked out during the visit with the specialist when he picked him up to check him out, but was fine 2 seconds later when mommy took him! Silly baby!

They weighed him too - he's now 18lbs even! Yay! My baby's gained 1lb and 1oz in a month!

We stopped at the infamous Ella's Deli for lunch before heading back to town. My parents used to take me there when I was little as there's soooo much stuff to look at, including all sorts of things moving around above your head, a little train on a track that goes all around the restaurant, a working carousel just outside and lots of other fun stuff! Jay seemed to enjoy it - he was starring and looking around at everything. They're also known for their ice cream desserts so I ordered a small dish of mint chocolate chip and let Jay eat some of it after he had his lunch - he still likes it! (we had let him have some at the fair last month).

It was a tiring day and we spent the late afternoon out at the mall with my mom and sister, getting stuff for her and holiday clothes for Jay since that stuff sells fast at work!

Today I had my annual gyno exam and since I didn't bring Jay with me to my 6wk follow-up, I brought him with this time so they could all see him. They all fussed over him and he ate it up.

We had to run a few errands too, one of which was getting kitty food at Petco (we buy the Hills Science Diet stuff and the only places that seem to sell it are Petco and Petsmart) so I took Jay with and we walked around looking at all the animals and fishies. A friend on Facebook referred to it as the "ghetto zoo" which is quite funny, but true! Jay was once again fascinated by all the fish, as well as the ferrets and guinea pigs too this time! The turtles were mostly sleeping, as were the birds, hamsters/gerbils and cats. We didn't see that many people walking doggies with them this time either. He still enjoyed it though!

True Life: I'm a [Mommy] Blogger

A few weeks ago I linked-up my general/catch-all blog for the "True Life: I'm a General Blogger" link-up that Tara and Mrs Monologues were hosting... this week they're hosting a "True Life: I'm a Mommy Blogger" link-up!

For all the newbies from the link-up, welcome!

I'm Rachel, we live in northern Illinois and I am a new mommy to 6 and a half month old Jaydran Alexander (we call him Jay for short), born on February 4, 2011.

August 14, at his 1st county fair!

My son's name is quite unique (our last name is Johnson, so we felt he needed a unique 1st name since there's a million and one Johnsons in our town!) and if you do a Google search you'll find that he's the only one with that name too! The story behind it is that my husband came up with it. He writes sci-fi as a hobby (and hopefully professionally someday!) and when he played baseball as a kid, one of the boys on his team had a sister named Jaydra. Liking the unique-ness of the name, he decided to make Jaydran the male version of it and use it for his writings. And yes, it's also the name of his World of Warcraft character, which caused me to initially veto the name but it grew on me and it seems to fit Jay as well, as he's quite an awesome little boy!

So this is my mommy/personal blog, as I chronicled our journey of trying to have a baby, my pregnancy and our adventures of being a family!

Having dealt with quite a bit so far (gestational diabetes, "failure to thrive" and eating troubles, breastfeeding woes, hydrophrenosis and a UVJ Obstruction requiring eventual surgery), I hope that by sharing my experiences and struggles I might be able to help other moms experiencing what I have and give them answers and insight to things they might be wondering (I know I tend to Google a lot when I'm looking for an answer or someone who's been there, done that and can offer insight on what I can expect).

Anyways, Jay is a special little guy who's had quite a rough start in life.

He LOVES Elmo!

Before he was born they were concerned about his femurs being a little a on the short side and his left kidney appeared to be enlarged. Due to a lack of growth between weeks 30 and 37 they decided to induce me at 37weeks, 5 days so he was a few weeks early. To be honest, labor was pretty easy - took just under 9 hours and was natural (but with a dose of dilauted to help with the back labor) and I honestly didn't feel much of anything until the last few hours, not to mention I went from 7-10cm dilated in about 10 minutes and the last half hour just flew by (you can read his full birth story here). His kidney was still enlarged though so they diagnosed him with hydronephrosis and had us start seeing a local urologist.

We also tried breastfeeding for the 1st few weeks however instead of gaining weight he lost weight! Then he gained a little back but not much so the doctor had us spend a week in the hospital while we tried to figure out why kiddo wasn't eating enough to grow. I found out at my 6 week post-partum check-up that they failed to mention to us that there was a knot in the umbilical cord, which would explain his eating problem - he got used to eating just enough to survive and his stomach never got big enough to take in more! Ever since the week in the hospital with him hooked up to a feeding tube to stretch his stomach out he's been quite the eater now, eating several full bottles a day, 2 servings of rice cereal for breakfast and veggies and fruits for dinner (he hates peas though, lol...).

He had a little too much fun
with his peaches!

As far as his enlarged kidney... the local urologist sent us up to the children's hospital in Madison for further testing where we learned that the blockage is at his bladder and not up at the kidney like we initially thought but that there is no reflux which is good. They referred us to a pediatric urology specialist at the children's hospital up there who has us coming up there every 3-4 months to check on it, saying that it appears to be a UVJ ureter obstruction. He'll most likely need to have surgery by the time he's 2 to correct it though, as his left ureter tube is pinched off at the bladder and they'll go in, take it off, snip it and reattach it to the bladder.

The idea of my baby having surgery so young is something I try not to think about, as I don't want to worry about it until it's time, however the specialist was very comforting and made me feel confident about it, saying he's done it plenty of times and has always been successful so far. I am not too thrilled though that he'll have a surgery scar though. Not gonna lie, with his week long stay in the hospital and all the testing they've done on his kidney, it's been really hard having to watch them do all this stuff to him... fortunately he's so little he probably won't remember it when he's older, although it wouldn't surprise me if it's what causes his monthly night terrors (he's had 1 a month since he was born, where he freaks out in his sleep for several minutes and won't wake up out of it).

Chillin' with daddy!

My hubby works a lot (he has both a day job as an inventory & purchasing manager for a Verizon authorized retailer and works 3rd shift as a part-time UPS supervisor - we're hoping he goes full-time there soon though so he can quit the day job) leaving me to take care of Jay most of the time during the week. I do work part-time though at The Children's Place which is pretty nice as I get 25% off Jay's clothes (and sometimes 40% when they do employee appreciation weekends!) on top of whatever the sale price is - he is quite the well dressed little guy! Fortunately my parents don't live too far from us so my mom babysits Jay when hubby and I both have work so we don't we have to worry about daycare.We also have a domestic Egyptian Mau kitty named Tiger and she will be 3 years old in October and we just bought and moved into our first house back in April! Needless to say, it's been quite a year for us!

Showing off his shades!

For now, Jay is our only child and we've discussed it and decided that we'll most likely wait until after his kidney/ureter issue is resolved before we decide to try for another (so probably when he's close to 3). Ultimately we'd like to have at least 1 more kid and maybe a 3rd (I love Jay despite my lack of experience with little boys however I would like to have a little girl too).

Jay is quite the well-behaved baby though, only really crying when his mouth hurts (due to teething - he currently has both his bottom front teeth) or he's hungry or overly tired - he behaves very well in public! He loves Elmo and anything with Elmo's face on it, he enjoys staring at pictures and playing in his baby walker. He is also VERY curious about electronics such as smartphones, computers, the remote control and the PS3 controllers! He doesn't crawl yet, but is very close (he drags/scoots himself across the floor instead!) and he does like to roll EVERYWHERE! His bedroom is being painted to look like world 1-1 from Super Mario Bros and he has various Mario Bros and Star Wars collectibles throughout his room!

 And some more pictures of Baby Jay:

One of his 1st pics, 6lbs 7oz, 19inches long & a full head of hair!

One of my favorite pics - Jay & daddy

 

He was soooo little!!

My poor baby with his feeding tube in,
pumping his tummy full of milkies

Being all cute during our move from
a 1 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom house!

Our little family (minus Tiger our kitty!)

Jay's meeting with the pediatric urology specialist & official diagnosis

So I'm sure everyone is wondering - how'd Jay's appointment with the pediatric urology specialist go today?

Seemed like it went well and was very informative.

They weighed him to start and checked his vitals - his blood pressure was good and his weight is up to 13lbs, 2.8oz so he's gained some since his regular check-up he had last week.

The specialist went over the scans from the testing they did back in April and explained more of what it showed and what it meant.

Jay's official diagnosis now is that he has a UVJ ureter obstruction. Below is the diagram that the specialist drew me for to sort of explain what's going on:

On Jay's right side (the left side of the image), his kidney and ureter look perfectly normal, going into the bladder as it should. On his left side though (the right side of the image) the part of the ureter tube that feeds into the bladder (the UVJ) is tapered off so much that nothing can get out (or in) and a bit deformed.

I asked what causes this and he said what happens in these cases generally is that at about 2-3 weeks after conception is when the bud of the ureter tube is formed on the bladder and branches out to form the tube up to the kidney. Basically, his left one was just a dud and didn't form properly.

He said that while it still is possible that it could grow and open up on its own as he grows, he said he doesn't want to get our hopes up and said that realistically he'll probably need the surgery to fix it. He said it's basically a problem that he has "bad plumbing" and that he can fix it, as he has plenty of times before and says the surgery is almost always successful (of course they can't say it's 100%, as there's always that slim chance something could go wrong, but he seemed very confident that it was just a simple, minor procedure and nothing to get worried about). He said what they'll do is they'll continue monitoring it via renal ultrasound every 3-4 months and when his bladder is big enough (usually between 1 and 2 years of age), he'll do the surgery, pulling out the ureter tube from the bladder, cutting off the bad part and then reinsert/attach it to the bladder.

He said other than the UVJ obstruction, everything else about Jay looks 100% - he said even the kidney that's blocked looks to be completely healthy, and while you only need 1 kidney to leave, just in case something happens down the road to the one, he'd like to have the other one fully functioning as well so we don't have to worry about it then.

He said another option they could do if it became necessary (ie: something happened to his right kidney and we needed the other to function asap), they could do a temporary ureterostomy where they make a hole in him and the tube is sticking out onto his belly and that everytime he pees it would drain out onto his belly... yeah, that just sounds messy, and gross and more of a hassle than we need, so we're not planning on doing that.

He also put him on another antibiotic, taking him off the amoxicillian, so that he doesn't get any long-term effects of the amoxicillian (I guess it's been known to give stomach problems and can cause diarrhea) and this one is more to prevent and treat any possible UTI infection (basically, it's more specific than the amoxicillian).

So... I'm doing alright. Not thrilled at the fact that he'll probably have to have the surgery come 2013, but it is a ways off too so it's not like I have to think about it. He'll probably have the scar from where they go in on the left side to get to it though for awhile... the doc's confidence though at how well the surgery goes seemed to put me more at ease, so I guess we'll just deal with it when the time comes.