Friday, October 29, 2010
Matthew has autism!
Matthew is my first baby. He was diagnosed with failure to thrive when he was 9 months old, and as of today still is. The doctor we were seeing at that time tried to blame it on me. She told me I wasn't feeding him enough. We ended up moving (military) and got a new doctor. He said that Matthew was just small and not to worry about it. Matthew's speech also wasn't developing much, but we thought he would talk when he was ready. We moved once again a few months before Matthew turned two. This time we were seeing a military pediatrician who was fresh out of school. She was very concerned about his weight (did not blame it on me), and his delay of speech. She put in a referral for speech therapy and put in a referral to get evaluated by a feeding team at military hospital 2.5 hours away. Well, we started speech therapy in January of 2010. We didn't get in to see the feeding team until March 2010. The feeding team consisted of a Speech Therapist, Social Worker, Psychologist, and a Developmental Pediatrician. The Developmental Pediatrician took us into a room and wanted to evaluate and observe Matthew. The doctor listened to his heart, checked his ears, looked in his eyes. Then he just sat and observed him and asked him questions. The doctor stepped out of the room to consult with the rest of the feeding team. They brought us back to the room and the doctor told us "I think your son might have autism". I started crying. No one wants anything to be wrong with their child. He talked to us about it and gave us a bunch of information on it. He wanted to see us back for a more in depth evaluation so he could test him for autism. We went back in May for the evaluation. There were a lot of things Matthew couldn't do that the doctor tried to get him to do. After about an hour and a half, the doctor knew. He told us that Matthew did have autism. He told us that Matthew would have a great success with ABA (applied behavioral analysis) therapy. He told us Matthew had moderate autism. It was hard to put a label on what kind of autism Matthew has because of his age. We were also told that we would have to move because the closest ABA therapy was 2.5 hours away. Our small town didn't have that. We were relieved that Matthew got the autism diagnosis, because we found out why he was so underweight. He was given a behavioral feeding disorder diagnosis along with the autism. His speech therapist looked up ways to incorporate some ABA techniques in with her sessions. She has worked wonders with Matthew! At his diagnosis back in May, he was only able to say about 10 words consistantly. He is now using 3-4 word sentences. We will be moving in a week to Arizona so Matthew can receive ABA therapy. I am very sad that we have to leave his speech therapist behind. I feel that Matthew has progressed so much because she cares so much. She is an amazing person! Matthew will also start school after Thanksgiving since he will turn 3 Nov. 20. I'm so worried he won't get what he needs from the public school system. There is a school for children with autism in the Phoenix area, but it's way too expensive for us. I have thankfully met someone on facebook that has a husband stationed at the same base we will be moving to. Her oldest son has autism. It will be so nice to meet someone that goes through the same thing I do. She is going to give me her son's ABA therapists information, and she even let me know what developmental pediatrician to go to. Matthew will need to go back for another evaluation in May. We think he will end up with an Aspergers diagnosis since he is able to randomly read things. He has an incredible memory. He remembers things an average 3 year old would not. When we go to San Antonio, he knows we are in San Antonio because he remembers what it looks like. When we go to visit my mom, as soon as we turn down her street he knows we are almost to "Gigi's house". He is so incredibly smart! We are still working on trying to get him to gain weight, but we aren't super worried about it anymore. In March 2010, he was at 20lbs, and now he is 35 months old and finally at 25lbs.
Just Beginning
Well, I attempted to start blogging when I was pregnant with my 18 month old to keep a diary of the pregnancy. I never kept up with it. So here I am now with 3 boys and an empty blog. Why not start now. I will start out all about how my family started.
My husband and I met through a friend. We got married Feb. 13, 2007 in Maui. A month after we were married, we found out we were expecting our first baby. The pregnancy was unexpected but we were excited. At my 20 week ultrasound we found out we were having a boy. I was very excited because I was hoping for a boy. My husband wanted a girl. I gained a lot of weight with my first pregnancy and ended up having high blood pressure because of the extreme weight gain. The high blood pressure caused my fluid levels to be low, so the baby had to be monitored twice a week and I had to also have my fluid levels checked at these appointments. I started having the monitoring and ultrasounds twice a week starting at 28 weeks and had to do it until I delivered. From 28 weeks on, I frequented labor and delivery. At just about every appointment I had, they sent me to labor and delivery to monitor my blood pressure and of course my fluid level would be low so they would have to start an IV and give me fluids. On Nov. 19, 2007, I had an NST (monitoring) appointment. The NST went well, but when the nurse did the ultrasound, she discovered my fluid was really low. She called in the head doctor from the labor and delivery unit and he came in to take a look. He said it was time to have the baby. I didn't have anything with me at the hospital. I went down the hall to labor and delivery and checked in. When my room was ready, they took me back and started drawing blood and put in an IV. About an hour later they started the pitocin. Being a first time mom, I was afraid of the pain that was going to come and got my epidural early, which I now regret. I had heard all kinds of stories of how painful pitocin made contractions. I progressed very slowly. At around midnight, the baby's heartrate started dropping and suddenly the monitor starts beeping like crazy and a team of doctors and nurses come rushing into the room. I was so scared! I though for sure they would be whisking me to the OR to do a c-section. They started moving me on my sides, and when that didn't help they put me on all fours and the baby's heartrate went back to normal. For the remainder of labor I had to remain on my side and wear oxygen. At 4:36 a.m., and after only 15 min. of pushing, Matthew Tomas Umana came into the world. He came out blue and had the cord wrapped around his neck. It was an amazing moment when I finally got to hold him. He weighed in at 6lbs 10.5oz A few hours after delivery, I ended up bleeding out. They were thankfully able to stop the bleeding with medication and removed some rather large clots. I was extremely weak and tired from the postpartum hemorrhage. I had a very hard time breastfeeding because I never got my milk because of all the blood my body had lost. Matthew and I got to go home on Thanksgiving day. He had to come home with a bili blanket because he had jaundice. It almost got bad enough for him to be admitted to the hospital. Matthew slept a lot in the early months. He rolled over, crawled, and started walking on time. When he turned 1, he was not saying any words, hardly ever babbled, didn't point at things, and was unable to feed himself. Since he was my first child, I thought it was normal and that he was just a little behind. I will talk more about Matthew and his "issues" later. On August 30, 2008 I found out I was pregnant with baby #2. Baby #2 was planned and we were so excited that we got pregnant only a month after stopping birth control. This pregnancy was completely different from my first. I was so nauseated. I could hardly eat anything. I struggled with gaining weight until around 24-26 weeks. The midwife I saw was always getting on to me about needing to gain weight. I was already overweight to start with, so I don't know why they wanted me to gain weight so badly. I had my 20 week appointment scheduled, which I had to schedule a month in advance, and the day before it I ended up getting really sick. Matthew had caught a stomach virus and then passed it on to me. I had to cancel my ultrasound appointment and wasn't able to get another until I was 24 weeks. I was so sure I was having a girl. When we went to the ultrasound appointment, the tech looked to see what we were having and there it was plain as day, boy parts. I will admit I was slightly disappointed, but my baby was healthy and that is all that mattered. After coming up with a name, I felt a very strong bond with this baby. Much stronger than the first. He was my hard headed baby. He was in a side lying (transverse) position up until around 36 weeks. He then decided to turn head up (breech). I had an ultrasound at 38 weeks to check his position one last time and he was still breech. The doctor also wanted a weight estimation. They estimated his weight to be at 9lbs 6oz!! I ended up having a scheduled c-section on April 29, 2009. I was terrified of having a c-section. I had been planning an unmedicated vaginal birth. This was far from what I wanted. Brady Alexander Umana came out peeing (on the doctor) April 29, 2009 at 8:34 a.m. The anesthesiologists I had were awesome. When the doctor pulled Brady out, they were saying "He decided to come out butt first because he wanted the world to know they can kiss his a**". I thought it was funny that he came out pee'ing. He ended up not being as large as the ultrasound predicted, but bigger than his older brother. He was 7lbs 14oz. He got to stay with my while they were stitching me up in the OR and he went with me to recovery. When we got to recovery, the nurses helped me breastfeed. After a couple of hours, they took us to our room. The c-section ended up being not as bad as I thought. The pain wasn't too bad and I figured out that if I stayed on schedule with my pain meds, my pain was controlled better. He was born on a Wednesday, and we left the hospital that Friday. I forgot to add that I was staying with my parents while my husband was cross training into a new career for the Air Force. When I had my c-section, my husband was not able to be there :(. My mom was there with me which was awesome. Well my husband did get to come see us the day before we left the hospital and had to leave Sunday. Brady did well breastfeeding for a week, and then he started having latching issues. I was really stressed out about it because I really wanted to breastfeed this time around. I ended up giving him formula because an unhappy mommy won't make a happy baby. Brady was a spitter upper (I know that's not a word, but it works). It got to the point where it was no longer spit up, but more like vomit. I would have to give him a bath several times throughout the day and change my clothes several times because it was so bad. He also had reflux and got to where he would only sleep a total of 30 min. in a 24 hour period. He started developing a rash all over his face, and his reflux medicine wasn't doing anything for him. My mom and I had to take him to the emergency room one night because he refluxed and choked and turned blue for a few minutes and wouldn't breathe! It was very scary! I tried to get an appointment with his pediatrician, but he was out so we had to see the other doctor in the practice. That man was horrible! He told me the rash was caused by cradle cap, and that there was no other reflux medication he could try (lie!). He also told me that he would sleep if I stopped holding him so much and just put him in his crib to cry himself to sleep. Brady was 7 weeks old, and the cry-it-out method is not for babies that young! I was so upset when I left that appointment. I ended up doing research on my own and came to the conclusion that Brady had a milk protein intolerance. I switched him to a hypoallergenic formula, and week later he was a new baby. Brady was a very happy baby. When Brady was 6 months old, we found out we were expecting another baby! This was very unexpected and I felt really bad since Brady was still so young. We thought for sure this baby would be a girl. I went in for an ultrasound at 18 weeks, but the ultrasound tech couldn't see anything because the cord was in the way. I was so impatient, so we traveled about 3.5 hours away to have a 3d/4d ultrasound done (we paid for it) at 20 weeks. The ultrasound tech put it in 2d so we could figure out the baby's sex. She said it was a boy, but I wasn't convinced since all that could be seen was a "penis", which also looked like it could be umbilical cord. It was awesome to see a 20 week fetus in 3d. He was so tiny, but oh so cute. I could care less at that point if he was a boy or girl. I had several other ultrasounds later on and he always hid his face and his boy parts. My last ultrasound was around 36 weeks and the ultrasound tech for sure saw all boy parts. I ended up having a repeat c-section with him. I really wanted a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean), but I would have had to leave my kids for 2-3 weeks since the nearest hospital to allow it was 2.5 hours away. I couldn't leave Matthew and Brady for that long. Plus I really wanted someone (my husband) to be there with me when I went into labor, and that just wouldn't be possible. So on June 23, 2009 Ace Lawrence Umana was born. He was 6lb 14oz. He was bigger than I thought he was gonna be considering I had to be hospitalized for 3 days at 32 weeks because they were concerned with how small he was. He was a healthy baby. I hated the hospital I delivered at. It was a small town hospital. After they took him out of me, I only got to see him for a few minutes. After the doctor got done stitching me up, I went to recovery for several hours (without my baby). I didn't get to hold my baby for about 4-5 hours after he was born. This was not a pro-breastfeeding hospital either. I tried but was having a hard time and had no one to help me. I ended up giving him formula while in the hospital. When we got home, I pumped like crazy to start producing milk. I got him to latch on and he did great. After about a week, he got to where he wanted to breastfeed 24/7. I was so tired. Breastfeeding by itself was exhausting, but to add no sleep to the mix, it was hard. My husband didn't think the baby was getting enough from me and kept pushing me to give formula. I had no one to support my choice to breastfeed. I ended up giving formula. I felt like I was bullied out of breastfeeding. Ace is 4 months old and I'm still upset about not breastfeeding him. I wanted to do it so bad. When Ace was around 4 weeks old he started spitting up a lot and was restless. I figured he had a milk protein intolerance just like Brady. I put him on a hypoallergenic formula which helped. A few weeks later he was having mucus and blood in his poop. At his 2 month check up, his doctor gave us a prescription for a specialty formula that is amino acid based and a prescription for his reflux. The specialty formula is thankfully covered by our insurance. It runs about $50 for a small can! After a month of being on the special formula, things were back to normal. I decided to take him off his reflux meds too, because I felt they were useless. His doctor even told us he wouldn't need them very long. He only needed it just long enough for his stomach to heal from all the damage the milk based formula did. A few weeks before Ace turned 2 months, someone had asked me if I had read what was in vaccines. Well I didn't know what was in them. I was very pro-vaccine. I decided to look it up. I was disgusted when I read some of the ingredients. I decided I was going to do an alternative vaccine schedule with Ace, so I bought "The Vaccine Book" by Dr. Sears. When I got the book I sat and read for about an hour and read the entire book. Dr. Sears went into great detail of what exactly was in vaccines. There were a lot of toxins in them. I felt awful that I had put that into my older two boys. The thought of that being injected into my 2 month old disgusted me. So instead of doing an alternative schedule, I decided I would delay until 4 months. He has not had his 4 month appointment yet, but I have now decided to delay until the age of 2. I read that childrens immune systems are better equipped to handle the vaccines at the age of 2. I will stop there with the vaccines. That will be a whole new post later on. I think that's all for now for this post!
My husband and I met through a friend. We got married Feb. 13, 2007 in Maui. A month after we were married, we found out we were expecting our first baby. The pregnancy was unexpected but we were excited. At my 20 week ultrasound we found out we were having a boy. I was very excited because I was hoping for a boy. My husband wanted a girl. I gained a lot of weight with my first pregnancy and ended up having high blood pressure because of the extreme weight gain. The high blood pressure caused my fluid levels to be low, so the baby had to be monitored twice a week and I had to also have my fluid levels checked at these appointments. I started having the monitoring and ultrasounds twice a week starting at 28 weeks and had to do it until I delivered. From 28 weeks on, I frequented labor and delivery. At just about every appointment I had, they sent me to labor and delivery to monitor my blood pressure and of course my fluid level would be low so they would have to start an IV and give me fluids. On Nov. 19, 2007, I had an NST (monitoring) appointment. The NST went well, but when the nurse did the ultrasound, she discovered my fluid was really low. She called in the head doctor from the labor and delivery unit and he came in to take a look. He said it was time to have the baby. I didn't have anything with me at the hospital. I went down the hall to labor and delivery and checked in. When my room was ready, they took me back and started drawing blood and put in an IV. About an hour later they started the pitocin. Being a first time mom, I was afraid of the pain that was going to come and got my epidural early, which I now regret. I had heard all kinds of stories of how painful pitocin made contractions. I progressed very slowly. At around midnight, the baby's heartrate started dropping and suddenly the monitor starts beeping like crazy and a team of doctors and nurses come rushing into the room. I was so scared! I though for sure they would be whisking me to the OR to do a c-section. They started moving me on my sides, and when that didn't help they put me on all fours and the baby's heartrate went back to normal. For the remainder of labor I had to remain on my side and wear oxygen. At 4:36 a.m., and after only 15 min. of pushing, Matthew Tomas Umana came into the world. He came out blue and had the cord wrapped around his neck. It was an amazing moment when I finally got to hold him. He weighed in at 6lbs 10.5oz A few hours after delivery, I ended up bleeding out. They were thankfully able to stop the bleeding with medication and removed some rather large clots. I was extremely weak and tired from the postpartum hemorrhage. I had a very hard time breastfeeding because I never got my milk because of all the blood my body had lost. Matthew and I got to go home on Thanksgiving day. He had to come home with a bili blanket because he had jaundice. It almost got bad enough for him to be admitted to the hospital. Matthew slept a lot in the early months. He rolled over, crawled, and started walking on time. When he turned 1, he was not saying any words, hardly ever babbled, didn't point at things, and was unable to feed himself. Since he was my first child, I thought it was normal and that he was just a little behind. I will talk more about Matthew and his "issues" later. On August 30, 2008 I found out I was pregnant with baby #2. Baby #2 was planned and we were so excited that we got pregnant only a month after stopping birth control. This pregnancy was completely different from my first. I was so nauseated. I could hardly eat anything. I struggled with gaining weight until around 24-26 weeks. The midwife I saw was always getting on to me about needing to gain weight. I was already overweight to start with, so I don't know why they wanted me to gain weight so badly. I had my 20 week appointment scheduled, which I had to schedule a month in advance, and the day before it I ended up getting really sick. Matthew had caught a stomach virus and then passed it on to me. I had to cancel my ultrasound appointment and wasn't able to get another until I was 24 weeks. I was so sure I was having a girl. When we went to the ultrasound appointment, the tech looked to see what we were having and there it was plain as day, boy parts. I will admit I was slightly disappointed, but my baby was healthy and that is all that mattered. After coming up with a name, I felt a very strong bond with this baby. Much stronger than the first. He was my hard headed baby. He was in a side lying (transverse) position up until around 36 weeks. He then decided to turn head up (breech). I had an ultrasound at 38 weeks to check his position one last time and he was still breech. The doctor also wanted a weight estimation. They estimated his weight to be at 9lbs 6oz!! I ended up having a scheduled c-section on April 29, 2009. I was terrified of having a c-section. I had been planning an unmedicated vaginal birth. This was far from what I wanted. Brady Alexander Umana came out peeing (on the doctor) April 29, 2009 at 8:34 a.m. The anesthesiologists I had were awesome. When the doctor pulled Brady out, they were saying "He decided to come out butt first because he wanted the world to know they can kiss his a**". I thought it was funny that he came out pee'ing. He ended up not being as large as the ultrasound predicted, but bigger than his older brother. He was 7lbs 14oz. He got to stay with my while they were stitching me up in the OR and he went with me to recovery. When we got to recovery, the nurses helped me breastfeed. After a couple of hours, they took us to our room. The c-section ended up being not as bad as I thought. The pain wasn't too bad and I figured out that if I stayed on schedule with my pain meds, my pain was controlled better. He was born on a Wednesday, and we left the hospital that Friday. I forgot to add that I was staying with my parents while my husband was cross training into a new career for the Air Force. When I had my c-section, my husband was not able to be there :(. My mom was there with me which was awesome. Well my husband did get to come see us the day before we left the hospital and had to leave Sunday. Brady did well breastfeeding for a week, and then he started having latching issues. I was really stressed out about it because I really wanted to breastfeed this time around. I ended up giving him formula because an unhappy mommy won't make a happy baby. Brady was a spitter upper (I know that's not a word, but it works). It got to the point where it was no longer spit up, but more like vomit. I would have to give him a bath several times throughout the day and change my clothes several times because it was so bad. He also had reflux and got to where he would only sleep a total of 30 min. in a 24 hour period. He started developing a rash all over his face, and his reflux medicine wasn't doing anything for him. My mom and I had to take him to the emergency room one night because he refluxed and choked and turned blue for a few minutes and wouldn't breathe! It was very scary! I tried to get an appointment with his pediatrician, but he was out so we had to see the other doctor in the practice. That man was horrible! He told me the rash was caused by cradle cap, and that there was no other reflux medication he could try (lie!). He also told me that he would sleep if I stopped holding him so much and just put him in his crib to cry himself to sleep. Brady was 7 weeks old, and the cry-it-out method is not for babies that young! I was so upset when I left that appointment. I ended up doing research on my own and came to the conclusion that Brady had a milk protein intolerance. I switched him to a hypoallergenic formula, and week later he was a new baby. Brady was a very happy baby. When Brady was 6 months old, we found out we were expecting another baby! This was very unexpected and I felt really bad since Brady was still so young. We thought for sure this baby would be a girl. I went in for an ultrasound at 18 weeks, but the ultrasound tech couldn't see anything because the cord was in the way. I was so impatient, so we traveled about 3.5 hours away to have a 3d/4d ultrasound done (we paid for it) at 20 weeks. The ultrasound tech put it in 2d so we could figure out the baby's sex. She said it was a boy, but I wasn't convinced since all that could be seen was a "penis", which also looked like it could be umbilical cord. It was awesome to see a 20 week fetus in 3d. He was so tiny, but oh so cute. I could care less at that point if he was a boy or girl. I had several other ultrasounds later on and he always hid his face and his boy parts. My last ultrasound was around 36 weeks and the ultrasound tech for sure saw all boy parts. I ended up having a repeat c-section with him. I really wanted a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean), but I would have had to leave my kids for 2-3 weeks since the nearest hospital to allow it was 2.5 hours away. I couldn't leave Matthew and Brady for that long. Plus I really wanted someone (my husband) to be there with me when I went into labor, and that just wouldn't be possible. So on June 23, 2009 Ace Lawrence Umana was born. He was 6lb 14oz. He was bigger than I thought he was gonna be considering I had to be hospitalized for 3 days at 32 weeks because they were concerned with how small he was. He was a healthy baby. I hated the hospital I delivered at. It was a small town hospital. After they took him out of me, I only got to see him for a few minutes. After the doctor got done stitching me up, I went to recovery for several hours (without my baby). I didn't get to hold my baby for about 4-5 hours after he was born. This was not a pro-breastfeeding hospital either. I tried but was having a hard time and had no one to help me. I ended up giving him formula while in the hospital. When we got home, I pumped like crazy to start producing milk. I got him to latch on and he did great. After about a week, he got to where he wanted to breastfeed 24/7. I was so tired. Breastfeeding by itself was exhausting, but to add no sleep to the mix, it was hard. My husband didn't think the baby was getting enough from me and kept pushing me to give formula. I had no one to support my choice to breastfeed. I ended up giving formula. I felt like I was bullied out of breastfeeding. Ace is 4 months old and I'm still upset about not breastfeeding him. I wanted to do it so bad. When Ace was around 4 weeks old he started spitting up a lot and was restless. I figured he had a milk protein intolerance just like Brady. I put him on a hypoallergenic formula which helped. A few weeks later he was having mucus and blood in his poop. At his 2 month check up, his doctor gave us a prescription for a specialty formula that is amino acid based and a prescription for his reflux. The specialty formula is thankfully covered by our insurance. It runs about $50 for a small can! After a month of being on the special formula, things were back to normal. I decided to take him off his reflux meds too, because I felt they were useless. His doctor even told us he wouldn't need them very long. He only needed it just long enough for his stomach to heal from all the damage the milk based formula did. A few weeks before Ace turned 2 months, someone had asked me if I had read what was in vaccines. Well I didn't know what was in them. I was very pro-vaccine. I decided to look it up. I was disgusted when I read some of the ingredients. I decided I was going to do an alternative vaccine schedule with Ace, so I bought "The Vaccine Book" by Dr. Sears. When I got the book I sat and read for about an hour and read the entire book. Dr. Sears went into great detail of what exactly was in vaccines. There were a lot of toxins in them. I felt awful that I had put that into my older two boys. The thought of that being injected into my 2 month old disgusted me. So instead of doing an alternative schedule, I decided I would delay until 4 months. He has not had his 4 month appointment yet, but I have now decided to delay until the age of 2. I read that childrens immune systems are better equipped to handle the vaccines at the age of 2. I will stop there with the vaccines. That will be a whole new post later on. I think that's all for now for this post!
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