I am very happy to say that he’s is a perfectly healthy baby and Lori is once again breastfeeding him. Everything is good with the world once more.

What a huge relief.

Galactosemia is a condition in which the body is unable to use (metabolize) the simple sugar galactose.

This isn’t the same thing as being lactose intolerant.  This is worse.  It is also a fairly rare condition, only affecting 1 in 60,000 births.  Basically, if people with this condition take in any dairy products, the galactose builds up in their system, causing problems with liver, kidneys, brain and eyes.  It’s to be taken very seriously.

The moment our midwife called, Lori was to stop breastfeeding immediately.  Of course, this crushed her.  That is one of the things that she is supposed to do is being able to nurture our children as long as she can by breastfeeding, and now she’s being told that the very thing that is supposed to give our baby life, may now harm him.

The good news is that there’s a pretty decent chance that the test could have been a false positive. The test has been known to produce false positives, especially in the summer months when the temperature is pretty high.  I guess the enzyme that they test for is very susceptible to heat and can therefore cause the test results to appear as though they are positive, when in fact they aren’t.  The thing that we’re holding onto is the fact that I noticed that the traveling nurse, who is associated with the birthing center, made a house call for our 3-day checkup, she appeared to be pretty hot and sweaty when she arrived at our door.  I’m hoping that her car maybe didn’t have air conditioning and that the blood sample ended up getting compromised in transit that day.

We had to take Asher into the pediatrician the very next day to have his screening done again.  In addition to that, we had to take him to a lab to have a vile of blood drawn for the local metabolic geneticist to process, in the event that this does end up being a true positive result.  We’re praying that this was all for not and that he’ll be just fine.

For all intents and purposes, he appears to be in good health, even before we switched him last week from breast milk to soy milk.  Some of the symptoms associated with the condition are vomiting, lethargy, failure to thrive, trouble feeding, diarrhea, irritability, poor weight gain and convulsions.  He has had none of those symptoms.  In fact, his pediatrician said he appeared to be in really good health.  So that either means that it is a false positive, or if he does have the condition, he’s on the low end of it.

If it turns out, which I’m confident it won’t, that he has this, we’ll have to watch his diet very closely.  He’ll never be able to consume any dairy products, whatsoever.  The good thing is that in this day and age, there are plenty of dietary alternatives out there for people with conditions such as this.

We’ll find out some time this week what the results of his bloodwork are.  We’re just ready for our life to return back to mommy nourishing him instead of store-bought formula.

We got in, had her vitals taken, got into the room that we’d be using (which looks like a real nice bed and breakfast) and the midwife said Lori was at a 3 1/2, so it might be a little while still.  She left the room, telling us to just let us do our thing.  Lori was totally in control of what was going on with her body.  It was amazing.  Around 2:30, Vicki, the midwife, came back in to check on us.  Everything seemed to be about the same as far as how frequent the contractions were coming, although, Lori said they felt like they were getting a little bit more intense.  With her eye on the natural birth prize, she kept on doing her thing.  Vicki left again and told us to buzz her if anything substantial changed. 

About 15 minutes after that, Lori was in the bathroom doing bathroom business and she told me all of the sudden that she needed to push.  I buzzed Vicki and when she got there, she told Lori that she wanted her to try and get up and get over to the bed.  Lori wasn’t sure if she’d be able to.  But finally, she got a 5 second reprieve and we helped her over to the bed.  Vicki checked to see how dilated she was and said “Oh! He’s here.  Go ahead and start pushing!” 

He was born 3 pushes later at 3:02AM.  I was in utter amazement at the whole thing.  Lori made it look SO easy.  This was her first completely natural childbirth and she made it look like she had done it 10 times before.  It was incredible!! 

So here are a couple of pictures that we took shortly afterwards.  The picture of the 3 of us was taken about 30 minutes after he was born.  Lori did NOT do anything to clean herself up or try to make herself look more presentable.  She was just glowing naturally!  Heck, I look more tired than she did.  And I think I literally broke more of a sweat than she did.  The other picture is Lori’s mother holding Asher. 

I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect partner to experience this with.  She made childbirth everything that I wanted my wife to make it.  She experienced something phenomenal and empowering.  It’s hard for me to even put into words how moved I was by this whole thing. 

We had Asher at 3AM and we were back home 8 hours later.  I have to say, the birthing center experience was a thousand times better than the hospital experience we had last time.  Don’t get me wrong, the people we dealt with last time were nice, but the general feeling in a hurried hospital just seemed a little robotic.  With the birthing center, we truly felt like we were dealing with family.  We weren’t rushed during the prenatal appointments or even during the delivering and post pardum.  It was simply awesome!!  I can’t say enough good things about it.

 This is probably our last kid to have, but IF we ever have another one, we’ll be back with the birthing center.  How could we not? 

I’m still in shock that we have a new baby now.  He’s doing great and Lori is too.  It couldn’t be more perfect.  We’ll be taking some really good pictures in the next few days so I’ll send some when Lori gets them done and edited.  Until then, these two will have to suffice.

At this point in the pregnancy, I am getting pretty excited about her having the baby. But, at the same time, I’m getting nervous like I was two years ago when she was getting ready to have Corban. I’m panicking a little inside, feeling like I don’t know how we’re going to do it. I know that once we get this new one home and get a few days under our belts, it’ll be old hat again.

I’m not looking forward to the sleepless nights again. Sure, Lori will be more tired than I will since she’s going to be breastfeeding, but with him being in our room for a while, I’m sure that the quality of my sleep is not going to be very good. No, I’m not complaining, just saying that I’m not looking forward to it. I’ll be ready to get that part of it behind us.

And here’s to hoping that we get a good sleeper this time. It was brutal with Corban, not sleeping through the night until he was almost 11 months old. I hope we don’t have to go through that this time.

We won’t know anything until this next little one is born. I’m ready to get the show on the road!

We had our ultrasound on Friday and the baby looked good!  I made a card and had the tech write in it what we were having.  We then took it to Round Rock Bakery and had them make a cake in which the filling was either blue or pink depending on what the baby was.

Saturday, we had a few friends over to celebrate my early birthday and the great cutting of the cake.  When we sliced it open, it was blue!

Here are a few pictures from the great event.

What will it be?

Our little family

Cutting the cake

I see blue! It's a boy!!!

Eric had to cut both ends of the cake, just to make sure!

I’m praying that the mom will go through with this adoption and our friends will have a baby that they’ve always wanted.  I only wish that more women out there would be less selfish and give their babies to good homes.  SO many babies are not well taken care of and deserve better.

Happy birthday little one.  You are missed and will always be loved.

So small am I,
In a universe so vast.
So large my loss:
My mourning eases but still will last.

Under the stars
On our own small world
I know that others share my pain.
Love’s cruel cost–
Black holes within hearts
Where parental dreams once had been.

Peace finds me
In the stillness,
Surrounded high and low by a million suns.
God appears in the large and the little–
In the universal order
And in the grace that comes

From fellow mourners and understanding friends
Who walk with me through grief that dims, but never really ends

…..Elizabeth A. Pector

Things are going to be much different this time around in more ways that one.  First of all, we’re opting for the birthing center route.  We found a birthing center in Austin called the Austin Area Birthing Center. For those of you not familiar with what a birthing center offers, how I have described it to my friends is that it’s like a bed and breakfast for having babies.  The atmosphere is like a home atmosphere, as opposed to the sterile, clinical feel of a hospital.  You can check out the link to this place and see what it looks like.  They have 5 midwives who are all licensed nurses.  As we go to each of our monthly prenatal visits, we meet with each of the midwives so that we can get to know them all a little better.  The visits are much more relaxed and not rushed at all.  It really does seem like they are there to make you feel as comfortable as humanly possible throughout the entire process.  The 2 midwives that we have met so far have both impressed us alot!  And the place has a full kitchen.  So we can take food up there to store or to cook if the labor seems to be taking a while.  Oh, and assuming all goes well, we”ll leave the same day after having the baby.  They say that so long as there aren’t any problems, there’s no reason for a new family to not be at home with their new baby.  I agree!!  I hated that we had to be at the hospital as long as we did.  I mean, it was good for the first baby because they had lots of good pointers and whatnot, but we don’t need that this time around.

Another difference with this one vs. the last birth is that I am (hopefully) going to take a more active role in the delivery.  I have asked for and gotten permission from the birthing center to help with the physical delivery of the baby, assuming all goes well.  The midwife that will be assisting us will deliver the head and the shoulders, since they are the most difficult, and from that point on, it’ll hopefully be me delivering the rest of the baby.  I know, some people freak out about that, but not me.  I have always been so completely in awe of  the whole pregnancy and birthing process that this will be right up my alley.  I can’t wait!  I can’t think of anything more amazing that to be that involved, with my wife, in bringing our new child into the world.  The midwife that we spoke to at our last visit recommended a book called Ina Mays Guide to Childbirth that I have coming in the mail.  It’s supposed to be THE guide to the whole birthing process.  She said that it should do a pretty good job at preparing me for my new role as delivery dad!

Finally, I am convinced that this baby is going to be a girl.  Lori has been trying to deny that, but the other day, she conceded that she thinks that she’s carrying this one higher.  Not that we’re giving into old wives tales, but with the first two pregnancies with the boys, she carried them low.  We’ll see who the correct person is.  We’ll have our sonogram in March that should be able to determine the gender.  We’re going to have them not tell us, but write it down in a card that we’ll then take to a baker.  We’ll instruct them to look at the card and depending on if it’s a boy or a girl, they’ll tint the inner part of the cake either blue or pink.  That sonogram should be around the time of Lori’s birthday so for her birthday cake, we’ll use the gender cake.  With friends and family over, Lori will cut into the cake and we’ll all find out at the same time what the gender is going to be.  Pretty cool idea huh? I think Lori’s cousin or someone she knows had that idea and we stole it.  Nothing wrong with that!

Sixteen weeks down, 24 more to go.  Seems like a long time to go, but the weeks are flying by.  I know that the delivery day is going to be here before we know it.

I hate when people ask me if this is my first child (when Corban is not with me) or if it’s my second (when he is).  I’m always honest and say that this is my 3rd.  Of course, the nosy people then ask how old my other child is.  I always respond with the truth.  I lost my first son when I was 20 weeks pregnant.  Most look at me like they can’t believe I shared this information with them.  Some understand.

Me, I hate that I have to answer with the truth and that the truth ever happened.  It never gets easier.