Blog Post #3
By: Lisa H
This is my job....one of my jobs....the most important job...I'm mom.
I work full-time for quasi insurance. Brian works full-time in construction, which I will probably go into at some point, but is a feat in itself considering he is a walking tetraplegic (quadriplegic).
I balance my job to earn 1/2 our family income and being a mom/wife as equally as I can. I'm sure Brian gets the short end there. While I'm at work I give it my full attention. I have a job that brings in enough to pay our mortgage and get health insurance for the kids and I. Brian has his own thank goodness. I choose a job like that so I do not have to bring it home or feel guilty when my family needs me more, so it's not glamorous, I don't love it, but it serves it's purpose. I can stay home with my kids on their sick days guilt free…at least from anyone else. I do give 110% when I'm there, but I use my breaks and lunches, a lot of times, to take care of anything I can to reduce the things I have to do at home. I juggle.
I juggle paying a bill or two, balancing my checkbook or making phone calls during my break periods or lunches. This gives me more time with my kids when I get home.
So what did I do today? I called the doctor to take care of my son. Unfortunately, in the 9 months Jaemin has been home we've been trying to slowly go through a mental checklist I have to figure him out. He's been having trouble sleeping since he arrived....to be expected. But, he's gotten up 1-5 times per night every night for 9 months with the exclusion of about 3 times he has slept through the night or for whatever reason we didn't hear him.
First we decided that he was waking because he needed reassurance we were there. We have never let him cry. We always go to him. I would never want him to think we didn't care or we have abandoned him in any way. I don't know how his little mind processes everything. He has also had chronic sinus infections and 3 bouts of pneumonia in the past 5 months. This all started with a cough that hasn't fully gone away, but wasn't productive either; a dry kind of cough. I thought it was probably due to allergies and drainage. We thought it might be his teeth, most recently, as he was getting about 3 at one time, so we tried pain reliever. I co-slept with him too. This didn’t seem to make it any better and while he wanted to start out with me, he ended up wanting back in his bed. This weekend it finally hit me. What if he has acid reflux? His symptoms aren't perfect, but I could find reasons for all of them; especially after talking to one of our nurses at work. Acid reflux can actually cause chronic pneumonia, sinus infections and poor sleeping. Generally, it also causes a poor appetite, which is absolutely NOT the case with my big man. But, after I told our nurse that within 1 hour of a meal he signs 'more', we realized having food in his belly may actually make him feel better and that could be why he's signing 'more'. I think my little man is VERY smart.
So, the doctor agreed with me, that we should at least try something since nothing else has worked. He gave him some ranitidine (Zantac). We gave him his first dose tonight and decided that if we didn't see some results in a couple of weeks we'll figure out which avenue to go down next. Almost one year with this many nights of interrupted sleep has not done me good. I get up with him most times, most nights because Brian has trouble hurdling the gate with his spinal cord injury. They’re too high and night is rough getting around anyways on anyone.
Tonight, already, he never signed 'more' after supper. That's a first since he learned how to sign. He very happily went to bed and played very happily all evening long. He even wanted in the carrier while I did dishes like he use to. Usually I sit in bed with him for awhile and he wants to be held for a long time. He happily waved goodbye to me and lay there listening to Mozart tonight. While, we know this is only the first evening, it seems like a great start. So we're hoping our sweet baby a boy gets a good nights rest tonight and we do too.
My #1 job will always be being a mother to the children we chose to have.
Read more posts by Lisa HERE.
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