I suck at blogging!

Whoa, busy times!

I haven't really had time to update lately, but I feel that I ought to make the time, otherwise there's no point in blogging to document Oren's life and recovery!

So, Oren has started CRAWLING! Commando crawling, to be exact. It started off surprisingly fast. I was folding his blankets one morning, and hadn't really thought to not leave a cereal bowl within his reach, because it had never been an issue in an almost-year! So I had it, mostly empty, on a book on the floor, across the room. Oren was playing with his stuffed blocks, and all was well. About fifteen seconds after turning my back to smooth his blankets in his crib, I hear the clinking of a spoon in a bowl. Oh no! I whirled around only to see Oren, giggling and patting his hand in the pool of milk he'd knocked out of the cereal bowl.

Since then, he's getting better and better! He army crawls pretty fast, and when he can't get there quick enough like that, he starts rolling. He's even using his right arm and leg! His right arm used to get pinned under him when he'd roll and inch around, like he'd just forget it was there. Now he always pulls it forward and uses his elbow to move himself along. I couldn't be more proud! :)

He took his first (forward) steps in his walker on Sunday. He's been pretty good at scooting around backwards in it, but discovered forward out of nowhere while I was frosting a birthday cake for my mother. Suddenly, I look over and he's moving straight ahead, trying to get at the dachshund. It was very exciting! Since then, he's been zooming around and getting into everything in sight whenever he's in it. Which, admittedly, isn't very often - we don't want him to develop some muscles too early, when there's others that need strengthening. But when he's in it, it's amazing!

He's been making new sounds, and doing adorable new smiles, points, and shoulder-scrunches when he's super happy. He even points at things and ba-bas curiously, so we'll tell him what it is. And he points out/grabs things when we ask him to find them!

He had his first year of therapy evaluation, and he did AMAZING. He is only a couple of months behind on his physical developement, and scored at or above his age level for other things. I am most proud of his scores for cognitive thinking (17 months!) and social/emotional understanding (16 months!). Everybody thinks their baby is super smart and awesome, but it is nice to have experts agree. ;)

I am going to try and keep this updated a little better. Oren is making lots of exciting new changes, and it'd be a shame not to keep it all documented!

Therapy!

Shortly after Oren was released from the NICU, I got a call at home from from an Early Childhood Intervention worker, who we shall call Mrs. K. (She might even be reading, I gave her the address to this blog. If so, hey lady!)

Mrs. K said that the NICU had contacted the ECI center about Oren's case, and she asked to set up a meeting to meet us and assess his individual needs. It went really well, I immediately got along well with her, and Oren has also taken a shine to her. Although he does take a little while to warm up to her during each visit, because he is a shy baby, he is always grinning and babbling towards the end of the visit.

We talked about where he was, where he needed to be, and what we should do to get him there. I can't speak for anyone else's experiences with physical therapy workers, but I know that the two gals that have come to work with Oren have both been fantastic, sensitive, caring ladies. They have really taught me a lot about how to work with Oren each day, to stretch and exercise his little muscles, how to encourage him to use his weak side and support his weight, and how to not be too stressed and worried about it all. They reassure me that, from a professional standpoint, they think I am doing a very good job, which is good to hear now and then. Plus, they usually laugh at my lame jokes, so that's a plus.

With a lot of hard work, Oren has definitely made a great change. At two months old, he pretty much stared off to the right all day - his neck muscles seemed almost frozen! - with his little arms brought up to his chest. That was pretty scary, and it took time and creativity to loosen up those muscles, but now he has full range of motion in his neck! He's using his right arm a little more each day, and we are still working on the flexibility there, and on his grasping and holding. Once he figures out he can pinch me with his right hand - twice the pinching, oh no! - I am so in trouble.

Now, at eleven months, he babbles, scoots, rolls, sits, throws spitty toys at me when I type on the laptop, interacts with his toys, and also laughs at my lame jokes. He also laughs when I do the cabbage patch, but I think anybody would laugh at that.

He is trying very hard to crawl, and Mrs. K and I are thinking and hoping that, within the next couple of months, he'll be doing it!

Which means I seriously need to clean up this room. But not right now, because he is getting rather mad at me for still typing.

Teeth, and other developments.

Around five or six weeks, I noticed a little bump on Oren's gums. I immediately rushed him to his grandmother's side and began to fret over what it could be. Thrush? No, the bump was too hard. Maybe it's some sort of bone spur? A jaw deformity? Before I went over the edge with all the potential terrible things it could be -- a pox upon you, creator of Web MD -- my mother reeled me in and assured me it was the one thing I was certain it couldn't be. A tooth, about to break through.

Seriously? He's not even two months old yet! How is that even POSSIBLE? Does it hurt him? Yes, I am glad I am not nursing, now that you mention it.. Oh, you say my grandmother was actually born with a tooth? Yikes.

Yes indeed, Oren acquired his chompers fairly early. I believe we are now about to cut tooth number nine. It's hard to check manually because he bites any inspecting fingers, and certainly isn't about to just hold his mouth open and let me peer inside for a moment. But, judging by his behavior over the last few days, it seems likely. He's usually quite a happy little dude, but today we have been experiencing what I like to call the Demon Screamies. I think the name says it all!

In addition to that, as we near the one year mark I guess he's just trying to test his limits. Figure out how much control he has over the world around him - which, admittedly, isn't much. He'll throw a tiny fit when I go to put him in the high chair, even though we both know he'll stop fussing and enjoy himself once he's buckled in. He fights me during diaper changes, even though he and every other sane being on earth appreciate clean hiney and he'll be giggling madly as he rolls around my bed once he's dressed again.

Maybe it's not so much that he doesn't want these things to happen, but that he wants them when he wants them, and on his terms.

Don't we all, Tiny Overlord, don't we all.

Catching Up.

This was written when Oren was three days old, still in the NICU. My mother and I literally lived on the hospital grounds for the two weeks he was there, and spent most of our waking hours in the NICU with him, or in the NICU waiting area when visiting hours were over. It's hard to believe all this was nearly a year ago. And here he is, fussing insistently at my side, whacking me in the knee with his apple toy to express his displeasure with my laptop use.

You've come a long way, Mr. Baby!

--

Oren Ellis was born at 13:09 on the 22nd of February. 7lbs, 2oz. 19.5 inches long. He has a head full of hair - lots of hair, actually, it looks like it is almost an inch long! He has a faint, cute little birthmark on his forehead that the doctor called a 'stork bite'. My sisters and I all had the same thing when we were born. It wasn't a really difficult labor, I think we got to the hospital at about 5:30am or so, and he was in the world about eight hours later - after only five minutes of pushing, and pretty minimal tearing! Contractions were unpleasant, but I am pleased to report that I totally manned up and didn't make a peep.

It was a totally silent birth - Tom Cruise and Scientology at large would've been proud. Though if I were going to make a peep, I probably would've peeped during the epudiral, as apparently I have an armor plated spine and it took about seven or eight good stabs before the needle could get where it was supposed to go.

Oren's first act, after impressing us with his loudness (and his silly pointy head), was to contentedly blow spit bubbles. He was one of three babies that decided to show up at just about the same time, but the only one who got to stay with its mother instead of being whisked off to the nursery area straight away. So we hung out together for about an hour, and he was cooed over by friends and family, and he adorably expressed his displeasure whenever we snickered at his pointy head and birthmark. I think that the easy delivery and hour of cuddle time gave me the false impression that he was totally going to be an worry free baby.

So it was surprising to be told that, after he'd been taken off to the nursery and gone a few hours, something wasn't right. Apparently he would just stop breathing every now and then. The nursery workers saw his color was going a little grey, and rushed over to check him. After being poked and rubbed a bit, he started breathing normally again, and got his pink coloring back. But in the hours that followed, he continued to have these lapses in breath. (spells are what the docs and nurses have been calling them)

They decided to do a brain scan, and saw an area on the left side that looked as if he had had a stroke a few days before being born. He was transferred to the N.I.C.U in Shreveport's Schumpert hospital a little after noon on the 23rd, and I got discharged from the hospital so I could follow along. Since then, they've found out a few things, but nothing that really explains the hows or whys, or the 'how do we fix it?' questions.

We've found out that his blood is clotting, but we aren't sure why, but that it is likely what caused the stroke he had in the womb -- which is why his breathing has been off -- and the bleeding he's had in his stomach. It clots so fast that it's useless for lab tests by the time they get to it, so his tests are being pretty rushed now. He's had almost every scan possible, and they're doing another one right now. There's a hematologist testing his blood, a neurologist assessing his brain function, and.. well, basically a whole team of -ologists tending to his case.

It's kind of hard to sum everything up and not get weepy about it. I know everybody really cares and wants to know what's going on, so I am trying to be descriptive, but it's tough. It really sucks to see the little guy all wired and tubed and not be allowed to hold him, or feed him. He's three days old now, and I really thought I'd be propped up on the couch at home, trying to wrestle him away from his grandma. Not really sure when the little guy will be allowed to come home, at this point. First they have to nail down a real diagnosis, and then get a treatment plan lined up, and then we can go from there.

It seems like he's gonna be here for the long haul, though. So I may not see many of you hometown folks for a while, because mom and I are trying to stay here with him as much as we can. I will have to come back eventually - doctor will want to see me at some point, and I can't just wear the same four pairs of pajama pants forever. Thanks to everybody for all of your prayers and well-wishes. I've got my laptop with me now, so I will try and put updates out when I find internet access.

--

It really doesn't seem like all that happened 11 months ago. It was all sort of a dizzying blur of stress and serious worrying. Now, with him blowing spit bubbles and waving a froggie around as he sits next to me, it's hard to believe he and that tiny, fragile, sickly little newborn are the same little person. He's chubby, vocal, wiggly, and he has a great sense of humor. He isn't crawling yet, but we're making great progress in his physical therapy.

I don't know what the future holds for him, but I know that future is going to be monitored by specialists - and most importantly, his family. We don't know what the long-term effects of his stroke will be, if they'll be physical or mental - or both. But we do know that he is a wonderful, affectionate, silly little baby who couldn't be more loved.

Hello World!

My name is Aysa, and I am Oren's mother. I am twenty-five, and Oren is eleven months as of today -- as of 1:09pm today, to be exact. A few days before Oren was born, he suffered an ischemic stroke over most of the left portion of his brain. We weren't aware of this until he was born and started having lapses in his breathing and heartbeat.

For the most part, pregnancy was a breeze. Labor was equally easy! We arrived at the hospital at about 5 am, by about 1:05 pm I was told I should start pushing because the baby's heartbeat was dipping from the stress of labor, and just four minutes later Oren arrived! He found this bright, dry, noisy world to be in very poor taste, and spent his first hour of life testing out his lungs in protest, and contently blowing spit bubbles.

Since Oren is currently looking quite irritated, I will have to post this and return to it when he isn't objecting to my laptop use.. luckily I have a pre-typed birth story saved somewhere on this laptop. I shall return when my Tiny Overlord allows it.