My baby is home

After running many tests and x-rays, they determined that Bryson had bronchitis. They were having a hard time getting it to break up in his chest. They also wanted him to go without oxygen for 24 hours so they finally weened him off of it Wednesday afternoon. They continued to do the breathing treatments every 3-4 hours through his whole stay there. He especially disliked the nose cleaning. As soon as they would enter the room, he would freak out and grab me. We would wrap him up in the blanket, but everytime he would get out. The nurses called him little Hercules because he is so strong. All the nurses were so sweet and so good with Bryson. I stayed up there all 3 nights and I am exhausted. The chair might be slightly comfortable to sit in, but definitely not to sleep in. Shane's grandmother was kind enough to come down on Thursday morning and met me at the hospital so I could go to work while she watched him for the day. Despite everything he went through this week, he was in a good mood. On Wednesday and Thursday they disconnected him from all the wires and tubes during day so that he could move around the room and he was into EVERYTHING! They finally released him late yesterday afternoon. It was so good to be home with him. He was quite excited to be home as well and dragged out all his toys as he ran around the house. He is better, but is still congested and breathing a little heavy. We still have to continue the breathing treatments so that put a damper on his night. By 6:30p he was exhausted so we laid him to bed and he crashed out. I took advantage of it and went to bed early as well. My MIL is here for the day so that she can watch Bryson while I work.

Thanks to everyone for the thoughts, prayers and kind words! Now I leave you with some pictures from his hospital stay:

Favorite Photo Friday #13

I love that smile

tubes, breathing treatments & hospital

My baby turned 19 months today, but unfortunately he is spending that day in the hospital. Bryson woke up Friday with a nasty cough. On Sunday, he had a runny nose and was congested. By yesterday, he sounded, looked and felt terrible so I decided to take him to an after hours pediatric doctors office. We were there 5 hours! They gave him 3 breathing treatments, but he was still wheezy and not doing well. At that point, the doctor decided to admit Bryson to the hospital. Definitely not the ending I was expecting. We arrived and our room was ready. They drew blood, did a chest x-ray, cleaned out his nose. The x-ray ruled out pnemonia and RSV. We did a breathing treatment every 4 hours since we arrived there and that was not fun! He really hated it and it took while to calm him down after. I stayed the night with him and he was very restless, so I am running on little energy. Shane met me there around 11a today so I could come home and work a little. I will go back up after work and stay again tonight. Before I left today, he was sleeping, but was having a little problem breathing so they put the oxygen tubes in his nose. It is the most heartbreaking thing to see. I will post more later.

Favorite Photo Friday #12

That is my son walking around with a box on his head. He thought it was funny to run into things with that on his head.

Your support

I can't thank you enough for your support, encouraging words and advice. It is also comforting to know that I am not the only one out there feeling like this or dealing with this. Mom, I especially thank you for your comments. That and your support means more to me than you could imagine. Writing that post yesterday was so unbelievably hard for me. It was almost like admitting you have been defeated and feeling ashamed of it. I had wanted to write it for weeks, but yesterday, the weight of everything just broke me. I try to be so strong, but I am a very emotional person, so it doesn't last long. We all (at least I did) have this fantasy of a happy, well-behaved child and when the reality sets in, it's like a slap in the face. Let me start by saying, I in NO WAY thought being a mother or raising a child would be an easy job. I know it's the hardest job I will ever have. I just want to be a good mom and do everything in my power to make my son a good person and give him the life he would not of had otherwise. Having a child that had no attention, affection or love for the first 15 months of his life is a challenge. I don't think it's possible to love anyone more than I love Bryson, he just has to learn that. I also know that in time he will learn that I will NEVER leave him. I will be there to pick him up when he falls. I will be there when he is sick and nurse him back to health. I will be there when he needs to talk or gets his heart broken. Hell, I will even be there to wipe his butt when he's 20 if he needs me to (totally just joking). I know that almost 15 weeks ago his world was flipped completely upside down. Being a new parent is hard and it's an adjustment. I have lots of experience with other children, but none of that could have prepared me for the real thing. Those who don't know us think I have been Bryson's mommy for 18 months, but in reality, I have only been his mom for 15 weeks. I'm still new to this.


One thing I didn't elaborate on in the last post is the medical issues we have been battling with lately. Since we have gotten home, Bryson has had a very swollen stomach and it has only gotten worse. Some days his skin and stomach is tighter than others. Quite often he seems like his stomach makes him uncomfortable. The doctors at first thought it was due to the giardia or the chronic diarrhea, neither of which he has anymore, so that has been ruled out. I then thought it might be due to the Rickets, but that specialist said no. Now he has developed a lot of gas and when we saw the GI specialist on Tuesday she said neither of these were normal. She said it is possible that the giardia has caused him to be lactose intolerant, so we are to give him NO dairy at all (we had been giving him very little dairy till now). She also felt his stomach and noticed his liver was enlarged which concerned her. So now she wants to do more testing to find the source of all this. This is more testing and doctor visits that I stress about putting Bryson through. How much can he take because I know it's a lot for me to handle.


I think it's a combination of problems and I know we will work through it all. It's just some days are hard. Now I leave you with the reason I want to be the best mommy that I can be:

Torn

I have a lot of issues weighing on my heart lately. My mind is constantly running and I feel so worn down. I could sit here and tell you that everything is wonderful and that I have the happiest little boy, but then I would be lying. We have good moments and bad moments. I can't even say that we have completely good days anymore. I see others post on their blogs about how happy their children are and I'll be honest, I'm jealous. There are things Bryson does and I don't know why. Is it because he was institutionalized and has attachment issues, is it because he is a toddler or is there an underlying problem. I don't know how to tell the difference.

First off, Bryson has more energy then any child I have ever seen. He doesn't stop, ever. He honestly can't sit still for longer than 30 seconds, unless he is confined and even then he is trying to get out or move. I'm not exaggerating. Nothing grasps his attention for long either. If he is playing with a particular toy, that might last for a minute before he is off to another toy. That cycle continues. He wants 100% of your undivided attention at all times. This makes cooking dinner, getting dressed or anything else very difficult. At home, he wants to be held all the time, preferably standing up. We hold him a lot, but it's impossible to hold him all the time. If we are anywhere but at home, he doesn't want to be in our arms at all. We can sit and play with him in our lap, but he gets in out of our lap continuously. I HATE taking him to doctors appointments because he can't sit still and I am constantly chasing him. I usually start out by keeping him in his stroller for as long as possible though he will scream and try and get out the whole time. If he is sitting on the table in the doctors room's, he is trying to tear the paper, stand on the table or get into all the cabinets. Yesterday he had a doctors appointment and by the time we got home, I was wiped out. There came a point while at the doctor's where I was ready to hand him over to anyone that would have taken him from me.

He is cranky and cries a lot of the time. I know he is teething and is having some stomach issues, but at times it rarely feels like he is happy. He throws fits over anything and everything. He will throw himself on the floor and scream. I can't tell you how draining this can become. There are days I want to lock myself in a room and cry. I find myself doing everything to not lose my patience with him. Speaking of screaming, he does it often. Not because he wants something, he does it just to do it. These can be ear piercing screams. He will also go up to other children, puts his hand on them and screams. Needless to say, this often scares the child's parent and then I get the dirtiest look.

He doesn't seem to grasp what no means. Maybe children at this age do not understand the concept yet. If that is the case, please excuse my inexperience. With anything, we can tell him no over and over, but it doesn't faze him. For example, he enjoys playing with the vertical blinds on our sliding glass doors. He has already torn off 2 panels. At least once a day, we tell him not to play with them. Does it bother us that he is playing with them, no. Do we care if he rips anymore off? No because we plan on replacing them. That's not the point, we don't want him to think he can pull on anyone's vertical blinds. He eventually has to understand that it is something he cannot do. We have recently started time-outs. I know he doesn't understand what we are doing, but he doesn't like having to sit that long in one spot. The whole minute and half, we are placing him back in his spot over and over.

He often takes out his frustration on me. Sometimes he smacks me with a toy, other times he flails his arms and scratches me. The newest thing is he will grab my arm and try to bit me. Some might suggest that we should limit our activities outside the home, but believe it or not, change of scenery usually helps his mood. He doesn't seem to want to sit at our house for long. Others might say it appears he has attachment issues, which might be the case. I know attachment is a long process and doesn't happen overnight. I can say that he is definitely a mommy's boy, he loves affection and he makes amazing eye contact.

With all that said, I love my son more than I thought it was ever possible to love someone. I wouldn't trade him or his baggage for anything in the world. There are just days that I feel so helpless and lost and feel that I am failing him as a mother. I am looking to others for any insight or advice that they might have to improve the situations we are dealing with. At this point, I am willing to try anything.

What tarot card are you?

I stole this from Christen's blog:

You Are The Hermit

You posses a great deal of wisdom and the ability to see people for who they are. You are always looking ahead at the future, developing visions. A loner, you tend to travel by yourself through life, seeking your own truth. You don't crave material things or fancy titles. You have no baggage. Your fortune: It's possible that there is a unknown guiding figure in your life, ready to help you. All you have to do is find this person and seek their advice. It's also possible that you need to start seeking the meaning of your own life. Either way, there's some deep thinking you need to undertake, and it needs to be done soon.

What Tarot Card Are You?