I Am So Tired!

Getting back together possibly with my husband has been good news, but it is leading to more work and emotional strain for me. There were some very painful things that happened while he was gone that I have to now manage to work through if this is going to work, and now we have to have counseling and I am worrying obsessively about some other decisions he is making....

A dear friend of mine said to me yesterday [quoting the movie "Evan Almighty" - a very cute movie btw!] that "God was giving me opportunities to be courageous".

I can agree with her, but I feel just beat down.

I've had so many "opportunities to be courageous" that I truly feel like I'm at my own breaking point [and I don't break easily].

I spent yesterday hiding from my kids for the most part because I just felt emotionally over drawn - I felt too overwhelmed to deal with them or anything else. Because, even though reconciliation is a possibility and we are trying to move in that direction, the fact is that I am *still* a single mother of 5 children. I am totally on my own. [And the dog is driving me crazy too....but that's another rant].

I never get a break. I was having a wonderful teen from our homeschool group come every Wed for a couple of hours and I was paying her to babysit, but for the last 3 weeks the kids have been sick so she couldn't come [she has a bunch of little brothers and sisters and her mom nor I want them all sick]. But that means that I haven't had *any* break, at all, in those 3 weeks. And I don't get to sleep at night either, because all the kids are night waking again - even more than normal because they are sick.

I am literally running 24/7 and I feel like I'm about to just completely break down and lose it. They are going to find me whimpering in a corner staring blindly at some monumental catastrophe that my evil genius 2yo orchestrated using physics and hydro-dynamics. And I'll never come out of it. ;)

I feel like such a baby, but gosh I just want to plead with God "could I just have a SMALL break in all this hardship? Please?!" I mean, I feel like I've been living from crisis to crisis to catastrophe to utter ruin over and over for the past 7 years.

I'm tired - like so tired I really just want to lie down and die. Which is sad to say, but completely true.

I'm worrying myself sick over the choices my estranged husband may or may not make, and its not like I needed *something else* to worry about.

AND now they want to break apart my baby's skull and piece it back together because they have a thing against Klingons or something... ;)

We went to Monkey5's 9 month check up yesterday and it was awful.

First, the Nurse practitioner had commented at our last visit that Monkey5 had a very "prominent forehead and ridge on top of her head" - which is true. ALL my kids have had this to some degree [and *I* had it as well - my baby pictures show my head looking just like Monkey5's].

But, she does look a bit like a baby Klingon [we often call her that in fact LOL!].

The Nurse Practitioner wants me to take her to a Neurosurgeon!!!! She thinks the skull sutures in Monkey5's head healed prematurely and are causing a problem. The baby's head was also measuring just over the 100% - large. ALL my kids have had heads that were large - 80%-95% is normal for my kids'heads, when their height is usually 25-50% and their weight is usually 5-15% at this age. We always joked about our kids looking like grapes on a tooth pick with their giant heads! [Monkey5 was 25% for height and 10% for weight, NOT unusual for my kids].

But, the Nurse Practitioner is convinced there is something seriously wrong.

I researched it just now and this is what it sounds like she thinks Angelica has:

http://surgery.med.umich.edu/plastic/clinical/ped_procedures/cranio/index.shtml
Types of Craniosynostosis
Sagittal Synostosis

"There are several forms of craniosynostosis that may afflict a child. The most common type of suture synostosis is sagittal synostosis. In this type, the suture that runs from the front to the back fuses prematurely. This causes a condition which specialists refer to as "scaphocephaly" or "boat" shaped skull. The skull becomes long from front to back, and appears narrow when viewed from the front. There may be a prominent ridge along the top of the head extending from the "soft spot" to the back of the head. The forehead may seem too prominent or bossed and the temporal area of the skull may seem pinched. A sagittal synostectomy and cranial vault reshaping can be performed to surgically correct scaphycephaly resulting from sagittal craniosynostosis. In this operation, the neurosurgeon removes the sagittal suture and gives the craniofacial plastic surgeon access to the cranial vault. The craniofacial surgeon makes cuts in the bones of the skull and reshapes them in a way that restores the child to a more normal cosmetic appearance and allows for proper growth of the brain and skull in the future. The operation is preferably performed early in life, sometime after three months of age."


In addition to this problem with her skull, she has another ear infection [which I kind of knew - every time she gets a cold she gets one and she had a cold for the last week and has been really fussy and not sleeping]. So now I am treating her with antibiotics AGAIN. :( :(

I also asked the Nurse Practitioner about her diarrhea - she has diarrhea ALL THE TIME - poops 5-10 times a day green diarrhea, and will wake up in the middle of the night [often] with stomach cramps and diarrhea. This started about a month ago when she finally started eating some solids. She would NOT eat any solids until 8 months [I offered at 6mos and every week thereafter], and she still won't eat much of them - strongly prefers breastfeeding. I've been wondering if maybe she doesn't have some food allergies or sensitivities or something and that's why she didn't want solids for so long [maybe she had that 6th sense babies have....] and that's why she's having diarrhea.

The Nurse Practitioner dismissed my concerns about allergies outright [we have no strong family history and none of the other kids have them - so, she used family history to dismiss concerns about allergies, but has dismissed the family history with the skull shape/formation?! ugh. ]

Her instructions were that I had to WEAN Angelica completely at night [she says she's not eating because I'm nursing her "too much"] and that I had to cut down her day time feeds to every 4 hours or more apart and basically starve her and make her eat solid food! She also told me I needed to get her out of my bed so I could wean her at night because she's TOO THIN and underweight [at 10%] and that I HAVE to get her eating solid food so she can put on some weight.

Never mind that she's still ON the weigh chart. Never mind that it is *normal* for ALL of my kids to be 10% for weight or even less at their 9 mo check [I keep their stats in their baby books - they ALL did this between 6-12 mos]. Never mind that babies under 1 year SHOULD still be getting most of their calories from breastmilk...

As for the diarrhea, she said it was caused by teething and that I needed to force Angelica to eat more rice cereal to firm up the stool! [Now, I understand teething may cause a couple of days of diarrhea, but 4+ WEEKS of nasty green diarrhea at all hours of the day and night?!!!]

Does this advice sound *insane* to anyone else?

I was doubly upset because this Nurse Practitioner is also an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and in the past she has always been really, really supportive of breastfeeding. I usually see our Pediatrician there, but when she's booked [like she was today], I see this Nurse Practitioner because she's IBCLC and I've always liked her pretty well. [I've only seen her maybe 4 times ever]. I love this Peds office because they are usually VERY 'wait and see' and don't over prescribe meds or interventions - My Pediatrician almost always says "well, let's don't treat it and see if it gets better on its own" which it almost always does....

I don't know what to do - I don't want my baby to go through SKULL SURGERY for Heaven's sake. But I also don't want to NOT fix something if it is going to cause her problems later in life.

And I don't even know where to begin with the diarrhea / weaning advice. That sounds just nutso to me. And I *still* have the problem that my baby is suffering from constant diarrhea. :( :( And neither of us is getting any sleep between all these different things. :(

[I'm NOT weaning btw - I've decided to take the opposite tactic and nurse her even more and not give her solids for a few days and see if the diarrhea clears up.]

Below I have some recent photos of Monkey5 so y'all can see her head. I'm also showing pics of my last 3 other babies and their huge Klingon heads so you can see the resemblance... I think Monkey5's is a *little* more pronounced, but not THAT different....



Can you see the prominent forehead and ridge on top? This is Monkey5 a few days ago.



More Monkey5.



More Monkey5.



Now, here is Monkey3 when she was a baby.



In this pic you can see Monkey3's bulging forehead better - it looks very similar to Monkey5's to me, Monkey5 just has a bit more of a ridge on top.



In this pic you can see Monkey2 [The Boy] and his big huge forehead and head - I don't have any digital baby pics of him, but even in this pic when he was 2yo you can see how prominent his forehead still was and it has that same shape. And you can see Monkey3 next to him with the same head shape.

The Boy's head was almost exactly like Monkey2's. We used to call him a Baby Klingon too.



This is Monkey4's head - her head is shaped almost exactly like Monkey5's, her forehead is just a tiny bit less pronounced.



Here you can see Monkey4's forehead better.

So, what do you guys think? I mean, I think Monkey5 has MY same weird head shape that ALL my kids have had - once you grow hair it isn't a big deal. LOL! [Seriously, if you feel my skull some time it is *exactly* the same as theirs!].

I certainly do not want my baby in the hospital for weeks on end while they crack open her skull, break it up into pieces and "rebuild" it to a more aesthetically pleasing shape....