A Real Brief Catch-Up

I know it’s November. I know there is a lot I could have been posting on our blog, but I haven’t made the blog a priority. There have been too many other needs that I have had to meet. These needs have included:

• Emma
• Mark
• Zachary
• Me

That’s probably the order too. I don’t mean for this to be a whine session, but there are a lot of feelings I want to record.

Emma has been hard. At our last doctor’s visit, our pediatrician said the words I have officially been trying to avoid: special needs. Gratefully, Emma’s special needs are physical and not mental. But, nonetheless, I am worn out. Seriously. I have a binder of Emma’s doctor’s appointments.

• 20 days in the NICU
• 3 well child checks
• 13 weight checks
• 7 specialist appointments
• 8 tests
• 12 therapy sessions
• 1 surgery
• 2 in-home health care visits

I think that’s it. That is 46 appointments in her 29 weeks of life. Or 26 appointments in the last 26 weeks. We have four more appointments already scheduled. I just recently had a week without any doctor’s or therapist’s appointments for anyone—and I didn’t know what to do with my time. Mark said, “If you didn’t have appointments, you wouldn’t have any social life.” Sad, but true.

Mark has taken such good care of us. Like—mega good care. But, there are a lot of things that he can’t do and a lot of things he doesn’t understand, simply by not being able to do everything. He rarely goes with us to doctor’s appointments because he needs to work. Emma won’t take a bottle from him, so he doesn’t have to fight her. Those are just some examples.

And poor Zachary, he has been such a good boy. I am so grateful he’s a good boy. He’s given us problems and scares too, but overall—such a good boy. I will write about him as well.

Then me. Well, I’m exhausted. Not because I don’t get enough sleep. Mark lets me sleep in as often as possible. I get an average of eight hours a night. Dreamy—right? Well, that typically is enough for me. But I’m exhausted from stress. I eat everything I can get my hands on, and I’m still losing weight. I currently weight 135. It’s creepy. I’ll write about it.