Month: June 2015

Chicken Nerd

That’s me.  I am a big old nerd for chickens.  It all started in October of 2011, when a friend gave me a small incubator and a couple fertilized eggs.  I thought it would be fun for Eli to watch the eggs hatch, and to have a couple chicks for a few days…then we would give them to our friend whose mom has a farm.  Yeah, that didn’t happen.  Turns out Eli wasn’t the one who would have fun with the process of incubating eggs, it was ME!

I candled the eggs, nearly every day, to watch the progress, (you can watch a video about candling here).  I was totally obsessed with watching the development.  In only 21 days, we had two chicks!  From there it was, ‘well, maybe we can just keep them for a little while’…which turned into me purchasing and assembling a coop…which led to Josh building a chicken run, and me getting four more chicks in February of 2012.  (That time, I purchased the chicks from a hatchery – part of an order with a friend.  The hatchery sends the chicks in the mail.)

The following year, February of 2013,  I ordered ten more chicks.  I wanted to keep four of them, and raise and sell the rest when they were coop ready, (8-10 weeks), which is what I did.  A lot of people want chickens, but don’t want the hassle of raising chicks, so they were easy to sell.  That summer I had my first and only casualty – thanks to a hawk – so I had nine, total.  Nine was a good number, so I was done at that point.  No more chickens!

Normally, late winter is a good time to purchase chicks, so that they will be laying by late spring/early summer, but I skipped out on that last year since we were happy with our flock.  Then, last summer, my no-more-chickens rule went out the door when one of my birds went broody, (meaning she wanted to sit on a cluster of eggs and make babies).  When a hen gets broody, it’s almost easiest just to let her have babies, because it’s so hard to break a broody hen, and becomes a hassle.  They just want to sit sit sit, all day long, which causes issues in the coop.  So, even though I didn’t want any more chickens, I was actually sort of excited about it. This would be a whole different experience from incubating eggs or ordering chicks.  And, to top it off, the broody hen was my Polish, Denise.  My favorite bird.  Just look at her…

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Anyway, since I don’t have a rooster, and none of my eggs would ever turn into chicks, I got some fertilized eggs from a friend, and let Denise do her thing.  I made her a nest area in a large dog kennel, away from the flock, and there she sat, in a trance, for 21 days.  She would move the eggs from one spot to another, within the nest, several times a day, but she never left the kennel.  Usually, a hen will get up once a day to eat/drink/poop, but she didn’t.  Food and water were available to her, but she was so dedicated, she hardly ate anything the whole time.  I thought she was going to kill herself.  BUT – turns out she knew just what she was doing.  Both of the fertilized eggs hatched, right on time!   Here are some pictures of the process…

Denise in her trance.

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Just hatched (see the egg?)

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Babies!!

Babies!

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She was such a good mom.  She stuck by those chicks for over eight weeks, protecting them and being motherly.  When they were about 10 weeks, I had to get rid of one, because he was a rooster.  I kept the other, but, still to this day, she is scared to death of me because her mom instilled the fear in her.  So, since last summer, we were back to ten chickens.  Wow – apparently this is not only a chicken post, it’s also the world’s most boring math problem.

Anyway, guess who is broody again…  Denise!   She is currently sitting on six eggs.  I mean, how can I deny her of her need to be a mother again?  What kind of person would that make me?

But seriously, I am ridiculous.  I have some friends that will eventually take the young birds this time, so at least I am not keeping any, right?  I candled the eggs Monday and found that some of the eggs are definitely developing.  I checked a little early, since I am impatient, so a couple were questionable.  I mostly just wanted to make sure that at least two were developing, so Denise would actually be getting something out of this.  It’s a crap-shoot with the eggs.  I say that they were fertilized, but really that just means that I got some eggs from someone that has an “active rooster” (this is a family friendly blog).  It’s not a guarantee that all of them will be a go.

There it is!  A little past-present-future on our chicken life.  I do sell my eggs to a few people, to pay for the cost of having the chickens.  So it’s a fun little hobby, we get fresh eggs, and I get to be a nerd for free!

Okay, well – I am off to go prep dinner.  We’re having chicken tonight.

Opening Up

I recently did something that I didn’t anticipate doing… I shared my blog on social media.  I went back and forth on this, for a couple weeks, and finally decided to do it.  This was a big deal to me, because I am a fairly private person.  It’s not like I am secretive, or an introvert, I am just the type of person that doesn’t share a lot of details about my life, unless you are one of my close friends.  I don’t like a lot of attention, so I do my best to stay under the radar, especially on social media.  My rare Facebook posts are usually surface based pictures or something involving humor.  Allowing so many people into my life makes me uneasy, for whatever reason.  So why would I choose to blog, and spew such private details of my life to strangers, rather than just journal my thoughts?

I did it because I didn’t want to repeat history.  When Eli was born, I sort of shut myself out, for a couple years.  I was emotional, resentful, and unsure about where or how to fit in, and in being this way, I created an awkwardness in my life. I was in this whole new, scary world that I knew nothing about, and rather than put myself out there with people, I retracted.  I didn’t like that it seemed like people felt sorry for me, I couldn’t relate to other new moms, and I hated the fact that I cried so easily when people asked about him.  But it was all me.  I told myself that people felt sorry for me, that other mom’s didn’t get it, (because I hadn’t yet reached out to other mom’s of children with special needs), and I shouldn’t have been afraid to show my emotions.  I am happy to say that none of that lasted.  In time, I met some friends who had kids with disabilities and it opened up a whole new life for me.  I started opening up with old friends, and new, and really connecting.  I was finding myself again, and life seemed to get better and better.  I have experienced so much growth since Eli was a baby.  I know, now, that having a child with a disability doesn’t have to be scary or lonely.  I feel like, by putting our story out there, I can alleviate some of that awkwardness I felt before.  I can let everyone know that my family is okay, so they can be okay, too.  It won’t have to be a weird “thing” like … ‘whoa, they have two kids with special needs?  I wonder what that’s like?  They must be a mess.’  Etc.  It’s human nature to be curious, or assume, and I want everyone to be on the same page as us.  The more I keep things open, the easier it will be for us to continue our normal, happy life.  Now the truth is out!!  I am ultimately just super selfish. 🙂

So, I didn’t do it for the praise or attention.  That’s not me.  However, I really did appreciate everyone’s kind words and support.  Thank you for that.

FYI – My next post is going to be about my chickens, so you have that to look forward to.  I know, I know.  Now you are going to lose sleep due to anticipation, but I thought I would give you a heads up, since this blog is going to be all over the place.

A Little About Us

Most people reading this blog probably know us fairly well, but there are some who do not.  I will not have much to share, (hopefully), about baby, until my next appointment, so I thought I would throw in a post telling you all a little more about us.

Josh and I have lived in our home for just under 11 years.  While it is small, and 111 years old, we LOVE where we live.  We have been slowly making it into the place we want it to be, with a nice yard, a big deck, and a big garden outside, (thanks to Josh).  We have also remodeled much of the inside, with the help of our contractor friend next door. Most recently, we are finishing up a remodel upstairs, (a converted attic master bedroom), which Josh has been working on, with the help of our neighbor’s son.  It’s something we have been wanting to do for a while, and since we are reorganizing our house to accommodate another child, we figured now is the best time.  It’s not a huge change, but the walls are finally textured and painted, two ceiling fans were installed, the ugly carpet is gone, and Josh installed a dark hardwood.  It’s not quite done, but close enough to tell you that I love it.  I can’t wait to get a couple new dressers, and some new bedding to fancy it up a bit.

Josh has a love hate relationship with home projects.  While gratifying upon completion, home projects are a pain in the butt.  I think most people feel similar about anything DIY.  When he isn’t doing a home project, he is usually hard at work, managing his dad’s drilling company, with this brother.  He has a couple passions in life, as well, which are gardening and music.  As mentioned before, we have a large garden area, and this is no thanks to me.  I just water it once everything is planted and growing.  He has a true green thumb, and really enjoys the process.  And while he never made a career out of music, he is a talented musician.  He mostly plays guitar, but also plays the drums and taught himself to play the keyboard several years ago.  In my opinion, his biggest talent is his ability to write lyrics.  He is never one to write a cheesy song, (unless he is messing with me, and making up a song as he goes – talking about what I am doing…or my bad mood).  His lyrics make you think, and I love that.  I don’t just say this because I am his wife, and I have to.  It’s all true.  In fact, I should probably wrap up my Josh info paragraph before his head explodes from a giant ego.  (Love you, honey!)

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Next up – Eli.  There is so much to say about Eli, it’s hard to know where to begin.  I suppose I will just tell you a little about current Eli.  He attends a local public school that has a special education program, specifically for children with autism.  He has been in the same program since kindergarten, and will probably be there through 6th grade, as it is a K-6 program.  He is a pretty hard kid to get to know, so it’s great that he has been able to stay with the same people all these years.  School, in the past, has been tough for Eli because he is so sensitive to noise, especially children’s voices, but I think being in the same program has gotten him used to what to expect.  It’s also a very structured program, so he has a specific schedule every day, which is what he needs.

Things that Eli loves:  his iPad, slinkies, swinging in his special swing, Signing Time, (a series of DVD’s that teach sign language), puppets, Sesame Street, (yes, even at nine years old, and probably forever), looking at himself in the mirror, his shadow, typing scenes from his movies on the computer, and getting playfully thrown around, (which only dad can do, these days).  He has been obsessed with sign language since he was about one and a half, and he has yet to let that go.  He loves to watch himself sign in the mirror, and his shadow is good for the same thing.  He has also shown some interest in other languages, like Russian and Spanish.  Language is a funny thing for Eli because he can read anything, and type out an entire scene from a movie, based on memory, (word for word, because he watches with subtitles), but the comprehension piece is lagging a lot.  His receptive language is also very delayed.  He does talk, but it can be very hard to understand him.  He has come so far, though.  There was a time when I wasn’t sure I would ever hear him speak, and I am so proud of where he is today.  Thanks to ABA therapy, we are actually finding that he is capable of more than we knew, it’s just a matter of finding the best way to tap into his world.  Over time, I will probably talk more about Eli, and his unique ways, but for now I am going to cut myself off.  I could go on forever.

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I feel like there isn’t a whole lot to say about me.  I don’t have any passions like music, or dance, or art.  I guess the one thing that I can say I do love is comedy.  And even more than that, I love making people laugh.  Hopefully, one of these days, I can incorporate some humor into my blog, but for now I am pregnant and, let’s be real, pregnant women are the worst.  Wit = snarky comments that make me sound bitter and feisty.  I don’t actually FEEL that way, but hormones are a funny thing.  🙂

I am a bit of a homebody, and happy that way.  In addition to keeping Eli alive, we have two cats, a dog, and ten chickens to care for.  The pets are good company, for the most part.  I could go for less chickens, but that’s my own fault.  I got a little addicted to them in the first couple years of being a chicken lady.  Did you know that cute little chicks turn into big chickens?  They are fun, and I have learned a lot in having them, but I think, until we have a house with land, ten is a bit much.  Six would be great.  Say…does anyone want four chickens?

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As for my “real job”, I have two.  My main job is parent CNA.  In Colorado, there is a program that allows for parents to work for a home healthcare company, and get paid for caring for their child with a disability, (as long as they qualify, based on their needs).  For Eli, it’s the feeding, therapy, dressing/undressing, bathing, taking him to the bathroom, etc.  We are very fortunate to have such a program.  I believe only one other state offers the same.  I also have a side business called The Ruby Apron, with a close friend.  We do home painting parties for kids and adults.  She is the artist, I handle the business, and we both work the parties.  The parties are few and far between, but we have fun with them, and we really enjoy what we do.

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So there you have it.  A little more about who we are.  I hope no one fell asleep reading this post!  🙂

Until next time.

Coming out of the Darkness

As I left off, the first days, post news, were sort of dark.  We cried a lot, both having our moments of feeling overwhelmed, scared, sad, etc.  Somehow, we managed to alternate with this so that when one was down, the other was there to offer words of encouragement.  This is one of the perks of already having gone through this.  We know how important it is to talk to each other about what we are thinking and feeling, and we both know how the other handles this sort of thing.  Each passing day seemed a little easier.  By Monday, (four days post news), we were still off, but with a lot less tears.  We were both in the same mind set – that we needed to see how things went on Wednesday, and then take it day by day from there.

Wednesday was going to be a big day for us.  Weeks before, we had scheduled a fetal echocardiogram at Children’s Hospital, just based on the fact that Eli had a heart defect.  We had decided, with the midwife, at my very first appointment, that it would be good to rule out any issues there, since Eli was still undiagnosed.  Then, during our conversation with Eli’s geneticist, (that we had after we got baby’s diagnosis), she said she would get us in to see the Maternal Fetal Medicine team at Children’s, as well.  They called me 20 minutes after we had hung up, and scheduled an ultrasound for a couple hours after the fetal echo.  (It’s nice to know the right people in these situations.)  There, we would have an intensive ultrasound, looking at baby in a lot more detail, with a specialist.   It would be a stressful day, but obviously something we needed to do.  There is a pretty broad spectrum with Down syndrome.  Some kids are fairly healthy, while others have a lot of medical issues, especially in the first few years of life.  These scans wouldn’t tell us everything to expect, but could potentially rule out some of the more major complications.

Wednesday morning finally came, and Josh and I were both a bundle of nerves.  I can’t speak for him, but I felt like I was resisting the urge to puke all morning.  I go to Children’s all the time with Eli.  As he has gotten older, it’s really become no big deal, but today was different.  Even walking in was different… the smells, the vibe, my blood pressure.  Our first appointment was with Cardiology.  I was very impressed at how quickly they got us back, and how little wait time there was to get started, (not the norm for a Children’s appointment).    The tech told us that she wouldn’t be able to tell us much, and we would have to wait for the doc to get information, but to ask questions as we pleased.  We didn’t.  We were silent the whole time, and towards the end, she commented on it.  Josh was hardly watching the screen – looking down a lot.  He explained that we had too much experience staring at medical screens, and how not really knowing what you are looking at can put you on edge.  I cried then.  I had already had a lot of flashbacks that morning, of when Eli was a newborn, and it all just came flooding out.   I thought of things that I hadn’t thought of for years.  Not that I was suppressing those memories, I just didn’t have a reason to go back to those days in my head. She finished up about 10 minutes later and said the doc would be in shortly.  Then she came back later to say the doc would be even longer.  Awesome – more waiting.

Finally the doc came in, and gave us the news we had been waiting to hear – they found no issues with baby’s heart.  She even went so far as to say that if it were her baby, she would be very happy with what she saw.  BUT, then she said that doesn’t mean that baby girl is TOTALLY in the clear.  There is potential for a couple things to happen once a baby is born, and there is also a chance that they missed a small hole, since they can only see so much in utero.  Even with her disclaimer, it was still very good news, and put us so much more at ease.  We understood that this wasn’t a 100% guarantee, but it’s what we wanted to hear.  I cried happy tears then, and so did Josh.  I wanted to give her a huge hug, but then I thought that might be weird, so I held back.

One appointment down, one to go.

After a delicious, nutritious lunch in Cafe Children’s, we headed up to appointment number two, with Maternal Fetal Medicine.  I thought I had seen all of Children’s Hospital at this point, but turns out there is this beautiful little wing on the 4th floor, for mother’s and medically complicated babies.  It was really nice…I would almost call it fancy.   We had a 35 minute wait this time.  It doesn’t sound like much time, but my nerves spiked again, even more so than before our first appointment.  Just as I was starting to get really anxious, we were called back.

The nurse that did our ultrasound was very nice, and much more chatty than the first tech.  I think she was more qualified to give her opinions of things as she went, but would then remind us that we would talk to the doc later.  She did a great job of pointing out some fun things, too, like the baby’s huge feet.  We got a good little chuckle out of that…they really were big.  She even grabbed them with her little hands, while we were watching her.  So, it definitely wasn’t gloomy like the first scan had been, and that was refreshing.  She wrapped things up, telling us that she didn’t see one thing that caused any concern.  There are a handful of markers that they check for, and our baby had none of those markers.  The bilateral EIF, that initially pulled the trigger on us deciding to do genetic testing, had even faded.  Well, the right side had…and when they only see one EIF, it’s not even considered a marker.  She asked me, before she left, if we would have ever decided to do the Verifi testing if they hadn’t seen that, and I told her no.  She thought that was super interesting because she didn’t feel like the bilateral EIF was even worth mentioning these days, (there is a lot of debate as to whether or not this should even be considered a soft marker).  It is pretty crazy how all of this worked out.  However, I am currently feeling grateful that we got the diagnosis ahead of time.  It was just such a shock and a blow when we had Eli, and got such scary news within an hour of him being born. It took away from the celebration part of the birth, and we ended up feeling a little robbed because of that.  At least this time we will feel more prepared, and so will our family and friends.

The doctor came in and we ended up having a very open, long conversation about things.  He said if he had done the scan, knowing nothing about us or the diagnosis, he would not have had any concerns.  He said that happens maybe 30%(ish) of the time – where a couple has a baby with Down syndrome, (not knowing before birth), and the professionals go back and look at ultrasound, and think – there is no way we could have known.  Everything looked so “normal”.  I told him that the midwife said we could do an amnio to be 100% certain the baby does have Down syndrome. (The test we had is 99% accurate – so we felt the amnio seemed silly, but I wanted his opinion.)  He was honest and said that if we were planning to terminate the pregnancy, based on the Down syndrome diagnosis, it would make sense to do the amnio.  Since that wasn’t the case for us, it didn’t seem necessary to take the risk.  (The risks are minimal, but pretty much all statistics mean nothing to me these days.)   We agreed with his logic, and stuck with our decision to not proceed with an amnio.  Though it is natural for your brain to go there, we are NOT in the frame of mind that this was a testing mistake.  She has Down syndrome, and that is okay.

We ended up leaving the doctor, deciding it would be fine for me to continue being seen by my regular office, as long as they felt comfortable with that, (and they do).  I will have ultrasounds every 4 weeks to keep track of baby’s growth.  This will start at 28 weeks, since that is around the time when they usually start to see a lag in growth, (if they see it at all).

So – what does all of this information mean?  At the risk of sounding negative, (which is not how I feel),  I want things to be clear for everyone.  This is all good news.  The fact that things are looking so good now is amazing, and it provided us with some relief in regard to some of our medical related fears.  But – they can only see so much at this point.  I should mention that Eli actually had an intensive ultrasound when I was around 7 months along, because he had an irregular heartbeat.  We saw a Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist at Lutheran, and she cleared him, saying everything was fine, when it wasn’t. There are a lot of things that can not be seen, and we can’t dismiss the possibility of any medical issues just because we got this good news.  There is also no way to tell us anything about her intellectual ability, if she will have major feeding issues, or whether or not she will have autism, in addition to Down syndrome.  That’s all stuff that we will find out later on, and deal with as it comes, but it’s still a little terrifying, if I am being honest.  Unknowns are always scary, but if there is one thing I have learned, having Eli, it’s that I can NOT use my energy focusing on the what if’s.  I have to take things one day at time, and try to focus on the good.  Save the fear for when you KNOW exactly what to fear, then work through it.  It all sounds so easy, right?  haha   It’s not.  Even as a veteran, I will have my freak out moments.  I am far from perfect.

These past couple weeks have been a real roller coaster, but Josh and I are currently in a pretty good place.  We won’t consistently be in that good place for the next few months, we will have our ups and downs, but one thing is for sure – this baby girl is going to be loved and celebrated, as all babies should be.  As mom, I am already feeling that love.  We are definitely going to need a lot of extra support in the coming months, but we don’t want pity.  This was not what we were expecting out of FINALLY deciding to have another baby, but we also weren’t expecting Eli, and he has turned out to be the light of our life.