A new funny blog

Just wanted to let you all know that my funny husband has launched his own blog. I think he'll be updating it every couple of days or so - probably more often than I do.

As most of you know, Brian is a pretty amazing writer and he's already posted some pretty funny columns that will bring a smile to your face. This won't be the same type of family-blog I write and he'll touch on all sorts of topics as you'll see.

Check it out. I'll put it on my blog scroll too....

http://www.postcardsfromhedge.blogspot.com/

Weight Gain

Today, I had one of those unbelievable conversations. Brian always maintains that people say the most remarkable things to me, and this is the perfect example.

I was in the city today and I had an OBGYN appointment and afterward I went to a nearby juice bar for a turkey sandwich and mango smoothie. After I placed my order, and was quietly waiting for the smoothie, the college-aged young lady behind the counter said to me: "Is it true you get weight gain when you're on the pill?"

Huh? My immediate thought was she thinks my baby bump was created by eating a few too many donuts and the birth control pill. Oh No! Do I need to start wearing those cheesy shirts that say: "One in the Oven" and "Passenger on Board?"

Finally, after I was able to respond, she did seem to realize I was pregnant and apparently that's why she felt comfortable asking me the question. I guess she thought that as a pregnant woman I should know all about weight gain - on the pill - off the pill, etc.. Or, perhaps she thought that pregnant women are just experts in all types of female related-issues.

She's not the only one to make these types of comments. I'm now at the official part of pregnancy where these "fun" comments are just rolling in.

A few weeks ago, when I mentioned to another pregnant woman at a store that I was pregnant her response was: "Oh, I couldn't tell at all." Now, I don't really believe that because I certainly look like I have a bun in the oven - as the shirts say.

But then, the same day in the same shirt, our insurance saleswoman made the comment: "Wow, you've really popped" which is a polite way of saying: "You're GIGANTIC. You're just HUGE."

Now, I KNOW that I have to post pictures so you can all judge for yourselves. They're on the way...just as soon as I can find the fire wire to download the pictures.

It's official

We thought the idea of keeping the baby's sex a secret and finding out on his/her birthday would be a delightful surprise, but then as we were looking at ultrasound on the large 20-inch flat-screen TV , we just had to know.

It's a boy. Chance Curtis Hedger is set to arrive around the end of August. We'll probably call him Chance, or maybe CC and as he gets older, he could always use the slightly more dignified, C. Curtis Hedger if he chooses. There's lots of options with the name, and Brian's family has a history of C.C. Hedger - dating back to Christopher Columbus Hedger - who was a great great uncle of Brian's.

Baby Chance was quite active during the last ultrasound and apparently will be another chatty Hedger. He spent most of one-and-a-half-hour ultrasound with his mouth open gabbing.

Everything looked great at the ultrasound. It was taken at 22 weeks. It's still a bit early to know much about bone length, but right now the doctor says everything is in the average range. We had Liz's last ultrasound at 24 weeks and she was still in average ranges. Basically, that means that babies grow a great deal in those final weeks of a pregnancy and achondroplasia is generally detected in the final trimester of a pregnancy. The doctor wants another ultrasound closer to the arrival date.

I told Liz that Chance can hear us talking now. And, everytime she talks he's getting used to her voice. She wanted to be sure he'll know her voice. Her approach is to yell at my stomach: "Hi Baby, I'm ELIZABETH HEDGER. I'm your big sister. You will clean up all of my toys." OK. Just kidding about the last part about the toys. But she does yell her name.

She's done this a dozen or more times, and now she's just starting to think that he may start to recognize her voice.

It's cute because every evening when Brian's reading to her, Baby Chance kicks quite a bit - picking up on Liz and Brian's voices and making sure we know he's part of the family.

Catching up

The good news is Baby Hedge is actively moving and kicking now every day. I'm 21 weeks pregnant and Liz is amazed to see my belly get bigger and bigger.

It was funny to see Liz's reaction when I told her the baby was kicking me. She knows she's not supposed to kick and I could tell she didn't understand why it was OK for the Baby to kick and not OK for her to kick. So, once I explained that this is how the baby lets us know he/she is moving and healthy, she was thrilled to put her hand on baby and feel for kicks.

Brian took her for her hearing test last week and luckily her hearing is 100% back to normal from the tubes. Unfortunately, it looks like her ears are already rejecting the tubes, which really stinks. But we'll play it by ear (ha ha).

We also might need to have her adenoids and tonsils removed because of her loud snoring and problems breathing but we'll monitor that situation closely too.

Unfortunately, we've been hit by the brutal economy and Brian was laid off nearly two weeks ago. We weren't surprised given the economy and the state of journalism publications now days, but it's still a challenge.

Luckily, he's a pro at freelancing and he'll get a break from the long commutes to the city (2 hours one way). So, we're getting more family time together. Also, when Liz finishes preschool in May, she'll be able to stay home with Daddy.

And, as many of you know, (from Brian's guest-writing appearances on this blog) he's well known for his snarky, fun and sarcastic writing and I think he'll be starting up a blog too. I'll post his address once he officially unveils it.

And, before I get requests for it, I promise we'll post some prego pics. soon too!

Big News

When we were in Virginia Beach last May, Liz surprised my friends and myself by announcing that she wanted two Mommys. Her explanation was quite simple - She wanted me as her main mommy to play with her, and the other mommy to take care of a baby if we had one.

Well, now we're having another baby, but no, we're not getting another mommy. I'm almost 18 weeks pregnant so well into the 4th month of pregnancy.

All has been going well. I've just been really tired, but everyone says that's normal for a second pregnancy. The docs are a bit more cautious with this pregnancy and we've had a few ultrasounds and Baby Hedge looks quite great. The baby is due at the end of August and likely will come right around when Liz starts Kindergarten. They'll be five years apart.

Liz is very excited to be a big sister. She's even said to me, "I can't wait for the baby to come to help me clean up my toys." She's going to have to wait for that for a long time.

As most of you know, it's very rare for an average-height couple to have two children with achondroplasia but with that said, we're still at a higher risk of having another baby with achondroplasia. Though, the percentages are low.

We'll probably do a couple more ultrasounds when Baby Hedge is bigger and we might even find out if it's a boy or girl!

Successful surgery

We rose early this morning and headed to one of the Children's Memorial hospitals for the 7:45 a.m. surgery. Liz was excellent. We'd talked to her a lot about how they would put a mask on her to help her sleep and then she'd have the surgery so she could hear better.

There were plenty of toys for her to play with, but when the little boy's surgery before her ended up going longer, she got bored. She kept saying: "When am I going to have surgery?"

Her doctor reported that she had a great deal of thick fluid, which was obviously causing the hearing loss. This was her third surgery and she was a pro - though she had her first when she was less than a year old and her second when she was only two. So, this will probably be the first one she'll remember.

They had suggested giving her some drugs before the anesthesia, but since she's older and was prepared for it, we turned them down. Turns out she was excellent. I went back with her while they helped put her to sleep with the mask and she didn't even cry at all.

Seventeen minutes later when we went back to see her, she was happily sucking on a Popsicle. Of course, she did get some of the side effects of the anesthesia - the grumpiness. We're all a bit tired, but she's been fabulous.

She's still said, "I can't hear you," a few times. It just might take a day or two for all of her hearing to resume. But on the bright side, she did remark to me, "Mommy, things sound very different." I'm hopeful that means things are louder. There have been times I've spoken softly to her just to see if she can hear me, and I think she can.

Here's a picture of her before the surgery. She's getting a bit impatient waiting for it to happen. But still in pretty good spirits.



This was a photo from a few weeks ago after we had her hearing tests and appointment with her doctor. We always try to do something fun after medical appointments. She was eating a most delicious double-chocolate cupcake across from Children's Memorial's main hospital campus. This time, we had to take it easy on food - just in case she might get sick, but if she's feeling fine, we'll get something special for her tomorrow.

Mommy, I can't hear you!

It became quite apparent to us in the last month that Liz simply can't hear us. At first, I thought it was "selective" hearing loss.

For instance, I might say, "Liz, I need you to clean up your room." Her response: "Mommy, I can't hear you."

Sure, you can't hear me, I thought. Of course you can hear me.

Well, it became very obvious that in fact she can't hear me because no matter what I say, she can't hear me most of the time. A lot of times, she doesn't even respond to me simply because she can't even hear me talking.

It also became clear at school. Often times, we'd be walking into her school and a friend behind us, would say hello. She wouldn't even respond because she couldn't hear them. Her teacher even commented about this to me.

So, we took her to Children's Memorial in Chicago two weeks ago to see her Ear Nose Throat doctor and got her hearing tested. It was confirmed that she has moderate hearing loss on the left side and severe loss on the right side. They also said that with her hearing loss it would be a huge safety issue in the summer because her hearing is so bad she won't be able to hear vehicles behind her.

The doctor believes the culprit is a huge amount of fluid in her ears from an ear infection in January. So, we're going to do the surgery for tubes early tomorrow morning and are anticipating her hearing should return to normal again.

I'm a bit worried because she has a cough and we all know how strict the doctors are about not doing surgery on kids if they even have a sniffle. However, her pediatrician is convinced the cough is being caused by the fluid and the cough won't go away until the ear fluid goes away.

She's had tubes before - and all has gone well - so we're hopeful that the same will be true this time.

And most importantly, I'm looking forward to her hearing again so we don't have to practically shout around the house.

First Trip to the Dentist

I finally had a chance to breathe a bit today since I got President's Day off and spent the morning making a number of appointments for Liz.

We've been delaying the Dentist for some time and now that she's four, I feel horrible that she hasn't been yet. As luck would have it, there was a cancellation and we got the appointment today.

I actually wonder if the delay was actually a benefit because she's heard so much about going to the Dentist that she no longer cried and screamed at the thought. Of course, I figured we'd still have a nice meltdown at the office.

So to prepare, I let her play at McDonalds an hour before. While we were at the store earlier, I saw our neighborhood newspaper which had a picture of her dentist on the front. I mentioned it to her in this very positive way: "Hey, here's your dentist."

And as luck would have it, the guy behind, speaks loudly in horror about going to the dentist: "She has to go to the dentist. Poor kid. Everyone hates the dentist."

Luckily, Liz didn't hear most of what he said - as he proceeded to go on and on and on and on about how horrible his childhood dentist was and the torture he endured. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't a huge fan of my childhood dentist who was known for taking smoke breaks in between treatment.

But I really wanted Liz's attitude to be positive so that her experience might go well.

Despite the loudmouth at the grocery, things couldn't have been better! She had an excellent dental hygienist. She let them clean her teeth, take XRays and even do a fluoride treatment. They even took her on a tour of the office.

There are some concerns with kids with achondroplasia about teeth crowding, etc ... Right now, Xrays show that Liz's permanent teeth are precisely where they should be.

She also is cavity free - which we hope to maintain. She got her picture taken for the "cavity free" bulletin board.

Here are some pictures from the cell phone - so they're not perfect. You'll notice some tentative looks from her, but overall, she was quite amazing.






Check out those shades they gave her so the light wouldn't bother her eyes. Impressive.