Sorry I didn’t post the last couple of days; we had a fairly full weekend! Went to a community yard sale in a nearby town on Saturday morning, then met some of our neighbours and had dinner with them. Please pray for us in our new relationship with them as they are not Christians.
On Sunday we went to church in the morning, then had friends over for lunch. We spent the afternoon getting some yard work done, then Louis cut (well, buzzed) his and Tobi’s hair! I think the last time Tobi’s hair was this short was when he was 6 or 7 months old! The top picture shows his new haircut!
I wanted to introduce Tobi a bit in this post.
His full name is Tobias James (James for my father.) He was born on December 18, 2007. I had been experiencing latent labour since December 14 (Louis’ birthday), had been sent home from the hospital twice, before my doctor agreed to induce labour. So, we went in the evening after supper, and they broke my water. They also gave me pitocin, but I can’t remember if that was before or after the epidural. Probably before, since I had to wait a while for the epidural. I was 4cm before they even got started so things got difficult quickly. They ended up giving me a drug called Nubain to hold me over til I could get the epi (the anesthesiologist was doing a C-section.)
After about 6.5 hours of labour, Tobi was born! However, he wasn’t breathing. The Nubain can suppress the breathing of the child if birth is within 4 hours, and Tobi came in that time period. They were able to get him breathing pretty quickly with the antidote, but he still wasn’t doing well so they took him to the Special Care Nursery. He had a lot of air in his belly, so he had a naso-gastric tube to release it. He also developed an air pocket in his chest near his heart, but that resolved itself over time. It was 12 hours before we could hold him, then another 12 hours before we could take him to our room.
They hadn’t let me nurse him while he was in Special Care, so getting him to nurse took a lot of effort. He just wanted the easy bottle! Eventually (after we got home) he did get the hang of it, then we had the hardest time weaning him months later!
He started developing jaundice, and several hours of we finally got Tobi in our room, we had to give him back up to go under the special lights to break down the jaundice. He was in there for about another 12 hours. They kept us in hospital another couple of days to make sure his jaundice kept improving, then after a week we were finally sent home. I had been medically discharged after only 3 days, but since they had the room available, the hospital allowed me to stay there until Tobi was released. What a huge blessing!
When Tobi was 2 months old, he got really sick, and after abdominal ultrasounds it was discovered he has hydronephrosis of the left kidney. Basically, the part of the kidney that collects urine is enlarged. Usually that’s due to a blockage of some sort that causes a back-flow of urine. We haven’t found out exactly what is causing his. His hydro has improved over time, and though he still goes for routine ultrasounds, surgery shouldn’t be required. A miracle of healing! He’s gone from bordering a grade 2-3 severity (4 being the most severe) and is now a 1.
Now Tobi is 2 and a half and he’s catching up in size to his peers. He was always small for his age, but hit physical milestones quickly. He was walking at 8.5 months! His speech has been a bit delayed, and he had some speech therapy in the winter. He’s made huge improvements since then in his vocabulary!
He’s a caring big brother, who will pat his sister’s tummy and say “there there, Annie” when she’s crying. He just learned his shapes and is so proud of himself! He loves to “hel daddy” (help daddy) in the workshop, and his favourite movie is Franklin and the Green Knight.
Lord, thank you for my son. I pray that You would give me the wisdom to teach him according to your will. Please help me to be the mother you want me to be. Thank you for his health. I pray that you would keep your wing of protection over him always. I pray that you will guide Louis and I in how to raise Tobias to be a Godly man in a society that has many expectations of men that are not glorifying to you. Amen.
