Vacations not so vacationey!

Wow, that was a really long vacation. We had so much freakin' fun but it really took it all out of me just being gone for 2 weeks with a midget. We left on a thursday and drove to Bellingham, Washington. On Friday we went to the outlet malls and got some killer deals and then drove to Ocean Shores, Washington. It was only supposed to be a 4 hour drive but the horrible Seattle traffic made us casualties of war. The drive took us 8 hours and Sterls was getting so mad at being stuck in the car for 11 hours the first day and 8 the next. Oceans Shores was pretty small but we had a lot of fun. Trevor and I rented mopeds and cruised the beach. Apparently, the beach on the penisula (It was about 1 mile wide so the ocean was on both sides of us and a lake was in the middle of it, SO AWESOME!!!) that we stayed on is a state highway so that was pretty rad.
We also took some speedy go-karts around the track and played skee-ball. Thanks to my parents for providing the free time share for us and for watching Sterling so we could pretend to be kids again.



Sterling loved the beach. We put him down and he instantly starting digging a huge hole in front of him. He really hated the feel of the sand though and kept trying to wipe his hands off.
After a week in Ocean Shores we decided last minute to go to Utah for the week to visit all our friends and family. I loved the drive from Portland to Pendelton. So gorgeous and green and made me want to move. Utah was unseasonably good tempered in its weather. I usually bake and just want to die because the heat makes me really sick. I was actually able to go out and enjoy myself for once...I have no idea how I survived there for 7 years in the awful heat. By the time we drove from Utah to home, Sterling was just done and hated the car. He whined the whole way home and cried for the last few hours. I can't really blame him, if I wasn't an adult that is supposed to be responsible and deal with stuff like that, I would have balled like a baby. When he wasn't whining he was saying "Uh-oh" repeatedly for hours on end. He learned it this trip and he was just go on and on. I must say it was rather cute though because we knew he was awake when we would hear him start saying it again and again. I was so sick of the car as we did about 53 hours of driving in 2 weeks. We had a lot of fun though and it was really fun to see all my friends that I only get to see about once every 1-2 years.


Sadly, I only have a little over a month left until my maternity leave is up. I have spent 24/7 with Sterling since he was born, so I don't know how I am going to adjust to only seeing him 3-4 hours a night. Hopefully it will all work out and be a smooth transition for us both.


Anyways, had fun but really tiring be on vacation with the little guy. He is a stud though, he barely cried or whined the first 2 legs of our trip.

-Alauna

Hope Classic 2010

So it is official. I am helping organize the 2010 first annual Hope Classic Wheel and Run in Calgary. Trevor and I are on the SBHASA board of directors.. It is in August every year and the Canadian national Spina Bifida Association is trying to make this a huge national event accross Canada. So I am really excited because this year Trevor and I are heading to Edmonton in order to run this 8km run. So everyone needs to mark their calendars for the middle of august next year and attend this event. There is a 5km wheel, walk and run and a 8km wheel, walk and run. It has one of the lowest entry fees for any run only $18 dollars and you get a free t-shirt and a huge barbeque after. Plus, all the money goes towards promoting awareness about Spina Bifida. Check out http://hopeclassic.ca/en/ for more information. So freakin' excited that we can mix things up in the association and do some good.

-Alauna

JUNE IS SPINA BIFIDA and HYDROCEPHALUS AWARENESS MONTH!!!

Just a quick post to let everyone know that June is the official national month of awareness for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus.  Here is a link for more information: http://www.sbhasa.ca/ .  Anyone and everyone in their child bearing years needs to be taking 0.4 milligrams of folic acid daily BEFORE they are pregnant.  The defect associated with Spina Bifida occurs the first week of development and BEFORE YOU KNOW YOU ARE PREGNANT!  50% of pregnancies are unplanned so this means everyone should be taking folic acid to help decrease the cases of Spina Bifida that are occurring.  Some cases such as mine own aren't preventable but most cases are preventable.  Tell all your friends to help decrease cases of this disability that creates many challenges for these children born with defect!!!

-Alauna

Mealtime with Sterling has been a nightmare for us...He has been difficult with eating ever since he was born.  He wasn't aloud to eat the first two days after he was born because he had a big surgery.  After his surgery they wouldn't let me breast-feed him because they wanted to monitor how much food was going into him and how much was coming out.  So they made me bottle feed him the next two weeks.  Well, when I finally got around to breast-feeding him he wouldn't even try to give into it.  It takes 4 muscles to feed from a bottle and 40 to breast-feed.  You can understand why he has no interest after being fed from a bottle so long.  I had several lactation consultants working with us trying millions of tricks and nothing would work.  They usually just make you take out  bottles completely and when they are hungry enough they will finally give in, but since Sterling was healing from a major surgery we couldn't try that approach.  So after 3 months of constant trying, waking up and pumping breast-milk every 2 hours and pumping for 45 minutes and then trying to feed him for an hour, I thought I was going to go crazy with sleep depravation because I only slept 2-3 hours each day we decided to just bottle feed him totally (I still pumped 5 times a day when I was awake until he was 6 months).  We thought he feeding issues would finally be over!  WRONG!!! 

Ever since he was born he has had really bad problems keeping his food down.  Sometimes he would throw-up his whole bottle just minutes after we fed him and then we would have to feed him another whole bottle.  Not just spit up like other babies, masses of vomit everywhere all the time.  All the doctors told us by the time he was 6 months it would pass and to not worry.  So Sterling is now 10 months old and still throwing u

p excessive amounts of food.  I was mortified when we were is church and Sterling started making retching sounds (while everyone in the whole rooms looks back to see what it wrong) and then he proceeds to vomit all over the room.  Not only did this happen once but twice and I was completely embarrassed and the whole room smelled like vomit including the vomit that often gets all over me.  You think I would learn to bring a second change of clothes because I have to changed my clothes about twice everyday, but no I don't.  I don't even bring a towel to clean up after his little throwing up escapades.

We have been trying to feed Sterling solids for about 5 months now which has been the worst part of this.  He took to cereal really well minus all the vomiting that has accompanied it but that wasn't anything we weren't used to.  The little monkey will NOT eat anything but cereal.  I have spends hundreds and hundreds of dollars trying to find him something that he will eat.  His pediatrician told us that it can take up to 40 tries of a food for some babies to eat it.

  Believe me, I have tried giving him all fruits and vegetables and meats that many times and he still will not eat anything but cereal.  I finally got his booked into a feeding evaluation for next week because at 12 months they are supposed to be eating pretty much  everything that adults can eat and all Sterling can eat is cereal.  Turns out, that Sterling isn't just a picky little baby or that I am doing something wrong.  Believe me, I thought I was just doing something wrong and it was my fault.  I have never been more frustrated than I have been the last few months.  Mealtime usually consisted of trying to get him to eat things for about 45-60 minutes 3-4 times daily.  Who has four hours to waste trying to feed their baby solids.  Sterling was born with a Chiari 2 malformation.  It can be linked to Spina Bifida.  It is a condition where the medulla, forth ventricle and cerebellum is displaced into the cervical spinal canal.  SOme people don't experience symptoms but the most common one being a sensitive gag reflux and food texture issues.  Meaning that whenever they eat food they feel like they are going to throw up and some do even into adulthood because they cannot learn to control this.  As well, they cannot eat some foods with certain textures that bother them.  So....looks like we are in for the long haul with this one.  Below is a picture of his malformation.  The first one shows how parts of the brain are being pulled into his spinal canal and the second shows a normal one or what it looks like after surgery.  Most people with has have to get several surgery's to take care of this because it can cause severe pain.  Fingers crossed Sterling gets over this or no pain is involved because we already know he has tons of other surgeries waiting for him.  I hate to think that we have to add another one to his already long list.  Poor little guy...Doesn't seem very fair that one little guy has so much to go through so early in life and tons yet to come. 

-Alauna

10km done!!!

So I ran the dreaded 10km race this morning.  It wasn't as bad as I expected but in some ways it was worse.  At 1 mile I couldn't believe I had already ran that far because it seemed like I had just started a couple of minutes ago.  The whole middle was just pure hot sunny torture.  But by km 7 I was in rough shape.   I saw a $5 bill on the course and I was so tired I couldn't even dream of bending over to pick it up.  The last km I realized I had some energy that I had been saving so it wasn't so bad, but it made me kind of sad because I had been saving it and realized I had more than I thought so I think I could have done it 5 minutes faster.  OH well!  My goal was just to finish it and run pretty much the whole way so not so bad.  Next time I will know where to expend my energy.  Props to Dana who ran the race 21 minutes faster than me.  Hardcore I must say!  I must tell you that the last 3 km's I was thinking I wish I was Dana so I was done this freakin' thing.

But I have decided I am a masochist because I just signed up for two more races this summer.  I signed up for the Race for Pace 10km at the beginning of July because I know I can knock a bunch of time off my last time because I had so much energy left at the end.  I even walked around downtown for two hours after I was finished and I feel like I didn't even run a 10km today. The race for pace is a charity race for kids with motor disabilities (like Sterling who can't move his legs).  So the money from the entry fee goes towards that.  I also signed up for the 8km Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus race in Edmonton.  All the money goes towards that cause which of course I couldn't pass up an opportunity to get a run in and help with a great cause that has affected our family.  It is mainly to raise awareness in the community about these causes.  Love it and even Trevor and baby Sterls are going to do the 5km walk and wheel at the same time.  I am pretty excited to see all the little ones that are in wheelchairs.  They always make me smile to see 2-7 year olds with smiles wheeling around like nobodies business.  

So yeah, proud to be done my first 10km and excited to see how the next two turn out!

-Alauna