Happy Birthday to Jude!

7:35 AM Posted In Edit This 2 Comments »
emoticonHappy Birthday to Jude! emoticon



Today celebrates TWO entire years that my Juders has been here! YEA! (Yes, I am very sad that he is most definitely NOT a baby baby anymore, but he's still MY baby so that's alright!)

In typical me fashion, I've spent last night and this morning thinking over the last two years and what all has happened in his little life thus far.

Jude was born very precariously. I had a VBAC with him a mere 13 months after delivering my second set of twins 5 weeks early with an emergency c-section.

Yeah.

The doctors were gracious enough to tell me, about 20 minutes after he was born, that he had a kidney condition that they'd been monitoring in vitro for several months. (I'm still rolling my eyes. Talk about a 'the baby's fine' speech. "Oh, your son's labor was so difficult and dangerous not because of you but because of a congenital condition we conveniently forgot to mention to you, which is why we waited so long to take him and clean him up because we were worried he wouldn't survive the birth" "ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?" was my response. I was very angry with the doctors!)

He has a multi-cystic dysplastic kidney. Which simply means that his left kidney was so full of cysts that it couldn't function properly and the best we could hope for was for that kidney to completely STOP working so it quit throwing the rest of his body out of whack.

He had high blood pressure, ever-threatening kidney infections, and the threat of the WRONG kidney shutting down because of the chemical imbalance for the first two months of his life. Very Scary. Here I was having to worry constantly and I hadn't had any time to prepare my mind for it. I was a wreck. It did eventually shut down and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief when his little body finally was able to regulate itself.

Then he stopped gaining weight and got severe diarrhea around the time he was four months old. Both of which can be symptoms of kidney failure. One doctor we took him to actually thought I was purposefully starving him and reported us to CPS because 'I was killing my baby". *ugh* I kept thinking, 'if I was trying to kill him, I wouldn't have TAKEN him to the doctor because he's so skinny in the first place!" I reported the doctor and took him to a slew of other, more qualified physicians, all of whom thought that it MUST have something to do with his kidney or some other unknown condition that he had but was too scared to diagnose anything.

Finally, I took him to my mom's doctor. She doesn't specialize in children, but she's been practicing for over 40 years and isn't scared of anything. She looked at him, listened to his symptoms, did some blood work, and promptly diagnosed him. Lactose Intolerant.

Seriously?

Yeah. All that fuss, all the people coming to my house threatening to steal my babies because 'I was killing Jude', all those sleepless nights and dazed days because he has a lactose sensitivity and the doctors were too scared of bureaucrats to diagnosis him. Since I was breast feeding, I cut dairy out of my diet and started supplementing him with soy formula.

Problem solved!

So, although we are very good friends with both the nephrologist and the urologist and will be for many many years to come, my Jude is turning two today. I did NOT kill him. (*seriously still rolling my eyes*) The entire family drinks soy milk and we buy special lactose free cheeses (for family meals anyway!). And today, my baby is a happy, healthy 27 pound butterball! :)

He loves to fight with his brothers (and usually wins because I always end up shouting 'Don't be hitting your little brother!) and idolizes his Ninny (my oldest daughter, Harmony). He's in love with his cousin and named all the baby dolls in the house after her. He wants to watch Iron Man every single day, all day long! He chases my cats and carries around the kittens and waits every single day by the bay window waiting for his daddy to pull into the drive-way. The other day, he slid down the slide by himself for the first time. He's my sweetie. :)

We're having a private family party this evening, and then we are going to go this weekend and have a large family party with my niece (who's turning 15 tomorrow) at the local pool! Whoohooo!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Awwe what a cute little guy he is! Congratulations on making it through the first two years with so many struggles!
Blessings,
Kate

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