The Potty Training Diaries {the things I learned}

Things I have come to realize during potty training. {in no particular order}

1. Your child can no longer be in onesies. This quickly diminshed our wardrobe. Thankfully, we are entering fall and she gets a "new" one anyway. Also, I am grateful to my mom who turned some of her onesies into shirts! Which she is doing a lot of because 1.Generally speaking they start making t-shirts at around 2T and 2. I have a small child who will not be anywhere near that size until she is probably 3!

2. Hide the toilet paper. :) Lo loves nothing more than to just pull it all out and if I am not watching put it all in the potty!

3. I have never needed more patience then when I began this process. Recognizing the little steps and celebrating those are all your focus can be on, not the bigger picture.

4. If people tell you they potty trained their child in one day or that is all it takes that is a lie. While I believe it only takes the one day for it to "click," it still takes several weeks of practice to get it completely right. Just remember how long it took them to get walking really well down.

5. That daycare settings can really set you back, especially if your child doesn't talk much. When Lo started leaving the Church nursery, the Y kid zone, Moppets dry I knew we had reached a milestone. Mostly, because she does not tell the workers she needs to go and they don't "pay attention" to her signs. I mean that in a nice way, they have lots of kids to look after and I understand how a 1.5 year is out of the norm to think about taking potty.

6. There are phases of potty training you go through. At first you beat your head against the wall "teaching" them what to do. It feels as if they will never master it. Then they do.

Then you reach a phase where they learn you jump a mile high when they say they need to "go." Even if they don't, they are just trying to get out of the doctor's office, or nap time. Stinker.

Then you go through a phase where they need to check out every bathroom of every establishment you frequent. Awesome. It isn't like it is cold and flu season or anything!

Then you reach the phase where you trust your child and don't have to constantly hound them about going potty!

But then come regression. Expect it, it will make you beat your head against the wall less.

7. Plan on potty training to be a marathon, not a sprint. One day they will get there!

Specialist Appointment for Baby Q

I am a writer. That is how I best express my emotions, speaking my feelings has never come easy for me. So bare with me as I go through an in-detail account of this experience.

~~~~~~~~~~

Last Thurs (Oct. 7th) we had our specialist appointment. It started off with the longest sono I have ever endured. The tech measured every.single.body part. on this boy. {Oh and he is FOR SURE a BOY! He left nothing to the imagination that morning. HA!} Of course it seemed to take extra time because he couldn't sit still and she had to take the measurements several times. Then he decided to bury his head way down in my bladder and hide. Those of you who have had babies know personality in the womb equals personality outside the womb. I am definitely in for another treat!

Sorry for that bunny trail.

After that we saw the OB. Our Boy has these cysts in his brain. This occurs often in pregnancy and can mean nothing or it can be a "soft/weak" marker for Trisomy 18. After doing the second sono they are very confident based on development that our son does NOT have Trisomy 18.

Next up was the heart. Most babies with a developmental disability will have a heart defect. Our son did have a calcium deposit on his heart, again something fairly common and again another "soft/weak" marker for Down's.

At this point I am feeling extremely overwhelmed and trying to hold it together. This moment was a moment that was a culmination of everything that has been going on with this pregnancy up to this point.

Chasing a bunny trail:
I also (at 19 weeks) was diagnosed with a bacterial infection {BV} that puts me at risk for pre-term labor. Starting at 16 weeks I was experiencing contractions both real and braxton, but it took me 3 weeks to finally talk to the doctor about it. I just assumed this may be "normal." I was put on a fun little antibiotic to help clear up the infection, but it doesn't necessarily cut your risk of pre-term labor. :/ I am just to be conscientious at this point, but really that is all that I can do unless something more happens.

So when I go in for my 20 week ultrasound and I start hearing all this new news I am just at my wits end. I just never realized my pregnancy could be this difficult. I am having a hard time understanding all this, except God is really testing my faith and trust in Him by putting me through the refiner's fire.

Back to the appointment.
My options at this point are to do an amnio to know for sure if our son has down's or just wait and see at birth. The amnio comes with the risk of miscarriage (1/1600). Our doc asked us to think about whether knowing now was worth the risk of a possible miscarriage?! Considering they felt like our chances of having a Down's baby was around 1%.

To some of you the answer may be simple and clear, but to me it wasn't. One percent sounds like nothing, but to me it might as well have been 10, 20 , or 50%. I am a planner, I felt like I needed to know. It isn't that it would change anything or I would love our son less if he happens to be Down's, I just felt like knowing would help us know what to do if he is Down's.

However, Chad was not on board with the amnio and our Dr. wanted us to go home and sleep on it. She said she would gladly give us another ultrasound at 28 weeks to check his growth and see if they could see any other signs of Down's. (Although, Down's seldom shows up on ultrasounds).

It took me several days and talking it out with my sister (who was a high risk pregnancy with the same doctor) and my husband that made me realize that finding out and risking a possible miscarriage was not worth it.

At this point it is in God's capable hands. Some people might read this and think that there is nothing I need to worry about because the chance is so slim. All I can say is while mentally I realize that, my heart is still consumed with wonder. It is just a mommy feeling.

I do feel {mostly} at peace with my decision and I feel like my stress level isn't that high, but since that Thurs, my contractions and braxton hicks have picked back up...maybe that is a fluke or maybe it is stress related. Who knows.

I do still appreciate your prayers when you think of it. I wish I had the new sono pics loaded so I could show my son off to you, but alas I have no scanner, so that will have to wait for another post. :)

Thank you to all of you for your love and support of us, we can definitely feel it!

Random Thoughts on Motherhood.

click on the icon to join the randomness.

Some of my random thoughts on motherhood.

1. Why do we moms not tell each other the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Why do we fudge it? Is it so we look like a super, awesome, got it all together mom? Because I will be the first to say I am not. I love being real with moms when they ask me questions. I leave nothing out and tell it like it is (at least our run in with whatever it is in question).

For instance potty training. Most of you know I am in the throws of potty training with Lo. (We are on week 6 in case you were wondering). Things were going super great after week two. And after the superb week 4 we had {1 accident all week} I was nearly ready to announce my child was {daytime} potty trained!

Then week 5 hit. This child was having 3-4 accidents each day! I did not expect regression...what have I done wrong? And she is too little to "ask" like all the websites suggest. So we bucked up and kept going. Now we are doing better again. Back to 1-2 accidents per day.

My point. Is that I was feeling like other kids (even at 18/19 months) were getting the potty training thing and mine wasn't. Truth. They probably aren't doing any better than my daughter, they just aren't telling me the whole truth. Shoot I am even learning those who wait to potty train when their kids are 2-3 have these same troubles, but no one wants to admit "defeat."

I promised I would be honest about potty training for those of you interested in my experience. So there you have it. Some of you may {still} think I am crazy for potty training so "early," but I don't mind running a marathon with her, it takes practice and time no matter what age you start.

2. I am a little freaked out about having TWO kids. I just can't wrap my mind around it. Thankfully I still have like 4 months to, but I still don't think that will be enough time. How on earth am I going to do this?!

3. I am not sure anything has tested my faith more and trust in God than having my babies. I had to trust God with my fertility issues, and now I have to trust God with our son. I am not sure what this new life will bring us, but I know we will be able to handle it no matter what it is.

We had our specialist appt last Thursday. It went well and I will blog about it more in depth soon. I promise. But it has left me with questions and causing me to put all my fears in God's ever capable hands.

I guess I will leave it there on my random motherhood thoughts, although I have many more! HA! Happy Monday Everyone!