Diagnosed

Okay so we got a phone call last week from Breckens Developmental Specialist telling us that she needed to see us. I went in today and when they asked to wait for my husband I started getting nervous. Finally Doug got there and we sat down with Dr. Cooper. She went through Breckens labs and everything came back great. The EKG also came back clean. Next was the MRI. She showed us 2 pages explaining the MRI which I knew was not a good thing. She explained to us that Brecken had Periventricular Leukomalacia. His Corpus Callosum is extremely thin and this effected his brain in the areas where his brain tells his lower extremity's to move and this is the part of the brain that helps you learn by hearing. So he has a hard time learning anything when he is just being told how to do it and this is why he is having so much trouble with the lower half of his body. The cause of this was a blood clot that went through my placenta and in the 2nd trimester this is when this part of the brain develops and the blot clot traveled to this part of his brain which cause it to stop developing. There were 2 different outcomes to this happening. How Brecken is now or me miscarrying him. Thank you JESUS for letting me have my boy! So now the part where I ask what we do now. Brecken will be in leg braces for a while. How long depends on him. He will need to have special teachers and therapists until he graduates. He will have a crew of doctors by his side throughout his life. How far he goes in life depends on his fight to get there and us pushing him along the way. This is the part where she said she has seen many parents use this as an excuse to let their kid fall behind. First of all Brecken already is a fighter. When I tell him no that makes him want to do it and when I tell him he is too young and cannot do what his older sister is doing that makes him want to prove me wrong. I knew there was a reason he fought me every step of the way to prove he could do whatever he wanted and now I know why. I told the doctor I am not worried about his fight to accomplish things. He is already pushing himself!! She said if he pushes himself and really tries with our help then he can live a pretty normal life. So now we start the process of having a handicap child. She told us we needed to get handicap stickers for our cars and that he was not going to be able to walk as much as we do. Again she said how far he goes in his walking depends on him and us. She said if we raise our son to the bar and not lower the bar to our son then he will get further in life then most normal people much less people with this diagnoses.

I am not sure how I feel yet. I am still rolling around in my brain what this is going to be like. I have started to cry a couple times but caught myself because I do not know if I can stop at this point. I need to know before I cry that I can stop. I am torn because I am SO happy that after 2 years we finally have a diagnoses and that it is something that will not take our boy away from us (always a fear when a doctor calls and says they need to talk in person) yet afraid of what he will have to go through. I don't know yet. A whole other blog I guess. My heart hurts but I cannot figure out how to deal with this yet. I just know God will get us through and that He is here for me. My son is strong and he is a stubborn, bull headed little boy and that is what is going to make him great. I love him so much:)

A Mothers Wanting for Children

One of the things I have wanted more than anything in my life was to hold my own children in my arms. To wake up to the noise of children making each other giggle but then shooshing each other because they may wake up mommy and daddy. To hear little tiny feet slap the floor as they run across the kitchen. To walk in and have the room completely torn up but they are all getting along quietly in the middle of it all. To have them all drive you up the wall all day but when you put them to bed they tell you how much they love you and that you are the best mommy ever and grab your face to lay a big sloppy one on you. This is what we do as moms. This makes us want more (or not) but for me I wanted more of that. I love my kids and the thought that I have to stop having them breaks my heart. After we had Taylor we got pregnant and we ended up losing that baby. Then we tried for the last few months Doug was in the same country and then he was gone for 10 months. Once he got back we tried for 8 months before we FINALLY conceived Brecken. This in my life was the worst ever. Losing a child and then not being able to try again. Once being able to try again and then not getting pregnant. This was a point in my life where I just could not understand what was going on. Was Taylor a fluke? Was I broken since I could not hold on to the second baby? Trying to deal with these feelings and trying my hardest to be content with what I had was impossible. My friends were getting pregnant all around me and I was getting no where. What was wrong with me? I was miserable and so was my husband. He saw me take test after test only to watch me come out of the bathroom and say that it was okay only to go and hide so I could fall apart. I didn't understand. Why would God put this fire in my heart to have more kids but then hold it back from me? I was a good mom! I was praying and going to church and getting more into the Word then I ever had before. I was taking my temp and tracking my ovulation days. We were on time with everything. We were doing everything right!!! I did not understand!!! So we decided to go and get prayed over at church one day. Maybe God would hear a Pastors prayer more clearly. As we had 3 pastors pray over us I felt this was what I needed. After wards I had one of them come up to me and tell me that God had told him to tell me to stop trying. Relax. It was not my time. He needed me to be content with what I had. I went home that night and completely broke. When I say broke, I mean on my knees and sobbing. Finally at the end of this I started praying and then I told God I was okay. Not just okay but really okay. It was at that moment that I was okay with being a mom to just Taylor. If that was Gods plan then I was blessed to be a mom in the first place. This was the first night in almost over a year that I was not just saying I was okay but I was really content. I just felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. That night we conceived my son:) I don't know if it was the pastors praying over us or just me finally giving up and letting God take over but it worked. I know I have told this story and the reason I am going back into this is because I have a good friend who is right where I was when Doug got home from being deployed. They have been trying and unsuccessful. She is watching her friends get pregnant around her and trying to be happy for them but I know how much it makes your heart ache inside anyways. She wants to let go but trust me this is so much easier said then done. I mean it took me 21 months to let go (wow I did not realize it was almost 2 years of wanting Brecken) I remember praying all the time for peace and comfort and it worked but not at the level I wanted it to. I wanted to be numb to it. Anyways I just want to ask you to pray for her. This was one of the most depressing times in my life so when I see her I know how hard this is for her and how bad her heart hurts right now. I know there are worse things and that many people we know have been through worse but this is our hurt. This is the one thing this girl and I were meant to do and really the only thing we ever wanted to do so fighting with this is extremely hard in our eyes. I just pray she has peace and comfort and that she knows what an amazing mom she is and that she will get pregnant and that God would not put that fire in her heart if He was not going to make good on it. We love her family and just want the best for them so pray for them. Thanks for listening to my rant. This just really hits my heart when I see her going through this. She is very loved and I hope she knows that:)