Wyatt, Home and Bump Update

Wyatt entered the hospital Monday and stayed overnight Tuesday which is when I last updated. He woke up Tuesday and ran off from the hospital. At this time, police were called and found him a couple blocks away. They had him transported via ambulance to Salem ED and of course ended up having to sedate him to get him there. Once there, he was seen by a psychiatrist and finally a plan was in place. We upped the prozac and he started respiridone. Unfortunately, he had 2 horrible reactions where he became paralyzed from the respiridone and they really gave us no other options. Crazy enough, they sent us home with a script for it Wednesday evening when we finally got to pick him up. They said that there was another medicine he could take to quickly counteract it. I asked hard questions like, " What happens if this happens during the night?" He could die I assume. The Dr. couldn't give any reasonable answers so we were left in the dirt with a little extra prozac. 

I took matters into my own hands with the help of the psychiatrist and alternative health practitioners and we are trying some other things. So far, so good. I would give anything in my power to help him feel well and balanced and never to enter a psych ward again. 

On to this week's projects:

This is Fynnick's new dresser and rug. These two items may not seem a huge change to the nursery in our room, but to me, it's huge. I have to do this in tiny stages and steps, otherwise I find it too shocking and painful. Little by little we will get there. The next plan is shiplap behind the dresser on the wall. 

 Of course the dresser couldn't come put together.......downside to amazon sometimes. Nate was impressed by it anyhow. It is heavy real wood. 

 Nate got another project complete since his dad flew in Wednesday. Sadly, once hung, we realized Lowes messed up and gave us doors with different frost darknesses. We now wait for the new door to arrive to replace the door on the right. 

 Barnwood doors on the hallway linen closet has been a dream forever. Finally! 

Our wood stove before

 Our wood stove after the shiplap project Nate and his dad pulled off just in time for the girl's birthday party last night!

A little retail therapy last week was helpful for the soul. These are the first things I have bought for baby, a few organic sleepers that arrived soft as butter. 

15.5 weeks with Fynnick. The bump has arrived. I am feeling him squirm here and there especially after a big meal. 

Mental Illness and Autism Hell...................

Instead of blogging my usual home projects, baby updates and thoughts I will dive in and say it has been a week. I HATE autism, I hate mental illness. I hate everything it is doing to Wyatt and our family. Puberty hit him like a freight train at age 14.5 and it has been me clinging on for the ride ever since. As he grew larger, so did his tantrums. My thoughts are so disorganized, but a very brief background is that he began battling extreme fixations at age 3 and as with his size and tantrums, everything grows. As a toddler, it was spinning the wheels of his cars for hours happily. It evolved to Dora and Blues Clues, Buzz Lightyear and eventually it broke way to a healthy addiction, basketball. Those years were the easiest. While he still loves basketball, his newest fixation is having a girlfriend. He wants to feel a part of normal high school stuff and in order to feel he fits in, he thinks he must have a girlfriend. The problem is he is turning 17 in January and his brain doesn't agree or function at that level yet. These relationships typically go south rapidly and when any fixation is ripped from an Autistic child, it's akin to separating an addict from his heroin. The monster who lives inside comes out. It is a beast untamable at his size.

At age 16, I finally resorted to restraining him during episodes of rage on many occasions to keep himself and everyone around him safe. All the while we sat lost in the system for 9 months waiting for a psychiatry appointment. He would flail, run around for knives, stab himself in the chest and neck and make all of us watch in horror praying be wasn't serious or wouldn't succeed before we could get the dangerous objects from him safely and get him restrained. He nearly succeeded once with cords. He got himself so tightly wrapped, I almost couldn't loosen it in time. This happened with weeks of Finnley's death when his mental health spiraled completely out of control. His pediatrician prescribed prozac as a bandaid at that time while we waited and waited some more. The prozac was working pretty well short term. It lasted 6 months with the tantrums manageable enough to tide us over. His insurance was recently switched so we started the process over to get in to a psychiatrist. The wait with his new insurance is much quicker. I really thought we would make it to that appointment, but Wyatt had other plans.

Friday morning started with a fit of rage in school over a break up with his girlfriend. I had my first morning alone since the kids started school, to just be a mom. I was standing excitedly in front of 6 loads of laundry with Big Black(my cat) to keep me company. I no sooner started in on the folding when I get a call that Wyatt was suspended for shoving an innocent bystander student in his fit of rage after a break up with his girlfriend. The weekend continued with rage. By Sunday evening he manipulated and convinced me he was fit for school Monday. That was all an act to get back to the girl and try to "fix" things. His IEP meeting happened to fall at lunch that day and they waited to let me know he was again raging and shoved another innocent bystander. They kept him there maybe out of pity for me knowing the weekend I endured with him. After school he refused to board the bus and went insane. He was running from the school officials and wound up brought home in a police car.

Once police arrived with him, he was out of control, grabbing knives to stab himself in front of the officer. They ditched out and left me with him like that. Again, the system failed us. I had no choice but to restrain him and try to somehow get him safely to the hospital. This was the final straw. I have never taken him in during his rage, but after 4 days of it, I was worn down to nothing. He was threatening the lives of our other kids and that was just IT! It took 4 different sedatives to stop of the madness once we arrived at the hospital. It was terrible. He was breaking medical equipment, spitting, head butting. fighting the meds to the bitter end. I never thought we would be here in this place. I never thought I would walk away from my child and leave them overnight in a hospital. I just cannot express the relief when I saw him finally sleeping.

Today we are day 5. The meds kept him down 14 hours, but he is back at it. He ran away from the hospital this morning and police located him and had to have him medically transported and of course sedated again. Despite more sedation, he has called from the new location raging and out of control. He wants us there. I am refusing to go. This is the worst feeling.....tough love. I have given in way too long and he needs to feel the full effects of the system's stings. My love wasn't enough to help him. I tried. I will continue to try, but for now in this moment he is the system's burden. It feels heartless to type that. I can't will myself to go. I keep telling him, when he calls me, to quit being nuts and they will quit sedating him and once he isn't sedated we can FINALLY get the mental health evaluation. When that time rolls around, we will be there. It may not be today or tomorrow. It depends on Wyatt. He has the power and control to end this, but it won't be on his terms. It will be on ours and the hospitals' for the first time in many years.

This is the hardest thing we have done as parents next to cremating our child. Whatever I have done in this life or maybe a previous life has certainly come back to give me all my karma. I don't know how much more I can take. I feel emotionally battered and weak from this entire year. I will update later as to Wyatt's situation. I hate that this is my current life and maybe someone out there can relate or has some words of wisdom. I am finding support is all I can really hope for and count on. No amount of money can fix the shit we have endured this year and no amount of hard work, basically it's nothing I can control and I think that makes it all the worse for me.

Fynnick Oliver Newsom

His hand holding his cord

 Confirmation he is a HE! 

Oh sweet boy, you have no idea how ready we are to meet you and hold you. 

14 weeks, I woke up PREGNANT! Haha, finally I have a bump. 

Weekly Randoms, Projects and Baby Who?

PROJECTS:

Before 

 After

This is a sneak peak at changes to come in our bedroom. I am working room by room errrrr, well maybe just scattered about to get things changed in the house. I am spending all my free time when not doing farm work, getting things changed in the house! 

What do you know, I finished the bedroom before the blog haha, typical. Here is the bedroom in all it's nearly done glory. I have decor, end tables and a rug to add, but we are getting there. This no longer looks like the room Finnley died in and that is helpful. It helps me re-associate it with something less painful and horrible. 

Before-what I once considered cozy is now a dark and dreary looking hell to me.

 After-bright, cheery and clean

 Baby Chowder hanging out in the snuggly new bedding. He enjoys being camouflage in there!

RANDOMS of the week:

A preview of 4 of this week's meals for the week X 4 kids at Lourdes. 16 meals for Monday-Thursday.  

 FoOd! 

 Poor Everett and his wasp sting today. Of course I was gone grocery shopping so I thank my lucky stars Kayla is trained as a CNA and she's a great sister and gave him a dose of Benedryl and got him to the ED so I could meet them there. It took some more Benadryl and steroids, but thankfully no epi.

His body was covered head to toe in hives. :( Been a rough year for us with stings and allergies

 CSA Pick up with my little fruit farmer. 

 I did a thing

The boys getting in on that selfie action when I got home after I did the thing. 

Weekly baby update: 

The best part of this past week came Monday evening when I finally got a hold of the nurse who had my NIPT results. We first and foremost got the news that baby had less than 1 in 10,000 chance of any chromosomal abnormalities and then the best part of all came.......we are having a baby boy. I could hardly contain myself. I knew I wanted a boy deep down, but I prepared myself it would be a girl and honestly my symptoms felt "girlish" to me. It felt like the best plot twist ever to hear that beautiful word come from my nurse. She was chocked up on the other end herself. I was so hysterical with joy I could hardly speak. I didn't know I would be quite so emotional about it. It isn't that we wanted a boy to "replace" Finnley, but with all we have been through and all the dreams of a little guy running on the farm, breaking teeth in on raw corn cobs and cold carrots freshly dug from the dirt, it feels nice that those visions may now come to fruition. I know a girl could have done those things too, but this is really special to us. It feels right. Although we have more than we could need for this baby, I have already started browsing for him so he will have new things that are just his and some things that don't painfully rub in our loss. In some ways I think using Finnley's clothes and belongings will bring peace, but in others, I feel I may not be able to handle it. I guess we will figure it out as time passes.  This is completely uncharted territory for me. It's rough to navigate. 

For the next most asked question, his name. We have had a "boy" name chosen since we began trying to conceive and it isn't something we shared with anyone because, quite frankly, it will probably not be a popular choice. I can already feel the backlash as I type this, but this is our journey, our baby and our grief and I pray that anyone with anything ugly to say would keep it to themselves. We are choosing to honor our sweet Finnley Oliver by naming his baby brother Fynnick Oliver. We like it because if it feels wrong to call him Fynn for short, we can call him Nick. Again, the navigating is so hard because emotions change daily. This name was never something we needed to compromise on or much thought of changing. We tossed around some "F" boy names over the past 8 months and nothing ever felt quit like Fynnick. It was natural and feels right. 

A few pics from this week's gender reveal to the kids. I think it was just a little well received by the look on their faces and joy that exudes from them in them in the video :) 

 A BOY!!! 

 Proud Papa 

Tears......just happy good tears.

Week 12 Tomorrow

12 weeks with our sweet rainbow. Got a little baby bump forming :) 

Pregnancy hormones this go round have been so much different. I can't.stop.cleaning......and organizing. Yes that is paint in my hair. I can't control myself. I am so tired, yet I have these urges to have my entire house gone through room by room and what better place to start than the garage and mud room since school starts back soon! We found mold in our kitchen recently so that also ended up on a priority list for the coming weeks and months. There is just so much to do on top of farming. This is the time of year, as we move out of the fields a bit more, when we assess the summer damage to the house. I am ready to update things anyhow. I'm not sure if it's grief or what, but I cannot handle the dark colors of our home anymore. I need white, clean, light greys, just NOT browns, reds and blacks like we currently have. I think it is the knowing winter is on it's way that has me rushing ahead to paint and wipe away all signs of dreary when I know the dreary days are nearing. At least inside I need light. The list is big, the work is bigger, but we all know I am no stranger or shy to hard work. It is just a matter of digging in, getting messy and getting it done. I will thank myself later. Dark, short days lie ahead, this will ensure us something cheery in our lives during winter. How I dread winter, January 10th especially.   :(

My little helpers.....add in puppies and dogs too! Oh and a sneak peak at the new flooring

 Before! YUCKKKKKKK

 After, almost done. Not quite. I'll update once Nate puts in the 2 rows of hooks. There will be an upper row for a coat and sweater for each of us and a lower set of hooks for each child's backpack. Bellow that are bins for shoes. It will keep things organized during the school year so our mornings will run smooth. 

Amazing what some deep cleaning, white paint and peel and stick flooring can do for a mudroom! Tada!! I will keep updating all the projects as I go.