Rewind and Fast Forward

What a year it has been and it is only September. This year has been a year of "stuff".

It started in January with Gracie. She was having a ton of random behavior issues that after months of seeing doctors and specialist we found were a result of 3 things: intolerance to gluten and nuts and a struggle with sensory processing disorder.  Today she is doing worlds better though we still plan to return to her occupational therapist for some extra help in dealing with her sensory issues.

In the midst of that Allen had to return to the Physical therapist for some help getting his back working correctly again.  It took a little bit, but is now doing great.

Ellie had casts put on in the spring, in order to correct some toe walking that was causing some ligament damage in her legs.  Of course we struggled to keep them dry in the wet northwest weather so she had way more than 2 casts total :-)  She also decided to be the first Hutchison kiddo to get stitches after she fell on a rock in the backyard.

Lizzie and Sera have both been doing well with thankfully no major health issues to deal with this year, which is a huge blessing since they are the two kiddos that started off life with the lengthy NICU stays.

The exciting and somewhat scary news is that we are unexpectedly expecting number 5 this March.  The scary part is that there are some major health concerns that come with this exciting news.  To explain I need to go back in time.

In 2011 our little Sera was born.  Shortly after her birth the nurse noticed that she was running a very low temp and no matter what we did we couldn't get it up.  They decided to test her blood to see if maybe she had a virus or something that was causing this low temp.  When the results came back they (and we) were shocked to find that she had very low platelets (about 9,000 for those that like that info.).  She was rushed into the NICU where they gave her a platelet transfusion and eventually diagnosed her with Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopenia (NAIT for short).  Basically when Sera was in utero my bodies platelets saw her platelets as foreign and attacked them leaving her with almost no platelets and a high risk of brain hemorrhage.

Fast forward to now.  This means that our littlest baby has a 50% chance of having the same problem with the same severity or worse.  The risk we are most concerned with is a brain bleed that will then result in brain damage and/or death before our baby is old enough to be delivered.  They can't test to see if this little one has NAIT, because of the unnecessary risk involved with doing a test on an unborn baby that may have little to no platelets.  Instead the protocol is to treat the mother as if the baby has it with the only treatment that they have seen any positive results from, IVIG. 

IVIG is immunoglobulin given through an IV.  It is given to a number of different people for a variety of reasons (asthma, alzheimer disease, some forms of cancer, pedatric HIV...).  Depending on why someone is being given the IVIG determines how often it is given.  In our case that means once a week for the duration of the pregnancy.  The idea being the immunoglobulin will confuse my body enough to hopefully keep it from having time to bother with attacking the baby's platelets.

 I had my first treatment almost 2 weeks ago and it was everything I read about and more.  5 hours in a room hooked up to an IV, only to leave with flu-like symptoms that I will spare you the details of since it isn't pretty.  The symptoms continued for another 36-48 hours after the treatment, leaving me and the rest of the family feeling discouraged.  Thankfully this past Mondays treatment was much improved.  They ran it through slower to lessen some of my side effects and gave me hope that we will be able to make it through the next 23 weeks of treatments.

Last week I decided to add more to the growing list of health stuff, when I was diagnosed with borderline Hashimoto's. This means we are officially Gluten free around here and I get to take extra supplements.  But honestly, compared to all the other things we are and have endured this year, I am feeling so grateful to have an answer to some of the things I was struggling with for the past 2 years.


So where does that leave us?

Humbled...

Refined...

Grateful...

We serve an amazing God who creates so much change in us through these times of struggle.  I find that in these valleys I am able to praise God all the more fervently than on the mountain top, because in the valley there is no where to look but up to Him, but on the mountain there is that temptation to look at the view down below me and become so caught up with it that I forget who brought me to that place. 

Long Breaks

So the snow stopped, the rain began and continued for sometime, and now here we are in the beautiful sunshine of summer.  This is quickly becoming my once or twice a year blog.  We have been working hard on our backyard (the front yard is next years projects).  It is slowly coming together and feeling more and more like ours.  We are growing things like crazy (beans, lettuces, spinach, sunflowers, carrots, pumpkin, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cilantro, basil, thyme, sage, corn, strawberries...and enjoying raspberries, blueberries and soon to be apples).  Of course all these yummy things are helping to grow our Lizzie, Ellie, Gracie and Sera.  Most of the raspberries, blueberries and strawberries never make it into the house with all the anxious harvesters watching as they turn to their beautiful blue and red colors.