Only 2 weeks to go!

Mini Chad #2 will be here pretty much any day now, I am due on Thanksgiving day but I feel I will more than likely pass my due date. That's totally fine with me because it gives me more time with Maddie and to get things prepared, like umm packing my hospital bag (procrastination much??)

I have so many mixed feelings about being a mom for the second time, everything from the extreme excitement to sadness and guilt for Maddie losing some of my attention. I know the first year will be difficult but this is what we wanted for our family, I wanted Maddie to have a sibling who would be close in age and be a great companion for her. I cant wait for them to share holidays and summer vacations together. I know in my heart they will be close always.
I also have some other fears of what will be in the next week or two, not too many are rational but non the less on my mind. Here they are in order, #1 being my greatest worry..

#10 That our new little girl will have Down Syndrome

#9 I will not have enough attention to share with my girls equally

#8 Maddie will resent me and the baby in the beginning

#7 Maddie will get sick and the hospital wont let her visit her new baby sister

#6 I wont be able to nurse, I pumped for over a year every ounce of milk Maddie ever had, so this is going to be my first nursing experience

#5 Chad and I are going to argue because of the stress of having 2 children, we rarely do at all now.

#4 That the baby will get sick since she is coming in the heart of cold and flu season

#3 That something will go wrong with collecting the cord blood (we are banking the baby's cord blood)

#2 That our little girl will in fact prove that Maddie's hearing loss is genetic and also be hearing impaired

#1 That I wont get to go home WITH her.

Its easy for everyone to say I'm being a "worry wart" or over dramatic in my fears but until you've walked in our shoes you can't even begin to judge them. We are so blessed to have the chance to be parents again and for our daughter to have a sibling, no matter what the outcome :)

Now on to some fall/Halloween 2010 photos. Enjoy!

Step Up for Down Syndrome Walk 2010

There are simply not enough ways to thank EVERYONE who either donated, walked, or both this year in honor of Maddie. We raised around $6,000 and had nearly 300 friends, family and friends of friends who came out to walk for her. I was overcome with emotion when I saw just how large our group was this year, and we won for biggest team again :) I dont share this often because Im honestly ashamed of how I felt then, but I remember worrying the morning we found out she has Down Syndrome that she wouldnt feel the same love and acceptance that the baby girl we were "supposed" to have would feel. I obviously was beyond wrong. She is loved and cherished by people who have only met her once or even people who have only seen her on video or in photos. I cant wait for her to understand the day and know that all those people were there for her. I regret not getting enough photos of everyone with her, Chad and I were running around crazy trying to say hello and thank everyone who came but it always just goes by way too fast! By the end of the day I could barely walk, being 8 1/2 months pregnant did not make it easy this year ;)
Chad and I stressed a little bit about not having enough pink shirts but everyone was very understanding and with our team growing every year we will keep the same style team shirts so next year hopefully everyone will have one.
Maddies first walk,she was 6 months old and we had about 20 people walk with us. Last year she was 18 months old and we had 140 people on her team and raised around $4,000, so you can see how much the word has spread on what a great day it is! I truly hope everyone enjoyed themselves and left with a positive new view on people and children with Down Syndrome. That is really what it is all about. If I could have anything in the world for my daughter it would be that she never experience ignorance or have people underestimate her...I know that is not reality but at least I know that 300 of our friends and family and so many others who were there will think twice about it.

All about Maddie

She is doing so many new thins since my blog-slacking that I don't even know where to begin! So I'll start with her biggest strength so far which seems to be...are you ready for this??....SPEECH! Never in my wildest dreams the day I hear the Dr tell us she was nearly deaf, would I imagine hearing her talk to us. She is, and its remarkable. She also knows about 75 signs, all her animals, colors, random toys, family members, and a new exciting one is potty! We are currently working on the alphabet, numbers shapes and counting. At the beginning of the summer I started working on using flash cards that have not only the word and photo, but the sign on the back of the card to help me remember too :) She LOVES her flash cards. They are from baby bumble bee and came highly recommended by one of our moms who's daughter is reading and is only about a year older than Maddie. Oh and she also has Down Syndrome! Maddie also does several animal sounds, her favorites are elephant, horse, dog, cow,and duck. :)
Here is a list of the words she is saying, some I may even be forgetting at the moment.
Mama
Dada
Grandpa
Lola (my sisters dog)
Baby
Hat
All done
Blap (nap)
Cat
Fish
Hi
Bye bye
Elmo
Book
Up
Down
Potty (sooo excited about this one)
Eat
Drink
Apple
Bath
Pop
No (sounds more like Oh and she even shakes her head)
Open
Pool

I truly attribute the fact her speech is blossoming to the fact that she knows so many signs, even when I cant understand what word she is trying to say, if she uses the sign with it, there is no question. Today in fact she TOLD me she had potty!! She was signing potty and saying poopy (pp) and sure enough, she had a dirty diaper! I started showing her that sign and saying potty/poopy every time we change her. Our upcoming goal is to get her a potty and begin the potty training process. I have been waiting for her to walk more frequently than crawl.

Chad and I attended a 12 week, 3 hour every Monday night class called the Hannen Program to learn how to better communicate with her, I would say we definitely got a lot out of it because I really had no experience with early childhood education and this class showed me how to effectively help her learn and communicate with a child who's communication might not be typical.

Since she turned two in April she has been doing so much better with keeping her hearing aids on!! Hooray! She will even bring them over to me and gesture to put them on her. I do think she is very aware of how much they help her hear.

She knows many body parts:
Head
Hair
Hand
Ear
Eyes
Nose
Mouth
Hand
Legs
Feet
She will point to each part if you ask her or show her the flash card with a picture of it.

She mimics almost everything we do, which is hilarious.
She will "brush her teeth"
Comb her hair
Kiss on command (she will even come up to Chad or I just to give us a kiss and it HAS to be on the lips :)
Hug
Tell us "no" and "all done"
Wave hello and bye bye
Blow kisses (she does this randomly to me several times a day)
"talk on her phone"
Pretend to text on our iphones
Pick up the remote and point it toward the TV (probably the funniest thing she does)
Hold and rock her baby
Dunk her water basketball
Sit in her chair or table when asked (she always asks "up" to get on the couch and says "down" wen she gets down
Ask us to "open" things
Put her toys in or out/clean up
Says "mama" and "dada" when she sees us both in photos and in rea life
Ask for a drink or to eat
Bring me something she knows she is not supposed to have
Dance to music (she loves her music therapy class!!)
Most recently tell me when she did potty "poopy"


Her favorite songs (which she will prompt you to sing by gesturing the actions)
If you're happy and you know it
Itsy bitsy Spider and after that song will immediately ask for
Wheels on the bus.

Her favorite book is Brown Bear Brown Bear. She knows what animal comes next and she loves to mimic the animal sounds. I credit this book to the beginning of her love for animals. She will ask you to read it by bringing it over and putting it in your hands then signing or saying "book or open" if you don't respond quick enough she will then proceed to lovingly whack you with it until you start reading it :)

She is not so great with her puzzles or matching yet. We work on those things and she will quickly tell me "all done" or throw the pieces and refuse to try, so we stop and try again later. I know she will get it soon :) She can self feed with a spoon and will use a fork if I am sitting right there to supervise, she likes to take a few bites with it and then just hold it and use her other hand to pick up and feed herself if she thinks we aren't looking, sneaky little girl!

She stood up from the middle of the floor and took her first steps the night before Chad's birthday. Even though for the last month now she can stand up and take anywhere from 10 to 15 steps, her main mode of travel is still hands and knees crawling and man oh man is she fast! She can crawl quicker than some toddlers can run! We started seeing an additional PT during the summer and she has worked wonders for Maddie,she would barely weight bare, refused to walk with a walk toy and couldn't even stand up unassisted back in June. I think she has progressed so much in the last 3 months. Her new therapist Ms. Sue discovered she has a head tilt, and that she now hates being upside down, spun around in circles, on her back, swinging and slides. Her vestibular system seems to be very weak which is why her balance and walking are not great yet. Again, I am confident she will be running around with all her buddies soon enough! I have yet to meet a older child with DS who isn't walking :)

I am so incredibly proud of my Maddie, she s so bright. I beam with pride when I see her learn and accomplish her goals. She amazes me everyday by how smart she is, I know she is not doing nearly as many things as a typical two and 1/2 year old but she can communicate, understand and play with her peers just fine :) I fall more in love with her everyday, her loving and sweet disposition are just an added bonus!


Here is a link to the video I made of the last year 12/09 to August of this year to promote her step up walk, showing all she has been up to :)
www.vimeo.com/14369023

Here come the Hendricks'

We have so much to be thankful for this year. Maddie will welcome a new baby sister (mini Chad #2 I like to call her) on or around Thanksgiving day. My actual due date is 11/25/10 which happens to be Thanksgiving! We are so happy and cant wait for Madde to meet her new "be be" as she says. She is going to be such a loving and wonderful big sister.
Chad and I got the 'positve' HPT in late March. It was Saturday night and we were heading to an engagement party for some friends of ours Courney and Kevin and there would be an open bar full of adult beverages in which I wanted to indulge since we had an overnight sitter. Sometime that afternoon I began having the reminesent nausea that I had for 14 weeks of my pregnncey with Maddie. I told Chad we needed to take a test to make sure I wasnt pregnant before the party. I took one, didnt really see the two pink lines clearly so I took the non-dollar store test and once again had Chad and Maddie look first..Chad was so proud when I heard him yelling "Maddie is going to be a big sister". I ofcourse started to cry. Needless to say, I felt so sick at the party and we ended up having to leave early :( This was a very planned baby, we thught with my PCOS diagnosis in September of 09 and all the medication the Dr's put me on that getting pregnant was not in the near future. In January we decided to start 'trying' and I went off all of my meds except for the Metformin, which I had to take until after week 12 of the pregnancy to prevent miscarriage. My OB told us not to get our hopes up since most women with PCOS dont become pregnant within 6 months to a year of their own efforts. I was worried but knew that I had obviously gotten pregnant before so we werent going to stress about it utill need be.
Just like my pregnancy with Maddie, I puked everyday, several times a day for 14 weeks..goodtimes and ten times harder when you have a mixture of 110 degree Florida summer heat, and a 25 pound 2 year old that wasnt walking yet to tote around to daily appointmets and therapy. Non the less we survived and are nausea free for the most part! I have had many ask if we had any sort of prenatal testing done with this pregnancy..the answer is no. No triple screen, quad screen or amnio. Chad for the most part left the decision up to me but we both agree that no matter what we want this baby and feel a prenatal diagnosis of anyting would not change our feelings. I did have my OB refer me to the high risk Dr (differnt one than I saw with Maddie) and I did have an in depth 20 week ultrasound looking for anything of health concern i.e. heat defects, enlarged kidneys ect. I have a 1/100 chance of having another baby with trisomy 21 since I have had a previous baby with it. Still confusig to me since based on my age my chance is 1/1000 and its known that the type of DS maddie has is not inherited. Who knows, stats are weird. Not my best subject in college! So far the baby looks great, and Im even measuring a week ahead according to my last ultrsound at 30 weeks. Chad surprised me with a 3D/4D ultrasound with a video so we got some great pictures of our sweet mini-chad #2.

Time to redeem myself!

Grab This Button Once again you see, I have failed miserably at my commitment to blog regularly. Soooo, I came across this wonderful idea this morning and found it the perfect opportunity to redeem myself in the blogging world. Ironically enough I was laying in bed last night thinking about the blog and how I need to do a better job at keeping it up to date for my family. So here you have it, everyday for the entire month of October I am to blog, (today is Oct 2nd so I already missed one day) even if its not directly about DS. I have tons of new posts to make and I am sure they could easily be more than 31!

Easter Sunday

Maddie's first easter, 2009

This year Easter 2010

Committed to blogging this time!

Darn it! I am! I feel awful that I haven't kept up with this blog like I should be. I am disappointed in myself but I wont let more time slip away unwritten. Maddie is doing a ton of new things and I want to document them all. Her second birthday is next week and while she is not walking yet, she is pulling to stand and cruising very well. Our goal is for her to be walking on that beach sand this summer :) She began hands and knees crawling about 5 months ago and she is fantastic at at now, so much so that she has little interest in standing alone. It was confirmed by her PT that she needed orthodics in her shoes to help stabilize her ankles. We got them last week, they are a size 5 and Maddie's current foot is a size 3. We bought the recommended shoes for them and they seem huge. Now she has even less interest in walking. Go figure. Its only been a few days so I am hoping this will change.

Our big girl is feeding herself with a spoon, no fork yet. She is a signing machine and knows the following words without prompting. Meaning I say the word or show her a picture and she signs it! Amazing. I am so proud of her.
mama, dada, dog, baby, ball, eat, drink, milk, more, please, thank you, cow, fish, and quite a few others I cant think of off the top of my mind. She is so smart. She has this adorable way of letting you know what songs she wants you to sing to her. I will have to take some pictures of it to post later. She knows "If you re happy and you know it" and "Wheels on the bus" and asks me to sing them at least 20 times a day.

On the hearing aid front, still the same. I have yet to find a suitable ENT here locally that either has a halfway decent bedside manner or wont accidentally puncture her eardrum. Thats a whole other post. I just want a solid answer about her hearing loss once and for all. I might wait my entire life. Its been a huge battle to keep her aids on and I have all but given up some days. We are getting new molds on Thursday so I am praying they will be a better fit and easier to keep on.

Her thyroid levels at last check were pretty good. Her synthroid dose is still very high for her age/weight (50mcg) but it took a year to get them close to normal. The thyroid gland is the command center of the brain. Potentially the most detrimental thing that could happen to Maddie is for her to miss a few doses of her synthroid. Dr. D still believes she may not even have a thyroid gland at all because of her levels when she was first born. The only way to know for sure is to take her off of all the meds for a week and see how out of whack they are. Not an option at all Im willing to explore anytime soon. She will get a whole new set of blood work done at her 2 year check up next week.

Well, thats it for now. Im off to bed, we have a long week of party planning to do! I have some great photos to share in my next post.

Saying Goodbye

She's a beauty isnt she?? Before I met Chad, this was his girl. Marley was the main lady in his myspace photos and the first Hendricks family member I got to meet. During her puppy years Chad says she was a rowdy thing, chewing well over $1,000 of items. From pillows to jeans and one of each of several pairs of shoes (a few of mine.) He says he dreamed of owning an English bully since college. So, after buying his College Park house in 2005 he purchased this pretty little girl. No research on the breed. Not knowing the expense and demand she would have in her later years. Not knowing that sweet sweet Marley would have you chasing her for miles around the streets of our neighborhood after she darted out the front door. Even though shes fat, that dog can run fast. No joke!

Here we are in 2010. Moved into a smaller house, no fenced yard, an older dog, and a mobile toddler. When Maddie was born everyone encouraged us to consider finding a better home for her, where she could run free in a fenced yard. The encouragement came mostly after me being late to work several mornings because I had spent 30 minutes to an hour to chase down and corral a 60lb bulldog, me being 8 months pregnant. Yeah, good times. None the less we couldn't bear the thought of giving her away. She was a part of Chad and I loved her way too much. Over the last 2 years we've realized that the amount of love we have for Marley warrants us giving her a better life. She is 5 years old. About halfway through her life expectancy and a great companion. She has a very sweet disposition and craves attention. Attention we couldn't give her the way we needed to. Maddie pretty much consumes all of our attention now. Like I said it was hard to admit that 2 years ago but its true. Her vet bills alone were going to put us in the poor house.

So, Chad pretty much found the perfect family. It is one of the hardest decisions we've had to make since we've been married. It was very emotional. We changed our mind the first attempt to drive her over. Im pretty sure Chad cried a little. I balled my eyes out almost the entire one hour trip there. Chad emailed the family several times before hand, and even then we were prepared to refuse to leave her if we felt their situation was not right for Marley. I knew in my heart they were perfect though. They had a huge beautiful home. Several of their neighbors have bullys and Marley has already had several play dates from what we hear. They have 3 boys. 10,11 and 12. It was confirmed Marley was the perfect match for them when the mom shared that the middle boy has autism. It took us over an hour to say goodbye and we left with a box of tissues we did not walk in the door with. I pray to God that Marley is being loved and played with and that she is getting plenty of butt scratching!

Chad, Maddie and I have had so many great times and memories with Marley. I am kind of glad we wont have to watch her suffer through her older years and eventually her death. Its been so hard to post this and see all of the photos we have of her. I miss her terribly and I know Chad does too. It will be hard when we turn the calender to the month of June to and see the photo that was selected of Marley and Maddie.