One Way (Finn's Way)

Hard to believe it is March 5 – ALREADY!  And Finn is 17 months old.  WHAT?!?  But, February was a blur.  With him being sick, in the hospital, and a short month, it FLEW by.  So, yes, Finn is 17 months old.  He is standing on his own for 20-30 seconds, babbling up a storm, has 10 teeth (2 molars on the bottom!), eats everything he can (but yet we still have to supplement with PediaSure – he just doesn’t GAIN), and weighed in at 19 pounds 7 ounces – fully clothed with shoes (Tiny Toms! So cute!) – at the doctor yesterday.  He is a SUPER FAST crawler, and is in to EVERYTHING!  If you can’t find it, check the drawers and cabinets he has been opening – Nana found a missing toy that way, and I found a missing remote control!  (These items had been missing several WEEKS when they were finally found.)  He is still a complete joy and such a happy baby!  His shirt today says it ALL!    Even if the sheer number of doctor appointments has been a bit overwhelming these past few weeks! 

Finn - 17 months - MY WAY!

Britt and I were going through old pictures and videos on our phones over the weekend, and we watched a few videos from our time in the NICU at Mercy.  It still seems surreal – to both of us – that THAT was our lives for over 3 months, and that the tiny struggling baby in those films is OUR son.  It doesn’t seem real.  Or that it happened to us.  But, it was our Finn!  As strong and crazy as he is now, he started out so tiny and frail.  God’s work blows us away.  To HIM be the Glory!

In the meantime, Finn had his first evaluation with the pediatric pulmonologist (physician who specializes in treating diseases of the lungs) yesterday.  We were recommended to see one after our stay in the hospital, and this Doctor came HIGHLY recommended.  While we didn’t really learn much from the visit yesterday, we are glad we went.  They did a chest X-ray (I think this was probably the 20^th one he has had in 17 months), a full exam, and tried to do a sweat test.  This is a test where they stimulate muscles, then collect sweat to evaluate the chemical content in it.  Unfortunately after the (long) procedure, Finn didn’t sweat enough to test anything.  Traditionally, this test is used to check for Cystic Fibrosis, but we know Finn doesn’t have this disease.  So, we assume (no one told us) they do this test routinely just to see what the chemical make-up of the child’s sweat is.  I have another preemie mom friend whose son sees this same physician, and she said they did it with her son as well, and he does not have CF.  So, we were told there is residual evidence of the RSV in his lungs, and to come back in 6 weeks for a follow up and to attempt the sweat test again.  And for Finn to drink LOTS of water before he comes!

(CF sidebar: The girls' father does have CF.  He has a rarer mutation that only slightly effected his lungs, but the end result is what caused us to have to do IVF/ICSI to conceive Emma and Lara.  Before we went ahead with fertility treatments, I was tested to see if I was a carrier since he had the disease, and I am not.  (Both parents have to be carriers in order for the offspring to inherit the disease.)  Each girl has a 25% chance of being a carrier.)

TOMORROW, Finn gets his first HAIRCUT!  I’m sure I will cry.  My last baby’s first haircut.  WOW.  (Emma was over 2 before I cut hers (because she was bald before that), Lara was 11 months,  and Jake was 8 MONTHS at his first haircut!  He had SO MUCH hair!)  I can’t wait to share pictures!

What’s in a Name?

Finn and family update first!  Finn did AWESOME after his ear tubes!  We can really tell a difference in what he can hear, and he is trying SO HARD to walk!  He has gotten 2 new teeth this week - brings us up to 8.  But there is no rhyme or reason to the ones coming in now.  They are not symmetric nor in order, so I bet he gets more in the next few weeks.  He had his first evaluation at Hearts for Hearing in Oklahoma City yesterday, and scored in the range for normal for the tests they performed.  We go back in six weeks to do it again once the tubes are “settled” in more.  After a pretty calm weekend of typical activities, we had a bit of a crazy Monday and Tuesday!  OSU campus closed at 12:30 Monday and all day Tuesday due to a “blizzard” – that turned out to be nothing more than a cold rain and about 2 inches of wet snow!  Free time off!  The kids got Tuesday out of school, too, but we had the appointment in OKC, so it was basically a wash.  They went to Nana’s and played in the snow water and mud at her house while we went with Finn.  Tuesday afternoon I put them to work tagging clothes and items for the Adorable Affordables consignment sale!

Earlier today, I was chatting online with a new friend (who made this AMAZING shirt for me!) and I asked her about how she chose her son’s name.  She, in turn, asked me about Finn’s name.  I’m not sure I have ever really told the “long” (I’ll try to keep it short) version of how we came to decide on his AWESOME name, so I thought I should write about it.  And if I am doing his, I can’t leave the BIG Dream Weaver kids out!  It’s kind of heady to think that I am (at least partially) responsible for saddling 4 humans with the monikers they will use for the rest of their lives.  I hope I served them well in this task…

Finn Ricker Weaver: (en utero name: Shocker.  Because we were SHOCKED!) Fourth child.  LAST child.  The story of how we came to decide on his name is not really all that glamorous or exciting.  We had decided along the way early in the pregnancy that we were pretty sure we wanted a 4 letter name for this (genderless at this point) baby.  Emma and Lara were 4 letters, we called Jacob by his 4 letter nickname of Jake, so it stood to reason – 4^th kid, 4 letters.  So, we printed lists off the internet.  Off name databases. Grabbed baby name books off store shelves.  Pulled names from our own minds.  And at MANY lunch dates, we read our lists to each other and marked off HUNDREDS of names as no-go’s.  The girl names that finally remained were Holley (with the “ey” like my name; courtesy of the 4 year old who has just seen Cars 2 and loved Holley Shiftwell), Stella (ending in “a” like Emma and Lara), and Kate (family name on my husband’s side – 4 letters).  Needless to say, we didn’t even need these!  The boy names were Nathan (Nate), Barrett (Rett) and Finn.  All from name books or websites.  The afore mentioned 4 year old was particularly attached to the name Finn.  Again, Cars 2 – Finn McMissle.  Plus, Britt and I are fans of the FOX TV show Glee, and Finn Hudson was a main character, so the name was “known” a bit and not completely off the wall.  (You can see the names in a game from our Gender Reveal Party post!)  The other kids’ names were so traditional; we didn’t want to veer too far off that path.  As for his middle name, we wanted to honor my older brother Brian who had passed in April of 2011.  We didn’t feel comfortable using the name Brian, so we chose to use our last name, Ricker, as Finn’s middle name.  I am so glad we decided to do this.  Makes his name truly unique, and it completely suits him!  Finn Ricker Weaver – Smiley and serious, tough and tenacious!

Here’s a video of 4 year old Jake the night before the gender reveal party – praying for a boy named Finn McMissle, or if it had to be a girl, at least name it Holley Shiftwell!

Jacob Alan Weaver:  (en utero name: Bullet.  Because we are die hard OSU Cowboy fans and that’s our football game day mascot’s name! And a fetus is small. Like a bullet…) I dug deep into the archives to find a post about Jake’s name.  I’ve been in the blogging/journaling business a long time…  Sadly, the post I found wasn’t very exciting!  But, I do know how we chose his name!  We knew from very early on – before we had time to really discuss names, even – that our baby was a boy.  This was Britt’s first child, and as such I gladly left the major part of the naming decision up to him.  He wanted to leave his legacy with a good, strong name.  We talked and decided we wanted to name him Jacob after Britt’s dad.  Since he wasn’t a “junior” we decided to go with a different middle name from his grandfather.  So, we chose Alan, which is Britt’s middle name.  I remember we bought a frame for the ultrasound picture that definitely showed our baby’s gender to give to Britt’s parents, and we wrote “Jacob Alan” on the frame.  His parents – especially his Dad – were elated!  Such a neat memory we get to share with our Jake some day! Jacob Alan Weaver: mischievous and silly, class clown and big tease!

Emma Marie and Lara Elizabeth Horinek:  (en utero names: Jenna and Barbara.  Because I was in Texas, the Senior George Bush was president, and those were the “First” twins!) I had to dig WAAAAAAAAAAAAY back to find any documentation on these names!  I typed my journal on a computer, but it was not online anywhere.  I had printed the entries as I went along, and they are in a binder.  And yes, I knew where the binder was!  Once we knew the babies were both girls, the girls’ father and I decided we would each name one baby.  Seems fair, right?  But, we each had veto power if we thought the chosen name was hideous.  Luckily, that was never an issue.  We had also decided we didn’t want to do the matchy-matchy thing (like Haylee  and Kaylee) or even the same first sound thing (like Madison and Mackenzie).  We did decide to do 4 letters, and end in the same sound.  They were twins after all!  We couldn’t disappoint the people who wanted  ”twin-y” names!  He chose the name Emma Marie.  Emma after a distant grandmother, and Marie was the middle name of his paternal grandmother (who actually died in a tragic car crash on Thanksgiving Day the November I was pregnant!).  I chose Lara Elizabeth.  That was the name my mother had originally chosen for me.  But my brother insisted upon calling me Betsey.  But I always knew I wanted to name my daughter that!  Lara is after my Dad (Larry) and his favorite song from Dr. Zhivago “Lara’s Theme”  and then I stuck with Elizabeth since Betsey is a derivative of Elizabeth. Plus, that way they both girls ended up with "traditional" names.  I also liked the fact that there were no “obvious” nicknames for either name.  I wanted them to be called what we named them.  Their “Twister” nickname came about when they were about 6 months old and a sorority sister of mine told me a story about her brother being in Kindergarten and coming home and telling the family about the “Twisters” in his class.  They later deciphered that he mean “twin sisters!”  And we still call my girls the Twisters 10 years later! Emma Marie: strong and determined, creative and passionate.  Lara Elizabeth: goofy and fun, smart and loving.

So, what’s in a name?  How did you choose the names for your children, or how did your parents choose your name?  Good feelings or bad feelings about it? I think these stories can be fascinating!

Snow Day

Since I last wrote, a few things have happened with the Weavers that are worth mentioning.  Today was a snow day – among other things – so I’ve had plenty of quality (tormenting) time with my kids.  And, I was lucky enough to have Nana the Wonder Sitter all day as well.  The pesky snow day was late coming, and plans were already in place when school was called off, so we just moved forward with the original plan.  But more on that later.  First, some updates…

Finn has been home for a week now.  He came home 100% healthy, over the RSV, pneumonia, and whatever else he had, and back to normal.  This was a blessing and a curse.  Dad and I came home 100% exhausted.  It was hard to keep up with him and the Big Dream Weaver kids those first few days!  Last Thursday Finn had a follow up with his pediatrician which went perfectly well, then an appointment with the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor that afternoon.   Our pediatrician is working to schedule us an appointment with a pediatric pulmonologist for follow up, and the ENT scheduled Finn for ear tubes a week later (today).  Never a dull moment with him these days!

Friday was a SUPER EXCITING day!  If you’re a follower of the Six Dream Weavers, you know we have been touting BALTO week at Edmond North High School for several weeks.  Their benefactor this year is the March of Dimes NICU Family Support Specialist program.  Last Friday was the final assembly.  The one where everyone gets all emotional and thanks everyone for everything.  But, the best part?  They calculate and announce the final fundraising number!  Their goal for this year was $225,000.00.  We were pretty sure they would exceed that – this is an AMAZING group of kids – but we didn’t know by how much until the end of the 2 hour assembly.  When they raised the balloons to reveal the final number, the roar of the crowd was deafening, and the tears from the March of Dimes section of the stands were freely flowing.  My Instagram (BestWeave) from the moment:

And the final photo with the amount raised:

We are so excited to see how this money is used in the near future to grow the NICU Family Support Program from just one hospital in Oklahoma (Mercy) to at least one more in OKC and possibly Tulsa as well.  Having one at our hospital made a WORLD of difference in our NICU experience compared to many of our friends who had very different experiences at other hospitals.  THANK YOU, BALTO for choosing babies!

After a busy weekend of running the Bigs to birthday parties, basketball games, dance workshops, and church events, we were glad to get back to a routine on Monday.  Sort of.  The kids had the day out of school for President’s day, so Nana the Wonder Sitter was on quadruple duty while Dad and I went to work.  We really felt like we were starting to get back to normal and back into our routine at that point – even though we were still super tired as parents.  We were blessed by friends and neighbors with food for a few days, which kept us OUT of Wal-Mart for groceries and allowed us time to get the house (laundry, clutter, mail piles) in order without having to worry too much about food.  We are so grateful to have such wonderful people in our lives who love Finn as much as we do!

Of course, as we get back to normal, there is another little obstacle for us to overcome!  Finn was scheduled to have tubes put in his ears at 6:00 this morning.  Which isn’t really that big of a deal.  Except that we were having a thunder sleet storm over night and early this morning.  Ain’t NOBODY got time for that!  It was crazy.  And when we left our house shortly after 5:30 am to go across town to the Surgery Center, the roads were pretty bad – and getting worse!  Of course the process at the surgery center was a bit of a hurry up and wait game.  We were called back right at 6:00, but Finn wasn’t taken back for his procedure until 7:06.  During that time, we were obsessively checking local news channel websites and the Public School website for news of school cancellation.  EVERY town around us was called off; we just knew we would be too.  But, in the meantime, the plan was for Nana to come to our house at 7:00 to get the big kids up and off to the bus stop.  So when the School Board finally announced school closings at 6:50 am, my dad was already driving my mom to the other side of town to my house with chains on his tires to drop her off.  We could have avoided that whole scenario if school had been called off earlier!  The kids would have been fine by themselves until we got home.  *sigh* So, Finn was back in my arms by 7:21.  He did great!  Woke up a bit cranky, but overall did very, very well.  After a really great experience at Stillwater Surgery Center, we got home right at 8:00 am, and Dad went off to work, and I stayed home with the kids – and Nana!  It made for a pretty easy day with the extra help.  We weren’t sure how Finn would react, so it was nice to have extra hands to keep everyone clean, dry, entertained, and happy!  Finn did throw up once about 45 minutes after we got home, but he never ran a fever, had not had any more pain meds, and ate well the rest of the day.  They told us he would nap extra-long, too, but they have not met this child!  He was too worried he might be missing something his siblings were doing to sleep!

We really hope this procedure is a turning point for Finn.  We are looking forward to hearing words and seeing him take his first steps.  He has a hearing test scheduled for next week in Oklahoma City, but we’re thinking the tubes will have done the trick and that the hearing test will come back completely positive!  In the meantime, I hope my big kids get to go to school tomorrow, and I am looking forward to a calm weekend – it’s time to start tagging clothes for the Adorable Affordables sale!