Casting, week 5

I promised to update on Harrison and I haven’t done a very good job so far. Sorry! So here’s the update…Harrison is doing great! He’s doing an amazing job growing, he’s over 11 pounds now. Great sleeper. I don’t want to jinx things but…he’s been sleeping 7-9 hours straight each night for about a week now. I love sleep! Fingers crossed we get more nights like this!

We are currently in week 5 of club foot casting. Here’s how it works…Each week, a few hours before Harrison’s appointment, John and I remove Harrison’s casts. The recommended method of removal is soaking the casts in a mixture of water and vinegar. The doctors do not recommend attempting to cut the casts off, as the plaster they use is very hard. Harder than the typical casts you see on a kid who has broken their arm. My explanation of how we remove the casts is in no way a recommendation to try it at home. That said, we have had great success so far being able to cut the casts off. John uses garden shears, blunt side only touching baby skin, makes tiny little tears all the way up the cast, then pulls the casts apart so they come off. That way we can keep each cast and see the progress each week, which is really cool!

After cast removal Harrison gets a bath. He loves bath time! We got his first smile on May 26^th (happy birthday, Aunt Maria!) when he was in the bath, it was really awesome.

Then it’s off to the orthopedic appointment for the next set of casts. The most stressful part of the day is timing it so Harrison is eating while his casts are being taken off (to keep him still) and then making sure he’s hungry at the time of his appointment (again, to keep him calm while they put the new casts on). Since Harrison usually nurses I always worry about getting bottles timed for this part, but it really hasn’t been a problem or even very stressful.

The casting does cause a little bit of swelling and light bruising, but it doesn’t hurt Harrison to get the casts on. The doctor only turns his foot as far as he’ll let her. But he sure does get a lot of sympathy and adoring looks from strangers when they see the casts, which I’m sure he’s eating up.

The casting is working.  They’ll cast to over correct the angle of his feet at his ankle, so his feet will point out in the casts. The idea is that if they over correct, when the casts come off his feet will end up at the correct spot. The doctor still can’t say how many more casts he’ll need, but she said it’s looking good. I’m guessing 6 more weeks, based on no experience whatsoever.

Right now both of Harrison’s feet are still pointed, but once foot/ankle angle are where the doctors wants them to be she’ll snip his Achilles tendon to make his feet point forward. This is done in the doctor’s office, not even a surgical center, and just takes a Band-Aid at the incision. Which is crazy to me, but great! After that he’ll get one more set of casts and these casts will stay on for 3 weeks to allow the tendon to heal. Then he’ll move on to just the brace.

Oh, and Harrison is getting very good at kicking with his casts on. Which is great! In other news, watch out for the baby kicking casts around. Ouch!

Also, Harrison is so cute! Right now he’s on his play mat, cooing and smiling away. So I’m going to go stare at him. Here he is! Growing out of clothes I insist on putting him in anyway!

One year

It’s been a year since Lincoln passed away. A little over a year now that I’m finally posting this. I started this post and thought about it a lot in the past month, but couldn’t seem to get myself to finish it. Maybe I didn’t want to acknowledge it’s been a whole year since we lost Lincoln. I don’t understand how it’s possible.

This year on Lincoln’s angelversary we hung out as a family. We went to Lincoln’s spot at Spring Grove, had coffee and donuts and told Harrison about his big brother. We didn’t get to stay as long as we would have liked because Harrison isn’t really into doing anything for a long period of time, but I’ve talked to Lincoln a lot about how little brothers sometimes need extra attention so I think it’s ok.

I had a lot of flashbacks in the days leading up to Lincoln’s angelversary. Especially on that day. What I was doing one year ago at every hour. It’s funny how so many details of that day are so clear, when the following days are such a blur.

A lot of loss parents say they feel a shift in their grief after a year. Not necessarily that it gets better, but that it changes. I can see that. We’ve been through each anniversary and holiday once without Lincoln so we know what to expect. It’s not that the pain is less, it’s that we can better anticipate and prepare for the pain. So that’s….good, I guess? Another common thread among loss parents is that the dread of a holiday or anniversary is worse than the day itself, which I’ve found to be true. Maybe knowing what to expect will help a little bit with that.

I’ve also been warned that others’ feelings about my grief will change. People in the loss community talk a lot about this. People won’t understand why I’m not “moving on” or “getting over it”. I can see that as well because my feelings about my grief have changed. I sometimes find myself being less kind to myself, thinking I should be doing better. Then I remember my baby died. I almost never say it like that. I say Lincoln passed away, or that we lost him. To say that he’s dead feels so harsh. But that’s what happened. He died. He’s been dead for a year. And sometimes I have to say it like that to myself to remind myself of the magnitude of what happened. I’ll never “move on” or “get over it”, and that’s ok. It’s ok to have a bad day. It’s ok to have a bad week. All I can expect of myself is to do the best I can.

I understand there are some people who will find my grief to be too much and that’s ok, too. They won’t understand why we talk about Lincoln to Harrison. They’ll disagree with mine and John’s decision to always include Lincoln in our answer to the question “How many kids do you have?” even if it makes people uncomfortable. They won’t understand why the Lincoln Classic is so important to us. And I’m coming to terms with that.

The wonderful thing is that after a year there are still people in our lives who are there for us. Even if they don’t understand, they’re there. And that’s what I want to focus on this year. The people who love Lincoln and love us. Those people are wonderful.

So, that’s that. It’s been a year. We love you, Lincoln. We miss you every day. Come visit any time you want.