Updates and fun stuff

Life has been a little hectic the last couple of weeks, but I do need to post an update. For those that don't read my facebook page, I got the results back from my breast tumor biopsy and they came back that it is not cancer! Yeah! I do still have a fast growing tumor I'll have to take care of, but it's nothing life threatening.

On a totally different topic, a week ago we got back from a little family vacation to East Canyon Resort. We were there for 4 days, and had a great time. We've been going to East Canyon together with Adam's family every year since we were dating, so this was the 7th time we've gone together. For me, this was by far the best time. Maybe because Ryker is now at the age that he can appreciate some of the fun there. We went hiking, swimming, played at the park, 4 wheeling, boating, played games, and watched movies. Ryker actually slept really well, even taking 2 hour naps every day and sleeping through the night every night. This was the first time Ryker ever got to ride on a boat and he liked it. He hated having to wear a life jacket, but once he got over that, he had fun. He liked to wave to uncle Alan and Daddy as they skied. Here are a couple of pictures from the boat.

He even got to drive! :)


And he had fun playing on the back

Yeah For Fun Family Weekend!

Adam is finally done with his summer semester! Hallelujah!

So this Saturday we went on a 30ish mile bike ride as a family. We went up to the Legacy Parkway Trail and rode that, then we stopped at Bountiful Lake for a picnic. Later that night we had fun playing fetch with the dogs all over the property and then having a BBQ. It was super fun and great to have time together as a family after not having much family time for the last 2 months.

Now we have 8 weeks before Adam starts the Fall semester and we are going to make the most out of it! We have multiple camping, hiking, biking, and other family outings planned. Then in between all of that we have a lot of projects we want to get finished before Adam goes back to school, like putting new flooring in the new baby's room since Adam won't have time for that once he goes back to school.

In the meantime, Ryker and I are enjoying having Adam back!

Good News and Bad News

First, quick update. I did the Intelligender urine test that determines the gender of your unborn baby based on the hormones in your body, and based on that, I'm having another boy! I really am happy with either a boy or a girl. Intelligender claims their tests to be 85-90% accurate, so we shall have to wait and see.

Anyway, now on to other news. The end of last week I had two doctor appointments, one turning out great and one turning out badly. First the good one. I had my monthly midwife appointment to check on me and baby. I had done an Olympic distance triathlon (1500 meter swim, 22 mile bike, and 10k run) the Saturday before and I hadn't been feeling very well ever since. I had been cramping on and off, but no spotting. My midwife did an ultrasound and I got to see my very active little baby! Baby was doing great! Baby had a super strong heart beat and was moving all over the place in my belly, a very good sign that all is well. Eve, my midwife, told me that when babies are in stress they don't move, so the fact that my baby was moving like crazy meant he or she is doing wonderfully. Yeah baby! On the other hand, the fact that I didn't feel good and had been cramping so much after my triathlon, meant that I need to back off on triathlons now. Doesn't mean I still can't work out, but I need to keep the intensity lower and listen to my body. If I don't feel well or start cramping I need to stop entirely. Otherwise, I was in good shape, so I could feel free to keep going, although I may want to consider just swimming and biking since it was just the run that made me feel badly in the triathlon. I'm okay with that, since lately I've been having some pain while running so I don't love running anyway. :)

Now on to the bad news. Later that day I finally went to the hospital to get the lumps in my breasts checked out on an ultrasound. I was supposed to do it a month ago, but I wasn't worried about it and I kept forgetting to set the appointment. Anyway, I went to the Breast Care Center and Jordan Valley Hospital so I would be working with the best in the business. My left one turned out to be nothing, but the lump on my right size turned out to be a fairly large mass (aka tumor). The radiologist/oncologist then came to double check the ultrasound and then to talk to me. He told me that based on the ultrasound images, my mass was showing signs of cancer. It could still be a benign mass, but since it had grown so much in the last few months (there was nothing there in February and now it's almost the size of a golf ball) I should get it removed either way. However, they need to do a biopsy first because if it is cancerous, the surgery is different than if it is not.

If the mass is cancerous, then they will remove a significant amount of surrounding tissue, and depending on how bad it is, they may need to do a full mastectomy. The fact that I'm pregnant makes it much more difficult to deal with. The pregnancy hormones actually can cause the cancer growth to speed up, and even if they remove just the mass and surrounding tissues, they normally would like to treat with radiation or chemo to make sure they got it all. However, those treatments are not an option during pregnancy, so they often look at a full mastectomy as the safest option to make sure they got all of the cancer. Although, it could be possible to just do a lumpectomy and watch me closely, then deliver the baby early and then immediately start radiation or chemo treatments. Either way, none of those options sound good to me.

If the mass is not cancerous, they would still like me to consider surgery while I am pregnant due to its size, location, and fast growing qualities. He said they can still safely remove the mass while I'm pregnant, but my pregnancy will limit them on how they do the surgery and which drugs they use. My midwife also talked to me and told me this is probably the best idea for me if it's not cancerous.

Once you take the whole cancer thing out of it, it's still a sad thing for me because this is going to make it very difficult, if not impossible, for me to breast feed. I know that's not important to some people, but it's very important to me. I'm not saying anyone is bad if they don't breast feed, just that I really want to breast feed. If nothing else, Ryker never could really stomach any kind of formula well, so breast milk was his best choice. Unfortunately, based on the masses location and size, it's going to be next to impossible for me to breast feed on my right side. The biopsy alone is likely to damage it enough for me to not be able to breast feed, let alone the surgery. Then when you take into account that it's already blocking milk ducts, its pretty a for sure thing I won't be able to breast feed on the right side. I still might have a chance with my left side, but if I have to go through radiation or chemo, then that will be totally out of the question. And that scares me even more because if I'm going through treatments, that means I will have a premature baby, when breast milk is even more important. So, if any of you breast feeding new moms, or soon to be new moms, out there have any extra milk you want to freeze for me, I would really appreciate it! Hopefully I won't need it, but if I do need it, I'll REALLY need it.

Anyway, I have my biopsy in a few days. Then from there it takes a week to get the results back (you'd think cancer results would come back sooner, but no, they don't). And then from the results they will schedule me for some kind of surgery. We're keeping our fingers crossed and prayers in the air that all goes well and that me and baby will be totally fine. Hopefully this is just a little lump in the road.

More Family Time Pictures

Here are pictures from another couple days of family time. I'm excited for July and August when Adam has school off and we'll be able to do more fun things together as a family. We already have a couple camping and hiking trips planned. It'll be interesting to see how Ryker does camping. :)

Hogle Zoo
Ryker driving us to the zoo

He looked cute in his hat. Too bad it didn't stay on long.






Discovery Kids Museum at the Gateway

Fitting in Family Time

With Adam working full time and going to school full time, there's not much time left for him to spend with the family. Thankfully, he's a pretty great husband and father so any spare time he has he tries to spend with us. He had one weekend between semesters so we tried to pack in as much as we could in that weekend a month ago. Here are a few pictures from that weekend. I'll post more later (Ryker's waking up now).

Thanksgiving Point Farm




Play Planet






Living Planet Aquarium

First Midwife Appointment

So on Monday I had my first appointment with my Midwife and my first peak and my little baby growing inside me. This was the first time I met my midwife in person. I've talked to her probably 10 times over the phone (making sure all of my supplements, training program, and races are okay), but meeting her in person was much better. I love her! I don't know why I didn't get a midwife the first time I was pregnant! She's so much better than my OB was.

First, she's a woman, so that right there makes her a little more understanding and me a little more comfortable than I was with my male OB. Second, she has 15 years of experience, so I feel good about her delivering my baby safely. And third, probably the most important for me, she's never once missed one of her patient's births. Hallelujah! She will be there with me through the entire labor, not let anyone push me around, and she is well aware of all of the methods of natural child birth that I want to try. And with her there, the nurses are not allowed to do ANYTHING to me without her written order. I feel so much better knowing that this time around I will have a professional there to support me, the ENTIRE labor AND delivery, and it's someone I will know and be comfortable with, someone who will know my birth plan and be totally supportive of my wants and needs and not try to push her own agenda.

This time around, I have to go natural, no epidural. I have no moral objection to epidurals, but since the epidural I got with Ryker nearly killed me (literally, my heart almost stopped and my blood pressure dropped so dangerously low they had to put ephedrine in my IV), I will not even consider an epidural this time around. I also didn't like how last time some of my nurses were really pushy and coerced me into things I didn't want to do, like get an epidural when I wasn't even feeling pain yet. Anyway, I am beyond thrilled I'm going with the midwife this time around and she does not have any plans in December or January, so baring some big unforseen circumstance, she will be there with me from beginning to end. Yeah!

Anyway, at my first appointment she did a breast exam and found two worrisome lumps; one in each of my breasts. So now I get to go to the hospital and get an ultrasound on each of those and make sure everything is okay. It probably is, but better safe than sorry.

Then the best part, she did an ultrasound for my baby and I got to see my little baby blob for the first time! I love every chance I get to see my baby during pregnancy. So originally my due date was December 25th based on the calendar. I wrote everything down so my midwife and I were pretty sure that was the date. However, in the ultrasound, little baby blob is measuring small. Therefore, my new due date is January 3rd. Personally, I think I will still come in December. Mostly because Ryker started off measuring small too, but when he was born at 36 & a 1/2 weeks, he was 6lbs 9oz and fully developed, making my original due date with him much more accurate. My original due date with Ryker was January 5th and he was born on December 29th, so he would have only been a week early instead of 3 and 1/2 weeks early.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this baby comes sometime after Christmas, but before New Years. That close to the end of the year, it would be great to get that nice tax break :)

Ryker's finally walking....and running!

On Saturday, May 7th, Ryker finally started walking all by himself. He's been walking for a while holding on to things and pushing things, but Saturday morning he walked to Adam all by himself. He was so proud of himself! Then the rest of the day he had a lot of fun walking back and forth between Mommy and Daddy. Then on Mother's Day, the 8th, he started running back and forth between Mommy and Daddy. Now, every time that he can, he runs from place to place. He still falls, but he just gets back up and keeps going. I knew he was just waiting to walk until he could go fast. He's a fun kid!

Finally Catching Up!

I’ve been out of the blog world for almost 5 months now, and a lot has happened in those 5 months!

First, we had Ryker’s first Christmas, which was awesome! He was able to have both sets of grandparents there when he opened his presents Christmas morning. He thought the whole thing was cool. He got to rip paper, play with new toys, and a box. Although he didn’t like it when I took his new toy away so he could open another one. That is, until he figured out he got to tear open another package. Christmas with a child is so fun!!

Next, Ryker turned 1 on December 29th and we celebrated his birthday the next day. Unfortunately, there was an awful snow storm that day so most of our friends and family were not able to make it to the party. However, we had the Dalton Grandparents and Grandma Stockdale and our friends the Miles Family, so it was still super fun. Since I’m paranoid about letting Ryker have sugar, and he has food allergies, we made him a special banana cake in the shape of a Teddy Bear (thank you Grandma & Grandpa Dalton for helping with that!). Ryker was hesitant to touch it, but then he went face first into it, but then when everyone started making loud noises in response he stopped because he thought he wasn’t supposed to do that. It was pretty funny. Overall he had a fun birthday!

At Ryker’s 1 year doctor appointment he weighed 18 pounds 2 ounces, putting him in the 2 percentile on weight. But his cognitive, social, and emotional development was all right on track or better.

In January Ryker’s communication skills really took off! He really started using sign language. By the end of that month he would sign more, eat, drink, cracker, milk, all done, and dog.

In the beginning/middle of February we found out that Ryker had some food allergies. I suspected something because he was always sick, had slow weight gain, and was getting a sore bottom often. Finally I took him to a doctor that is a licensed MD as well as a natural medicine doctor. His regular pediatrician wasn’t able to help before so I hoped this new doctor could, and he did! He was able to isolate that Ryker was allergic to cow’s milk, goat’s milk, yeast, coconut, eggs, and most strongly to soy. He did some natural allergy treatments and told me to hold off for a couple weeks on allowing him to have any of these things. Then I could add them back into his diet, one at a time, wait a week or two, then add in another one. As soon as I did this, Ryker got better. Basically all of his symptoms went away and he finally started to gain weight!

Now he can have everything except for soy, which is basically in every processed food. So this means I do a lot of cooking from scratch and I have to buy a lot of organic foods to get stuff without soy in it. Although, since I’ve made these changes, he is doing so much better! And, lets face it, without many processed foods in our home, we all eat healthier.

Here we are now at May 1st, and I can’t believe how big Ryker is! He is finally as tall as his cousins the same age as him (although I haven’t weighed him in a while, so I don’t know what he weighs). He is still small weight wise and a skinny boy, but he’s much healthier. Other than a cold and one ear infection, he didn’t get sick after we figured out his allergies, which is a HUGE thing for him! This is the kid that was always sick.

Ryker is now a wonderful communicator now! The only downside to that is he gets really mad at me when he knows I know what he wants and I don’t give it to him. Oh well, kids have to learn they don’t always get what they want. Anyway, now he uses sign language all day long and he talks a bit too. He now signs eat, drink, more, cracker, banana, milk, all done, bird, horse, fish, dog, grandma, hurt (if something like his ears or tummy hurt he can tell me), hat, shoe, please, thank you, car, bike, airplane, he shakes his head yes or no in response to questions and then he also loves to wave hello and good-bye to everyone. He can sign more than he can say, but he says mom (also mama, mommy), dad (also dada), grandma, papa (for grandpa), dog, bird (kinda sounds like bir), that, and his favorite is uh-oh. He is also mister social and loves to wave to everyone. Most of the time he plays well with other kids. He also LOVES music and tries to sing all the time, which is totally adorable! He loves to play the piano (Grandma Dalton’s keyboard) and he turns bowls and boxes into drums. He loves to read books. He loves to go outside. He is a great running and biking companion for Mom and he loves going in the jogging stroller and bike trailer. He walks (mostly runs) holding onto stuff, or someone’s finger, or taking a few steps from one thing to another or when he doesn’t realize he isn’t holding onto anything. Although he sits down and speed crawls if he realizes he isn’t holding onto anything. I think he’s just waiting until he can run without holding onto anything because he crawls so fast that walking is just too slow for him. Overall, he is a very sweet, smart, busy, playful, teasing, boy!

Adam just finished another semester of school, again with all As. Yeah, go Adam. He now only has a year left! He’s coming up on a tough 7 week semester that with his full time work at the VA and full time school schedule, we won’t see us at all 4 days a week. Monday through Thursday he’ll leave at 5:30 a.m. and get home at about 10pm. But then once those 7 weeks are over he’ll get 8 weeks off (we’re counting down!). So in his one week off this week, we just got done spending an awesome weekend together as a family. I’ll do a separate post about that later.

In the last 5 months I (Melissa) have had a lot of things going on too. First, since November 1st I have lost 45 pounds and am now down to 19% body fat. I have also been training hard for triathlon season, which gets started this week. I started by training 5 hours a week and have now worked up to training 12 or 13 hours a week. We (Ryker and I) switched gyms to one with a nursery that gives him tons of attention and one-on-one time. So I run and bike outside with Ryker weather permitting, and when it’s not permitting, we go to the gym and Ryker gets to go play for an hour while I run, bike, or swim. He loves it at the new place! He also takes a mommy and baby swim class there with me once or twice a week and he is becoming quite the little swimmer himself. Then when we come home after our workout each day & he goes down for a nap, I find myself either working out more or getting house work done, or both.

A couple weeks ago I was talking to my triathlon coach and he suggested I was in great shape and there was no reason I shouldn’t be training for a half Ironman (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run), not just an Olympic distance (1500 meter swim, 25 mile bike, 6.2 mile run). He suggested I could be ready for the Boise half Ironman on June 11th, so after talking to Adam, I decided to do it!

I was feeling great and the weather was getting better, so adding to my training with Ryker was no problem. Ryker is always asking to go outside, so he was loving the extra outside time with Mom. Since there was a slight chance I was pregnant, I decided to wait to register until I had my period a couple days later. After over a week of being late, I finally took a test, and then another test, and then double checked my calendar where I had been writing everything down, and sure enough I am pregnant! According to my calendar, I am due December 25th!

I immediately got on the phone with my doctor’s office and then later got a call and had a long discussion with my midwife about what being pregnant means to my training, diet, and triathlon schedule. Since I am feeling great (other than being slightly tired I don’t even feel pregnant!) she said I could continue with what I’m doing. I eat a very healthy, balanced diet, with enough calories to fuel my workouts, so all I needed to do was add 200 calories to my diet and I would be fine. I also closely monitor my heart rate during workouts so I should keep doing that and stay in an aerobic zone and as long as I’m not cramping or bleeding, I can keep up my workouts and keep doing my triathlons and bike events I’m scheduled for. Although right now I’m not planning on doing the half Ironman until next year, after this baby is born. I will however be doing other, shorter distances, throughout the summer as long as I continue to feel good.

That’s a lot of updates for one day, so I will continue updates another day.