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parenting the preemie pope home about samuel samuel s birth story about annalee about us friday july 8 2022 hey it s 2022 how do i even begin a post that s 6 years overdue ha someone mentioned stumbling across our blog and i knew i had to give a life update so get ready it s going to be a long one samuel is 12 years old now 12 he s a tender hearted over apologizer structure loving perfectionist his developing sense of humor is the best he also has some sweet dance moves that he busts out when he is happy at 12 he loves war facts cool weaponry lego drumming warships and pirates he continues to be an avid reader and spends the majority of his free time with his face in a book as much as i hate to admit it he also really enjoys video games and screen time as well ha he s growing up so quickly he s about 4 9 and weighs 73lbs he has huge feet so i m hoping that once he hits his teenage growth spurt he ll pass us all his weight gain slowed this year due to a health emergency last summer more on that here in a minute you may remember that we waited to start him in kindergarten a year late which turned out to be one the best parenting decisions we ve ever made he fits in so well with his peers in just about every way physically socially academically he just finished up his first year of middle school and loved it we were so proud when he brought home all as at the end of the year even in math his least favorite subject a lot of people who connect with us through the web ask me if he has an iep or 504 plan at school he actually doesn t have any accommodations he s never needed them he doesn t even do occupational or physical therapy any longer crazy how all of those extra things have fallen away over time he does still stretch his legs each night on a wedge just to keep the muscle tightness at bay while he grows the kid runs faster than i do though during the spring of 2021 samuel seemed to be getting stomach viruses relatively frequently every few weeks he was sick for the night i really didn t think anything of it we even traveled to africa last summer and spent a little over a month exploring south africa with michael s family only a week and a half after we got back from our trip samuel again came down with a stomach bug but this time it just kept going and going and going after three days i took him to his doctor who in turn immediately sent us to arkansas children s hospital it didn t take them long to discover that samuel had a small bowel obstruction the doctors placed an ng and hoped that it would clear on it s own after two days at children s samuel continued to decline they gave him contrast through his ng for imaging and told him to try to not throw up because the contrast might help clear the blockage he was nauseous and in tremendous pain his belly was bloated and stretched so big i have to tell you that i was reliving his darkest nicu days you don t live through a child having nec with a perforated bowel without it coming back to haunt you in a situation like this that second day i paced the room all evening and into the night knowing he was getting worse many of you know that night nurses hate to wake up doctors but by 1am i had the nurse call a doctor we all agreed that he needed surgery asap the surgical staff only arrived at 5am and i could tell that the doctor was as uncomfortable with the wait as i was i asked questions and kept it together until they finally wheeled him back several of the surgical staff even asked if i was a nurse ha yes got my degree from university of nicu parent we learned after the surgery that they got in just in time about five inches of his intestine were looking really purple but they pinked right up when the doctor cleared the obstruction thank you jesus the obstruction was caused from a great deal of scar tissue from his nicu days likely a result of nec and the abdominal drain his bowel was adhered to other abdominal organs that it shouldn t have been attached to the doctors removed the scar tissue and repaired a tiny tear in his bowel he also had a stricture or narrowing of the intestines that the doctor opted not to mess with since it seemed like things were moving through it reasonably well at the end of the day he had a four inch incision we were initially told that if they had to take him into surgery that it would be a laparoscopic surgery that didn t happen for a variety of reasons spoiler alert we follow the go big or go home philosophy with medical issues except maybe not the go home part i kid because obviously we did go home six days later we had spent a total of nine days in the hospital certainly a far cry from the one hundred and twenty five days he spent in the nicu but it was nine days longer than i would have liked it s been almost exactly a year since all of that happened and he is doing well like i mentioned before his weight gain has been a little slower but still seems to be staying on his growth chart curve well enough and now after that long update on samuel i need to do a similar update on annalee annalee rose is nine years old she is spunky sweet smart and social she loves her friends anything soft fuzzy playing her guitar being the center of attention and participating in any kind of celebration she is one of the smallest kids in her class but you d never know because her personality is so big she is always smiling and finding the good in every situation she s not afraid of new things or challenges and because of that she s good at almost everything she tries she ll be moving on to 4th grade this next school year but she s working on a 5th grade reading and math level this past year was her first year to participate in the gifted and talented program at school and she loved it health wise annalee is doing very well she did seem to inherit michael s asthma allergies and eczema issues and has yet to outgrow any of those maybe one day michael is still doing architecture and i m about to start my eighth year of teaching i went back to teaching five years ago when annalee started kindergarten while it was really hard to give up the flexibility of being a stay at home mom i do love the routine of having a full time job again and the joy that comes from seeing my students grow michael and i are celebrating 14 years of marriage in just a week he s pretty great i think i ll keep him we re currently designing and building a home on a 10 acre plot it s so ironic that when we finally have enough saved to build the economy would go off the deep end getting supplies delivered and getting the work done is definitely a lesson in patience we would love to be in the new house by christmas but that might be a bit ambitious thanks for popping in to see what we ve been up to here s a photo dump from our trip to africa last summer posted by sarah pope at 5 26 pm no comments tuesday april 12 2016 annalee s tonsillectomy annalee had her tonsils taken out last thursday i can t tell you how proud i am of how she did on surgery day she was so brave and so tough during our three hour post surgery hospital stay we are currently on day six post surgery and the poor thing just hurts she s been such a good girl but we have meltdowns often especially around meal time and during the night as bad as i feel for her i know we made the right decision her sleep apnea is all but gone already and it s almost impossible to hear her breathe at night what a change i can t wait to see all the changes in her once she has fully recovered here s a quick slideshow of the photos i took the day of surgery it gives you a pretty good idea of how the day went 3 posted by sarah pope at 9 08 am 3 comments thursday january 21 2016 hi there long time no blog time is flying guys flying i have no idea how it s been a year and a half since i last posted these two kiddos are doing great so so so good i just can t believe it we re at such a sweet time and i m soaking it all up about a year ago now we moved to a nearby city it has been interesting i don t know how two cities so close to each other can have such a different feel to them we re adjusting to the culture shock slowly but surely we do love our new house so much space it s another fixer upper but we ve already made some great progress i often think of the movie under the tuscan sun when she is talking about renovating and how you should always start with one room and make it yours we did that this time with our master bedroom it s a finished sanctuary in a very unfinished house i love it samuel started his last year of preschool this year it was a tough decision to wait another year for kindergarten i just wasn t sure he is so smart and so ready to be reading he can already read cvc words and sound out words while writing but he was socially and emotionally a bit behind in the end we went with our gut and held him back best decision ever he has thrived this year and my heart is just soaring we ve seen incredible growth from him he is more mature he handles frustration better he s not the smallest kid in his class although he is close ha and he has friends samuel is amazing on his bicycle he loves it he transitioned from a balance bike to a regular bike no training wheels early this summer his ease of riding is true to his nature since he has always been fascinated with anything that has wheels this kid is eating me out of house and home these days he s always hungry but despite the eating frenzy he seems to hover right at the 5th percentile in height and weight oh well medically speaking there isn t a lot to talk about knock on wood this winter we ve been far healthier than any since we came out of isolation knock on wood again we gave up his controller inhaler at the end of last winter and we haven t looked back he does have to use his rescue inhaler every now and again but for the most part we re finished with that too the one thing we haven t dropped is therapy he has occupational and physical therapy weekly he still has a bit of an awkward running pattern nothing too noticeable and he s still a bit tight in his legs i feel certain that we re making progress though especially since we introduced some stretching braces into our routine he wears them for about half an hour during the day and several hours at night annalee turned three this month three i m not sure how that s possible this photo tells you pretty much everything you need to know about her ha while we ve certainly hit the threenager stage she is truly a joyful child she makes us laugh with her type b goofiness that is all her own she is doing a mother s day out program once a week and really enjoys it can t say enough good things about the amazing teachers she has lucked into having two years in a row ironically our 32 weeker has been going through a few more health related trials than our 24 weeker has annalee has some pretty severe eczema although that s certainly not a huge deal it has been tough for her to get good sleep she often has night terrors not nightmares she doesn t remember screaming mommy all night and she doesn t remember what she was dreaming about we plan to see an allergist next month for some advice about how to get her eczema under control and how to keep her from itching at night she has always had a tough time handling colds it doesn t matter how mild the cold is she sounds like she has croup a doctor once told us that she has narrow airways and that hopefully she will outgrow the issue unfortunately it has continued to get worse the snoring started then tonsillitis happened and so we made that trip to see the ent doctor to be told what we already knew she needs her tonsils and adenoids out i m not thrilled about it but hopefully it will be one less thing keeping her from a decent sleep and as for the grown ups in this family we re doing great this year we will have been married eight years man we re old michael is an architect at a local firm and he loves what he does i suppose i have my hand in a few different things most importantly i m still a stay at home mom at least for another year or two i m also a substitute teacher at annalee s mdo program and just this last year i opened up my own photography business i ve been so blessed that it has really taken off i m busier than i ever dreamed i would be photography brings out the best in me i m always looking for beautiful things and when i find them it s impossible to not see god s hand in them thanks for following friends i ll try to be better about updating but if i m not be sure to leave me a comment here in a few months reminding me to get with it ha posted by sarah pope at 10 59 pm 7 comments older posts home subscribe to posts atom archive archive july 1 april 1 january 1 august 1 july 1 december 2 november 4 october 3 september 1 august 2 may 1 april 2 march 4 february 2 january 3 december 1 november 3 october 2 september 3 august 2 july 1 june 3 may 6 april 5 march 4 february 5 january 3 december 7 november 5 october 12 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