2004-03-22-9:49 a.m.
refinancing hooray!
Last week, we started the house refinance process. We dropped a percentage point and switched to a 20 year loan. This is going to save us $70,000 on the cost of our house, which I find amazing. Our monthly payment is going up by $30 to $50 depending on if we roll in closing costs or not. I don't know when we're going to close yet. Probably some time in April. I'm very excited about it.

baby bowling ball
Well, she's definitely not a little bun anymore. Instead, she's a weighty and uncomfortable bowling ball weighing approximately 2 lbs/14 inches long. I'm at 29 weeks now. I'm still having braxton-hicks contractions but they're turning into real show stoppers now. I have to sit down and breathe through them sometimes. When they go on for awhile, it really freaks me out that I'm starting labor but they just fade away.

We still haven't made much headway on a name. I don't have any "this is it" sort of feelings about anything we have on our current list.

Nurse Maid's elbow
We made emergency room visit #2 with Roen last night. Just before bedtime, we were all sitting on the couch and Ro boy was sort of rolling back and forth between us. Suddenly, he sat up and started wailing and holding his arm oddly. He was totally inconsolable and we were baffled because nothing had been going on. He was being extremely mellow and playing on a cushioned surface and yet was screaming like he had just broken an arm. So, after an arm examination and few minutes of continued screaming, we bundled him up and hustled him off to the emergency room at Highland Hospital whilst he wailed all the way.

I hate going to hospitals with Ro boy. The whole atmosphere makes him freak out even if he's not the patient. Anyhow, the staff waved us back to the ward immediately and we saw the doctor within 15 minutes. He manipulated Ro boy's arm despite Ro boy trying to kick him (or anyone else that came near) -- and I heard a soft click and suddenly his arm was all better but he was still screaming because he didn't want to be there. The doctor said it was nursemaid's elbow. I was really shocked because we went through the nurse maid's elbow experience last November and it was entirely different. I also didn't realize a kid could do it to themselves simply by rolling over wrong.

Back in November, I was horse playing with Ro boy and I picked him up by an arm and a leg. He gave an odd whimper and I set him down immediately. He seemed fine and happy and kept scampering around me to play but his arm was hanging oddly. Really oddly. It was completely limp from the shoulder but crooked at the elbow funny. But, he wasn't crying or anything. He was just going about life as usual but not using his one arm at all. So, I felt it down and he gave no response and no movement at all. I thought I dislocated his shoulder. After 20 minutes, he still wasn't using it so I freaked out and dashed him to the pediatrician. The nurse looked at him and said it was nursemaid's elbow but I still had to wait to see the doctor. While in the waiting room, Roen rolled around on the floor playing with cars and suddenly he started using his arm again. In fact, it seemed perfectly fine and we still hadn't seen the doctor. The doctor came out after I told the nurse he was better. The doctor explained nursemaid's elbow and showed me how you manipulate the arm to correct for it, which looked easy-peasy. I thought I could easily take care of it next time if it ever happened again. He said Ro boy must've done that for himself in how he was rolling on the floor.

Anyhow, despite my past experience with it, nursemaid's elbow never occurred to me this time because Ro boy was obviously in lots of pain. The ER doc thought his first dislocated elbow experience sounded really atypical. He said kids were usually crying. I also realized that I don't think I would be comfortable trying to fix it. The rotation the pediatrician showed me is what the ER doctor tried first and it didn't work. He sort of popped the radius back into place with his fingers. I'd be leery of doing that in case I was making things worse. Maybe I could do it now.... I don't know. I'm worried it will happen again now that it's happened to both his right and left arms. He must have funny elbows like me. All my joints hyperextend.

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