The Youngest Male Munkey

This is my little man, my protector, my son.  

Austin is the oldest of the Ford Duo and next to youngest in the Baxley-Ford Bunch. He has the heart of a lion and is the defender of all.  

From the beginning this guy was a gift from God.  You see I tried 8 long years to get pregnant.  96 months of negative pregnancy tests.  When I found out I was finally pregnant I was so very, VERY happy.  I bought all of the pregnancy books and "What to Expect When You Are Expecting" became my go to manual for all things pregnancy.  I was very careful with what I ate, did, and was around.  At 37.5 weeks I went in for a routine checkup and my dr seemed alarmed.  He sent me to the nearest big city for a 3d ultrasound.  It seemed that this little dude had stopped growing at 32 weeks and my body was trying to abort.  This is known as Inter Uterine Growth Retardation.  I had an emergency c-section and Austin was born weighing 3.14lbs.  He was whisked away to NICU while I was stapled, glue, and put back together.  

After the meds wore off I began to demand to see my baby, threatening to walk myself down there if no one came and got me.  Realizing that I was super serious a nurse finally appeared and wheeled me to NICU.  I scrubbed away a layer of skin, donned a gown, and finally got to see my son.  He was so small lying there with an IV in his little head.  He wasn't much bigger than a beanie baby and looked a lot like a spider monkey.  

A couple of days after he was born Austin's blood sugar started jumping to 500 and then bottoming out.  Thankfully the NICU dr knew he was over his head and called in a Endrocronologist (spelled completely wrong)  from Texas Tech.  Dr Varma diagnosed Austin with Neonatal Transient Diabetes and immediately put him on a regime of insulin shots and blood sugar monitoring.  Austin also had 2 holes in his heart so not only did we have a Dr Varma, we had a Dr Flippin, his pediatric cardiologist.  

Austin was in the hospital for one month and the saddest day of my life was riding the elevator down without my baby on the day I was discharged.  Thankfully my mom brought her camper and we camped out in the parking lot.  Living our lives 4 hrs at a time, until we got to go back in to NICU to feed Austin.  I had to learn how to give the insulin shots and check Austin's blood sugar before we could go home.  Finally, on December 2 we got to go home.  Almost one month exactly.

Austin had open heart surgery when he was 23 months old and the holes were repaired.  However he still has to see the cardiologist once a year.  After being home a month Austin no longer had to have insulin shots and was released a month after that.  He is the only known case of Neonatal Transient Diabetes that did not turn into Juvenile Diabetes and is now a case study for Texas Tech University.

Now Austin is nearly 12 years old and does everything every other tweenager does these days.  

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He has such a tender heart and believes that everyone should have a fair chance in life.  He is wise beyond his years and cannot stand to be lied to.  He likes to know what is going on and wants to be prepared for things in life.  Austin is the type of kid you can sit and have a real, meaningful conversation with and that is rare to find in an 11 year old.  This kid is a LEGO MANIAC!  He can spend HOURS and HOURS sitting in his room playing with his legos.  I can see him being an engineer when he grows up but my Grangie says he is going to be a preacher.  Hey, either way he is helping people.    

As with Tyeler I have raised him to not be ashamed of what he thinks and to use his voice.  Recently he felt like he had to have a difficult conversation with his dad and was concerned that he would hurt his dad's feelings.  I explained to him that when we made the decision to raise them to be honest and open that we knew that sometimes it would hurt our feelings.  I also told him that sometimes honesty hurts but when it is done out of love and not hate, it is so much easier to handle than lies.  He was able to tell his dad what he needed to and felt better because he was prepared.

Well that is Austin in a nutshell.  I am blessed to have this little man in my life and I thank God everyday for allowing me to be his mom.