Philomena Anne

I promised I would write all about Philomena and her birth. I have been preoccupied with living here in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for the past two and a half weeks to be able to put two thoughts together to write a blog entry!

After I had gone down to Antenatal Testing on the 10th and they decided my uterus looked way too thin, they scheduled my section for later that day. It was very surreal sitting in my hospital bed and feeling little Philomena inside me kicking around and knowing that in a few hours she would be in the world.

Apparently, so the medical records say, she was delivered pretty quickly after I was put under general anesthesia. She was immediately taken to the NICU for observation and given oxygen and eventually graduating to CPAP. She was 5 pounds and 5 ounces and 17 inches. They put her in a crib but she started losing weight so they moved her to an isolette to keep her warm. They told me she was burning too many calories trying to keep her body temperature up.

My husband did all the feeds and kept her company while I recouped. He did a fantastic job and she fed well at first. Then as the week progressed she seemed to get more and more tired with her feeds. She has an NG tube (a tube that is inserted in her nostril and goes directly into her belly) and her scheduled called for every other feed to go in her tube. She stayed stuck there until yesterday, believe it or not, when she finally advanced to six full bottle feeds.

Our adventure here in the NICU has been a roller coaster ride. It's difficult to hear doctors and nurses all tell you to just be patient and "watch her grow" and "she'll catch on in her own time." In the meantime there are five other children at home who have been without their mother for two months and a husband who has been trying to keep his job and run the house for the same length of time. The stress is tremendous - I don't think I can even articulate how tremendous the stress of it all really is.

Philomena is so pretty and very healthy she just has a difficult time staying awake to eat. I consider myself lucky, though, when I talk to other moms in here (who, by the way, have been my complete sanity!) who have been here for months! Some moms here have babies born at 24 weeks gestation and are looking at two more months or more here. There are some sick babies so I feel blessed that Mena is healthy with the exception of her feeding.

I expect our Good Lord is trying to teach patience and what it means to absolutely wait on Him in His time and I hope we did pass His test or at the very least came close to passing it. Thankfully, we have been blessed with good friends and family who have helped us out; the Mantoans who have four children of their own yet week after week took on all five of ours so that my husband could go into the office once a week. My sister in law and brother in law who also have five children and took all of our kids once a week so Kevin could go into work. Their charity blows my mind. Where would I be without my hospital visits from my sister who can make me laugh at any given moment and especially when I need it the most or my brother who would come over to the house at night after a long day at work and watch and bathe all the kids at the witching hour so Kevin could come up to the hospital to visit me? We were tremendously blessed with so many good people from church who gave us meals and would come over and clean the house or check the kid's schoolwork. There were just days I would sit here in the hospital in awe of the help we were getting, sometimes from people we didn't even know! There were good people in our homeschooling support group who dropped off meals as well. Though we think God has tested our limits, He also poured out His mercy and blessings at the same time to get us through.

I hope to be able to write more blog entries from my home computer and not the hospital computer. It will be a weird feeling to be home all the time, but one I can't wait to experience.

Birth Day

The Birth...

Last week started like any other week. I was looking forward to Thursday the 12th - the day Philomena was scheduled to be born. When Tuesday rolled around I went down to the ATU department for my weekly ultrasound. They did the ultrasound and I waited (as usual) until the Perinatologist came into the room to consult. She put the file down on the tray and said, "Well the baby looks good, but looks like we will be delivering you today." I am not sure what I felt at the time; shock, anxiety and some other transient feelings I can't articulate at the moment. I made all the calls and got everyone scrambling.

The next few hours I went through all the preoperative things that you go through before major surgery. They put in two IV's (as if one is not bad enough!) and the dreaded catheter. Dreaded - this is the correct word to describe catheterization! Please peel off every layer of my skin with a dull potatoe peeler, but get that catheter far from me! I got blood work drawn and then went downstairs to interventional radiology to have the balloon catheters placed. This procedure was horrible. I laid on a flat hard table and they strapped my arms down and draped me for incision. I was told ahead of time that they might lightly sedate me. I wish now they had. Incisions were made in the groin area into two arteries. The catheters traveled into the opening of the uterus. This took approximately 45 minutes and all the while I was contracting, mostly due to stress and the pain that was enveloping my entire back from lying flat with an eight month pregnant belly.

From Interventional Radiology I went to the OR waiting or holding area. I was asked yet again if I wanted my tubes tied to which my automatic response was, "no." Again I had to lay flat and really it was agonizing on my back. I stayed in holding for about 40 minutes until the OR was ready and the teams were in place. They wheeled me into the OR and there must have been 15 people in there. One of the residents was saying she has never witnessed so many people in one room. My arms were strapped down again, but I made sure my rosary was tightly wound around my left hand. I had a lot of heads peer down into my face and say different things and then I don't remember anything else.

I woke up in a fog and I can't say even now where I was when I woke up. I remember trying to gather my thoughts and having a very difficult time with that. I did ask whoever was peering over me at the time how the baby was. "Good! She's doing good!" I felt relieved and then thought to ask if I had a uterus or not. My OB doctor came over at that time and told me yes, I did still have my uterus. I am not sure whether I was relieved or a bit stressed about that one.

I don't think I can really recall much of that evening except they gave me this button that delievered a heavy duty narcotic. I know that evening I had difficulty with shallow breathing and oxygen saturation.

I stayed in bed for the next two days. My husband surprised me by having one of the NICU nurses wheel Philomena down to me and I got to hold her in my hospital bed. What an angel she is. She just has this perfect angelic sweet little face. I cried.

I never did feel like I was getting better and by Thursday the 12th I just felt like I wouldn't make it. Truly, that's how awful I felt. I suppose that's because my hemoglobin levels dropped dramatically and it was decided that I receive two bags of blood in a transfusion. By that evening I felt much, much better and by Friday I was able to walk to the NICU for the first time and see my baby.

Today is exactly one week post-surgery. I feel better each day. I have been dealing with extremely swollen legs and feet and I feel like the swelling has gone down today a bit because I am walking more like a 70-year-old than a 90-year-old. I still have staples that have to be removed, but my belly even feels better today.

I cannot tell you how many people I had praying for me and Philomena, but the Lord God was definitely watching over us and seeing us through.

I will write more about Philomena in the next blog a little later on.

9 Days

A Healthy Fear

"They" say there is a healthy fear and an unhealthy fear. An unhealthy fear of anything leads to great anxiety and a paralysis of the emotions. Fear in and of itself is not a bad thing for God created us with the emotion of fear to protect us as well. This is why when something frightens us or we find ourselves in a sudden and unexpected time of panic or danger our bodies let off adrenaline which gives us that extra boost to be able to gain control of what has happened. It's healthy to be afraid of snakes, for example, for some are poisonous and meant to deliver a deadly bite. A healthy fear helps us manage our impulses as well.

Unhealthy fear, on the other hand, occurs when we allow our irrational self to gain the upper hand. Yes, I know I am waning philosophical tonight, but I have been reflecting on what I will be going through; what my family will be going through, my doctor and friends on the day of the surgery. Everyone of us will experience at the least a bit of anxiety and at the most tremendous fear. I thank St. Philomena and St. Anne for all of their prayers and granting me peace in that I feel like I have friends in heaven who are advocating on my behalf. Some nights I like to remind St. Philomena that I did promise her namesake to my unborn child without my husband's approval no less. I am confident she will look with kindness and increase her pleadings to Our Lord for my safety and for little Mena's safety as well. I don't have an unhealthy fear of next Thursday; anxiety perhaps, but I don't let my mind wander too far off into the "what-ifs" zone. This is not a good place to be. Fear and faith, at this point needs to be properly balanced, otherwise a prescription for Ativan might be in my near future.

NOW...

My OB confirmed this evening that the baby will be born on the 12th - next Thursday. I have been here a month on the 9th. It seemed like an eternity that first week and now I am nearing the end in just a week from now. Philomena will be 35 weeks, but I am confident that she will be born strong. I picture my child with dark hair and blue eyes and perhaps a bit shy. Whenever I go down to ultrasound and they try to get a face shot she moves her arms in front of her face as if to hide. I went down today for what is called a biophysical profile. They just scan the baby to make sure she is growing properly and has good fluid levels. All went well. She looked terrific and happy.

I, on the other hand, will be quite thankful when my trips downstairs to antenatal testing are over! Each Tuesday and Friday I get a knock on my door from "transportation" to wheel me down. Lately, transportation has brought the ever flattering "double wide" wheelchair. I am beginning to get a complex. I know I carry a belly the size of a small basketball out front, but maybe I am bigger than I think. Maybe the back of the wheelchair has a sign much like those trucks that go really slow in the right lane of a highway carrying a double wide modular home. You know, the ones with their hazard lights blinking and a rather large sign that reads, "WIDE LOAD." Thankfully, my fears are dispelled when one of the ultrasound technicians who saw me sitting in the hallway, as is routine now, asked why I was put in such a wide chair. She said I looked like Alice in Wonderland sitting in such an over sized chair. At first I chuckled as she pointed to my hair and told me that was who I reminded her of. I am not sure whether to be flattered, insulted or angry. I guess I do have a similar modest wardrobe as Alice, and my hair is blond, but I can think of many other people I would much rather have been compared to so I will digress.

THEN...

After finding out our baby was a girl, for me personally, I began to have a special connection with her, praying for her by name and picturing what she might look like. My monthly trips to the OB became every other week and my OB starting having a bit more serious talks with me. She informed me sometime around September - just as field hockey season was off and running, that a time would come in this pregnancy when bed rest would be essential. I really just tucked that information away in the dustier parts of my brain and enjoyed the last few months of being active, much to my husband's chagrin and my well meaning friends who always thought I did too much. I am glad now, though, being confined to this hospital bed when I look back over the very active summer and fall seasons and the rest that God has willed for me at this point in time.

13/14 Days and Counting!

Throwing on the brakes

As early as three months ago I was running after the kids, working as a transcriptionist part time and coaching field hockey! I used to wonder what it was like to take a few hours out of my day and just sleep and relax in silence with a good book. What a stark contrast to those hectic weeks from where I sit at the present moment. Part of me thinks I should relax and just enjoy this down time now because it most likely will not happen again for another 20+ years or so. The other part of me is screaming to saddle up my horse and ride her around the paddock or jump on the riding mower and mow the lawn for a couple of hours. No, I still have no desire to fold 18 loads of laundry a day...that I do not miss and gladly leave in the hands of my capable husband.

But, what I am learning through all of this is that I can settle and feel calm. Before this hospital stay I really did not think I could ever experience what calm was. It is in my nature to run and be active and normally an hour a day of peace, which occurred each night before I went to sleep (my reading hour) was enough to send me forth into another day...well, that and a few hundred cups of caffeine would do it.

NOW...

We think we have a date! I was updated by my OB this morning that we tentatively have a date blocked off for the OR; February 12th. I believe her office was waiting on one other phone call to confirm, but that it was moving in that direction. Secretly I have been hoping for February 11th, which is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes. I think that would be a nice day to be born. I don't think any of my children have a Marian Feast day.

The plan, so they say, will be to take me down on the morning of the 12th at 8 a.m. to Radiology to have the balloon catheters inserted. This should take an hour. After that I get wheeled to the general OR for the surgery. I will be put under general anesthesia and intubated. IF I do not need a hysterectomy, then the surgery will take about an hour. If they get in there and there are problems and a hysterectomy is warranted, then the surgery should be about 3-4 hours.

My hope is that I will be back to my private room that I am in now after recovery and the baby goes to the regular nursery and we can go home in five days. I suppose worst case is the baby goes to the NICU and I go to ICU. I don't anticipate the worst case scenario though.

THEN...

Eleven months had gone by since the completion of the miscarriage and D&E when we found out we were expecting again. My reaction to the positive pregnancy test has usually been the same for at least the last three; one of disbelief. It's a completely different feeling when you are "trying" to get pregnant and you view the pregnancy test. It's quite a different story when you are "surprised" by a pregnancy test. I don't say this in a negative light, only that it is just different.

When the shock wore off and my hands stopped shaking I told Kevin. I believe his reaction has been the same over the last three pregnancies; he will say something to the effect of, "Are you kidding? You are kidding right?" or "Stop!" It is always followed by a joyful smile though. Kevin is just as open to life as I am and I don't think he has ever put a limit on the amount of children our house would accept. But, with all the complications of the last delivery and then the miscarriage we both felt much apprehension; joyful that we had been blessed by God and cognitive of the fact that God must have a reason for this little soul to be here, but apprehensive still the same.

While Kevin and I felt much joy and our friends at our Parish were overjoyed as well, we knew there would be those people out there who would not be so happy. There are many folks, sometimes even those we love, who do not "agree" with having a large family or with those convictions we, as a family, adhere to strongly. We have been told by many of our friends of horror stories of being humiliated or put down when making the "we're having another baby" statement to those they love. I have pondered the reasons for a negative reaction to the announcement that another baby is on the way and tried to really figure out why others would not be in favor of a little life being born into a loving home. I suppose I will never quite understand and really, it's the reality of life. It's not always roses.

I remember one time about two to three years ago taking one of the little ones to the bathroom during Mass. There is this large statue of St. Philomena, whom I knew nothing about before this pregnancy. At the foot of the statue someone had laid a Holy Card with a small description of who she was. I took the card and put it in my missal and once and again I would look at it. When I found out I was pregnant this time I knew there would be difficulties down the road so I pulled out the Holy Card. I am not sure what exactly was drawing me to this particular Saint as I have recourse to many different Saints. I had this feeling from the very beginning that this baby would be a girl and at about eight weeks I started a perpetual novena to St. Philomena asking her protection and prayers on our behalf. I also promised her her namesake in exchange for her prayers. I hadn't told Kevin that part at the time!

I remember one night at dinner the conversation turned to naming the baby. We still didn't know at the time whether she was a boy or girl so we all tossed around some names. In my heart I knew that if it was confirmed that she was a girl her name would be Philomena Anne and was searching for just the right time to announce this to my husband. I did eventually tell him and it took some time for him to get used to the name because it's not very popular in this day and age. I also bought a couple of books on her life, which both of us read.

At 17 weeks I went in for my ultrasound and yes, it was confirmed she was a girl!

What words can do

It really is very amazing what a few words of encouragement can do for a person. About once a week I have my half hour of insanity, which I believe my husband is steadily starting to anticipate, when I flip out and tell him that I am coming home. I hit a wall each week and it's not like it's at the end of the week or on a particular day, it's just when the moment hits. I think being here I am internalizing all the stress of what is going on both with my own health and that at home. In the end all it really takes are kind words of encouragement to get me through to the next week when I will likely go off on another tangent My husband usually offers these words to me, reminding me of the importance of being in a hospital setting in case things go bad. Often I will also get a "scolding" from my sister-in-law Shelby and she probably doesn't know how grateful I am for her strict words and dose of reality. She is no stranger to the world of hospitals as she spent nearly a year with her son Clayton over at Children's Hospital going through devastating seizures on a constant basis. I know she knows exactly what she is talking about and heed her warnings that I know she gives me out of love. She is probably the strongest woman I know. My best friend Kelly also provides me with a soft, but clear reasons for staying put. Both she and my sister-in-law and watch the children once a week so Kevin can go into the office to get work done. Shelby, my sister-in-law has 5 children and Kelly has four. I often am amazed at their generosity in taking into their homes 5 additional children for an entire day. Then there is my sister who has also volunteered her time coming over and cleaning and ironing, which I KNOW she hates! She travels an hour and 15 minutes north to get to my house. My brother Joe has come to our rescue on more than one occasion stopping in after work to watch the children during the "witching hour." God bless him. He was able to experience his first diaper change by himself. You go Joe! My personal heroes. May God grant them all speial favors and blessings upon them.

Now...

I had a long consult today with my OB. She waiting on a call back from my prior OB before she would set a surgery date. Apparently, through the course of her conversation with my prior OB she was told that I had actually ruptured my uterus. My current OB was confused as to the terminology used in the OP report that stated a "partial dehiscence" was seen. From what my OB was told, the only thing holding my little Nicholas in the uterus was the outer membrane of the amniotic sac. I was blown away.

At this point she is pushing for a delivery at 35 weeks to totaly avoid the chance of me going into labor. I am hoping for February 11th, the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes. My OB is hoping for the 12th. I think Our Lady will intercede and get me the 11th :) In that case I am looking at 14 days. Really not a long time in the grand scheme of things.

I have been particularly blessed with a truly wonderful nurse. She is a devout, practicing Catholic and we talk for a long time about all things Catholic. She has promised to bring me in Padre Pio blessed oil as she has a strong devotion to Padre Pio. I have asked her in the event of an emergency to please baptize my baby and she said she felt very honored. How good God is to send me such a wonderful nurse?

THEN...

By the end of April and beginning of May 2007 we found ourselves pregnant yet again. We must not be trying hard enough with NFP! All went well and then I started to spot. This is not unusual for me though. I have spotted with other pregnancies. But, I went in for a check anyway. They took me in for an ultrasound and I was blindsided by what I saw on the screen. The tech didn't need to say anything. I could see for myself that there was an empty sac in there. I asked him, "There's no baby in there is there?" He was pretty serious and told me there didn't look like there was. He brought the doctor in who confirmed this. They diagnosed it as a "blighted ovum." Somewhere along the line the baby just didn't develop leaving just the void of the amniotic sac.

I cannot explain the void in leaving the office. It was as if I was pregnant with no baby inside. I cried when I got to the car. I came home and of course started researching blighted ovums. There were sites where mothers had testified to being misdiagnosed as a blighted ovum only to have a baby "show up" at 10 weeks or so. I knew deep down that there was no baby. It was just my gut feeling. Sure enough on Mother's Day 2007 I started to bleed. I did opt for a natural miscarriage as I was hoping to at least deliver the sac and have something tangible to bury and not know that my baby, even though he was perhaps just some cells in the sac wouldn't be sucked into a vacume and gone forever. I had read about women feeling a sense of closure when they delivered or miscaried naturally.

I was about 8.5 weeks when it all started. Little did I know what a long road I was in for. I bled all summer long. By August I went to my OB and said I was so tired of bleeding and when would I pass the sac? She kept encouraging me to have a D&C and that there was probably "retained products of conception." I always hated that term.

By September I was losing hope on a natural miscarriage, but just as I was about to schedule a D&C, I started to really bleed heavily. I spent about three hours in the bathroom going through what felt like labor. I will spare you all the obnoxious details and tell you the amazing part about that night of torture. After about two hours or so I passed a large portion of the "contents." I carefully examined this tiny sac that I held in my hands. What I found was astounding. There was a tiny baby inside. I could clearly make out a tiny little spine. I cried like a baby for a long time and then called my husband in. I cannot recall if he could make out the spine or not.

Just the week before I had gone to a Hallmark store in search of a little box to bury the baby in. I came across a beautiful porcelain box with an outside picture of a mother holding a child in her arms. I thought this would be good. So after the delivery I gently placed the sac and baby in my special box. We named the baby Anthony. The next morning with all the kids around we dug a hole underneath a weeping cherry tree out front. I thought this was an appropriate place to bury him. The tree was visible from the dining room table and had a bird feeder where tons of birds came to feed. The weeping cherry always blooms bright pink each year. We placed flowers over the tiny grave and I remember Kevin saying some nice words and a prayer.

I never stopped bleeding. A week following the acutally miscarriage I called the OB again and told her I was still bleeding. I had been bleeding sine May and here it was September! She scheduled me for a D&E that week. The procedure was uncomplicated and went smoothly. I was healed by the end of September that year.

I still gaze on the little area outside under the weeping cherry and think about my son that was never born. I hope to take comfort in the fact that I did baptize the little sac and I pray he is in the presence of Our Lord, or at least in a state of eternal happiness.

God has lessons for all of us and there was some reason for what happened and we just have to trust that God knows what is best for our souls, even if we don't understand why at the time.

Start of another week

The Real Troopers

There are some things that have really struck me throughout my stay here at the hospital and even before I was admitted to the hospital about the people who surround us in our lives. I was just telling someone today that I believe that you find out who the real heroes are in times like these. Everyone keeps telling me to "hang in there" and "you're a real trooper," but I don't consider what I am doing to be all that heroic. I look at what other people are doing for my husband and children as the real heroes, especially all of those people who have a lot on their own plates to begin with!

We have had so many wonderful people just give selflessly of themselves and their time to reach out to us and give us a hand, really sacrificing at times their own comfort levels and family time. Sine I have a lot of time to reflect I cannot help but be amazed at these heroic helpers in our lives. They are giving of themselves voluntarily. They don't wait for us to call and say, "hey we could really use your help!" They call us and say, "What can we do this week for you?" Everyone is doing it in their own way too; some by just sending an email and reaching out and saying I am here for you and some by cleaning the house or watching the children so Kevin can try and get some work done. Voluntarily taking on five children is a huge deal and a huge sacrifice. I pray God blesses those who have gone out of their way consistently while the chips are down. I know God will bless them. I wonder if they know how much we truly appreciate them?

NOW...

Not much to report with what is going on with me. I am still testing negative for the fetal fibronectin tests, which is essentially telling the doctors that I won't spontaneously go into labor over the next seven days. I had one taken this morning and it was negative. I haven't dilated any more than I was when I first came in here. I am having consistent contractions some are pretty strong. but none, apparently that are changing the cervix at all. While this is great for Philomena who can remain inside me and grow strong it is another week that I am here in this bed watching the rest of the world move along. God must be trying to teach me something through this; what? I don't know.

While I sit here and watch paint dry there is plenty of drama to be had at home. It started earlier last week when John Paul started having red, itchy eyes. Not at all unusual for him because he has such bad allergies. But then he started getting all kinds of gunk in them. We were sure it was probably pink eye. Kevin has been applying warm clothes to remove the gunk and watching him to see if it got worse or better. So a couple of days pass when I get a call. Kevin thinks John Paul might have really hurt his arm playing on the trampoline. He felt like maybe it was broken. I believe we have had that trampoline for close to 6 or 7 years now. No accidents at all! I kind of always had a feeling like something was going to happen at some point with the amount of children that have been on and off that thing, I just didn't expect it to happen when I couldn't be there to comfort the one who got hurt. I told Kevin to bring him to the same hospital here where I was staying so I could go down and be with them in the ER. Anyone who knows John Paul knows he is a real optimist and he is always smiling. Same holds true for him even as he sits in my lap with a broken elbow. The only time this little guy was not smiling or happy was during the x-ray when they had him manipulate his arm into different positions. He didn't like that because it hurt. So he was casted on Sunday morning and picked out a purple cast! All his siblings have signed it. I can't wait to see him again so I can put my name to it as well.

After a few days Nicholas started showing signs of red eyes. At the same time Zachary has been complaining his one ear hurt. So Kevin took all three boys into the pediatrician this morning. We'll start with John Paul; he has pink eye in both eyes. Zachary has a double ear infection and Nicholas has pink eye in both eyes plus an ear infection. So if that's not enough, our little 7-year-old terrier, Sparky, is not doing well. He has had blood in his stool for a couple of days. We are treating him with a de-wormer in case it is worms. The other day Kevin was telling one of his bosses about all that was going on and the guy asked him if a plague of locusts had also descended on the house. I chuckled at that one.

I was privileged to have our Parish Priest come out and administer the Sacraments to me which also included Last Rites. I feel about 100% better than I did when I woke up as if now I can have the baby and everything will be okay.

THEN...

Our family was still adjusting to the birth of our fourth child Zachary in the spring of 2005. Just when the dust was settling about three months after delivering Zachary we found out we were expecting again. It most certainly was a surprise. Eventually the shock wore off and I didn't really have a lot of time to dwell on the fact that I will have two of the five children only 12 months apart. The pregnancy with Nicholas was a bit easier than with Zachary's. My thyroid was behaving and the morning sickness seemed to be not as severe either. Nicholas' due date was in April 2006, but with two of my children being born preterm we were watching this one closely. March rolled around and we were anticipating the celebration of Zachary's first birthday. I remember having his little party after dinner and feeling off. Most pregnant women will tell you in retrospect that they just didn't feel "right" before going into labor. I chalked it up to the party and being 8 months pregnant. The very next day the exact same scenario played out that had played one year and one day ago. I felt some regular tightening of the belly you get with Braxton Hicks, but I just felt like I needed to go to the hospital. Kevin happened to be home and wanted to call his mother to watch the children, but I just felt like I shouldn't wait the 45 minutes for her to come to the house. So I drove myself, much to my husband's dismay. When I arrived I was examined and already 3-4 cm dilated. They readied the surgery room and my OB asked me if I wanted to wait for my husband to arrive. I told her I did want to wait now that I was there and being monitored. So after about an hour or so he arrived and they wheeled me into the OR. The C-section seemed to go okay. Nicholas was born at 5 pounds and 12 ounces. I knew he would probably be another NICU baby being born four weeks premature, but we were really hoping he would be strong enough to avoid intensive care, but after having some respiratory issues he was eventually placed in the NICU.

Kevin followed Nicholas off to the nursery and my OB finished up the section. As I was laying in recovery one of the nurses was joking about how all she could see was my OB shaking her head the entire time she was closing me up. I asked her why and she said, "I think out of frustration." I knew I would be getting a not-so-stellar report when she came in to see me. After I got back to the room my OB came in and sat down and looked me in the eye and said, "well that was a close call." I had what is called a dehiscence in the uterine wall which basically means when my OB cut through the skin and muscle and got to the uterus she could see straight through to the baby and that my uterine wall was already separating. Had I not made it to the hospital when I did or had I waited a few more hours laboring I would have ruptured and Nicholas or myself might not even be here. She says she sewed everything up nice and tight but advised that further pregnancies would not be wise. She followed that up with, "but I can't tell you what to do." I asked her to talk to me straight off the record and she said, "If you were my sister I would tell you never, ever get pregnant again." This was quite a bit to digest. While I wasn't of the mindset that I wanted 10 kids, we do have our beliefs which condone artificial birth control. We do our best and had permission and "grave enough reason" to practice Natural Family Planning, but I wasn't sure how well we could accomplish this task. I read up on it quite a bit after Nicholas was born.

We were both released about 6 days later. He did very well his first year. Like his siblings we knew he probably had a milk/soy intolerance and went straight to the same prescription formula that Zachary had been on. His first year was really very much a blur, but medically speaking he did very well.

I still have these moments of clarity (or is it insanity?) when I have trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that I have five children three of which for a year, were still in diapers. We have people ask us all the time, "Are they all yours?" While that question always leaves me puzzled as to what would lead a person to ask this question, I understand better now what a scene it must be to see a family out with five children scurrying about. It must be bizarre looking to the majority of the population who are quite comfortable with one, two or three children.

We live according to the laws given to us through the Holy Catholic Church and have faith that the way we are trying to live - is what is being asked of us by God. We know that saying "no" to artificial birth control" is the right thing because our faith tells us it is the right thing, yet we are still being responsible by doing what we need to do to protect my life and the life of a p0tential unborn baby. We trust that God knows what is best and if Natural Family Planning fails, then God must have a reason for it; God must want this particular soul here amongst us. We are the vehicle and God is the driver - the driver of a 15 passenger maxi-van nonetheless!

19 Days

It's Friday

I remember back when I was working full time what it meant to wake up on a Friday morning. There was a little more spring in my step as I would head out the door knowing that I had two days off ahead of me. Somehow getting to Friday was a big accomplishment. It still is, even on bed rest. Friday marks another week down for me and a sense of anticipation as we draw closer to "the day."

I have a Traditional Catholic calendar that sits beside me on my tray table. On today's date the block has St. Raymond of Penafort (Priest, Religious, year 1275) and St. Emerentiana (Virgin and Martyr, year 304) and I have written in the number 19; the number of days left to go before delivery. I am praying my delivery occurs on February 11th, the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes. I am finding my stay here in the hospital has everything to do with numbers; how many contractions I have in a day, the baby's heart rate, my blood pressure, (most mornings a tech has to knock on my head to see if I am still alive because my blood pressure runs pretty low {88/38 one morning}). Some numbers are more significant than others like the cervical length. The shorter that number is, the closer to the end you get. The uterine wall thickness; if this number gets really small than surgery is imminent as we do not want the wall to get so thinned out that it will separate and rupture.

While numbers are part of my daily routine here, the one number I look at first thing in the morning and the last thing in the evening is the number I have written on my calendar counting down the days when my daughter will be born and the prospect of a normal life resumes.

NOW....

Today I went down for my Friday cervical length check in antenatal testing. The last time I was in there on Tuesday I left storming out of the unit after a horrible consult with one of the ATU physicians who treated me as if I had only about 3 brain cells working in my head. He could be right, but I felt like I was making a lot of sense! We had argued about my "plan of care" and date of delivery. Today was a much better visit. The results showed my cervix to be shortening. I am down to .244 mm. Last Friday I was up around .45 mm. I noticed that there were two docs consulting today and I asked specifically to be seen by the one I really admire and have a lot of respect for. He reminds me of a fatherly-type figure and when he is done consulting with me, he always gives me a hug. Little signs of affection when you are so isolated in the hospital can make your entire day! He basically said that if my fetal-fibronectin test turns positive; whenever it turns positive that they would move on the c-section right away. The fetal fibronectin test is a swab test that will indicate whether or not you will go into preterm labor in the next 10-14 days. I get this test done every Monday, so we'll wait and see what Monday brings.

When I got back to my room I saw a basket of fresh flowers from my husband, all my clothes were folded in my suitcase and a pajama-gram on my newly made up bed. The funny story about the pajama-gram is when I was here probably less than a week and they moved me into this private room - I get a knock on the door from the people downstairs who deliver packages and letters and flowers. It was a pajama-gram (box of new PJ's you can send to a person instead of flowers etc...). I was so excited to be getting a package. Well the label had the right room, but the name was not mine. Apparently, it was meant for the girl who was in here before me. It was a bit disappointing. I later told my husband about the package and he felt bad so here was my very own pajama gram! I made sure my name was on the box before I tore into it!!!

THEN...

For some reason the birth of my fourth child, my second son, is a bit foggy to me. I know his birth was about as traumatic as John Paul's and maybe I have taken on some of my husband's traits of blocking out the little details about it. Zachary was born in March of 2005. Earlier the year before we had decided to leave our suburban home; a town in which I had grown up and was very familiar to me, to a home with more land. It was a big step for us, but we knew that with a growing family it would be for the best. But what I hadn't realized is how deeply this would impact me and stretch my comfort level to the max with such a significant move. We had put our home of 8 years up for sale at the beginning of the year 2004. An offer was made within 3 days. Within 9 days all the papers had been signed. It was a whirlwind from there and we made settlement on our new 3.75 acre home complete with a two stall barn and horse paddock in March 2004. The first night we moved into our new home I wound up in the driveway crying my eyes out and had an overwhelming feeling of dread and loss. I suppose it didn't help that the people who owned the house before us left it filthy.

At any rate, by August that year, feeling a little more settled in, we found out we were expecting baby number four. I was hoping the pregnancy would have gone as smooth as the previous two, but morning sickness hit early and hard. The strange thing about this morning sickness was that the antinausea pills, which had worked wonderfully for my prior three pregnacies was not working at all. I kept getting sicker and sicker. I was also noticing that I was losing large amounts of hair and my weight was dropping significantly which, at the time, didn't seem too strange because I had been so sick. By the end of September I was hospitalized and they drew a bunch of labs. It turned out I was hyperthyroid. I was released after a week and sent to an endocrinologist. He informed me that I had Grave's disease. He said I probably always have had it but it was magnified with pregnancy. So I went on hyperthyroid medications and I was feeling significantly better by November. The holidays came and went. My due date was April 19th and by the end of January I had come down with a bad virus that was going around. The coughing and sneezing eventually turned into pneumonia. At the same time I was going through a horrible fall out with a family member and I think between the emotionally stress and the physically stress my body just said that's it.

A couple of days into my 36th week I started to feel those familiar Braxton Hicks contractions on a regular rhythmic basis. I got worried and called my husband, wh0 came home right away. He called his mom to watch the kids. After 45 minutes she arrived and off we went. When I got to the hospital I was alread 3-4 cm dilated so they prepped me for surgery. The C-section was fairly uncomplicated with the exception that the wound site was oozing (I know, probably too much information!) after they closed me. Apparently, it wouldn't stop so they had to reinforce the surgical site with some special mesh.

Zachary Christian was born and weighed in at 6 pounds. He was having respiratory issues so they whisked him off to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and given a C-pap to help him along. This time my recovery from the c-section wasn't too horrible. I was up the next day and able to sit in the NICU with my son for most of the day. He was breathing room air and doing well until the feeding started. I did inform the nurses that I wanted him on hypoallergenic formula because of all the allergy/intolerance issues we had with the other children. The problem was that he wasn't keeping it down. This also was not a new thing for me or Kevin as all of the other children had reflux to one degree or another. His reflux seemed to be a little worse and sooner than the other kids though. I told the nurses he was a refluxer. So mid week they sent him off to radiology for barium swallow/upper GI which would show if he was refluxing. Sure enough he was refluxing, so the NICU pediatricans decided to start him on two different medications for reflux, Zantac which is an acid blocker and Reglan which is a motility agent and helps the food move faster through the digestive system. Within a day or so of Zachary going on these meds we noticed he started having funny twitching movements or jerks. Sometimes we saw it in his torso, sometimes his head would twitch and sometimes his limbs. Either Kevin or I was planted by his little isolette 24/7. We notified the nurses of this movement problem he was having and the NICU pediatrician was called who also saw what we were talking about. She ordered an EEG to see what was going on. We feared a seizure disorder. We were getting close to the end of the first week and really hoping he could just go home with us, but between his feeding difficulties and now this movement disorder it wouldn't be likely.

The doctors put him through several tests which included an EEG, and an MRI of the brain, which he had to be sedated for and that was scary. There were no real irregularities that had shown up, regardless, the team wanted to put him on antiseizure medications - the riskiest of those phenobarbital - a barbiturate that has sedative and hypnotic properties to it. My husband said, "no way!" He was pretty adamant about it too. We were furious to find out that they had administered the phenobarbital against our wishes. Nothing seemed to work though. He was still twitching.

By the end of the first week, I was essentially discharged, but the hospital was kind enough to give me a "nesting room" so I had a place to go to shower and eat and take a nap if I needd to and still stay with Zachary. I was missing my children so much and told Kevin I wanted to go home to see them for one night. So he came and got me and we left the hospital later in the evening. We were on the Atlantic City Expressway, on our way home, when Kevin noticed some headlights in his rear view mirror which appeared to be getting closer and closer. He started to move over into the right lane to let this guy pass us. Well, the other driver was going a little too fast and wound up clipping the back of our car. The next few moments, as I remember them happened in slow motion and by the guidance of many angels. The car started to spin. I remember screaming in horror and actually had time to think in those split seconds, "what will Zachary do without his mom by his side? He is all alone in the hospital right now." I remember Kevin being calm and collected. His right arm automatically went straight over to shield me and he managed to steer our spinning car with his left hand. He kept saying, "It will be all right...It will be okay." The next moment I looked up and we were facing forward, parked along the guardrail of the Expressway off of the left lane about a mile from our exit. I thought I was going to hyperventilate and noticed my hands wrapped in a protective manner around my belly as if to hold it together. I was amazed that we were not hit by any other cars that were on the Expressway at that moment. That, in and of itself, was miraculous. Kevin got me quickly out of the car and into the grassy median area. The car that hit us was on the other side of the road. This guy got out after about two or three minutes and ran across the two lanes to see about us. He spoke broken English and had a Russian accent. We had called 911 and they were sending police and ambulance and when he saw I had recently given birth he ran back to his car. Almost at the exact moment I said to Kevin, "you better get his plate number," he pulled away and left the scene. We were both checked out by the ambulance squad and the cop took our statement. The car was totaled so we couldn't drive home. The officer was kind enough to drive us the two miles or so to our house. My mother in law was watching the children for us that night. I remember walking in, my adrenaline still racing and hearing her say, "Bella has the flu. I just got done changing her sheets."

I think it's a blessing that God gives the human mind the ability to go numb because I honestly think the mind gets "full" and cannot process too many traumas all at once. That's how I felt...numb.

We returned to the hospital the next day. I had the nurses take him off the Zantac. It had a strong peppermint flavor to it and I wanted to see if his feedings would improve if we took that medicine away. I had always managed the other children's reflux by raising the head of the crib or thickening up the formula...never by meds. He was still having these strange jerking movements, but otherwise stable. We took him home at the end of week two and promised to follow up with the pediatric neurologist that week.

After we got settled at home we started researching reflux issues and seeing if there were any ties to seizure-like disorders. I was on a reflux message board one day about a month after we were home and there was a post on there from a mother and it read, "Reglan danger, please read!" Of course, immediately I opened the thread and read the warnings about how Reglan is not even approved for pediatric use and can cause "Parkinson-like syndrome" if administered to babies. Big light bulb moment for both Kevin and I. Immediately we discontinued the Reglan and within a few days he had no further twitching or jerking movements. How is it that the NICU nurses, pediatricians, pediatric neurologists and his own pediatrician at home did not know this was a side effect of the medication? I lost a lot of trust in the medical world at that point in time.

Zachary did pretty well and at about 3 months after his birth we received a letter from the state that indicated he had tested positive in the hospital for a possible genetic disorder. Apparently this test is part of a mandatory battery of tests they run on all babies before they were discharged. So off to the pediatric endocrinologist we went. She ran a series of tests and counseled us that she didn't think he would have any problems and that the growth hormones seem normal. She said sometimes preemies will test positive even if they aren't because they are born so little.

At a year he was due for a follow up MRI as requested by the pediatric neurologist we had been seeing since Zachary's birth. This was supposed to be a routine MRI. I was nervous because of the risks of putting a child under sedation. We went to the Children's Hospital for his MRI. They sedated him and did the MRI. Upon coming out of sedation we noticed Zachary was very irritated. The nurses said some kids transition from sedation better than others and some kids get very irritable. We were given instructions on how to care for him in the next 24 hours. Half way home, ironically right around the area of the Expressway where we had our accident, Zachary really started to wake up and he was freaking out! He screamed and kicked the rest of the ride home and when we got in the house it just got worse. We could barely hold him down. He couldn't walk because he was so woozy from the sedation, but he wanted no parts of anyone. We had to physically restrain him. After about two hours of this, I called the radiology department and told them the trouble we were having. She said to wait a little bit and eventually he would completely come out of it. "Eventually" meant another 4 hours of physical restraint, kicking and screaming. We were exhausted! He eventually went to sleep. We later found out that Zachary was the one in 50 children who experience irritable, combative and aggitated side effects of sedation. We would later find that this side effect runs in the family as Bella experienced a similar reaction to her MRI, but that's for another entry.

We got the results from the MRI the next day. There was a finding in the white matter of the left frontal part of his brain. We were told that we would have to have a repeat MRI in 6 months. Overall, he has done really well. His next MRI proved no changes to the defect. He went through a lot in his first two years, but he is a lovable, strong-willed little boy today, all the better for his experiences!