Heart Attack Reflections

Eyeballs...  Balloons...  Sharks... 

To the average person, these three words would have little, if anything, in common.  But to me, they all evoke the same feeling in my heart.  Fear.  I don't recall the exact moment any of these things started haunting my existence, but it was long before the man I married decided to make his profession one of slicing eyeballs; long before I had children who require balloons at every single birthday; and long, long before I moved to an apartment right on the beach where sharks are swimming entirely too close to me.  Facing these fears on a regular basis has not curbed their intensity... in fact, if anything the intensity has been inflated.  I now have rules about how much Brian can share about his day with me (no hand motions to describe procedures (only words), and I do not look into ANY eyes as he's talking about it).  I have rules about the presence of balloons in my house (ONLY on birthdays and NEVER in the car).  And I have rules about when I will and will not enter into the ocean.  My family and I laugh at the irrationality of these fears (mostly my family), but the laughter doesn't seem to curb their intensity either.

In addition to these silly and rather irrational fears, I have one very real and rational fear.  One that I don't laugh about (ever), sometimes cry about when I even think about it, and can actually remember the exact moment it hit my heart and latched itself there like a leech.  It was early spring.  I had just gotten engaged and heard a terrible story of a newlywed couple who, on their way on their honeymoon, got in a car accident which killed the groom.  (Why do people even share these stories?)  That was it.  A new fear had been born because I all the sudden had someone in my life that I loved in a whole new way and that I simply couldn't imagine living without.  And with each passing anniversary, each new child, each rocky path conquered, that fear of losing this man I love has only grown because now he's that person in my life that I love even more. And more. And more.

We have had a few kind notes and phone calls this past month from friends and family who are remembering the events of last Christmas.  Their messages are so appreciated and all have the same wonderful tone: thinking of you, and so happy you are all healthy together this Christmas season.  Of course, I've been reflecting about the last year because, that's what I do, and one memory keeps working its way to the front of my mind.  It was Christmas Eve, and the day had been so very emotional. After tucking the children into bed and leaving them in the care of Grandma and Grandpa, I drove to the hospital with a suitcase full of presents to set up in the hospital room.  (I must have looked terrible because more than one group of people stopped and asked if I was alright. No, I wanted to say.  My 32 year old husband had a severe heart attack a couple of days ago, I'm 7 months pregnant, and I have three small children at home, so... I'm scared... and I don't know what my future looks like. But of course I just smiled and nodded.  They smiled back and we shared a silent understanding.  You're here on Christmas Eve, too...)  I walked into Brian's room, so happy he'd been moved from the ICU that morning, and tried quite unsuccessfully to hide my emotional face.  I felt it so important to not worry him with my own feelings quite yet because I wanted him to focus on himself, so I explained them away by simply saying that I felt a bit overwhelmed.  I tried to set Christmas up quickly but, being the perfectionist that I am, I ended up staying too long and felt supremely guilty when Brian admitted that my preparations were stressing him out.  I left the rest 'undone', kissed him, and tearfully made my way to the door to leave him alone to rest.  As I opened the door I heard him say, "Oh, Linds," his tone was gentle and sounded as if he'd just realized something important. "I'm so sorry." I looked back at him, laying in that hospital bed and he continued, emphasizing each word, "This is your biggest fear."

I waved my hand to dismiss it, again, not wanting him to worry for me just yet.  "I'm fine, dear," I said.  Though, I most certainly was not and I'm sure my tears blew my cover.  "Get some sleep and I'll see you in the morning.  I love you."

Of course, I'm lucky that I didn't actually have to live through my biggest fear last Christmas.  But boy did I have to stare that ugly thing down face to face.  It came much too close.  Close enough to touch, to smell, to taste and, worst of all, to feel.

But, now I see that an unexpected thing has happened. 

Unlike my fears of eyeballs, balloons and sharks that intensify when faced, facing the fear of losing Brian has interestingly diminished it.  To be clear, it is still my biggest fear, and I pray every single morning that the Lord will protect him and keep him safe because that is certainly a trial I never want to live through.  But.  I'm not so afraid of it as I once was.  And it's because, through those indescribable hours where I wasn't sure he would ever be coming home with me again, I dug to the root of myself and somehow knew that I would be okay.  Call it faith or madness, but it is perhaps the most empowering feeling I've ever felt... the feeling of knowing that, even if my biggest fear happened... I would be okay. 

Maybe that's what the Lord wanted to teach me through all of this.  To have faith in myself.  To have faith in Him and to know that I could get through anything... anything... with His help.  How blessed I feel that the Lord could teach me that lesson without making me live through the real thing.

Oh gosh.  How blessed I feel in that.

 Sometimes the rest of the picture is just so great that your poo-face just has to take one for the team.

This past year has been shoved full of so many experiences and memories that, because of our humble feelings of mortality, have been absolutely cherished.  We have lived this year and I have a folder bursting full of pictures to show it.  Of course, we have struggled and cried and wrestled and woken up exhausted just as much or more than other years because, evidently that's just life, but we have also laughed and loved and played and dreamed. We've hugged more and listened more and navigated through our disagreements with more love.  Brian and I are having very different experiences this year - me living a sort of dream, and him living a sort of nightmare - and for all the friction that could cause in our lives, we've still managed to respect each others feelings, to stick together and to feel part of the same team through it all. 

He is such a good man, guys.  And I am one lucky lady.

Subtle Changes - The Wife's View

 
August.
I see it at the top of my calendar.
August.
And I know what they say.
August.
Eight months, they say.  Eight months after December.
And still I don't believe.  No matter how many ways I bend my brain, I cannot make sense of the reality that it's been eight months since I stood alone, gripping a friend's phone in that emergency room, watching doctors and nurses frantically work to save the life of my husband.
To be cliche, It Feels Like Yesterday.
Well...
Maybe not yesterday.
But certainly not eight months ago.

In March, a friend asked me over the phone if I felt like Brian's heart attack had changed me; if it had helped me realize the gift that Every Day is; if it reminded me to live fully in each moment.  I thought for a minute and then answered as honestly as I could.
"I wanted it to.  I thought it would."
But life still felt hard.  Our house wasn't selling (wasn't showing) and we had a newborn baby to care for.  Brian's energy was low and our stress levels were high.  Little things still irritated me sometimes and, darn it all, the kids still needed to eat every couple of hours.

More time passed and the stress of selling and moving and leaving grew.  And grew some more.  But my pregnancy related hormones started leveling out and Timothy started giving us longer stretches of sleep through the nights.  The aftershocks of the heart attack itself started subsiding and I found myself feeling a little more in control of the chaos that had become our lives.  And one night, I noticed that a small shift in service had taken place during the months.  Instead of asking Brian to finish the dishes for me, I had been doing them myself.  Instead of waiting for Brian to go get our late-night ice cream snack, I had preempted it and made my way to the freezer.  I pulled the sheets tighter when I made the bed in the mornings because I know that Brian does it for himself every night. And I thought, maybe I have changed a little after all.

The first Sunday in April, Brian stood in sacrament meeting and walked our little baby to the front of the room.  With a circle of men he stood and surrounded Timothy with the power of the priesthood and, in that setting, cradled our son in his hands to give him a blessing.  As he spoke I was overwhelmed by the simple fact that he. was. there.  I thought of the moments we'd shared that had been sandwiched between the heart attack and that minute of Timothy's blessing and felt the warmth of all the long hugs, the joy of all the laughs, the sweetness of all the tender conversations and even the sting of all the tears.  It was hearing Brian's voice blessing our child that made that moment even more special and even more cherished than it otherwise would have been.  And in appreciating that moment so deeply I thought, maybe I have changed a little bit after all. 

I have noticed that there is a substantial increase in the number of times I shrug my shoulders and genuinely mean it when I say, "Eh, it doesn't matter that much." In small things such as not being able to find time in the day to get dinner started, to personal things such as feeling a little too squishy in my bathing suit, to big things such as the thousands of dollars lost on our home.  I see that it is my faith that matters.  It is my husband that matters.  It is my children that matter.  It is relationships and love and trust and companionship and friendship and doing good for others and seeking the most delectable brand of chocolate ice cream that matters.  So, maybe I have changed a little bit after all.

This man... this incredible man holds a much deeper place in my heart today than ever before.  I can see that we have built our lives in, around, and through each other to an extent I still can't quite grasp.  Through the past eight months as I've contemplated just how close I came to losing him, I have started to see all the ways that he is literally a part of me.  I would not be who I am today without his influences on me, and I would not like to try to be me without him by my side.  I need him.  And despite what critics might say, I believe this is how God intended love to be... whole and completely encompassing.  Independent, yet so dependent.  I sometimes get scared to love him this deeply, but my faith reminds me that, should God call him away from me on this earth, we would continue in this love through the eternities.  In this new and more dependent depth of love, I see I have changed after all. 

It's just that I had expected the changes to be drastic, I suppose.  But I should know by now that change in myself doesn't happen drastically.  In fact, change happens so slowly that sometimes I wonder if it's even happening at all; so to have expected myself to never again feel irritated at a glass of spilled milk on the carpet, or shoes left (again) in the middle of the floor, was, simply, to be unfair.  But now I see that, maybe I have become a bit more thankful.  A bit more humble in the knowledge of our mortality.  A bit better at focusing on the eternal perspective of my life and a bit farther away from getting so distracted in the details of things that simply don't matter.

But as far as the day to day life goes, things feel... remarkably the same.  I've gotten used to hearing the sound of pill bottles being rattled in the mornings and evenings.  It just reminds me to be so thankful for all the medical miracles.  And I've gotten used to the slight discomfort I feel every. time. he. lifts something/walks quickly/goes for a run/looks stressed/wrestles with the kids.  It just means that I love him.

So I guess the heart attack has changed our lives.  Not drastically, and not outwardly, but significantly.  It's given us hard things to work through, wonderful things to cherish.  And oh, how lucky I feel to be living this day with him.  And if the wind makes my hair look like dandelion poof?  Well, that's just the small stuff.

Happy 11th anniversary, my love.  I pray that God has many, many more years planned for us. 

Feeding the Masses

 My grocery shopping buddy and me

I'm a once-a-week grocery shopping kind of girl.  If I set foot in a grocery store more than twice in one week, it's a sure sign that something is off kilter in my little world.  This truth must be so in my life because I find it almost impossible to stick. to. my. shopping. list.  And, since I am a passionate budgeter, this can turn into a bit of a problem.  (Could I really just pick up a bag of lettuce for dinner when that bunch of asparagus is making googly-eyes at me?  And when those peaches, those peaches!, smell so divine? Oh, and I am out of strawberries, too.)  So, instead of coming out with a $3.00 receipt, it reads $24.73 (but, I do get to smell peaches on the way home).

This, combined with the fact that my family could consume a large garden of vegetables, an orchard of fruit, a granary of wheat, and a ranch full of meat every week, makes these weekly shopping trips rather colossal.  As in, two carts full of food, colossal. Which has always been just fine... until we moved into an apartment located on the 11th floor.  I just simply do not have enough arm length to layer that many grocery bags up and down them.  And... even if I did, my strength would come up... short.

So, the kids and I find ourselves just 'running to the grocery store real quick' now-a-days.  And, with the grocery store just 4 blocks away through traffic-filled streets, I've found it only takes a few extra minutes and saves a whole lot of stress to put on backpacks and walk.  This works well because it significantly limits the amount of things I can buy!  That carton of ice cream doesn't look quite so tasty when you have to rush it home through 95 degree heat.  (Don't worry... Brian has made sure we do not have an ice cream void by dropping into the store on his way home from work occasionally.)

The amount of food I have to haul up to this apartment is getting a bit worse, though... it seems we've created another monster.

I'm not sure what it is about our genes, but our babies eat.

And eat.

How many people does it take....

And eat. 

And then they turn into children who eat even more.  And eat.  And eat.  All of them. I might never have known how much they eat without having (secretly) watched other kids and their eating habits.  In our house, there is no such thing as 'adult' portions and 'child' portions.  Each plate holds about the same amount of food.  School lunches are something to be laughed at, happy meals are out of the question, and my 9 and 6 year olds have long stopped ordering from the kids' menu at real restaurants.

Oh, he looks so sweet and innocent.  But there's a food consuming monster lurking in there...

...that never seems to be quite satisfied...

At least I have some helpers to take over feeding duty once in a while...

Now I have to figure out how to get even more food into that elevator (and out of the elevator, and down the hall, (and down the next hall (and down the next hall)), and through the door...).

And, I'm not even going to think about how much food my teenagers are going to consume.

Moving like Molasses

 
The parking garage underneath our new apartment building has a clearance of just over 9 feet.  A random fact I might never have cared about if not for the other random fact that our Budget moving truck boasted a height of 13.5.  Still, I might have never cared about either of those facts except for the last random fact that the only elevators leading up to our 11th floor apartment are located deep in the heart of that parking garage.

You're starting to see the problem, now, aren't you?

I paced around the outside of the building a couple of times, sure I would find the 'moving-in' elevator that would be larger than normal and would take us straight from our Budget truck to the inside of our apartment.  I hoped this elevator would be packed with extra dollies, cases of ice-cold water, and burly men (to help with the unloading, guys)... but none of it seemed to exist.   Eventually, I bumped into the maintenance man down in the parking garage who stopped and shook my hand.  "You the new tenants?" he asked in his heavy Cuban accent.  I nodded and he continued, "I make the garage door stay open for you until you are done.  And I now set the elevators to cargo."  He gestured towards the small elevators tucked inside the garage.  I started to ask if there were other elevators that were a bit more accessible, but he stopped me with a head shake and a half-smile.  "Good luck," was all he said.

----------------------------------------------------------

There had been a tentative excitement three days before as the sliding door of our Budget truck closed and locked all of our belongings inside.  The packing was done.  The truck was filled.  Fresh ice clanked against the side of my water bottle and the kids hugged their pillows tightly as we made our way to the van.  I slid my water bottle into the drink holder and turned the ignition key as the kids settled their pillows around their seats. 

Wait. 
Just one moment. 
Let me breathe. 
One more breath... here... in this place that I love. so. so. much. 
Let me take one last picture of us on our back steps.  Let's kneel in our family room, empty of belongings but filled with memories, to Thank our Heavenly Father for the last nine years.
Just one more moment for us to cry and remember.

And then I'll dry my tears.
I'll turn my head forward.
Think of the salty sea-air...
The waves.
The sand!
The ocean!!!

We're on our way!

------------------------------------------------

The maintenance man called the elevator and the doors opened to reveal heavy protective fabrics lining the walls.  A familiar, musty smell met me and strangely made me smile.  Ah, I thought.  Humidity.  "This elevator ready for you," he explained as he set the elevator to cargo.  "Please use this only to move your things.  This elevator doors will stay open until you go inside and push the floor button.  And then this one will move only if someone inside."  The one remaining elevator was left to respond to the calls of the other tenants in the building.

At this point we were left to ourselves, and so the unloading began.  And continued.  And continued.  We were extremely lucky to have Brian's brother, Dave, with us. (I don't think we could have done it without him!)  We removed all the seats from our van turning it into a stuff-shuttler and then, since I was far too busy working to get any pictures (blast that I didn't take a moment to do so!), I'll try to paint a picture of what this moving process was like... Picture this...

It's the end of June.  The thermostat inches up towards the mid-nineties, but the humidity brings it far higher.  You are sweating now... just from lifting the latch on the moving truck, so you wipe the sweat away before you raise the moving truck door.  You are met with a wall of belongings - couches, beds, dressers, boxes - everything that you own stares back at you and seems to taunt at the fact that you must move it.  All.  So you begin with the first box.  It's a heavy one, full of heavy kitchen items, so you carefully lift it using your leg muscles and lean slightly backwards as you walk it down the ramp to ground level.  The van is in front of you now with its back door swung wide open and its seats folded into the floor.  You place the box in the van and slide it up as far as you can to make room for as many other things as possible and then spend the next several minutes sliding more boxes and a bookshelf into the empty spaces around it.  It takes about as much time for you to become drenched in sweat as it takes to pack the van as tightly as it can be (and you are dismayed to see that the moving truck seems relatively untouched) so you slide into the driver's seat and make the sharp right turn down into the parking garage.  You make another sharp right turn after you clear the low gate and hope you will clear the wall that seems so, so close to you.  You drive slowly around the next two corners for two reasons.  1) You have several unsecured items in the back and 2) the garage is small and tight and you notice several cars you would like to stay far away from for fear of scratching their perfectly beautiful $100,000 bodies.  You make it to the elevator and work on backing the van into the empty parking spot located just in front of it.  You have to make a 3 (or was it 4 or 5?) point turn to get all the way back in without hitting other walls and cars, but you make it and pop the back.  The elevator is waiting for you with it's doors open, so you grab the first item from the van and then the next and next and load it all into the elevator.  Finally, the kitchen box.  You lift with your legs again and remove it from the back of the van.  You turn, very mindful of those beautiful cars, and g.e.n.t.l.y step over the parking curb that you've been hurdling with the other boxes.  You step up the step to the elevator and walk the box through the doors to rest on the bookshelf.  You had given up wiping the sweat away by this point but after pushing the button labeled "11" you now wipe your arm across your forehead and remember the fruitlessness of the gesture because you're simply mixing arm sweat with forehead sweat.  The ride up in the air-conditioned elevator feels divine but doesn't last long and when the elevator doors open you begin, with the kitchen box, unloading your elevator load into the hall in front of you.  It's a narrow hall, so you have to be creative in your stacking in order to get everything out of the elevator without blocking a walkway.  Once the elevator is empty, you begin moving your load down the halls to the apartment.  The kitchen box is now buried underneath a mass of other boxes and things, so by the time you get to it you are tired.  But you squat anyway.  And you pick it up and lean slightly backwards as you walk down the narrow hallway.  You make it to the end of the hallway and pivot your body 90 degrees to turn the sharp corner without hitting any walls and walk down the next hallway in front of you.  At the end of that hallway your arms are starting to burn and the sweat is starting to drip from your chin, but you slow down and pivot your body another 90 degrees to turn that sharp corner and begin walking down the next long hallway.  At the end of that hallway, you can hear the kids laughing in the apartment and you make one more 90 degree pivot and walk straight into the laughter.  You place the box on top of the load and take a deep breath.  One load down.

You take a quick glance outside to recharge you...

And do it over again.  This time with a couch.  Maybe a dresser or a mattress.  Eventually bed frames, tables, rocking chairs, and always more boxes. 

"You guys are going to have to try to make some really good friends," Dave said as he huffed another load into the apartment. 
"Yeah?" I said.
"Yeah.  Because they're going to have to come help you move out in a year."

So... who's up for it?!

Camera vs. Face

Isn't he beautiful?  Even with a gash across his nose?

I let Miles use the camera.  That was the first mistake.  Truthfully, it wasn't even my camera to let him use, but he asked so excitedly, and his red curls have that magic tendency to pull a yes from me.  I'll deal with the reprecusions from McKenzie later, I thought as I handed her prized purple camera over to the eager hands and watched him run down the hall.  Minutes later I heard a solid thwack and Carson came stumbling out of the bedroom with his hands over his face, crying out in pain.  

Each of my children deal with pain differently.  McKenzie has a tendency to collapse to the floor and roll around moaning if her hangnail pulls in a funny direction.  If she doesn't get attention, the moans quickly escalate to a frantic loud panting, whimpering, and eventually end in deep screams.

Miles largely ignores pain.  The kid has more bumps and bruises than I can count, but I rarely hear about them (unless he remembers that Band-aids exist in this world and then he'll ask for several).  When I do hear about his pain, however, it's big.  Jumping up and down, shaking hands and screaming big.  His face goes pale and gigantic tears course down his cheeks.  (One time he even turned blue and passed out before he took a breath from the initial (hard) impact.  Scariest. Thing. Ever.)

Carson braves his way through it.  He'll try to hide his tears by blinking them away quickly and fool the world with a closed-mouth smile until the shock of the pain wears away enough for him to tell me 'It's okay.  I'm okay.' 

So when Carson stumbled out of the bedroom crying out in pain, I knew something was probably broken and it got the 'run down the hall' out of me.  (Do you really ever run in your house?  Funny that kids seem to run from room to room to room but, even if I'm in a hurry, I only walk briskly.)  I wrapped him in my arms and asked to see his head.

"Mooooooooooommmmmmm!" came the call from McKenzie.  "You let Miles use my camera and he just threw it at Carson's face!"

Whoops.  Sorry, Kenz.  And sorry, Carson.

Carson let me look at his forehead while he rubbed the tears from his eyes (sometimes I think he's thinking that if he just rubs his eyes hard enough, the tears will stop).  It looked fine... I couldn't even see a bump.  Weird, I thought.  "Well, it looks like everything is fine, Buddy," I said as I stroked his hair.  "I don't even see a bump."  He nodded and walked away, still rubbing his eyes but not crying anymore.  

A minute later he came into the bathroom I was cleaning to ask a question.  I looked up at him and immediately felt like Mother of the Year because, obviously, that deep gash that was crossing the bridge of his nose and dripping blood must have been there when I inspected his forehead for any bumps.  Guess I forgot to check for gashes.

Closer inspection revealed that the gash was deep enough to need a bit of attention and, thankfully, I remembered that my husband had brought home some Derma-Bond (think Super Glue for the skin) from the hospital for just such an occasion.  No ER visit for us!  Even so... Carson was feeling nervous.

He worried that the glue would sting the open wound and all I could say was, "I don't think it will, Bud" because I've never actually glued my skin back together.  McKenzie was delighted to take over the camera and capture Doctor Mommy in action.

Thankfully the cut closed perfectly when he scrunched up his nose... so his job was to scrunch his nose and not move.  Mine was to glue him back together.  Miles's was to sit in time-out.  Timothy's was to be happy without being held.  And Kenzie's was to capture the moment.  We all did awesome, if I do say so myself.  Fantastic shot, Kenz!

Genius who invented Derma-Bond?  You are a lifesaver.   Taking four children to the ER or Urgent Care is something I'd like to avoid.  Forever.

Guess Who's Out of the ICU

Everyone!  The answer is everyone!  Our whole family!  No one is in the ICU! Seems a little odd to feel triumphant about that, but at the rate we're going we need to celebrate the small victories here.  Too bad I'm not in this photo so you can see that I'm not quite as scary-looking as I was yesterday.  I showered - that helped.  I slept - that helped too.  I took a walk and ate some popcorn and put on my Topsail Island T-shirt (which always makes me happy) and when I came back to the hospital this morning, Timothy had been fed and was resting peacefully in his bed - that helped the most.  Hooray!  And then, this afternoon, we were moved out of the ICU onto the floor where I have my own bed (no more sleeping in hospital chairs!) and Timothy has a little bassinet.

The kids came to say hi tonight and it was awesome.  McKenzie wasted no time in gathering Timothy into her arms.

She has been so worried about him.  Even before we went into the hospital, she was the one suggesting that we go.  I don't think he's breathing very well mom.  Mom, he's not moving very much...  we should have listened to her much earlier.

The boys wasted no time getting familiar with the moving bed.

Good thing they had so much fun because those beds have eaten up all of our Disney money.  (Who am I kidding?  We may still be able to find some somewhere... we will be living in Florida, after all!)

I'm not sure why this one was so terribly hard for me... Of course, it was a hard situation to begin with, but I think that maybe I'm still so raw emotionally from the last two months of 

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*deepbreath* 

along with all the other things that make life life 

issues that have been going on that I was just plain empty.  I just couldn't handle another difficult situation with grace.  So I didn't.  And... I think that's okay sometimes, too.  Really, I think I'm ready for a year-long vacation to the beach.  How about Miami?

I may feel like I've been dragged through an ocean of mud, but I'm standing on land again and washing the last of the mud chunks out of my hair.  Hopefully there is no more mud for a while... but if there is we'll just have to swim through that, too.

Timothy is very close to breathing only room air now.  And he just gave me a smile so big it made me laugh out loud.  What a great way to end the day.  Maybe we'll be able to go home tomorrow...

Honesty

I almost didn't recognize myself this afternoon when I glanced in the mirror.  I was so shocked, in fact, at how disheveled and ragged I looked that I reached for the camera (because don't we all want a picture of ourselves looking disheveled and ragged?). Not moving a single hair on my head, I snapped a quick picture through the mirror and turned the viewfinder around to make sure that my face had made it into the shot (a problem I have sometimes).  That picture shocked me more than my original reflection had and I thought to myself, Wow... She looks just about how I feel.  Something about seeing my face in that frame sent fresh tears loose, and I took one more picture right in the heart of my truest emotion.  Turning the camera around again to check the shot, I stared into those eyes and thought, But... She looks exactly how I feel.

I. Am. Broken.
Tired.
Frustrated.

I have not slept for two nights, and my baby is in the pediatric intensive care unit, working for each breath.  He has an IV in his arm, boarded up to try to keep him from bending his elbow, leads on his chest, monitors taped to his hands and feet, a blood pressure cuff wrapped around his leg and an oxygen tube pouring air into his nose at a rate of 6 liters per minute ('he probably feels like he's stuck his head out the window' the nurse said) to try to force the oxygen deeper into his lungs. 

Watching him struggle to breathe has been painful and scary at times.  But he is stable enough and I have no fears about the eventual outcome of this situation.  We just have to wait until the virus runs its course and give him the IV's and oxygen he needs in the meantime.  The worst part for me?  As long as he is on such forceful oxygen, he is not allowed to eat.  Here at 11:00pm he's going on 30 hours since his last meal and he is so, so hungry.  I spent a large part of last night and today coaxing the binkie back into his mouth, rubbing his little head and rocking his body back and forth to try to soothe the hunger out of him.  But if ever you've tried to console your own hungry newborn, you know...

... you know that hungry sound they make when they're trying to pull anything from their binkie.
... you know that the first few hours are hard.  And that the next few hours are harder.  And that the next few hours are unbearable.  And that the next...
... you know how their eyes open and lock with yours while they continue to pull, pull, pull, and you watch their eyebrows furrow when there is nothing to swallow.  Please feed me.  Confusion.  I'm hungry.  Frustration.
...you know that their cries get weaker and painfully pitiful as the hours wear on and on.  And on.
... and you know how to fix it.  You know what will make those cries stop.  You know what will help them fall asleep.  And you have it in your power to give it to them.  You know that your biggest job as a new mother has been to feed this precious child, but you have to force yourself to remember through those heart-wrenching cries that breathing is more important than eating. 
... so you put the binkie back in and can't even try to hide your tears from the nurse.

They are giving Timothy sugar water through his IV, so he is not dehydrated.  But they are slightly concerned about his nutrition since he is such a little guy and so attempted to place a feeding tube down his throat, past his stomach, and into his intestines.  Twice they tried, and twice they failed as the tube kept getting coiled up in his stomach.  They briefly talked about giving him tiny bits of milk through the tube and letting it empty into his stomach, but the whole reason he can't eat in the first place is for fear of spitting up (which babies do so frequently).  If he spit up while the oxygen was flowing forcefully through his airways, the chance of forcing some of that milk down into his airways is great... and ultimately deemed too risky, even with tiny bits of milk.  The only other option they were comfortable with was to wait.  Wait.  Wait.  Wait until he could be weaned off of the oxygen.

Brian came to the hospital this afternoon and, after seeing my disheveled, ragged face, sent me home with a bag of chocolates and an order to sleep. 

He took my place at the bedside and offered to stay the night.  You can't feed him anyway, Linds, he said.  Go home and play with the other kids.  Take a walk; it's a beautiful day.  Take a shower.  Sleep in our bed.  And try not to worry about Timothy.

Thank you, Brian.   You were right... it was a beautiful day, and after two days cooped up in a dark, windowless, cheerless ICU room, the sun felt like medicine to my soul.

And I have a feeling that things will look brighter after a night of sleep...

Welcoming Timothy

"You're kind of thinking this is it, aren't you?" Brian said.  I backed up to the bed to sit down before I nodded my head and broke into silent tears.  "Linds!"  He couldn't hold the excitement back as he rushed to my side and put his arm around me tight enough that I had no choice but to cave into his shoulder, the affection making me break down further.  "Linds," he repeated in a gentle excitement, "it's okay!  This is fun!"
"Yeah, but..." I pushed through the tears, "we're not ready yet.  Bri, we're not even close."  It was 4 weeks and two days before my due date and I had not even begun preparations to welcome our new little boy home.  I was still focused on Brian's recovery and, more recently, in gutting out closets and staging our house to get ready to sell and, most recently, spending the entire week zonked out on a reclining chair with a box of Kleenex, a bottle of Tylenol and the flu.  The carseat was sitting in the dusty attic next to the big red bin marked 'boy clothes 0-6 months' which was next to the boppy and the baby swing.  We had taken both our crib and our pack 'n' play to the junkyard (trust me... they needed to go) and the new pack 'n' play that would hold our little son until we moved remained only a plan.  Plus, we were still far, far away from deciding on a name.

Yet, over the past several hours I had become certain... there must be a small tear somewhere in the amniotic sac.  And over the past several minutes the Braxton Hicks contractions that had been my constant companion for the past two months had started to hint of pain.  We needed to go.

I had spent my whole day in a confused, frustrated state.  I had dropped Miles off at preschool at 9:00am and headed to WalMart to get a few things before my scheduled doctor appointment at 11:00.  I noticed something was... different... on the drive out to preschool when, without providing unnecessary details, what you might expect to happen if a large sac of fluid started leaking inside of you with only one way out, started to happen.  But the tear must have been quite small because I was not entirely sure.  I had been coughing awfully hard for the past week through my sickness, and I had been coughing plenty during the morning, and... I had heard of pregnancy incontinence before...  I wondered if I had developed yet another embarrassing side effect of pregnancy.

I was slightly successful in WalMart in finding some interesting items with which to stage my house, and even snagged a box of my favorite newborn diapers because, well, I didn't have any and because, well, something was different.  By the time my appointment rolled around, I had made up my mind to discuss my new development and was dismayed to find the doctor I was seeing was one who had not historically been very respectful to any concerns I had had.  Sure enough, she didn't even ask how I was doing and I had to bring it up on my own.
"So," I began.  I explained the dampness that had developed over the past couple of hours and acknowledged that I had been sick and coughing (giving merit to the incontinence possibility).
"Well, you're not far enough along where I would think your water had broken," she dismissed.  "I'm sure it's just incontinence."
"Probably..." I humbly admitted.  "But, is there some sort of simple test you could do just to make sure?" I do have a very strong bladder.  I wanted to add.
"Um.  Well..." clearly she did not like this idea.  "There is a test.  It's not a simple one..." she paused long enough for me to realize that she was finished talking.
"Could we do it?" I pushed.
A curt nod.  "Alright.  But when you hear hoof-beats behind you, you have to think it's a horse.  Not a zebra."  Um.  Okay.

The test was, indeed complicated and consisted of a yellow strip of paper that turned blue if it came in contact with amniotic fluid.  So, I can understand the hesitation... who wants to watch a yellow strip of paper turn blue?  Whew.  Com.pli.cate.ed.

Didn't matter, though.  Test came out negative and I went home feeling belittled from the doctor and hanging my head in acceptance of my new incontinence problem.  Things got worse, though, and by 3:30 I was thinking again along the lines of ruptured sac, despite the negative test result, and called the doctor back.  I left a message with my phone number and when I hadn't heard back by 4:00 decided to just jump in the car and drive back over.  As I pulled into the parking lot, Brian called from the house with the news that the doctor had called back and was on the home line... so I sat in my car, listening through my phone as my husband talked through another phone to the doctor who was just inside the doors I was staring at.  She was just as curt and dismissive to Brian on the phone as she had been to me and refused to see me because they were closing.  "If you think things have gotten worse," she told Brian, "you'll have to go to the emergency department.  If her sac has ruptured, I'd just send her there anyway, and they can do just as good a job providing peace of mind if it has not."  If I was a different person, I would have marched right up to the doors and asked if I could just have a piece of their magic yellow paper to test it myself... but I am not a different person, and my fear of awkward encounters prevailed.  So, for the second time that day, I drove home from the doctor's office with my head hung in frustration.  "Well, I'm not going to the emergency department," I told Brian.  "That would be, like, a three hour ordeal when all they need to do is use their yellow paper."  Plus, I wasn't that sure.  And, again, the first test really had been negative...

So, I ignored the problem again and continued working on digging out the closets I had been working on that day.  But, even with the pads I started using, I was quickly running out of pants to wear.  I got more and more confused and then more and more sure that this was not incontinence - so halfway through our family movie night of Up, I stood up and walked away whispering to Brian that I was going to go take a shower and that I would be back.  I love family movie nights, and hesitate to even get up to grab more popcorn on a normal night.  I love snuggling down with my husband and kids with the lights low; I love listening to their laughter; and I never want to break the trance.  So, Brian knew things were getting more serious in my mind and he silently followed me and started packing a hospital bag while I showered.  "I'm calling the Larsons, Linds," he called.

I took a deep breath.  Oh boy.  If my friendship with Becky lasted through these months, it would be a miracle.  She had been my right hand all through Brian's hospital stay and much through the recovery, and now I knew I would need to depend on her again...  Not only did my children need a place to sleep that night, but McKenzie's 9th birthday party was the following day.  12 kids were going to show up at the museum by 12:30 with brightly wrapped gifts and birthday wishes.  I needed to go buy some decorations and decorate the room... I needed to order and pick up the pizza and drinks... I needed to get the cake and take the pictures and be the Mom... but I was going to the hospital; and I was becoming more and more sure I was not coming back home that night.

But, Becky is Becky and she opened her front door with an excited smile to welcome my kids into her home for the second extended stay in less than two months, and then threw her arms around me.  "I'm so excited!" she said.  "And... if this ends up being the real deal, I will throw a birthday party for McKenzie tomorrow afternoon."

I didn't even have to ask.
What a dear friend.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I had spent most of the day staging the kids' room.  Well, I had actually spent most of the day googling pregnancy incontinence and ruptured sacs, but in between my research I had been (slowly and carefully (dang back)) moving furniture, hanging artwork, clearing out closets and, Carson's favorite, placing new, coordinating sheets and blankets on the bunk beds.  In the end I found it beautiful.  But I also found myself hurdling over piles of stuff to get through the hallways in order to participate in the conversation that was starting in the playroom.  Movie was over and the kids were standing in a half circle around Brian's sitting body.  I didn't make it in time to hear him say we were going to the hospital, but I saw the precious reaction to the news from my 9-year-old daughter.  It wasn't just excitement, though that was certainly the biggest component, it was also mixed with a beautiful wonder and awe.  Mouth agape, she practically glided up the four steps to my side to wrap her arms around me.  "Oh... Mom..." she said reverently.  Carson, on the other hand, sauntered up to me and pushed his palm into my belly.  "Oh, yeah," he confirmed in an all-knowing tone.  "That is really hard."  He was referring to the talks about contractions we had had in the past and I recalled telling him at some point that the contractions would help me know when the baby was coming.  I saw no point in bursting his bubble and telling him that I was not, in fact, having labor contractions.  I quickly explained that babies sometimes trick their mamas and that we weren't sure we would be having the baby tonight - we just wanted to check.  McKenzie hurried to get her pj's on and helped the boys get into theirs, frequently patting my arm as she walked by.  I think she was nervous about the pain labor causes... she has been very curious and inquisitive about the whole process, particularly the painful parts, lately.   On the way out the door I watched McKenzie hop with excitement and saw Carson's shoulders slump.  "Oh well..." he said in a melancholy fashion as he shuffled to the sliding doors.  "I guess this won't be the first night I get to sleep with new sheets and blankets..."

"Mom, are you going to get that medicine thing in your back so you won't hurt so much?" McKenzie called from the backseat.  "Um," I hadn't thought much about it yet, "probably."
"Are you a little scared about it?"
"Well, I don't like it... but it is less painful to get the medicine than it is to feel the contractions - and, really, I'm going to be so excited about the baby coming that I won't even care much."
 
As Brian and I approached the sliding hospital doors I hedged a bit.  "Brian," I grabbed his arm for comfort, "I'm not ready for this."
"It's okay, Linds.  We'll get everything ready in time."
"No..." how do I explain this?  "I mean, emotionally.  I haven't mentally prepared myself for labor - and... it's really not that easy, you know."

But the time for preparation had passed and there was nothing I could do about it (I see a metaphor in here somewhere).  The check in took forever and I had to pee like crazy ('No, you can't use this bathroom down here' they said 'because you think your membranes have ruptured... we don't want you to go into active labor in the bathroom, so wait until you get up to the labor and delivery floor' because, apparently, going pee has the effect of making women with ruptured membranes go into active labor.  Except that it doesn't).  Eventually, though, I was able to... make myself more comfortable... and then sat back in the hospital bed for the intense round of questioning.  The nurse was sweet and grandmotherly as she small talked and then went through the standard questioning.
"Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"
"Yep - it's a boy."
"Do you have a name picked out?"
"... Uh.  No."
"Do you plan to have an epidural?"
"... Uh.  Maybe.  Probably.  It'll depend on how fast the labor is progressing, I guess," I managed.
"Do you have a birth plan?"
"... Uh.  No.  I guess not," I said, trying to think about whether or not I had strong opinions about anything this time around.
"Our birth plan," Brian interjected, "is: Get The Baby Out."
We laughed.  And I nodded because it was true.  That's about as far as we'd thought. 

Not really surprisingly, this time the magic yellow paper turned undeniably blue and what I had begun to suspect just a few hours before became a reality.  We were having a baby.  I closed my eyes as the on-call doctor (who was very nice) and nurse shut the door behind themselves.  I willed away the tears that wanted to sprout and felt two big hands cradle my cheeks.  With my eyes still closed, my face scrunched up in a pained expression.  This isn't how I wanted this to go,  I thought.  I'm not sure how I wanted it to go... but not like this. I at least wanted to be excited...  I opened my eyes and my anxiety melted into surprised laughter as I looked into Brian's face, just inches from mine.  His eyes were literally sparkling with excitement and his grin was bigger than I'd seen since the heart attack.  "We're having a baby, Linds!" he whispered excitedly.

The night went well and my body began to labor on its own at about 2:00 in the morning.  By 4:00 the contractions were painful enough to not be able to speak through them and were coming every three minutes.  By 6:00 I was exhausted but, interestingly, something in the pain of the previous four hours had sparked a growing excitement in me.  The epidural came shortly after (I had only dilated to an 'I'll give you 4 to make it sound a little better'), but instead of falling asleep, I stayed awake and listened to the baby's heartbeat on the monitors.  I thought about him, the actual baby that was on his way, and found that when I stripped away all the major stresses of my life from these last couple of months (back pain, worry about Brian, adapting to a recovering husband, getting a house on the market without said husband, relying on so many others for help, pregnancy fatigue and general pregnancy fogginess), the excitement of a baby was there.  And strong!  I lingered in that feeling and was incredibly grateful for modern medicine that took away the pains enough to let me explore and find the home of that excitement.    There was one little blip a couple hours later when the baby's heart rate started dropping through the contractions, but he always recovered when the contraction passed and, thankfully, no c-section was necessary.

And, wouldn't you know it... out of twelve or more possibilities, the doctor who waltzed in at 7:00 in the morning after the shift change was no other than the same one who had turned me away and made me feel silly less than 24 hours before.  How ironic, I thought, that she will be delivering my baby today...  "Well, well, well," she said and she snapped a glove over her left hand.  "I'm glad you ended up going into the emergency department."  It was kind, her tone - and she was wonderful and respectful throughout the rest of the morning.  Later I wished I had thought to say, "Looks like it was a zebra this time."

Little Timothy was born at about 10:25am (so much was happening around that time and I forgot to look at the clock...), cord around his neck (which is probably why his heart rate was dropping), but wailing, and was quickly whisked away to be cared for by the team of special nursery pediatricians that had been present for the birth.  They were all chipper while they worked on him and gave me no reason to worry from the very first moment, and soon he was placed in my arms.  The pediatric team hovered around and explained to me that they needed to get him back into the special care nursery to start some antibiotics... that he would need to stay there for at least 48 hours... that it was best to start now.  I was disappointed when they left with him minutes later because my favorite part of the birth experience (snuggling alone with my new baby and husband for the first hour of life) was taken away.  The nurse seemed respectful of my feelings, but firm in her opinion that this little pre-term baby needed some assistance.  After they left I tried to focus on my thankfulness that he seemed healthy and, though early, was able to be held by us for a little while, anyway.  How much worse would it have been if they had swept him away in an emergency.

And I slept.

Thankfully I was able to go sit with Timothy as often and as long as I wanted over the next three days.  I could touch him, hold him, feed him. I just couldn't take him out of the nursery and away from all of his monitors.  I spent a good amount of time holding the arm that the IV needle was in - they had it boarded up so he couldn't bend his elbow, but the board did not work very well and often was shifted to the side just enough to where he could still bend and jab himself over and over again.  I hated that...

And, I finally tracked down his birth numbers.  Weight: 6.05 lbs.  Height: 19.75 inches
Perfect.
Perfect.
Perfect.
I've always wanted a small one.

He continued to thrive.  They tested his blood sugar every three hours by pricking his heel to collect a drop of blood. Which I also hated. And so did he.

McKenzie has been fighting a fever/cold for the past week or so (so scary after having to hospitalize Miles for getting a fever when he was brand new), and came home early from school one afternoon.  Brian was on his way to the hospital and decided to bring her along to take a look at her new baby brother.  Children are not allowed into the nursery, but I pulled the blinds up on one of the windows so she could see.  Love at first sight.  "He's so tiny... I didn't think he would be that tiny," she said.

The third night he was there he graduated into being able to sleep in a co-sleeping room with me.  His IV was removed and the only cord we had to fight with all night was the one that connected his heart leads to the monitors.  He kept me awake most of the night with the beeping monitors (he kept kicking the leads off of his chest) and his feeding schedule, but I didn't mind.  I was happy to hold him all through those early morning hours.

Tuesday morning came along and it was finally time to go home.  I was happy to get at least a couple of traditional hospital pictures before we left with real window light instead of the artificial lights in the special care nursery. 

And, yes, I have the funny cry-at-odd-moments problem after I deliver a baby... and this cute little monkey bum held in Brian's hands had me swallowing back the tears from the cuteness of it all.  Isn't he just so tiny and precious?

All bundled up in the carseat, ready to go home. 

Welcome home, little one.