The Knowns & The Unknowns

Here's what we know so far...

*This occurs in 1 out of every 5,000 births.
*There is a huge spectrum of severity...she's on the better end. The bad end results in horribly sick babies that have trouble immediately after birth or pass away quickly after birth.
*She DID come home for a short time and that's a good thing.
*We caught it early, before it became an emergency.
*There is a hole in her diaphragm.
*Major organs vital to life are in the wrong place.
*The surgery will happen early tomorrow morning when the surgeon has his regular team and they are all fresh. I appreciated him taking that into consideration. He said he can take pictures inside for us too.
*She is STARVING, but can't eat. The IV is just not how she wants nourishment.
*Leaving her at the hospital is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. You're not supposed to have them home then have to take them back and leave them.
*She's being very well cared for.
*Stephen is in the middle of his 6 days off and can stay while I get things squared away for when he's back on.
*She is darker complected than Lincoln and me, but NOT as dark as I thought she was. Her dark coloring was from the lack of oxygen in her little body. After they put her on oxygen last night she looked like a different baby. I've never seen her that pink.
*She is not another self pay baby. That would have put us under.

Here's what we don't know...

*How big the hole is. The size of the hole determines the surgeon's course of action AFTER he gets in.
*The state of her lung. The fact that she was alright after birth has the surgeon thinking that it should be pretty good.
*How well the vascular structure of the lung was able to develop. She won't be able to make any more of the little air sacs, but the ones that are there should be able to expand and fill the whole chest cavity with time.
*The health of her heart. They did an ultrasound this morning and will have the cardiologist read it sometime this afternoon. It was weird to look down and see the ultrasound wand on the wrong side of her chest. The Drs think it should be fine.
*How long her recovery in the hospital after the surgery will be. It is totally dependent on her little bowel. There is so much up in her chest it's going to freak out being moved.
*Several of our questions were answered with that will depend on what we find when we get in.
*How the boys will react. We were just getting them back from the body snatchers that took them and re-establishing their routines. Just the slightest hint of the insanity was starting to fade.

Don't Even Know What to Title This...

Something hasn't been right with our little Lynneah. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what, but my gut told me something was wrong. I struggled with how to even describe what was going on. She kept turning plum purple when she would cry, then she would kind of grunt while she was calming down, then she would have huge amounts of bubbles come out of her mouth as she relaxed again. It was a bunch of weird stuff that I couldn't connect to each other. Then I noticed her little belly button stump was bleeding. That was the defining weird thing that made me call the Pediatrician. We got in the same day. Belly Button was fine. He agreed that these were a bunch of odd symptoms and suggested we treat for acid reflux and see if there was any improvement. She was doing pretty well then had another episode. I was just getting her calmed down when the Pediatrician's nurse called to see how she was doing today. I had taken note of the progression of the episode this time and explained what had just happened. The Dr called back a while later and said we should go ahead and take her to the pediatric ER for an upper G.I. tract scan. When we arrived her oxygen levels were in the low to mid 80's (rather than the 98-100% she should be at) which led to an x-ray and lots of activity in the ER. The x-ray came back and showed a hernia in her diaphragm. The entire left side of her chest cavity is filled with intestine pushing her heart and lungs to the right side of her chest. Yeah, while the Drs were talking about what they saw I caught that her little heart is on the WRONG side. She is now in the NICU till she can get into surgery tomorrow or Thursday. I thought she might have to stay for a couple of days after the surgery then the nurse said that no we were looking at weeks in the NICU after surgery. I kept myself together till the drive home...weeks...weeks...not good. Tomorrow she'll be two weeks old. I hate that she's there and not here. Stephen stayed tonight with her because every time I held her she wanted to nurse and she's not allowed to do that till after surgery. It's killing me. I'm so glad my pump got here. That's what I'll be doing for the next several weeks. She's such a dainty little nurser pumping is really not fun, but I want her getting that when she can eat again. I'm glad we have insurance again. I have to sleep now so I can get back to the hospital for the meeting with the surgeons early in the morning. Big breath...pray for her...and her momma that's a big mess.

She had a very long day! It took two tries for the IV, then they had to draw blood, then they put a tube down her throat all the way to her stomach, she can't nurse, and finally went to sleep from the exhaustion of it all. Oh, my sweet girl hang in there you'll feel better soon.

Lynneah

Brand new!

10/20/10
8 big pounds 6 ounces
21 inches

Welcome Home Party

She likes having a warm head and this chair was the perfect width to keep her all cuddled up and head warm.

Just thought she looked so sweet. I love her little hands!

Her dark eyes.

All stretched out.
She had just a touch of jaundice so here she is in her few minutes of sun. She just hung out and looked around for a long time. All the big boys were gone and it was nice to be able to just let her be without the worry of someone jumping on her or man handling her.

These are just a few pics from the last week. I'm working on a real post all about the day she was born...mostly for me, but ya'll can read it too if you want. :-) There will be lots of pictures in that.

Buckelew Farm!

Me: We need to get our pictures by the measuring pumpkin.
Gabriel: I don't want to!
Stephen: Do you want to do it now and get it over with or do it later and have to think about it?
Gabriel: (through gritted teeth) Do. It. Now.

Ahhh, didn't it turn out so cute?!?

Garrett had a stroke of cooperation wash over him...which I was grateful for.

Lincoln needed some help staying by the actual measuring stick. He wasn't very interested in staying there, but we'll know that's the side of his blond noggin'.

All loaded for the wagon ride out to the pumpkin patch.
Can you tell how much Stephen was into pictures? He's sure a good humored fellow...most of the time.
As we were walking to the wagon Stephen ran into the wife of someone that was in the academy with him. She's connected to the farm and was actually working. She was a cute girl. As their conversation was ending she asked, "Hey, do you want some pumpkin tickets?" She then gave each of us a coupon for a free pumpkin up to 15 lbs. Not even 10 minutes earlier I was thinking I need to track a way to get coupons so we can stretch cash for next year. What a blessing. Stephen and I never get pumpkins for ourselves and have a hard and fast rule that you can only pick pumpkins you can carry by yourself. This keeps the cost way down. This year we each got one and Stephen helped Gabriel pick a slightly bigger one to actually carve. Garrett got to pick the design for the pumpkin Stephen picked.

Garrett's first pumpkin choice. He ended up changing his mind and actually getting a striped "tiger" pumpkin. But, of course, I didn't get a picture of that.

Lincoln's choice. The poor kid could hardly walk around in the field, but he was not about to give that little pumpkin up either.

Stephen took pity on him and carried him for awhile. Lincoln welcomed the break from tripping and falling every 3 seconds.

All my boys!

In the corn maze.
The sweet girl that gave us the pumpkin coupons also gave us some free admission tickets for the corn maze. We hadn't planned on doing the maze because they're expensive and I was SOOO pregnant.
With the tickets in hand off we went.
It was the first time any of us had ever done a corn maze, including Stephen and me.

We did the half maze. It had a F.S.I. (Field Scene Investigation) game set up. Each kid got a little card with animals, weapons, and scenes to find out who got the farmer. It was set up like the game clue. As we went through the maze there were little stations with a picture of an animal, weapon and scene. The kids would get to punch out what they saw till the mystery was solved. They were very dedicated to their games. I'd tell ya who done it but then I'd have to...just kidding.
We spent a lot of time in the maze. There were little maps posted around, but I can tell ya it didn't help me much. After an hour I found out Stephen was able to decipher it. Grrr. I told him to start reading that thing and let's get done. My body was about to give out.
The kids loved it!

Waiting for Dad to bring the van up closer.


We went to Buckelew Farm this year because it was much closer to town and I was so very pregnant. We figured if I did go into labor we'd be able to get to the hospital within an hour or so and all would be well.

After 5 hours at the pumpkin patch I thought for sure I'd go into labor. Well, I didn't go into labor and our little jack-o-lantern just stayed right where she was.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

She's Here!!

I can't even begin to tell you how nice it is to NOT be pregnant anymore.

She came fast...so fast in fact I got to do it all natural with NO epidural. To all the people that taut the greatness of natural childbirth I D I S A G R E E ! ! If you want to see a couple pictures you can check her out on my Ma's blog. She's beckoning me at the moment.

I'll be posting all about her arrival...complete with pictures on one of the days Stephen is off this week. She looks a lot like Garrett. I keep looking down and thinking, "who put Garrett in pink?" Then I remember... I have a girl!

Fun times. Hope my pump arrives tomorrow. Off to feed and try to settle in for the night.

Going "Green"

This is our new "green" washer. We bought it shortly after we bought our house. It's kind of one of those things you need. If I remember right the washer was purchased before our bed. :-)

Last week it decided it was time to go "green". I had the last of the four loads I did that day in and was just waiting for it to finish up. I noticed it was quiet (it was bought before I began making appliance choices based on decibel levels so quiet is pretty noticeable) and went to switch them to the dryer. When I opened the lid it was still full of water. I messed with the cycle knob trying to get it to spin out. I failed. Grrr! Now what do I do...Stephen was on shift and my parents were gone AND it was a load of whites sitting in Clorox water. I couldn't just leave them till Stephen got home. Later that day my Mom swung by to fish the clothes out. She was able to rinse and spin them out at her house.

How is it "green" you ask? Well, it agitates just fine. So, in an effort to reduce our water consumption I figure we'll just keep using the same ol' water over and over and over again. It'll probably cut our water bill in half. :-) Such a gross thought!

I figure with a broken washer it's a sure fire way to get this baby to come.

When Stephen got home he started his research, this is what he found:

Problem:
"Fool thing won't pump out and I got a tub full of stinky water in the washer. I'm gonna die! EEEEK!"

Possible Solutions:
*Calm down, the pump's fried. If it's a belt-driven pump, you can tell by feeling how stiff it is to turn. For electric pumps, hook up a test cord and run it. Pull drain hose and watch discharge stream. If stream fluctuates or is pathetic replace the pump.

* Worn drive belt. In this case, washer won't spin either (or will have a sluggish spin).

*The drain hose is clogged (usually with panties or nylon stockings, yee ha). Pull drain hose and watch discharge stream. A good discharge stream will have the same diameter as the hose itself. If less than this, it's time to play find the panties.

Stephen showed me all our options and I immediately started whining that I needed a new pump, for me not the washer, and that this was really annoying timing. He responded that a washer was more important than a pump. I gave him my sweetest smile, kicked him as hard as I could and strongly disagreed. He's since been able to get it all figured out and we'll both get our new pumps! With a little creativity we'll have a bigger washer, a fixed washer to sell, and a new pump for Me. Going "green" will have to just wait a little while longer...

My Gabriel...

The Monday and Wednesday morning schedule around here is fun. I either leave the little boys running wild at home or drop them off at Nanny's house around 7:15. That leaves just me and Gabriel left in the car for the drive to school drop off; then I head straight to work from there. He's a talkative little guy and tells me all kinds of stuff on the way to school.

Yesterday he asked, "Mom how do you get the baby out of your tummy?"

Hmmm, I doubt he's really wanting the how that happens. I could sure use some of that farm/ranching exposure I grew up with. That was an education...on more than one occasion. Ask me about billy goats and I'll tell ya a story. ;-) I'll spare you the cow and horse stories.

Me: "I just push them out."

Gabriel: "It hurts a little bit, huh?"

Me: "Yeah a little bit." (Which is why ya'll should be NICE to your Mommas!)

Gabriel: "How do you push them out?"

Me: "Just take a big breath and push, then they come out."

Gabriel: "Sometimes I take a big breath and push out my poop. It shoots (complete with hand motions) into the toilet like a rocket!"

Me: "Wow, that sounds pretty crazy." (No rocket babies for me thanks.)

Gabriel: "I wish my sister was already out of your tummy."

Me: "Me too buddy!"

And then he was off and talking in a totally different direction. We still have lots of challenges to conquer, but he's sure come a long way. Those eyes of his and that truly happy smile he gets sometimes always brightens my day.

Speaking of his sister coming out...she's making a little more progress. The Dr said she's dropped a little, 60% effaced and to a 3. My weight, although higher than allowed, is holding steady and blood pressure is actually going down. Weird. I think she's making a statement, "Go ahead and try...I'm a girl and am gonna do whatever I want."