Saturday, March 29, 2008 - Update

I feel so refreshed when I wake up from long naps.

Are you going to squirt that medicine in my mouth again?

Aww, mom. . .I just want to stand up. It's my new favorite thing.

I'm ready to march for babies!

Friday, March 28, 2008 - Update

Rainbows was supposed to come earlier in the week, but they had to cancel due to illness. They called and talked to Ryan and rescheduled for Friday. Ryan told me it was this Friday, but he wrote down next Friday on the calendar. Because we were unsure, I woke up and got dressed and ready and. . .it's apparently next Friday that they are coming. What can I say. . .Ryan tried, but. . .if you need to schedule something with us it would probably be best to talk to me.

I was ready, however, when Stacie came over to spend the day with us. We had a really good time and I can't wait for Olivia to get to know her. Stacie always makes me laugh and we even got to watch some of Days of Our Lives together. If there are any other Days watchers out there. . .do you know what happened to Pocket? I must have missed too many episodes.

I also noticed that I haven't given a March of Dimes update in awhile. As a team, we have raised $1,190. I wanted to do something for all of the walkers on our team and I looked into t-shirts, but I couldn't really find a cost-effective way to do it. My sister-in-law, Shelley, is doing something very special for everyone. I figure that this year, I will see what everyone else is doing. I still haven't decided whether Olivia is coming or not. I'd like to know what other micro-preemie moms think? Are you or have you taken your child with you?

Thank you all for thinking of Logan today. I appreciate all of your love and support.

Six months ago. . .

It started out as just a normal day. . .well, as normal as it could be with two babies in the NICU. I can't believe six months have already gone by. We were excited that Olivia and Logan had made it one month and both of their head sonos came back with no sign of PVL. Logan had been having a tougher time and they weren't quite sure what was wrong. We had called that morning, however, and heard he was doing really well. Finally, I had thought. . .Logan was going to turn that corner. I remember my dad took me up there that afternoon because I still wasn't cleared to drive after my c-section. When we arrived at the NICU, I had never seen so many people there. . .especially on the team that Logan was on. He had a nurse that I had never met before (after a month, I thought I had met almost all of them.) I arrived only to hear bad news. Logan was not doing very well again. My hopes were dashed as I learned that it was not the turning point that I was hoping for. I remember being frustrated that I was unable to spend any quiet time with my babies due to the volume of people.

Ryan met me there after work and I said good-bye to my dad. We tried to spend some time together with Olivia and Logan. At that point in time, it was just sitting by their bedside. Even after one month and one day. . .they were still too fragile to hold. We said good-bye to them and headed over to Ryan's parents' house for dinner. That had become a tradition on Friday nights. We were angry when we got to his parents' because we didn't understand why Logan's vent settings and dopamine had been decreased when he was obviously not doing very well. I remember Ryan's allergies were bothering him. He almost fell asleep during the meal. I had asked him what he had taken and he said, "Two of those pink pills." He had taken two benadryls. . .no wonder he was so tired. I had to drive home because I feared we wouldn't make it home with Ryan in such a fatigued state.

We got home around 9:30 - 10 pm. Soon after, we received a call from Olivia and Logan's doctor. Previously, we freaked out every time we received a call from the NICU. . .especially at night. We had just started growing a little more accustomed to it. I knew, however, that the news wasn't good when Ryan got off the phone and said we had to get back to the hospital. I remember calling my parents and Ryan's parents and asking if they could meet us there. Poor Ryan was so tired and I was hysterical, but we made it up there ourselves. All I remember about the drive to the hospital was that I kept saying, "God wouldn't take my baby boy away. . .He wouldn't take my baby boy away." I also called Stacie on the way up there to tell her what was going on. My dad kept in contact with her the rest of the night.

When we arrived, Logan's doctor along with quite a few nurses and RTs were doing chest compressions and switching him over to the high frequency vent. They had already resuscitated Logan a few times and had given him a few shots of epinephrine to the heart. His doctor took us aside and told us that we had to decide how many times we were going to have him resuscitated. He didn't know what kind of damage had already been done. Logan's heart wasn't keeping up with him. Of course, Ryan and I could not make that decision. How could anyone? By that time, our family had arrived. We wanted to go meet with them. After explaining the situation, we still couldn't imagine letting him go. It was then that his doctor came into the room and told us that Logan had already made the decision for us. We all went over to his bedside and they were doing chest compressions again and we watched as his heart rate would fall to 0. I couldn't believe that I was losing my son. They told us to go back to the room and they would wrap him in a blanket and bring him to us. Ryan was unable to walk back to the room on his own and I had to have the help of the nurses. Then, I think I hyperventilated and found it very difficult to catch my breath.

By the time they brought him to me. . .he had already passed on. It was then that I held him for the very first and the very last time. He was free of the ventilator and of all the tape, tubes and wires. I knew that he had gone to a better place, but I still wanted him here. Ryan was able to hold his son. . .our parents were able to hold their grandson and Laura held her nephew. That was the hardest night of my life.

We were then thrust into planning his funeral. We couldn't leave that night until we had chosen a mortuary and by this time it was close to midnight. We didn't get home until the wee hours of the morning. I'm very thankful that our family was there to help us because Ryan and I could not have done it alone. We could not have gotten through it without our precious Olivia. She was the only strong one out of all three of us. I knew we had to go on because of her.

I often wondered what the purpose of prayer was. To this day, I will admit, I am still a little confused. . .not about why we pray, but about why we pray for specific things. What is the point of praying for something specific if it isn't God's will? Shouldn't we just pray for God's will? If the sheer multitude of prayer could change God's mind, surely my Logan would still be here. I'll never understand God's reasons. . at least not in this lifetime. But, I have my husband and I have my daughter and a God who has blessed me with both. . .and I'm going to be just fine.

Thursday, March 27, 2008 - Update

Olivia discovered her hands awhile ago, but lately she has decided that they are even better than her pacifier. You can barely catch her without her hands in her mouth. . .or anything for that matter. Ryan and I believe that she has started teething. The last two nights she has woken up crying multiple times which isn't like her. Usually once I put her down for the night, she is out. She does not appreciate having her sleep disrupted. . .especially by outside sources. This afternoon she fell asleep on the floor with her toys and her arm was wrapped around her Baby Einstein kaleidoscope (pictured above. . . .that has remained one of her all time favorite toys.) She accidentally pushed the button and the music started playing. She wasn't too happy.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008 - Update

Mom, I think you forgot to take the sticker off.
The future's so bright. . .I gotta wear shades.

Winner takes on daddy.

Olivia doesn't ever seem to enjoy her stroller rides because she absolutely hates the sun in her eyes (I don't quite see her being the outdoorsy type.) I thought I would see how she liked her sunglasses. I thought she would despise them like she does her hats, but I think she enjoyed them. She didn't hardly make a peep during the entire walk. When we got home, I thought she was asleep, but when I took the sunglasses off. . .she was wide awake and happy as can be. I'm going to have to get some in every color.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 - Update

The other night, the clothes bar in our closet fell down. While Ryan was putting it back up, I decided it was a good time to get rid of some of my clothes. Olivia was quite the little helper.

You can't have too many plain black shirts, mom. . .they go with everything.

Mom, where's that pink and brown striped waffle-knit henley? I like that one. . it's soft.

Thanks for listening to me ramble on in my last post. When I read it this morning, I almost went back and deleted, but I'm sure most people had read it by then. I wasn't having a very good night. It would just be nice for the three of us to have an enjoyable evening without crying or puking. I'm still not sure why it always has to happen at night. I do know that Olivia still seems like a very happy and healthy little girl. I'll just try not to worry about it so much.

Monday, March 24, 2008 - Update

Would you mind if I vented a bit? I'm so frustrated right now. I'm tired of playing detective and trying to figure out if and when Olivia is going to throw up. . .I've decided that she just is. It doesn't matter what we do. Her formula isn't helping, the Prevacid isn't helping (it probably doesn't help that she throws it up too,) we hold her upright, don't feed her during her witching hour when her reflux is really bad, we burp her often, etc. The Poly-Vi-Sol seems to be a trigger, so we've stopped giving that to her at night. We have to space her feedings at least 2.5 hours apart or the previous bottle seems to come up as well. It's not the daily puke laundry load that gets me upset or the cleaning it up afterwards. . .I just keep promising her that I'll make it better. . .and I don't know how. And, I'm worried about her weight gain because we keep getting told that we're not feeding her enough and then she throws up what she does get. Olivia almost acts like we're over feeding her, but she only takes 18-20 oz on a really, really good day. I should be happy that Olivia is sleeping until 8 - 9 am, but that means that she's losing her early morning bottle. I am big on routine and it disrupts our bedtime routine every night. Plus, we are trying to make dinner and tie up the loose ends from our day and my poor girl just has the roughest time. It makes it difficult. Then, I don't know whether she goes to sleep on an empty stomach or not? Everyone says that she will just outgrow it, but why do I read about 2 year old former micropreemies who still vomit everyday? It's not that I'm complaining. . .we are very blessed to have escaped so many of the problems with 23 weekers. For that, I will feel forever blessed. I just want her to grow and develop as she should. I'm just having a bad night. We didn't eat supper until 9:30 pm, I have a bad headache and we got a collection notice in the mail. You see, because of Olivia and Logan's birthweight, they qualified for a medical card that helped with the medical expenses not covered by their health insurance during their hospital stay. What a blessing that was. So, I've had to call on their bills (and I mean bill after bill after bill) with their numbers to get it taken care of. Now, I'm getting collection notices on things that I was told I wasn't going to pay. I have never paid a late bill in my life. But, I'll just deal with that tomorrow.

Ryan and I were wondering why we felt so down the other day. Then, we remembered that we spent the end of the summer and all of the fall in a hospital and all winter in our house. Sorry that I'm complaining. Some days are just difficult. I just hope that Olivia has gained weight when we go back in on April 1st for her Synagis.

A Day in the Life. . .of a guinea pig

Olivia does not yet know of the little furry creatures that live in our basement. I currently have 4 girls and 2 boys who are all around 5 years old. Of course, I couldn't confine them to cages all day, so when we bought our house, we moved them to pens where they could roam about as they please. I think they're pretty happy despite the fact that I don't get to spend a lot of time with them anymore. It's been a challenge to make sure their pens are kept clean, their nails are trimmed (all 84 of them) and remember to give them their veggies twice a day. I have Olivia to love and nurture and think of first and foremost. ..but, my guinea pigs and rats will always be dear to my heart.

Sunday, March 23, 2008 - Happy Easter

My mom and dad take way too many pictures of me.
But, this is a special occasion. Here I am in my Easter dress.

Did you know that my cousins Julia, Rebekah and Katie have the same dress?

Here is my mom - Easter 1978


And me - Easter 2008

Here I am telling my friends about Easter. My mom says it's important to share the good news that Christ is Risen.

Jimmy, you can't be in the picture! Skunks aren't Eastery.

My cousins were very excited about coming to see me today.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Easter. Ryan's entire family came by and brought us Easter dinner. Olivia's cousins came by to see Olivia through the storm door. I made the mistake of snatching up Olivia while in the middle of her nap. She woke up to sunlight and a bunch of faces staring in at her. She was not happy at all. Ryan and I also got to see our newest nephew Kaleb. . .what a cutie!!! I can't wait until I get to hold him. My parents later came by with a birthday cake for Ryan. Happy Easter!