What I Have in Common With Michelle Dugger

Okay, I don’t know where to start with this one.

Michelle Dugger (Duggar? Hell, I don’t know) is pregnant again, this time with Baby Number Twenty.

Holy shitballs.

I won’t forget her last one. I watch the show on occasion out of freaky curiosity. They don’t get welfare or anything. They support all of their children themselves and appear to do well. The kids all appear to be well-adjusted and well-mannered. But I cannot get the last one out of my head. I was just beyond the first trimester with Zach, and looking back, it was about a month before I went into preterm labor for the first time and my problems started. All I had to go on was that I had this complicated history with my pregnancy with Evan and was foolishly hoping it would be different, though all signs said it wouldn’t be. I had already suffered a placental tear. And I watched as they delivered her 19th baby at 25 weeks. I cried. I cried as a pregnant woman fearing for her new baby. I cried as a NICU RT who has had a hand in resuscitating preemies. Most of all I cried because I was watching a family go through what we could have gone through with Evan and mercifully escaped.

And my first thought when I just found out she is expecting the 20th was, “how fucking irresponsible of them!”. I mean, yes, the 25 weeker is now almost 2 years old and doing well. They credit God for that, and I credit modern medicine. I’m glad the baby is okay. I can see how this would give them license to do it again. But then again, she came close to death multiple times. She could have been horrifically disabled and had the quality of life of a rock. She didn’t die, she has a shot at a decent life, but she almost didn’t. Why tempt fate? Why have another one, given that you have already gone through this ordeal, and chance doing that to another baby? And doesn’t the likelihood of complications increase with maternal age?

Oh.

Maybe this makes me an alarmist. Maybe it makes me practical and concerned for a yet-to-be-born child. Either way, it makes me the biggest hypocrite I know.

I haven’t had 20 kids. I have 2. The oldest almost didn’t make it into this world. The last one was a complete surprise, but we armed ourselves with the “every pregnancy is different” mentality until it proved to be the same horriffic experience. My doctors advised me that I shouldn’t have any more. Not that I couldn’t. Big difference. But then they later retracted the statement and now joke with me that it is time for another when they see me at the hospital. And just three days ago, John ‘fessed up that he really wants another one. Truth be told, I do too. We agreed that it shouldn’t be now, considering our current financial slump. I should complete my MBA first. We need a bigger house and a bigger car. We want Zach to be out of diapers and the issues with Evan to be somewhat stabilized. John needs to be working to offset some of my income in the event that bedrest happens. It needs to be done in a very controlled manner, with me starting off the pregnancy on the kind of footing one doesn’t have when it comes as a surprise. We want to first visit the OB practice and request that, since it doesn’t seem to help, I not be placed on strict bedrest, but am allowed to work as tolerated. And I will say no to the brethine pump and uterine monitor that is behind 36 hospital trips and admissions. I will accept the progesterone injections because we have no way of knowing if they aren’t behind they fact that Zachy wasn’t born until they took him out surgically. And I absolutely have to be under the age of 40. I had problems in my mid-20′s, after all. Beyond 40 seems to be pushing it too far for someone with my hustory.

Am I as bad as Michelle Dugger? Isn’t this reckless of me to even think this way? To chance something awful happening to me or to another baby? Evan was born at 34 weeks and Zach at 33. What if a third one is born even earlier, per the trend?

But we want a girl. And we will try in a couple of years. We will do so with the hope that I won’t have the same problems. That if I do, the baby will have the same luck as Evan and Zach and suffer limited effects of prematurity. Maybe we are tempting fate a little too much, also.

Sad

There was this friend of mine, a coworker. We used to hang out together at work before I became pregnant. She was a labor & delivery nurse, and it never failed that when I was admitted to the hospital, she would be taking care of me. She used to jokingly act angry that I was supposed to be an easy patient, yet I always ended up on a mag sulfate drip or had contractions that freaked her out. Or I would have to take a ride across the river. I was far from easy, yet she was always there. I had to have worn her out, yet she never made me feel as such.

She was the one who walked in on me, sitting on a garbage can in the bathroom of my hospital room while John helped me wash. I had been on a mag drip for days, and thus had strict bedrest orders. This meant I couldn’t even take showers and, due to the drugs, I didn’t even have the strength to try and clean myself up in the bed. I didn’t even feel human. It was somewhere toward the end. And John showed up with an enormous bag of bath products and helped me break orders. She caught us, but one look at my tear-streaked face, and she didn’t say a word. She knew what I had gone through, and just bowed her head and closed the door.

She was working the night after Zach’s birth. She gave him his first real bath after he got out of the NICU.

The environment at work changed, and I only see her occasionally in passing. I found out today, through Facebook, that she is leaving the hospital for bigger and better things.

I never got to tell her thank you. Well, not adequately anyway. But how can I ever say anything that would be adequate when I see her face and her work when I look at my youngest son?

Best Wishes, C. You’ll be missed.

Eventually

Our niece is having a baby girl. A baby. Girl.

And when I heard, I swear I had to be the worst aunt ever. Because my face fell. And my heart broke just a little bit.

And at first I thought, “why can’t I have girls?” And I was seriously…sad. And of course this instantly turned to guilt. Because I have two amazing little boys. Perfect, miraculously healthy little boys. What in the hell is wrong with me? Why would I think like this? And then I thought that maybe it isn’t just about the baby’s gender. I think it’s about the whole damned pregnancy experience. Not that I would wish my experiences on anyone, but it really isn’t fair. At all.

Which turned to even more guilt because there are people out there who’ve lost babies. Who have babies with disabilities. I have two preemies who are perfect. I am so undeserving. I am such a piece of shit.

John immediatey asked me if I am really that upset about not having a daughter. No.

I’m upset that I’m not ready to be finished yet.

That I don’t want to go through it again. And yet that is the only way to have a chance of having a daughter.

I’m upset that it took 7 years of no birth control for me to get pregnant with Zachary. That I’m 34 and I don’t have 7 years. That we have hurdles to overcome before I can even think of putting my family through that. John needs not only a job, but one that is capable to replacing at least most of my income for the entire pregnancy. That as soon as the stick reveals two pink lines, my team of doctors will write the order for bedrest, and so we need to wait for John to accomplish this before we can even think of it.

I’m upset because there is no way pregnancy should ever be so fucking traumatic that I have all of these issues as a result of two of them. I’m upset that it is likely that I need psychotherapy for what I thought I was getting over.

I’m upset by the unfairness of it all. Because while I thought it would make me feel better to at least be able to shop for little girl stuff, it wasn’t the same. And I kept throwing things in the cart. As if, with each item I pulled off the shelves, I would heal a little more. And I didn’t. Instead I felt the wound splitting a little more, the pain of it all feathering outward from the epicenter llike it was going to consume me. Those little pink pants with the ruffles on the bottom…you are a fucking failure as a woman. The lavendar sleeper with the tiny, delicate embroidered flowers…you cannot do that to these boys again. The white eyelet dress…it will kill you if you do that to yourself again. The baby pink cardigan…you can’t you can’t you can’t…. And so it went, until the cart was brimming with every piece of negative self-speak my mind could generate.

And this whole time, Zachary was smiling up at me from his seat in the cart. He is so sweet. Those eyes. Those huge blue eyes. But wait…They are turning colors. Flecks of green mixed with the blue. Green like sea glass. And I have only seen that eye color in one place: the mirror. He isn’t a girl. He may be the last one. But that child is all mine. And the connection there runs so deeply that I swear I can feel the invisible cords that connect us tugging on my soul when I am not with him. Maybe it’s wrong for me to have this feeling because his job is just to be, but this child will be my healing. He will make me whole again. With each smile from him, the gap in my soul started to close a little more. Eventually there will be nothing but dense, jagged scar tissue to remind me of where I have been. And it won’t matter so much any more. That’s all: just a reminder. As if I could ever forget. Eventually it will just be a story I tell when someone asks.

Eventually.

>Letting Go of Things

>

It started with the shoes.

This past week, I have been streamlining our very existence. And it started in Zach’s closet as I packed up the outgrown clothes that had been loaned to us so they can be returned. And I saw the shoes. 16 pair of Pediped shoes, in various infant sizes, all of which Zach had outgrown. I lingered on them a bit. They were so cute and I remembered when he was that small for just a minute. And then I put them into a bin and moved on to the next thing. Newborn swaddlers. The source of the sleep-filled nights when he was a newborn and none of the other new parents out there were getting any. And the Boppy with which I used to nurse him. And so on, throughout Zach’s room. I tried to do this before and couldn’t. The obscene amount of tiny newborn clothes still filled Rubbermaid totes all over this house because I couldn’t stand the thought of getting rid of them. And so I started going through those as well. I kept a few things like the outfit he wore on the trip home from the hospital and the little Ralph Lauren one-piece he wore in his newborn portraits. He’ll have those when he is an adult. But the rest? It went into the bins, also. And I took all of it to a consignment shop and got rid of it. I made room for new things. The walking toys Zach is really starting to use now as he finally pulls himself up to stand and is starting to find his legs, the bigger sizes of clothes he will be wearing when he starts to take his first real steps. New, new, new.

How fitting can you get?

Out with the old and in with the new.

Now, before I say what it is I am about to say, I want to first say that I have no intention of offending anyone who might read this, and if you start to feel offended, please read it all before you come to any conclusions. But I was never this person. I honestly thought the whole organic, extra-crunchy, all-natural stuff was silly. My mom never got into any of that with any of her 7 kids, and we were all healthy. Natural childbirth? What? Why, when there are such good drugs out there? I have said similar things as recently as when I was pregnant with Zach. I think it was my way of coping with the fact that I have never had a normal pregnancy. I would tell you I didn’t give a damn as long as the baby was healthy.

I lied. I cared. Oh, I cared a lot. And I wouldn’t even admit it to myself. So imagine my surprise when I feel this deep sadness after Zach’s birth, all over the experiences I will never have. I never dreamed I would be that person. But I was. I literally had some symptoms of PTSD. Seriously. I would wake up in a cold sweat after having nightmares. It took until Zach was about 6 months old for me to stop having flashbacks. I would feel needle sticks in my hips all of the time. And I felt like I was the biggest wuss on the planet each and every time. And I was too embarrassed to admit this to anyone. I alluded to it and that is all. I endured a lot of pain for my children. For both Evan and Zach. And don’t get me wrong: I would do it all again for either one of them. But even though I would love to have a little girl someday, I will never do it again. I will not put myself, my husband, my children through that. This is a big change from what I said when Zach was smaller. I said almost immediately that I wanted another one. Not anymore.

So what has happened? Well, I realized that the reason I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of Zach’s newborn things is that I was trying to hold on. To the experience of pregnancy and new baby, the hope of a normal childbirth experience. I just couldn’t let it go. (I also think the emotional trauma of losing Ben so early in his life has something to do with this, but I cannot even scratch the surface of that because is and always will be a part of who I am.) But as I sat in Zach’s bedroom floor, going through the tiny sleepers and onesies that I had previously latched onto, I realized how silly I was being. I don’t need tiny outgrown shoes or sleepers. I have Evan. I have Zach. And just like I needed to rid myself of some of the outgrown things that had accumulated in order to make room for the new, I also had to let go of those feelings. Because there are so many new things coming our way: Zach’s first steps, first tooth, first real word, first birthday. And Evan will be 10 years old this year. One whole decade! My baby! Such wonderful memories are coming my way as my life with these two miracles continues to unfold before my very eyes. And I need the room. I need to let that weight go so I can move on.

I will always remember. My pregnancies took so much out of me. So much more than the average woman has to give of herself to become a mother. I never could understand why that was. I always had such bitterness about that. And now I finally get it. I had to give more of myself, but in my eyes, my kids are so much more than the average. And it was so worth it.

And so here I am, 9 and 1/2 years after Evan’s birth and 10 months after Zach’s. And I have finally let go. I’m healed and whole. And just like it took every ounce of my being for those boys to make it into the world, I love them with every ounce of my being now.

>Another Chapter Ends

>

Where to start?

I remember when I started to get into the throes of my pregnancy with Zachary, and John and I started to make lists of the things we needed. And we got to feeding supplies, and we started to discuss whether we were going to go with breastfeeding. I wanted to with Evan, but his prematurity got in the way and neither of us ended up interested at all. Did I want to try it again? Not really, because I was kind of afraid to get myself invested in the idea. I had breastfed Ben for a couple of months, and when it didn’t work out, I remember crying the first time I gave him a bottle of formula. And with Evan, I just felt guilty that we didn’t give it more of an effort. But knowing how breastmilk is the best for the baby, and seriously thinking Zach was to be my last chance to do so successfully, I decided to give it a go. One more try.

Wow.

You start off with the idea of breastfeeding as being this remarkably bonding experience. With a mind full of rosy images of a tiny baby nuzzling at a mother’s chest. Of cuddling and warmth and a bond that can only be shared between mother and child. A bond that cannot be broken. And I think after the pregnancy horrors I faced, I really needed that. And then Zach was born.

It was never supposed to go like it has. I was not supposed to be separated from my baby immediately after his birth after only having a small glimpse of him over a surgical drape. And I remember John bringing pictures of him from the NICU for me to see while we were still separated, and it was so bizarre and surreal. I had endured so much for him and this is what I got? Some blurry images on a digital camera that John barely knew how to use? Was this little  person really my son? How could I be sure when I couldn’t hold him and touch him and smell his newborn scent? They said he was mine. And I could see a family resemblance, so it had to be true. He was beautiful, that was for sure. But really? I begged and begged for them to bring him to me. Everyone said he was doing great and had just needed a little longer to adjust to the outside world. So if he was fine, then he belonged with me. If he is mine, he belongs with me.

And just like that, he was with me. I kicked everyone but John out of the room as I stripped away layers of flannel blanket to look him over. So perfect. So so perfect. And then and there, we nursed. And all was right with the world. Suddenly it all was okay- the pregnancy, the time in the NICU. Suddenly, it was just Zach and I. I loved it. And I hated when the lactation consultant came in and told me he had to have formula and asked me what type I wanted them to give him. I hadn’t planned on that. And so my love/hate relationship with the pump began.

I hated that I had to pump at all. I hated that he got formula. I wanted to cry each time he took a tiny sip of it. 20 mL at a time at first. I gave him every bit of breastmilk I could. I wished they would have told me it was okay to stop the formula when my milk came in, but they didn’t until it was too late. And the supply issues started. I did everything I could and got most of it back. And then the latch issues happened, most likely a result of the bottle feeding he had received. Phrases like “nipple confusion” and “flow preference” entered my vocabulary. Still, I did everything. Always trying trying trying to get him off of the tiny amount of formula he was getting a day. And then when he wouldn’t nurse at all anymore and I learned what it meant to exclusively pump. And my reality became the breastpump, 15 minutes at a time, 8-10 times per day. I’ve kept that up since Zach was 4 months old. I hated it, but Zach was getting breastmilk. That was all that mattered. I still felt a deeper connection to him because of the months we spent together, nursing. That is how I spent the weeks of my maternity leave. And when I first returned to work, I would come home and Zach would nurse with me in the bed as I drifted off to sleep. Zach and Mommy. That’s all there was.

It has been such a difficult road. Difficult but rewarding. Worth it. I honestly can look at the differences in personalities between Evan and Zachary and I think the breastfeeding has something, if not everything, to do with it. Zach seems more content. More secure. I cannot help but think that this is because he had more of a connection to me.

So why am I writing this now? Because this afternoon, John helped me to gather up all of the supplies I have needed to exclusively pump. All of that equipment. And I cried as I made sure all of it was organized and packed away. This week and next, Zach will get what is left of my milk from the refrigerator and freezer, and that will be the end. When I initially started out, I said one year was my goal. In a perfect world, free from latch issues and prematurity, from supply issues and tongue-tie, I would have done one full year. I am pretty proud of myself that I made it this far in the face of all of the difficulties. By the time it is over, Zach will be 10 months old. He is to the point where he is getting more and more food from sources other than a bottle, and I feel like it is time to focus on enjoying the rest of his first year free from the stress of measuring every little ounce, from setting alarms to remind me to pump every 2 hours around the clock. I can spend time enjoying my baby boy and getting some well-deserved rest knowing that I gave him the best for 10 whole months.

So here is a picture for you. This is what thousands of dollars’ worth of breastpumps and equipment looks like. All of my work fits into this tote. Amazing. And the picture wouldn’t be complete without including in it the reason for it all.

>Delayed

>Evan is recovering nicely from his recent illness, which I’m thinking was viral. Zach ran a temp between 102 and 103.5 all weekend, and although it broke Sunday morning and has not returned, his inbility to tell me what hurts had me taking him to our family doc yesterday to be sure all is well. Yay for Zach! Everything checked out fine, so it was either viral or was caused by teething. (Nope, no teeth yet). While there, with a doctor I work with repeatedly in the ICU’s, we went over Zach’s milestones again. He’s so hard to gauge because I compare him to Evan, who did everything at the speed of light, except for speaking. And I have tried to be laid-back about the whole thing: Zach will do whatever when he’s ready to do it.
The moral of the story is that the doctor is worried not about Zach’s fine or gross motor development–those have a way of catching themelves up and any mild slowness has mostly been the result of prematurity or simply from baby chunk and resolves itself. But he was worried about the sensory stuff: that Zach still, at 9 months, gags on anything thicker than nectar-thick (the consistency of pudding is too thick for Zachy!), that he isn’t babbling mamama/ dadada/ bababa yet. And so the first step is an appointment with an audiologist at my hospital to ensure that there is no hearing impairment. I should mention here that we don’t think there is at all, but since it is the number one source of this sort of delay, it has to be ruled out. I can tell you that his newborn hearing screen was perfect, as was the more indepth one they did because he was premature. He has never had problems tracking us by the location of our voices. When we speak to him, he looks and smiles. We are both sure that his hearing is fine. It is more of formality than anything. Something we have to rule out in order to go to the next step.
So what is the next step from there? Well it could be one of two things. Given that Zach has always had green nasal drainage from birth, it is entirely possible, according to our doctor, that there is a pocket of fluid in his ears. It also is unlikely because he has never had a single ear infection, and usually babies with drainage problems will have fequent ear infections. We are really hoping this isn’t the case with Zach because it will mean he will need tubes in his ears. Surgery. I don’t even want to think about it.
So after both of these are ruled out, Zach will be seeing a developmental specialist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. I have mixed feelings about this. I hate that he has to even go there. This is where the overzealous doctor made the false allegation with Ben, for starters. It is also where Ben was treated by the team of pediatric cardiologists, and thus holds some very painful memories for me. And that place is terribly depressing. Nothing will make you appreciate your healthy children like a stroll through that place,where you are liable to see anyone from newborns to teens with these horrifying medical conditions. And then on the other hand, there is relief. Because while you never want to need them, you feel absolutely grateful that there is a facility a stone’s throw from home that breaks ground daily in just about any treatment for children imaginable. They even work in collaboration with Good Sam to do surgery in utero if need be (Yes, it’s called The Fetal Surgery Center of Cincinnati or something like that). (Good Sam is the OB Mecca I griped about while on bedrest if you followed my pregnancy blog. Gah! I hated going to that place!) If there is something wrong with Zach or he needs any sort of treatment or therapy, I can trust them not only to find it, but to be completely competent at treating him. And that is about the only ray of sunshine in this whole Godforsaken mess.
Because I cannot get it out of my head that this is my fault. That I should’ve lied about my contractions while pregnant. Because if I would have done that, there would have been no home uterine monitor. And thus no trips to the hospital. And no drugs. And no early c-section. But my God, the drugs…3 months of the Brethine pump, plus the oral form I took before the pump and the subcutaneous injections I got each time they sent me to the damned hospital. The mag sulfate–evil, evil mag sulfate. The indomethacin. The steroids to speed him up in there. The damned pain meds it took to get me through that last month, which my OB assured me were safe. And the progesterone shots. I keep wondering which one it was, knowing full and well that it is likely none of them that did this. Which brings it back to me. Which takes me back to those last months of my pregnancy and makes me contemplate whether I could’ve held on longer. It’s so easy to speak of this now when I have had nine months with my angel and am free from that pain. But then? If I put myself back in that place, I think I can honestly say that I did the best I could. Me and my uterus of which medical mysteries are made. I have to be nicer to myself about this. I was in an active labor pattern for months–literally–and I effing functioned like that. Yes, I did the best I could. And while I am not trying to stroke my own ego here, I think I would be hard-pressed to find many others who could’ve endured that for as long as I did. But still…
And John’s reaction! Argh! Since he dropped Zach and I off for the appointment that was supposed to be a routine check and ran errands with Ev, I had to explain all of this to him. And his response to all of this still infuriates me: ” ARE YOU TELLING MY SON IS GOING TO BE RIDING THE SHORT BUS TO SCHOOL??????” Seriously. And then: “We’ll have to get a ‘Slow Children Playing’ sign for the yard just for Zach.” I know he was just trying to make me laugh, but still. I could’ve killed him, I swear. Completely unhelpful and inappropriate, John.
So anyway…
I have to wait. I have to hope all is well, or that his delays are so mild that minimal therapy will fix it all. I still hate that we are in this place.
The ball starts rolling on February 28th, when Zach sees the audiologist…

>8 Months and a Nagging Feeling

>Yesterday, Zach turned 8 Months Old. I couldn’t blog because I was out and about town. Upon returning home, John and I watched The Social Network, which I had been wanting to see. All of this served as a good way to stall the 8 Months post, which is great, since I have dreaded saying what I am about to say.

I’m worried about Zach. I really am. He is doing nothing new this month. He still just scoots instead of actual crawling. He’s gotten better at it. He’s quicker, and I can tell he’s stronger by the way he reaches and turns. He’ll get almost up to where he is on one leg, with the other three appendages up in te air trying to get stuff that has caught his interest. He’ll sit unsupported for a couple of minutes before he suddenly faceplants or flops backward, which means I have to worry about him getting hurt and so I always just lay him on his back to play unless I am sitting right there. We aren’t making any consonant sounds when we babble. He still has no teeth.

So what is he doing? Well, he’s doing everything a little better and more purposefully. When we are out of his sight, he looks for us. The same with toys, which tells me he understands object permanence. When playing with him on the floor, he’ll pull you toward him and put his mouth on your face to give a kiss. He’s taking solids better. He’ll finally hold his own bottle, though we still cuddle with him at feedings. He’s very very social and can command the attention of an entire room of people. Yesterday, we were at lunch when his smiles, giggles, squeals and coos had strangers in the restaurant coming up to our table to comment on his cuteness. He can do the whole pincer grasp thing now. And he wants to play. He loves clapping hands. One day, I was trying to teach him to clap his hands by taking his hands with mine and clapping them for him. Instead he learned how to clap my hands and so now he will grab my hands with his and clap them for me. He’s still a chubster. He’s engaging and happy. He watches everything like a hawk and you can just see him learning!

But the things he isn’t doing yet just grabs my attention and induces worry. I keep reminding myself of his prematurity in an effort to quiet the nagging feeling. I’m sure this has a little to do with some of it, as does the fact that every baby is different and that babies don’t develop uniformly. They may mature by leaps and bounds in the cognitive arena one month then turn and make strides in the motor skill area the next month. Evan did all of the motor stuff way early and by the time he was a year old, we already had him in a toddler bed because he had learned to escape his crib and I was worried the leap to the floor would hurt him. But then he talked really late, prompting us to hae him evaluated by a developmental interventionalist. Turns out all was fine and when he did finally speak, instead of monosyllable babble, it was in clear and complex sentences. I’m hoping Zach will be the same and will do everything in his own time.

So for now, the plan is to watch and see what happens this month. He goes for another well-child appointment next month, and if I am still so worried, I’ll discuss it with the doc and get a referral to have him evaluated. In the meantime, I will stew over every dose of every medication they gave me while I was pregnant and I’ll worry about every day that we could have kept him in there and didn’t. And I will fret that this is all my fault and if I would have just lied about the contractions, all would be fine right now…

>Happy 2011

>Okay, so the New Year is upon us. Incidentally, I am now a year older, and don’t even get me started about the Baby New Year stuff. I heard my whole life how I was the second baby born that year, and thus got the shaft.)

2011 has to be better than 2010.

Of course I started off 2010 with contractions. But 2010 was also the Year of Zachary. With this in mind, it was all worth it. But I remember that first trip to the hospital like it was yesterday. Crushing because I had held out hope that my pregnancy with Zach would be so different from the one with Evan. When I felt that first contraction, I knew exactly what it was. I held my belly and breathed deeply and waited. The next came 6 minutes later, and then 6 minutes after that. And I cried. Oh, how I cried. I didn’t even tell my doctor right away. I continued having them like that for weeks before I finally admitted to my doctors what was going on. It took them getting to be 2 minutes apart before I told them I couldn’t take it, and I admitted in defeat that it had been going on for some time. I know this seems crazy, but I didn’t want to admit what was going on. And I had been to the show before and knew what followed. My hope is that you, the reader, will never have to hear your baby referred to as a non-viable fetus like I did with both boys. Because even at the size of a bean, he was still our baby. Somehow we made it through, though.

2010 saw Evan turning 9 years old. Nine! My baby! And when I stepped away from work and pre-medicine and I looked, his face stopped having the roundness of a baby’s and took on the angles of John’s face. He is in the midst of the last of his primary school years. Before I know it, he’ll be a teenager, too cool for mom. And then he’ll be in a cap and gown, and I will be regretting each and every minute I allowed to slip by without appreciating it fully. Children grow all too fast.

And my John and our 10-year anniversary. I found a gray hair on his head for the first time this year. And his crow’s feet got a little more noticeable. Yet when I was reflecting back and looking at the pictures of the day we married, he looked the exact same to me. I don’t know how this is, other than that he is still my JohnJohn.

My family is on the cusp of some great opportunities of which I cannot speak just yet, but I am convinced that 2011 is going to be stellar as I continue on with the three men in my life in this, my 34th year.

So Happy New Year. Be blessed. Be happy. Be healthy.

>Approval

> Yesterday, during Evan’s fiasco at the hospital cafeteria, I ran into none other than the doctor who finally put me out of my misery and took Zach by c-section. (That’s her in the pic.) And she asked me, now that the ordeal is over, if I wanted to have another baby. I told her I want to try for a girl down the road and she laughed. Turns out one of my OB nurse friends ratted me out. And I said “If it happens….” After all, my children are 8 years apart for a reason and I just don’t have that kind of time as the years of my fertility tick by. And she said, “Come see Dr. J when you’re ready.” Dr. J, in this huge group of high-risk OB/GYN’s, is the fertility specialist. I joked that I was afraid I would have to find another practice, and she told me no, that even 6 months later, every one of the 9 doctors will randomly say, “I wonder how Andrea is doing…..” And she told me they all loved me, that while my pregnancy was miserable for everyone, they really liked me and it made it tolerable. “We love you, Andrea, ” she said, “and we will always take care of you!”
And then she asked me if she coud kiss him, that she wasn’t sick. And she did–she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the forehead, and it was so sweet and poignant. After all, Zach’s presence here is as much their work as he is mine. I shudder to think of what the outcome could’ve been without them.

>Yes, I Do

>Want to have another baby, that is.

Not now. John and I have discussed this at length, and we figure in two years’ time, all of my sick time and vacation time will have regenerated. My FMLA will be intact once again, and since we are paying $200 per month each to my doctors’ bills, hospital bills, and home health bills, Zach’s pegnancy will be paid off by then. I will be 35. Not too old yet. And I have time to plan and do some things differently like lose weight and adopt healthier habits. Because when you face a complicated pregnancy, you wonder if any little thing could be the cause of your troubles. What if I wasn’t overweight? What if I took vitamins and supplement before I got pregnant? What if, what if, what if…????? Of course the ugky truth is that, with all of the state-of-the-art advanced medical care I received, if there was some factor causing the problems, they would have figured it out between both Evan’s and Zach’s pregnancies. It is more likely that nothing I can do will make a difference. Having another baby will be a gamble. And will probably result in another late-preterm baby. All I can do is make sure the risk is as calculated as possible.

So there it is. I’ve blogged about it before, but I had to do some soul searching to be sure that I wanted to do it again for the right reasons. The consensus is that women who have had my experiences often are motivated not by the desire to have another baby, but by the deep-seated desire to have another chance at normal. I had to be sure this wasn’t the case with me.