As I posted today on Facebook, I need to refocus my trust in God to provide what we truly need, so I think it is time to start up some thankful posting.
Today is so easy. Today, I am thankful for my N. She was my miracle baby six years ago, and she is still my little sweetheart. She has a huge heart and lots of attitude. Happy birthday, N!
To call my N a miracle is not to be taken lightly. The only reason she is alive is through the sheer grace of God.
We knew we wanted a third child, so Jim and I were overjoyed when it did not take long to get pregnant. We thought that would be our last pregnancy, but that is an entirely different, and happy, story. Everything seemed to be going along as expected with my third pregnancy until I slipped and fell in the bath tub at eight weeks. At this point, I had not been to see my doctor yet, as per his policy of waiting until 12-14 weeks, and there would have been nothing for him to do if I had fallen badly enough to harm the baby or my womb. As it was, nothing come of this fall other than a few ugly bruises.
At nineteen weeks pregnant, my stubbornness kicked in when my dishwasher stopped working while my husband was out of town on business. What would a sane, rational, woman do? Wait until her husband comes home to install a new one. What did this insane, irrational, pregnant woman do? Install it herself the same day he was due home. I did not over-exert myself or put myself in any danger. All seemed well.
After my husband returned home that evening, I picked up my then two-year-old daughter to take her to bed. I felt a sharp pain in my side, but I thought nothing of it. After tucking in my two other daughters, reading, and singing to them, I headed to the bathroom for the twentieth time that day, thinking it would be like any other day. My husband knew there was a problem when I began shrieking from the bathroom. I was bleeding. That is one of the scariest things to see when one is mid-pregnancy. Yes, spotting and some light bleeding is common in the beginning and the end of a pregnancy, but those months in between the two should be blood-free. This was my third pregnancy, and I found myself in unknown territory.
Luckily, I had my mid-term ultrasound scheduled for the very next morning. As I had already been having minor Braxton-Hicks contractions for weeks, I was quite anxious to have the ultrasound and know that my baby was fine. Although the technician was not able to find a placental abruption, my doctor felt the need to keep a closer eye on me. Research shows that only, approximately, fifty percent of placental abruptions can be diagnosed with ultrasound (that number could be different six years later, but those were the statistics when it applied to us).
As the next two weeks ticked by, I began to notice a lot of cramping and tightness in my uterus. Being experienced in birthing children, I knew this was not something I wanted to happen mid-pregnancy. When I brought it up with my doctor, he immediately prescribed partial bedrest for the remainder of my pregnancy. I was able to continue teaching in 1.5-hour slots of time, with my feet up, not playing my clarinet, and drinking water the whole time. After 1.5 hours, I was to rest on my left side for thirty minutes before sitting up to teach again.
I spent an entire summer with my altered routine, all while taking care of my older children, two and four at the time, from the sofa. My dear, sweet husband would make them lunches and fill their sippy cups every morning and leave them low enough in the refrigerator for my eldest to reach them. I would read the girls books and play games and watch fun shows with them from my jail cell on the sofa, and they would bring me anything I might need that they could reach. They were, and are, the best girls in the world.
Yet another blessing to count in this post is that my mother-in-law taught me how to knit in February of 2006, just four months before my 4.5-month bedrest sentence. My sweet, patient husband took me every Saturday to my favorite local yarn store, the Yarn Garage in Rosemount, MN, to buy more yarn and patterns to keep me sane. >I spent those 4.5 months drinking water, resting, reading, and knitting while fighting the preterm labor that threatened to deliver my third child much, much too early. While those months were worth every second to ensure that my darling N was healthy, my health and playing deteriorated as I was completely inactive. Again, that is another story for another post.
By late October, at 38 weeks pregnant, I decided that I had had enough of lying around. I tried to become more involved with day-to-day activities in our home again, but those months of atrophied muscles made it more difficult. Again, my stubborn nature reigned supreme, and I ended up with a stress fracture in my right foot just one day before delivering my little N.
At 39 weeks gestation, my doctor induced my labor due to a lightning fast delivery with my second (1.5 hours of labor, three pushes, a 9-pound baby, and I was up and walking within twenty minutes). Based on the months of complications, we were placed in the very first room by the nurses station, and a NICU team was on call for my delivery. After starting the Pitocin drip and breaking my water, the nurse came rushing back into my room to turn down the dosage. N was not tolerating the medicine well, and this trend continued as she repeatedly became distressed when the Pitocin was increased. Eventually, we opted to nearly turn it off and let nature take its course.
Once our room full of concerned family members took a much-needed break for dinner, everything happened all at once. I was able to stand without worrying that my dear father-in-law would see my bare bottom, so I took full advantage. I stood and hugged my husband, and that was all it took for my labor to hit the overdrive stage. Within ten minutes I went from 4 cm dilation to delivering. This is precisely the reason my doctor scheduled an induction.
Because of the rapidity of my delivery, the NICU team had to take N very quickly for evaluation. I barely got to see her, after reaching near-hysteria because the doctor was not showing her to me, before the kind NICU team went to work. I was so engrossed in watching every movement she and the NICU team made that I was barely aware that I was following instructions to expel the placenta. I vaguely noticed a weird feeling following the delivery of her placenta, but I was still focused on my new baby. It turns out that my "weird" feeling was passing two fist-sized blood clots from behind N's placenta from my two partial placental abruptions.
If I had ever needed more proof of God's continued miracles on this planet, that was it for me and anyone else in the room. He is the reason those blood clots did not kill my baby. He is the reason why my bedrest was enough to keep my preterm labor at bay. He is the reason she was fine after having a large vial of amniotic fluid pulled from her lungs by the NICU team. He is the reason why my pediatrician talked the hospital into not making me put N back in for her jaundice. He is the reason I have her. Period. There is no question in my heart, mind, or soul. He is the reason we named her what we did, because her name means, "Born of God." Thank you, Lord, for the most amazing and stubborn and incredible little N a mother could have.
**Note: I have chosen not to include her full name or photos, because my blog is set to public. I do not wish to allow photos of my children to on the web without strict controls over who can see the photos. Thank you for understanding my concerns.
No comments:
Post a Comment