We just found out this morning.
He went in to have a lymph node removed which they'd biopsied the day after Eleanor was born. The biopsy came back negative, but they still wanted to remove it because it was obviously infected. Said there was an 85% chance the node was benign.
He fell into that 15% and I'm so very sad for him.
It's lymphoma, or so they think, which is the best sort of cancer to have.
They're staging it and then we'll know the course of action.
But damn. Cancer sucks.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Her baptism was perfect! (Well, almost) (4w3d)
The October baptism date was full, so we'd requested that either Father Chester or Father Clement perform a private baptism for us so that we wouldn't have to wait until November. Thankfully, Father Clement obliged and we were scheduled for yesterday afternoon after 4:00 Mass. It was additionally special as yesterday was also Mom's 55th birthday.
It was a precious ceremony despite the fact that Miss E was not very happy. She was extremely tired, seeing that she hardly slept the night before (and also woke up with a terrible case of baby acne).
Father Clement was just too cute. Eleanor was his seventh baptism and we could tell that he was honored to perform this sacrament for us. Not only did he pray for her during Mass, but when we were receiving communion, he gasped and said, "There she is!" when I approached him. Way too cute.
Here's Jennifer (godmother) me and Eleanor:
Jen, me and Paul (godfather) as Eleanor is anointed:
Eleanor is Baptized:
We had a party here at the house afterward and it was so much fun. I love getting together with family. The food was delicious (thank you, Mumsy!) and the celebration was full of love. Sandra Rogers made the cake and it was delicious as well as beautiful.
A perfect day after all.
It was a precious ceremony despite the fact that Miss E was not very happy. She was extremely tired, seeing that she hardly slept the night before (and also woke up with a terrible case of baby acne).
Father Clement was just too cute. Eleanor was his seventh baptism and we could tell that he was honored to perform this sacrament for us. Not only did he pray for her during Mass, but when we were receiving communion, he gasped and said, "There she is!" when I approached him. Way too cute.
Here's Jennifer (godmother) me and Eleanor:
Jen, me and Paul (godfather) as Eleanor is anointed:
Eleanor is Baptized:
We had a party here at the house afterward and it was so much fun. I love getting together with family. The food was delicious (thank you, Mumsy!) and the celebration was full of love. Sandra Rogers made the cake and it was delicious as well as beautiful.
A perfect day after all.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Birth Announcements (4w1d)
As I'm sitting here procrastinating (I'm supposed to be cleaning the floors for tomorrow's party following Eleanor's baptism), I thought I'd post the first draft of Miss E's birth announcements.
I'm not sure if those are the pics I'll use ... or even if it's the design.
But it's a first draft nonetheless.
Perhaps we'll get some good shots tomorrow in her gorgeous gown.
I'd like to include some of the kids and her as well. But that's not an easy task.
I'm not sure if those are the pics I'll use ... or even if it's the design.
But it's a first draft nonetheless.
Perhaps we'll get some good shots tomorrow in her gorgeous gown.
I'd like to include some of the kids and her as well. But that's not an easy task.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Better Late than Never: the Birth Story.
It's Wednesday, August 27th. Two days before my due date.
Jason's off from work and I've been feeling a little off all day long. Nothing to necessarily call home about, but just had this strange feeling. So I called my mom to see if her and Papa would take the kids for the night and they agreed. Wouldn't you know that as we were getting the kids ready, my contractions started picking up in intensity and frequency?
At Jason's urging, I paged Dr. Bourque just to touch base with him as it was 6:30 pm already. So I did and he asked me to stop by the hospital because he was already there so he could "check me and just see where we were". We arrived at the hospital around 8:00 pm after getting the kids settled at mom's. At around 10 pm, the contractions were four minutes apart but I was only 1-2 cm.
I wanted to go home. Dr. Bourque wanted me to stay. I asked if I could head out if the contractions petered out. He laughed and told me that the contractions weren't going to stop ... I was in labor. What I was in was total disbelief. And thank God we did not leave. Because about 20 minutes later, I was in agony. This wasn't the regular early labor I'd read about in the countless books I'd poured through in preparation of our natural birth. No. These were over-the-top-want-to-escape-my-own-skin-two-minutes-apart-lasting-90-seconds-can-hardly-catch-my-breath contractions. If I'd had a clear head about myself, I'd have thought to get checked so I could know I was in transition. But the only thing I could think about was getting this to stop. And it had to stop five minutes ago.
So in between running back and forth from the toilet to the bathtub to the bed (all of this without any clothes on), I was yelling at Jason that I wanted, no needed, the epidural. The sweetheart that he is, totally followed what we'd practiced and came back with, "Baby, we talked about this and we really want a natural delivery."
You know that scene in Look Who's Talking where Kirstie Alley's in labor and John Travolta is telling her to breathe and she gets that look in her eyes, opens her mouth to yell at him and what comes out is Satan's voice saying, "FUCK MY BREATHING"? Yeah, that's what it was like. So it dawned on me ... the code word! We'd decided on a code word for me to use in case I was really serious about wanting pain relief.
But I was so outside of myself that I couldn't even remember the word and all I could get out was, "Code. Word. The. Fucking. Code. Word. Can't. Remember. It. But. I'm. Using. It."
And about ten minutes later, I'm squirming uncontrollably trying to hold still for the anesthesiologist, which I was hardly able to manage. And about ten minutes after that, I'm starting to feel some relief, Dr. Bourque comes in to check me and I'm 5 cm.
No wonder I was out of control. I was dilating like mad.
So it's 11:30 pm now and I'm thinking that this is really going to happen. So is everyone else. Dr. Bourque tells me he's not leaving, but he's going to sleep in the on-call room and he'll be back later. (Bless his heart).
At some point in the middle of the night, the epidural started to wear off and those crazy contractions were back. I was clinging to the bed rails yelling, "no no no no no" over and over and so the nurse anesthetist came in to re-dose me. Relief again.
Checked. I'm 6 cm.
Epidural starts to wear off again. Re-dosed again.
Checked. I'm 5 cm and my cervix is swelling. Shit.
About an hour later, I'm 7 cm.
An hour later, I'm still 7 cm and the baby is starting to have heart decels. And the epidural's wearing off again. This is not good.
They tell me the baby's not in distress. I tell them that he/she may not be, but I am.
I'm done. And it's very clear to me that it's time for the repeat section.
So Dr. Bourque is paged and they're prepping me for surgery. I'm sad because I've spent months preparing for something that's obviously not going to happen. But I'm also going into this knowing without a doubt that this baby is ready to be born. And that brings me some much needed comfort. Another measure of comfort is that Dr. Bourque's agreed to not announce the gender of the baby, but to walk around the surgery drape to show us instead. (What a doll).
Here's where the story starts to go downhill. They can't get me numb enough with the epidural. They're dosing me with enough to tranquilize a horse and are reaching the limit on what they can give me. They explain that if I don't numb up, they've got to put me under and that means Jason can't be in the OR. Crap.
So with every fiber of my being, I silently pray and beg God to help me get numb. My prayers are answered and we head into surgery. Mom arrives just in time to attend and I'm quietly crying and simultaneously praying the Memorare over and over that I deliver without complication.
The section begins and immediately I can tell that something's not right. It's taking what seems like forever for her to be born so I ask Dr. Bourque if everything's okay. He assures me that it is but explains that there is a lot of scar tissue and he's taking his time working through it. After more time passes, and I notice that he's noticeably more silent than he's been in my previous two sections, I mention to him (and I mean this with all my being as I'm saying it) that I'm so glad that he's my surgeon. And he replies with, "So am I because this isn't work for an ameteur." Yikes.
A few minutes later, the baby is born, and we hear that beautiful cry. And then we see this:
And we are beside ourselves! Another girl! A beautiful baby girl! Jason can't believe it. Neither can Mom. They really, really thought we were having another boy. And they were so sure of it, I was almost convinced of it as well. But I was over the moon when I saw girl parts!
They get her cleaned up and bring her over to meet me. But I get to watch Jason meet her first and it's a moment that I'll never forget. The look on his face was absolutely precious. One of those father-daughter moments that is a miracle to even get to witness.
Shortly thereafter, Mom and Jason (and our new baby girl) head to the recovery room to wait on me, which they assure us will only take a few minutes. Yeah, those few minutes turned into about an hour.
After Dr. Bourque had finished sewing my uterus, he pulled out the bladder retractor to put everything back in place before sewing me up and I hear him say, "Oh no." Oh no, indeed. My bladder had torn about three inches and had to be repaired immediately. Thankfully, it was only my bladder and it wasn't anything like my uterus needed to be taken out, but I gathered from the reactions of everyone in the OR that this was pretty serious.
Nonetheless, they got me repaired and into recovery and the only thing I knew was that I wanted to nurse my baby (GIRL!). When they wheeled me in, she was rooting around and Mom and Jason said she'd been doing that the entire time. This girl was ready to nurse and we were about to learn that she was a professional at it ... get out of her way.
And us nursing for the first time:
Later that afternoon, Mom and Papa brought the kids back to meet her and we had a birthday party complete with cupcakes that Dad picked up for us. So we sang "Happy Birthday" to the new baby (still unnamed at this point and would be until Sunday) and welcomed her properly to the family.
The kids left and Jason and I settled into the realization that we'd be in the hospital for an extended stay because of the bladder repair ... which included an additional surgery the following morning and a catheter for what would be the next week. (Not to mention a hurricane on the way!) So we hunkered in and made the most of the next several days. Spending some good one-on-one time with our new daughter before heading home to the madness.
At some point over the next couple of days, I started running fever and my blood pressure started going way up. I was in bad shape. But the baby, now named Eleanor, was perfectly fine. Nursing like a champ (and even gaining herself quite the reputation amongst the staff) and even bringing my milk in by Saturday afternoon, a mere 48-hours after her birth! She was past her birth weight by day five, which was amazing to all of us, but especially precious Miss Evelyn, the lactation consultant. She was so impressed!
By day 7, I was ready to head home. I was still running fever in the late afternoons but it was time to get on with our new life. So thankfully, I was de-catheterized and sent on my merry way.
It was a long week. And I'm heading back to Dr. Bourque's tomorrow for another checkup (my second since leaving the hospital). I'll hopefully be taken off the blood pressure medication and have the many questions I have for him answered ...
Jason's off from work and I've been feeling a little off all day long. Nothing to necessarily call home about, but just had this strange feeling. So I called my mom to see if her and Papa would take the kids for the night and they agreed. Wouldn't you know that as we were getting the kids ready, my contractions started picking up in intensity and frequency?
At Jason's urging, I paged Dr. Bourque just to touch base with him as it was 6:30 pm already. So I did and he asked me to stop by the hospital because he was already there so he could "check me and just see where we were". We arrived at the hospital around 8:00 pm after getting the kids settled at mom's. At around 10 pm, the contractions were four minutes apart but I was only 1-2 cm.
I wanted to go home. Dr. Bourque wanted me to stay. I asked if I could head out if the contractions petered out. He laughed and told me that the contractions weren't going to stop ... I was in labor. What I was in was total disbelief. And thank God we did not leave. Because about 20 minutes later, I was in agony. This wasn't the regular early labor I'd read about in the countless books I'd poured through in preparation of our natural birth. No. These were over-the-top-want-to-escape-my-own-skin-two-minutes-apart-lasting-90-seconds-can-hardly-catch-my-breath contractions. If I'd had a clear head about myself, I'd have thought to get checked so I could know I was in transition. But the only thing I could think about was getting this to stop. And it had to stop five minutes ago.
So in between running back and forth from the toilet to the bathtub to the bed (all of this without any clothes on), I was yelling at Jason that I wanted, no needed, the epidural. The sweetheart that he is, totally followed what we'd practiced and came back with, "Baby, we talked about this and we really want a natural delivery."
You know that scene in Look Who's Talking where Kirstie Alley's in labor and John Travolta is telling her to breathe and she gets that look in her eyes, opens her mouth to yell at him and what comes out is Satan's voice saying, "FUCK MY BREATHING"? Yeah, that's what it was like. So it dawned on me ... the code word! We'd decided on a code word for me to use in case I was really serious about wanting pain relief.
But I was so outside of myself that I couldn't even remember the word and all I could get out was, "Code. Word. The. Fucking. Code. Word. Can't. Remember. It. But. I'm. Using. It."
And about ten minutes later, I'm squirming uncontrollably trying to hold still for the anesthesiologist, which I was hardly able to manage. And about ten minutes after that, I'm starting to feel some relief, Dr. Bourque comes in to check me and I'm 5 cm.
No wonder I was out of control. I was dilating like mad.
So it's 11:30 pm now and I'm thinking that this is really going to happen. So is everyone else. Dr. Bourque tells me he's not leaving, but he's going to sleep in the on-call room and he'll be back later. (Bless his heart).
At some point in the middle of the night, the epidural started to wear off and those crazy contractions were back. I was clinging to the bed rails yelling, "no no no no no" over and over and so the nurse anesthetist came in to re-dose me. Relief again.
Checked. I'm 6 cm.
Epidural starts to wear off again. Re-dosed again.
Checked. I'm 5 cm and my cervix is swelling. Shit.
About an hour later, I'm 7 cm.
An hour later, I'm still 7 cm and the baby is starting to have heart decels. And the epidural's wearing off again. This is not good.
They tell me the baby's not in distress. I tell them that he/she may not be, but I am.
I'm done. And it's very clear to me that it's time for the repeat section.
So Dr. Bourque is paged and they're prepping me for surgery. I'm sad because I've spent months preparing for something that's obviously not going to happen. But I'm also going into this knowing without a doubt that this baby is ready to be born. And that brings me some much needed comfort. Another measure of comfort is that Dr. Bourque's agreed to not announce the gender of the baby, but to walk around the surgery drape to show us instead. (What a doll).
Here's where the story starts to go downhill. They can't get me numb enough with the epidural. They're dosing me with enough to tranquilize a horse and are reaching the limit on what they can give me. They explain that if I don't numb up, they've got to put me under and that means Jason can't be in the OR. Crap.
So with every fiber of my being, I silently pray and beg God to help me get numb. My prayers are answered and we head into surgery. Mom arrives just in time to attend and I'm quietly crying and simultaneously praying the Memorare over and over that I deliver without complication.
The section begins and immediately I can tell that something's not right. It's taking what seems like forever for her to be born so I ask Dr. Bourque if everything's okay. He assures me that it is but explains that there is a lot of scar tissue and he's taking his time working through it. After more time passes, and I notice that he's noticeably more silent than he's been in my previous two sections, I mention to him (and I mean this with all my being as I'm saying it) that I'm so glad that he's my surgeon. And he replies with, "So am I because this isn't work for an ameteur." Yikes.
A few minutes later, the baby is born, and we hear that beautiful cry. And then we see this:
And we are beside ourselves! Another girl! A beautiful baby girl! Jason can't believe it. Neither can Mom. They really, really thought we were having another boy. And they were so sure of it, I was almost convinced of it as well. But I was over the moon when I saw girl parts!
They get her cleaned up and bring her over to meet me. But I get to watch Jason meet her first and it's a moment that I'll never forget. The look on his face was absolutely precious. One of those father-daughter moments that is a miracle to even get to witness.
Shortly thereafter, Mom and Jason (and our new baby girl) head to the recovery room to wait on me, which they assure us will only take a few minutes. Yeah, those few minutes turned into about an hour.
After Dr. Bourque had finished sewing my uterus, he pulled out the bladder retractor to put everything back in place before sewing me up and I hear him say, "Oh no." Oh no, indeed. My bladder had torn about three inches and had to be repaired immediately. Thankfully, it was only my bladder and it wasn't anything like my uterus needed to be taken out, but I gathered from the reactions of everyone in the OR that this was pretty serious.
Nonetheless, they got me repaired and into recovery and the only thing I knew was that I wanted to nurse my baby (GIRL!). When they wheeled me in, she was rooting around and Mom and Jason said she'd been doing that the entire time. This girl was ready to nurse and we were about to learn that she was a professional at it ... get out of her way.
You can see her rooting on Mom's hand here:
And us nursing for the first time:
Later that afternoon, Mom and Papa brought the kids back to meet her and we had a birthday party complete with cupcakes that Dad picked up for us. So we sang "Happy Birthday" to the new baby (still unnamed at this point and would be until Sunday) and welcomed her properly to the family.
Here's Sam kissing her for the first time, which was something he'd been waiting and waiting to do:
The kids left and Jason and I settled into the realization that we'd be in the hospital for an extended stay because of the bladder repair ... which included an additional surgery the following morning and a catheter for what would be the next week. (Not to mention a hurricane on the way!) So we hunkered in and made the most of the next several days. Spending some good one-on-one time with our new daughter before heading home to the madness.
At some point over the next couple of days, I started running fever and my blood pressure started going way up. I was in bad shape. But the baby, now named Eleanor, was perfectly fine. Nursing like a champ (and even gaining herself quite the reputation amongst the staff) and even bringing my milk in by Saturday afternoon, a mere 48-hours after her birth! She was past her birth weight by day five, which was amazing to all of us, but especially precious Miss Evelyn, the lactation consultant. She was so impressed!
By day 7, I was ready to head home. I was still running fever in the late afternoons but it was time to get on with our new life. So thankfully, I was de-catheterized and sent on my merry way.
It was a long week. And I'm heading back to Dr. Bourque's tomorrow for another checkup (my second since leaving the hospital). I'll hopefully be taken off the blood pressure medication and have the many questions I have for him answered ...
I've forgotten how utterly exhausting this stage is. (3w4d)
But at least she seems to have ditched the middle of the night parties. (Thank the sweet Lord.) Here's how she looked after one of those all-nighters. She looked like I felt:
She did, however, tease us two nights in a row. One with two four-hour stretches and one with a five-hour, which felt like heaven. Two nights ago was every two hours, though she didn't really seem all that interested in eating. She'd nurse for a few minutes and then doze back off. Last night was every three hours, but with full feedings. I'm completely content nursing her around the clock as I'm already *ahem* below my pre-pregnancy weight (everything hasn't gone back into its proper place yet, but still ...). I do, however, prefer the three-hour cycles as opposed to the two-hour ones.
She went back to sleep a little while ago for her first nap of the day. So I decided to forgo my shower until after the next feeding so that we could get some homeschooling in. (Our first since August 18th!) Hayes flew through the math as usual and it dawned on me that I probably should have skipped over the first 20 lessons of math but I was worried that he'd miss out on some sort of foundational learning. I would be wrong. He could totally zoom through the next assessment (at lesson 30) but I looked through the worksheets and Saxon's introducing addition problems before then so I'll have to peek through and see which ones are really necessary.
I'm glad to have gotten some schooling done as it makes me feel productive. But skipping out on my shower means that grocery shopping is going to have to wait until later in the day. Plus we have dancing tonight ...
The good thing is that Lisa is bringing us dinner so that's one less thing I have to worry about. Man, I sure love all these dinners. It makes life insanely easier.
The other thing I have to do is prepare for Eleanor's Baptism this weekend. Her gown is pressed, thankfully, so there's nothing I need to do there. But we're now hosting the party afterward since Mom and E couldn't. And I've got a ton of stuff to get done around the house. I cleaned the kitchen cabinets last night so that's off the list. But I've got plenty to do otherwise, including weeding and re-mulching some of the gardens. Whoo boy.
She did, however, tease us two nights in a row. One with two four-hour stretches and one with a five-hour, which felt like heaven. Two nights ago was every two hours, though she didn't really seem all that interested in eating. She'd nurse for a few minutes and then doze back off. Last night was every three hours, but with full feedings. I'm completely content nursing her around the clock as I'm already *ahem* below my pre-pregnancy weight (everything hasn't gone back into its proper place yet, but still ...). I do, however, prefer the three-hour cycles as opposed to the two-hour ones.
She went back to sleep a little while ago for her first nap of the day. So I decided to forgo my shower until after the next feeding so that we could get some homeschooling in. (Our first since August 18th!) Hayes flew through the math as usual and it dawned on me that I probably should have skipped over the first 20 lessons of math but I was worried that he'd miss out on some sort of foundational learning. I would be wrong. He could totally zoom through the next assessment (at lesson 30) but I looked through the worksheets and Saxon's introducing addition problems before then so I'll have to peek through and see which ones are really necessary.
I'm glad to have gotten some schooling done as it makes me feel productive. But skipping out on my shower means that grocery shopping is going to have to wait until later in the day. Plus we have dancing tonight ...
The good thing is that Lisa is bringing us dinner so that's one less thing I have to worry about. Man, I sure love all these dinners. It makes life insanely easier.
The other thing I have to do is prepare for Eleanor's Baptism this weekend. Her gown is pressed, thankfully, so there's nothing I need to do there. But we're now hosting the party afterward since Mom and E couldn't. And I've got a ton of stuff to get done around the house. I cleaned the kitchen cabinets last night so that's off the list. But I've got plenty to do otherwise, including weeding and re-mulching some of the gardens. Whoo boy.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Oh how we are loving her! (2w3d)
She's just perfect. And she looks so much like Hayes did as a baby, it's almost bizarre to look into her face. It's like taking a trip in a time machine.
(Though, if I'm being completely honest, she's prettier than he was.)
We had a good day today. She napped after every feeding and is currently sleeping soundly. I'll wake her around 11 to eat and if the past few nights are any indication of what's to come for tonight, she'll wake every 3 hours on the nose rooting around like mad.
She's a professional nurser, that's for certain. And we've finally found a pacifier she likes. I've been opposed to pacis before now for a variety of reasons, but this child is different. She needs to suck nearly constantly and unfortunately for her, I'm not willing to be her personal pacifier. I'm hurting today for it, though, that's for sure. My breasts feel like they're going to explode at any moment. Perhaps they'll carry her through the upcoming growth spurt?
Tomorrow I'm hoping that Dr. Bourque will give me the all-clear for driving because not only am I suffering from a severe case of cabin fever, Mary Beth has dancing tomorrow and the boys will be starting soccer this week as well. I need the freedom to be able to drive! Though with the gas shortages they're predicting, perhaps it's better if I don't get the privilege back quite yet ...
Thursday, September 4, 2008
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