Chaos and Cupcakes

When this post first began formulating itself in my head, I really hesitated about whether or not I should even write it.  But then I thought, this is my blog, my outlet.  I guess after my previous controversial post I feared that I would get some Tom Cruise-esque people telling me to just go take some vitamins. 

After the birth of my 5th child, sweet Sawyer, I experienced post-partum depression.  My pregnancy ended rather abruptly with an emergency c-section that I was not at all prepared for.  The delivery was very scary and both of us were in danger due to him coming out double footling breech and to the placenta having ruptured.  Luckily, once he was delivered Sawyer was fine.  I had a difficult recovery but my baby was able to leave the hospital with me.  At home, I was in a great deal of pain.  I had to depend on others for everything.  I began to feel inadequate.  I turned to my doctor who prescribed Zoloft for post-partum depression.  Once the medication kicked in, I was like a new person.  It was such a relief to my wonderful husband.

During the long weeks of bedrest in the pregnancy of our 6th baby, little miracle Parker, I started becoming depressed (pre-partum depression).  It was so hard to feel like a good mom when you can’t take care of your own children.  I was torn between wanting to take care of my kids and wanting to do what was best for Parker.  I was not taking Zoloft since I was pregnant and, believe me, there was a big difference in me without the medication.  Jared kept asking me if I was going to start taking it again after the pregnancy.  After the very near-death for both of us delivery of Parker and the subsequent separation with him being in one hospital and me being in another, post-partum depression and perhaps maybe post-traumatic depression kicked in pretty much immediately.  Parker is my last baby.  Yet instead of savoring those first few days of his life getting to know him, we were both recovering apart from each other.   When I was discharged from the hospital, I had to balance visiting him in the NICU with recovering at home while Jared took care of the other kids and their needs.  When Parker came home, he had to be in the bilibed except for nursing sessions.  All of this really took a toll on my emotional state.  All I wanted to do was savor every little bit of those sweet first days of his life.  Knowing that never again will I have a newborn is so extremely difficult for me.  Also, I kept fixating on the fact that I came so close to losing my child and replaying the day of his birth over and over in my head to see what I could have done differently to have avoided the uterine rupture (despite my doctor telling my I couldn’t have prevented it and we did everything right listening to the promptings of the Holy Ghost to rush to the hospital).  I made life miserable for Jared by repeatedly asking him if he would have remarried, who would he have married, etc.   There was no sense in dwelling on what could have been, yet I couldn’t help it.  Last week, at the prompting of our exceptional pediatrician, I again sought help from my doctor.  Now I am on Zoloft again.  Previously, I might have been ashamed to admit this.  But I think that the whole Brooke Shields/Tom Cruise fiasco has helped to bring to light awareness of post-partum depression.  It is very real and very awful.  There is no shame in it.  Help is available and should definitely be utilized, for the sake of mom, baby, and family.   Although the medication has not had time to kick in completely, I have already started to feel better.  No, Parker’s birth is not what I wish it had been.  But my baby is alive, safe, and home with me.  He is a miracle and an absolute angel.  I can now stop fixating on the events of his birth and look forward to the future.  I have the most loving, patient, hard-working husband in the world.  Right now he is again taking care of all the kids while I am laid up in bed with a stomach bug (can I just tell you how awful that is after abdominal surgery?!).  I have the 6 most beautiful, smart, and sweet children that any mom could ask for.  I am so blessed.  Life as Mom is wonderful.

Being a mom is so hard.  It is emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausting.  Moms worry enough about their children’s safety and well-being.  But then moms continually have guilt placed on them from others.  There is so much controversy and pressure over issues such as working outside of the home, breast or bottle-feeding, circumcisions, diapering, co-sleeping, and on and on.  Let us focus on the one thing we moms have in common- we love our children and are just trying to do our best for them.  Let us support one another in what is the most difficult profession in the world. 

…didn’t I appreciate the bedrest at the time?  I am so tired now and wish I could spend all day in bed being waited on!

UPDATE:  Be careful what you wish for!  About an hour after posting this, I was suddenly hit with the stomach bug.  Now I am getting that time in bed being waited on, but am miserable!

Parker was supposed to be circumcised this morning but he failed to meet the criteria set forth by the pediatrician in order to get it done. He only gained 3 ounces since last week (so he is 5 lb 9 oz now) and his hemoglobin (iron) level dropped from 11.1 down to 9.7. Yikes. Also, he looked yellow again so we had to do another bilirubin level. It was 14.1 so borderline but we don’t need to go back on the lights. It should start dropping from here on out. We have another appointment with the pediatrician on Friday and hopefully he will be able to get the circumcision done then. I’ve got to fatten this boy up by then. These lab and office co-pays are really starting to mount up. Also, we started getting the itemized bills from the hospital today. Parker’s few hours at the hospital in Orem alone cost $1200. Then we got the $5000 ambulance bill. I have no idea what our insurance covers for that but we will probably have to pay 10%. This pregnancy is going to end up costing us a small fortune. That is the thing that stinks about Jared leaving Novell. They had amazing insurance and we wouldn’t have had to pay anything for this pregnancy. It has been a very expensive month.

**For what it’s worth:  We feel that it is important to circumcise Parker as our four other boys and Jared are circumcised.  They have already made comments that Parker’s penis looks “funny” and we would like to avoid any future hurt or insecurities this might cause Parker.   When I worked Mom/Baby at the hospital, the vast majority of male babies were circumcised.  I assisted the doctors with the circumcisions and can tell you that those babies were in no way traumatized.  They typically sucked on their sugar water and slept.  They were far more bothered by getting their heels stuck.  Our pediatrician is absolutely wonderful and so gentle.  We trust him implicitly to do what is best for our baby.  He will numb Parker and give him sugar water.  We would never, ever do anything that we felt would be bad for our children.  If you asked any of our boys or Jared if they remembered their circumcisions, they would of course tell you no.  Does Jared resent his parents for circumcising him?  No.

**Since I am receiving hate mail now concerning our decision to circumcise (or “mutilate”) my child, comments will no longer be published for this post.  Sorry, but it was not the intent of this blog to create heated discussion.

Cameron, Olivia, and Sawyer have had a nasty stomach bug this week. We are hoping that the rest of us (especially Parker) can avoid it. The thought of throwing up when my abdomen is already a source of major pain to me is not something I relish. Anyway, this was a very expensive stomach bug. Last night Jared was feeding endless amounts of pukey bedding, towels, and clothes into the washing machine when it started making a funky noise and then all the lights upstairs (the laundry room is upstairs) started flickering in time to the funky noise. We hoped it was just a fluke from a heavy or too large load; but, alas, the noise and flickering have continued when we run the machine and it’s agitating. We thought about just calling a repairman to fix the washer. Our washer and dryer are only 7 years old, they are great and have a lot of features, and this is the first problem we have had with them.  However, with the amount of laundry that is done in this household of 8 we decided it was time to get a high efficiency front loader. Our dryer still works fine but we wanted to get the HE dryer to go with the new washer. We did some homework online last night so we had an idea of what we wanted. We ended up getting a Bosch set. They had the highest ratings. I am excited to be able to do really big loads (27 bath towels!) and save energy. They weren’t in stock and so they will be delivered next Saturday. So for now we just have to live with the noise and flickering caused by the old machine and hope that the washer won’t completely conk out on us for another week. We do so many loads a day that I can’t even imagine the piles of dirty laundry that we would have if we couldn’t do laundry for a week. Ugh.

I am used to getting comments from complete strangers about the size of my babies.  Everyone would always ask if Andrew and Sawyer were preemies.  People would always comment on how petite Olivia was.  And now everyone we pass at the doctor’s office or hospital lab when we bring Parker in asks if he is a preemie, how much does he weigh, etc.  But the most intrusive questions I have been asked were these by a nosy mom at the doctor’s office yesterday: 

Nosy Lady:  Excuse me, I just have to ask.  Are you nursing your baby?

Adrienne:  Yes, I am.

NL:  How is your milk supply?

A:  Umm, fine.

NL:  Well, do you know how to latch him on properly?

A:  This is my 6th child.  I’ve got that figured out.

NL:  Oh, because I am a La Leche League leader, and whenever I see babies that small I get very concerned that they aren’t being nursed adequately.

A:  Well, he’s doing fine, thank you. 

Then I turned away from her and her sick child who was hacking her lungs out all over my inadequately fed baby.

Cameron spent Sunday night/Monday morning puking.  Cameron and Sawyer spent Tuesday night/Wednesday morning puking.  This morning at 4am, Olivia came in our room and said, “I throwed up all over my bed and it’s all Sawyer’s fault for making me sick when I don’t have a bucket to throw up in!”  It is so hard to see your kids’ little bodies being so wracked with misery.  Oftentimes when Jared cleans up puke, he makes this horrible gagging noise.  That is way more disgusting than the actual puke.  Thankfully, he made it through the clean-up this morning without any gagging. 

Parker had another check-up at the pediatrician’s today. He is down an ounce to 5 lbs, 6 oz. His iron was borderline but high enough to not schedule a transfusion. We go back on Tuesday and if his iron and weight have gone up, the doctor will go ahead and do the circumcision. He is off the bilibed for now. We go back to the lab in the morning to check his level again. I am hopeful that it won’t have rebounded. I have enjoyed immensely getting to cuddle and hold him today. He is such a sweetheart.

Sawyer is doing well adjusting to life with a new baby. He loves him very much and is very protective of him. He is really good about softly kissing Parker.

Today was a hard day. Jared had a meeting in Salt Lake and was gone for 6 hours. I am very tired and sore now. When he asked if I would be ok with him going to the meeting, he told me he was only going to be gone for a few hours. I should have known that when a bunch of geeks get together to discuss computer stuff they become completely unaware of time. Oh well, I survived. Just barely.

We took Parker to the hospital for a repeat bili yesterday and his level was higher than it was before he had 3 days under bililights in the NICU. So we have a bilibed for him now and he has to be in it all the time except when he is eating. It makes me so sad because all I want to do is hold and cuddle him. But it is more important that he get better. His bili today came down a bit but not enough to go off the bed. We’ll get his levels checked every day for the rest of the week.

We also took him to the pediatrician’s today. Luckily, he hasn’t lost any weight but he hasn’t gained any weight. He’s still at 5 lbs 7 oz. I was very relieved that he hadn’t lost any weight as he didn’t eat very well the first day or so that he was home. We go back to the pediatrician on Thursday for another weight check and to check his hemoglobin level. If his hemoglobin is still really low, he’ll get a blood transfusion next week. If it has gone up to an acceptable level, we’ll schedule his circumcision for next week.

Parker also has a sacral dimple. This is an indentation in the back above his bottom. It can be an indication of spina bifida. However, his is low and mobile (it moves with his skin rather than staying in place when you move the skin around) so the doctor isn’t concerned about it right now. He said that spina bifida would most likely have shown up on the many ultrasounds that Parker had before birth. It’s something that he will just keep an eye on, like the heart murmur. If it becomes deeper or larger, he’ll do an ultrasound.

The pediatrician is trying to get our insurance to cover the Synagis shot for Parker. This is a monthly shot that helps prevent RSV. Andrew got it his first year and although he ended up getting RSV, it was relatively mild and he didn’t have to be hospitalized. The next winter he didn’t get the Synagis shot and ended up being hospitalized with a severe case of RSV. It is difficult to get insurance companies to cover this shot as it costs $2000 a month for the shot.

We have been very blessed to have a ward who has been so wonderful in the service they have given our family through all of this. While I was on bedrest, members of the ward brought us dinner every Wednesday and would have done it more often if I had let them. Then the week before I had Parker when I was having to go to the hospital every night for NSTs, they brought dinners. They then brought us dinner every night last week after I had the baby. And now we still have neighbors calling and telling us they are bringing us dinner on certain nights. My visiting teacher has taken the boys to school and brought them home from school every day since I had the baby. Jared told her he could get back to our regular carpool schedule now, but she won’t let him. She is a very good friend. It is hard for me to be dependent on others but I have really appreciated the love our neighbors have shown us.

After Parker’s doctor’s appointment in Orem today:

Taylor:  I want Chili’s for dinner.

Adrienne:  You have to ask Dad what we are having for dinner tonight.  He’s the one who makes the money.

T:  You make money.

A:  No, I don’t.  I don’t have a job.

T:  Yes, you do.  You make babies.

A:  Well, I don’t make any money from that.

T:  Oh yeah, then why do you have 26 dollars and 24 cents in your wallet?

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Lately Olivia has started saying “hello” with a French accent so that it is “Allo!”  So tonight we were getting her to say some French words.

Adrienne:  Say “bonjour.”

Olivia:  Bonjour!

Jared:  Say “au revoir.”

O:  Auvoir!

A:  Say “Je m’appelle…”

O:  Jingle Bells!

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Taylor heard us talking about how yellow Parker is due to his jaundice.  Taylor said, “He’s not yellow.  He’s burnt orange!”