Babies

Babies

I love Ava's story. I have been through a lot with this little one. I guess I should start with the desire to have her. After Audrey was born, it was tough. She is a strong willed child. She really broke me in. I could not even begin to imagine having another baby for a while. I was overwhelmed with the newness of everything. And the thing is, the newness never goes away, it just keeps happening. Finally, when Audrey was two years old, I was ready. The problem was that my husband got a new job and along with the new job, came new insurance. Insurance that said we had to be covered for an entire year before maternity coverage kicked in. I mean really, who do they think they are? Insurance Gods no doubt.

So a year goes by. I'm waiting. Quite unexpectedly, near the year mark, I found out I was pregnant. I had a lovely due date in October and a sweet little black and white picture showing a baby attached to my uterine wall. Only that baby decided not to stick around near the 6th week. It was a very sad and lonely experience for me.

I lost my baby on the 11th of February. A few days later, Audrey and I met my Mom for our regular Friday breakfast. It was Valentine's Day and as we were entering the cafe, my mom announced that she named my baby and, "Is that okay?" she asked. I was surprised and curious. How did she choose a name? What would be appropriate? She said the name she gave my baby was Ivy or IV. This was to be her fourth grandchild, the Roman numerals represented the birth order, and she said it had a masculine feel. Ivy had a feminine feel. The name certainly fit this child. I still love that my mom named my baby.

My sadness was consuming. I was completely heart broken. I felt so empty. Just hollowness, despair, aching...I mourned for 10 whole months. I think I cried everyday and I'm not a big crier or an overly emotional person. This just knocked me down. Hard. I would cry in the shower and also on the drive to and from my house. The road leading to my house is surrounded by acres of trees and they kind of create a canopy over the road. It was shady and quiet on that little stretch of road. That is where I would listen to Go or Go Ahead by Rufus Wainwright over and over-lyrics about rebel angels with hollow wings and feeling abandoned. Those words summed up everything I was feeling.

What still surprises me about my lengthy sadness is that I found out near the Fourth of July that I was pregnant again. This pregnancy should have replaced the lost one. I had new sonogram pictures, a new due date. I was still a wreck. It didn't help matters that my progesterone level was low (just like with my previous pregnancy) or that I was experiencing first trimester spotting. I don't know what happened in December 2004, but I finally quit crying. It just ended. Thank God.

That same month I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I didn't think I would be able to do everything I needed to do to take care of me, my baby, and my pregnancy. I had a new vocabulary of medical words that suddenly applied to me, a battery operated device that made sure my sugar levels were in range, a dietitian, a diet, and a nurse to show me how to test my blood. While it took some getting used to, it was actually quite easy. I ate healthier, my sugars stayed in range without problem, and sticking myself with a lancet over and over and over, didn't really hurt. Audrey even got on board and checked her own sugar levels. She was three at the time and commented that, "This doesn't hurt-this is no big deal". How wise a three year old can be.

At the beginning of March, my doctor and I started talking about birth options. I wanted a c-section and he didn't. I told him I would pray about what I should do and then I'd let him know. I think he kind of gave me a weird look.

While I was mourning the loss of my baby, I started counseling with my pastor and a female pastor. I was sick of my sadness and my inability to just get over it. I expected them to tell me what I already knew which was that I am a great big scardy cat. The real four letter F word-fear- THAT was my problem. What I was surprised to discover is that I had problems with trust too. A lack of trust and fear go hand in hand. That makes sense now, but trust never entered my thoughts all of those months of trying to figure myself out. It was suggested that I never really learned how to trust as a child. I just kind of skipped that lesson.

So here I was, months later, praying for direction and really feeling in my heart that I should have a c-section. But then I had ideas of this being an issue of trust-I should trust my doctor. Here is my chance to trust. Trust Trust Trust. A divine opportunity to do what I had been afraid to do my whole life. I even told my doctor during a lengthy conversation that I would just do it his way. He questioned my decision, asking me if I was sure and then told me to think about it a few more days. Funny that the thought of trust applying to trusting myself never occurred to me. Well I did trust... myself finally and scheduled that c-section that I wanted all along.

March 9, 2005 was the date chosen to greet the not-yet-named baby girl. I loved my c-section. Everything went great. The medical staff talked about music throughout my surgery. Specifically, songs with girl's names as titles. My anesthesiologist had a daughter named Allison which is an Elvis Costello song. Everyone had a song and a name for this nameless beauty that was still inside of me. Somewhere among song titles, my doctor pulled a 9 pound 4 ounce baby from my belly. She was huge! The doctor handed her to the nurse and the baby, barely clear of my uterus, must have made quite an impression because the nurse exclaimed, "She even has rolls on the back of her neck!"

Over the course of the next few days, my doctor told me over and over that I made the right decision to have a c-section. He said that the baby's big round head was perfectly round-meaning that that baby had no intention and was basically incapable of entering the birth canal. He said there was no possible way that I could have given birth to her (his way). Oh trust-

Gosh, the fun that lay just ahead. I had the baby at 4:02 p.m. Big sissy came up with my parents to meet the latest greatest. Things went well for a while...and then came the first phone call. Big sissy went home and decided to get the flu. By morning she had a 103 degree fever. By 9 a.m. she was throwing up in the pediatrician's waiting room. She had very close contact with our newborn just hours before.

Now the second phone call. My children's pediatrician called my doctor and explained the situation (the doctors are well acquainted, as my OB's 7 children and my children have the same pediatrician). Third phone call-my OB calling the hospital and ordering my less than 24 hours out of the womb nameless daughter to be kicked out of the hospital nursery so that she didn't infect the entire nursery with influenza.

I forgot that I also ran a fever that first night of 101 and had developed the worst, most congested cough of my life. That is exactly what a woman with a bikini line incision really wants-to deeply cough while holding an itty bitty pillow to her abdomen. The nurses warned me to keep coughing or it could develop into pneumonia. I tested negative for influenza and new baby and I ended up being just fine.

Everybody says that with your second baby, you are much more relaxed about things. This was certainly true for me. My first baby never left my hospital room because I wanted to be with her every second of the day. She wasn't allowed a pacifier-I was concerned about her rejecting my breast in favor of something plastic. She also wasn't allowed formula supplements. Again, a bottle? No way! Things with baby number two went like this-take her and let me sleep! Throw a pacifier in her mouth and if that doesn't work, supplement her until milk comes out of her ears. I am sleeping and I am in the maternity ward filled with professionals who take care of newborns for a living-let them! I am sleeping.

That was my grand plan. Oh how funny it is when I make a plan and then watch the world undo each and every detail of it-starting with keeping girlfriend in the nursery. I just explained how she was kicked out of there. So now I have her in my room for the next five days. We are quarantined. If I wanted to leave the room, I would have to wear a face mask and find somebody to sit in my room and take care of my baby because she wasn't allowed out. What about all of the well wishing visitors? I had them lined up-who was coming on what day (I was there for 5 days so I had a lot of time to work with). Each day I would wake up to a phone call. Mama Lu couldn't come because her youngest was up the night before throwing up running a fever. My pastor's wife-same thing. My sister got it too. My husband was at home caring for our eldest. 2005 would be know as the year of the late influenza season.

I was bored out of my mind. Stuck in a room without cable, awake. I was supposed to be sleeping. My five day vacation.-forced to stay in bed and be waited on, doted on, congratulated, to eat, sleep, and nurse. That was THE plan!

Finally I was ready to go home. Big sister was completely over the flu and all was well except... About five minutes before you are discharged from the hospital, the pediatrician usually shows up. His new partner had been there days before, but here he was in his official capacity. He ordered a second bilirubin test. The first was perfectly normal, but my baby had yellowish olive skin-the same exact newborn skin I had and I had told him so. So I get to wait for those test results before we can officially leave. The thought of having to take some light up bed home just disturbed me. My baby was fine. The results came back saying exactly that and those numbers were better than the first so there!

I already knew that I was going to have to bring baby back to the hospital for an ultrasound on her hips. Despite her size, she did flips inside of me up until birth. I guess in the breech position, the leg bones don't always get situated just right in the hips so we had to make sure that all was well. I was a little concerned and was hoping that she wouldn't have to wear a brace over her diaper to correct this problem. As the doctor was giving my baby the once over, he casually mentions a dimple above the crack of her hiny. "What? A dimple?" "Yes, it is a very deep dimple and I am concerned that the filliments that hang out of the baby's spine might have attached to this dimple." I'm not freaking out yet. "So what if it is attached?" "She will have to have back surgery to sever the connection otherwise this could effect her ability to walk." Reality is a yucky thing. Now I'm just plain devestated. Test results and waiting...an evil combination of anxiety producing drama.

We go home and make the appointment for the scan of her hips and spine and wait. We waited 3 or 4 days. In the meantime, I looked and looked at and prayed over that dimple. It WAS tiny and deep. It looked like somebody stuck a toothpick in her (like you would a cake) to see if she was done.

It was March, it was cold, we were in the hospital again. We had to strip baby naked for her scans. The cold sterile room with the plain white sheets made my anxiety even greater. The doctor is scanning her tiny newborn body looking at a black and white screen. In my head I'm thinking, "Just tell me what you see! What do you know?" "Well, her spine is fine." I could breath again. "The hips?" "They are fine too." The relief. The release. The praise that erupted from my lips to God. The thankfulness that just didn't seem to stop. Now I could go home and start enjoying, and not worrying about my baby. She was fine! Except...

Girlfriend is two weeks old. It is 2 a.m.-the wee hours of the Monday following Easter. Easter was one of the first big candy holidays following my bout with gestational diabetes. Maybe I went a little overboard with chocolate bunnies and peeps and Reese's peanut butter eggs. Maybe just a little. At bedtime she was a little fussy and her being my second baby, I said, "SUPPLEMENT!". I am a grown woman who needs her sleep and this baby just needed a full tummy to be content. My milk runneth over. I was a nursing champ and loving every minute of it, but I was also a woman who required a touch more sleep than most.

Newborn babies who are breastfed move a lot. Move meaning poop. Ava was good for 6 a day. Along with supplementing and basically breaking all of my own made up rules, I decided within 24 hours of being home from the hospital that I wasn't going to even try putting her in a crib. Bassinets and cribs served some purpose in some households, but in mine they were decorative and completely non-functional. Why fight the system? The family bed was instituted in the name of my sanity and sleep which go hand-in-hand.

So 2 a.m. rolls around. I peek inside her itty bitty diaper and decide it was in her best interest to get her into a clean diapy. I turn on my nightlight so as to not disturb sleeping husband and to assure a quick, thorough clean up of baby's bottom. Only something looks funny. The color. It looks like blood. No, I just ate too much chocolate. Too much chocolate must effect the color of newborn poop. That makes sense-right? I blink. I think. I question. I wake up Eric. "Does this look like blood to you?" He blinks a bunch. "What?" "Look at this diaper, does this look like blood?" My husband is used to me getting excited about nothing, worry about nothing. He is half asleep, jacked up on his share of Easter candy, and quite skeptical of his worry prone wife's question. He gets a serious look on his face. "Oh my God!" "It IS blood isn't it?"

Freak out Freak out. Change baby's diaper. She immediately poops more blood. Frantic call to doctor who is obviously sleeping and won't talk above a whisper. When I'm freaking out and all confused at two in the morning, I need more than a whisper. I don't care if your wife is sleeping next to you. I've got a 14 day old baby with bloody, poopy, diapers. Fix it over the phone right now!

I'm praying. "God heal my baby. Protect her. Love her. Heal her!!!! What is wrong with

her?!" Where is reality in all of this? This certainly isn't it. I'm torn between complete peace and freaking out. I am, in fact, at peace. I'm getting dressed, preparing for my very first trip with one of my children to the E.R. It is winter. It is dark. The world is silent. Being at peace at a time like this just does NOT make sense. I must force myself to be upset. Any normal person in this situation would be upset and near meltdown. I should be borderline hysterical. What is wrong with me? Peace has no place in this mess!

I kiss Eric goodbye and am off to meet my Mom at the E.R. Baby is snuggled in her carseat oblivious to the fact that she is giving me a heart attack. We register at the hospital and wait. Wait? Really? Isn't this like important? All I notice is the awful florescent lighting that makes a room full of vomiting sick people look jaundiced. Don't E.R.s have interior decorators? I could do that. Start with lighting. Duh! People in the E.R. are sick. Lets show them in the best possible light. Where are the priorities?

I guess babies bleeding from their intestines were important after all because we didn't have to wait very long. I should be thankful for the care she received and am. I just remember a quirky E.R. pediatrician who looked at his feet while I breastfed. He even admitted to being sorry for, "...STILL being uncomfortable with it after ALL of these years." Oh, my goodness.

Baby lost her cork there (her umbilical cord nub). They took blood from her. They tested the substance in her diaper. It was indeed blood, not some weird chocolate bunny pigment she ingested from her sugar starved mommy.

We got home around 4 a.m. and had an appointment with a Pediatric G.I. specialist at 11 a.m. that very day. The G.I. specialist was wonderful. A lovely woman who didn't make me freak out. Any doctor that keeps me from freaking out is holy in my opinion. We talked. She looked over the records from just a few hours before. She checked baby's private area. She was okay-she was okay. She had a milk allergy. That was it. She was fine. As a nursing mother, I should avoid dairy and soy and that should take care of the problem. I said should...

As I mentioned, nursing newborns "move" a LOT. So of course this provided me with many, many opportunities day and night to look for blood in her diaper. And there WAS blood. It is funny how I often think that all of the "other" mothers (the good ones who know what they're doing) have this maternal instinct that mothers like me (the clueless ones who DON'T know what they're doing) don't possess. I actually found out that I do in fact, possess this instinct even though I am clueless. I instinctively knew that my baby wasn't getting over this food allergy within a day or two of the whole incident.

This was a frustrating, anxious, and troublesome time for me. Something just wasn't right. Avoiding dairy and soy wasn't going to fix the problem. I called the pediatrician. I called the G.I. specialist. I looked on-line. I went to the library. I looked through every baby related book that I owned, I talked to friends. I talked to strangers. I talked to the lactation consultants at the hospital I delivered at. After what seemed like the longest time in my life, pieces started slowly coming together.

Jackie's son had food allergies. She gave me a list of the top 7 food allergens. An acquaintance of an acquaintance went through the same thing with her son. Oh, the feeling of not being alone. The head lactation consultant from the hospital-yeah, she spent 10 years working with the head allergist at Washington University School of Medicine. She introduced me to the idea of an elimination diet. I also finally found a great article on the La Leche League website as well.

When everything came together, this is what happened. My baby was not only allergic to milk and soy, but also eggs, corn, seeds, nuts, and acidic fruits and vegetables. I instinctively knew that she wasn't allergic to wheat. Wheat was never a concern. That maternal instinct! I had it.

I finally knew what was wrong with my baby. I could change my diet and she would be fine. It was going to happen. This was the answer I had been looking for. I had the information and knew what to do with it.

They say that everything happens for a reason. That whole gestational diabetes thing that I was afraid that I couldn't handle-that was nothing compared to this! Grocery shopping and eating took on event like purpose. Planning my meals became a full-time job and hobby. My baby's allergies even threw the amazing Whole Foods employees for a loop. While I knew some of the things baby was allergic to, I would accidentally discover new allergies.

One day I was at my in-laws. I was starving. Nursing mothers need to eat! My choices were extremely limited. Soda, margaritas, chips, candy, and frozen pizza fill out their food pyramid. Scouring their pantry, I joyfully read that there were only 3 ingredients in Fritos. Corn, corn oil, and salt. I was shocked. I thought the list would be long and unpronounceable. I happily had Fritos and water for lunch. Later I nursed my little suckling, she moved, and I soon discovered the corn allergy. I thought, "no big deal". I mean how often do I really eat corn? I'm not a chip person as a rule so avoiding this newly poisonous vegetable shouldn't be a problem. Except...

The yellow stuff off the cob wasn't the only problem. The ground up stuff was bad as the Fritos can attest-avoid corn flour and kernels-check. There was also the whole issue of corn syrup-a.k.a. the most toxic substance on earth. While avoiding kernels wasn't hard, avoiding corn syrup was next to impossible. Corn syrup is the root of all evil. Evil empires are built using corn syrup as their basis for all things ugly and unpleasant. The "maple" syrup we used-corn syrup! My precious Dr. Pepper-corn syrup! Bread, cookies, all things Hostess-corn syrup! The removal of corn syrup from my diet proved to be the most intense undertaking of this journey.

I finally had read the label on every available food and beverage product known to man. I was corn free, only my baby wasn't. Those new lessons just kept coming despite my vigilance. This time it was infant Tylenol. Corn syrup is what gives it that yummy grape taste! Baby had to get a round of shots, and being the fabulous mother that I am, I gave baby a dose of Tylenol to help her through her discomfort. Unbeknownst to me, it was this very well intentioned act that would produce her discomfort. I won't take you through the panic of finding a pain reliever/fever reducing product that didn't have corn syrup in it. One exists in the universe and I eventually found it.

Once I started the elimination diet my life revolved around food. If I was going to be out for any duration of time, I had to plan ahead and pack a meal or snack. Nursing a newborn does not allow one to skip meals. No more fast food. I went to every fast food place in town to inquire what they fried their french fries in. Someone would surely use canola oil-right? Fast food joints live off of soybean oil. Soybean oil and corn syrup were ruining my life! I couldn't pick up something at the gas station to tide me over either. Goodbye Dr. Pepper and pretzels. I had to be resourceful and vigilant about what I put into my (and my baby's) bodies.

I finally knew what I COULDN'T eat. What and how I was going to eat was the question. I basically kept a very simple diet. I had to work at finding ways to consume fat. For breakfast I would eat a huge bowl of Rice Chex with vanilla rice milk and a sliced banana. No donuts, yogurt, or bacon and eggs. I actually came to love my ricey breakfast. I still like it on occasion.

Lunch was basic and simple too. I would usually have a fresh bread roll and either eat mashed avocado with it or dip it in olive oil that I mixed herbs de provence in. Avocado and olive oil were my fats. I would sometimes eat chicken or turkey as well. I had to be extremely careful because most of the lunch meats that are sold in grocery store delis have whey, casein (milk proteins) or soy in them. I think there was one brand that was okay for me to eat, otherwise I would roast a chicken and eat it over the course of a week.

I would still cook a regular dinner for Eric and Audrey, but I would modify whatever I was cooking so that I could have some version of it too. I ate spaghetti. Only I didn't have pasta sauce, parmesan cheese, or buttery bread. I would put olive oil and herbs on the pasta and have a little hamburger too. Tuna salad was okay except that the water packed tuna had soy in it. I finally found a brand that didn't have soy. I couldn't have my tuna with mayonnaise or egg so I would add herbs and celery to it. Penzey's Spices was my ingredient of choice during this time. I came to rely on on their herbs to give my bland diet a little flavor. Another product that I couldn't live without was egg replacers by ENER-G. It allowed me to bake muffins.

What I put into my body and what Ava passed out of her body came to define our first year together. I spent four long, agonizing months changing diapers with blood in them. Say she did have five movements a day (a conservative estimate). That would be 5x7=35 bloody diapers a week.

A month would be 35x4=140. Four months of this would be 140x4=560.

I changed AT LEAST 560 consecutive bloody, poopy diapers. I know that this is gross, but it was my reality.

My food focus was a close second to the diaper drama. I became obsessed. If I plainly couldn't see the blood, I would dissect the diaper to find the blood. It tried to hide beneath the mess, but I could always find it. I was a diaper detective or something. I think I knew in my heart that my baby was okay. I just couldn't let go of being upset because I had this ugly reminder. I wanted IT to go away NOW.

In the meantime, everybody in my world knew what was going on. Just being around me was reminder enough-I was on the world's strictest diet and I dissected my baby's diapers. Baby and I received LOTS and LOTS of prayer. Finally, one day, four months into this, I felt like God said to me (quite simply), "The bleeding has stopped." I really felt like I got a word from God about my baby. I believed it. I rejoiced. But I was still a little skeptical (faith, trust?!). Do I dare dissect another diaper and let God see that I didn't completely trust Him? He knows my heart so I guess it wouldn't matter. I felt guilty.

That same day, my church had a lady's night that I had signed up for. I was going to paint ceramics. It was a Friday evening and Eric and the girls were dropping me off. Going out was a big deal for me. I was a nursing mother who COULD NOT supplement and pumping had always been painful for me so I had none of the good stuff stock piled in the freezer. Plus pumping and freezing would have made the whole food allergy investigation nearly impossible as I would never know exactly what I ate before I pumped and wouldn't be able to pinpoint an exact cause for any new bleeding.

Earlier in the day I had told Eric what I felt God had told me. He was happy that I might have possibly gotten a word. He was worried about me. He wanted everything to be okay. As I was exiting the car, I heard baby making business. Eric looked at me with pleading eyes to "just go" and let him take care of it. No way. I just couldn't. So I unbuckled baby and put her in the back (we had a station wagon) and I changed and dissected her diaper. I found a tiny bit of blood. I was devastated. What about my word? I knew God DID tell me the bleeding was over. I guess that little bit of blood was the last of it. There would be no NEW bleeding.

I didn't want to leave my girl. I guess I needed her just as much as she needed me. Being separated from her just didn't feel right- not even long enough to paint a plate and fellowship with my friends. I told Eric to wait while I went in to tell them that I wouldn't be able to stay. My friend who organized the event wasn't there. I knew the woman who was left in charge, but not very well.

After she warmly greeted and hugged me, she knew things weren't well. She took me to a quiet area away from everybody and sat down with me. I spilled everything. My word, the blood, the blood of everyday for four entire months. I was weary. She took my hand and proceeded to tell me word for word everything that God had told me over the course of those four months. Word for Word! I thought all of that was just me hearing what I wanted to hear, but it was really God the whole entire time! One of the sweetest things she said was something I had carried around inside of me since my baby's birth.

With Audrey's birth, one of the proudest moments I had in the hospital was when her pediatrician walked in and looked her over one final time before we were discharged. I remember this woman looking at me saying, "She is PERFECT. Mom, you did a GOOD job." You know this really stayed with me. I had been secretly waiting for the same exact experience with Ava. I was waiting...only I didn't get the "She is perfect and you did a good job." I got the second round bilirubin test and the discovery of the deep hiny dimple. Ava wasn't perfect and I hadn't done a good job. I carried that disappointment around with me for four months.

No one knew of this little heartache of mine except God. He took the opportunity at the ceramics studio to set the record straight. My friend looked me right in the eyes and told me, "She IS perfect." The pediatrician hadn't pronounced her perfect, but God did. My world was completely changed after that.

I stayed on my elimination diet until baby's first birthday. I slowly introduced all of the forbidden foods. I ate yogurt. I had an Oreo. I ate peanut butter and I ate a strawberry...oh the taste! After all of this, when I take Ava to any new place and am asked, "Is she allergic to anything?" The answer is, "no." How completely crazy is that?

Ava is now three and a half years old and thriving. She loves cheese pizza, ice-cream, and the occasional carbonated corn syrupy beverage. It amazes me to look back at these experiences with God and Ava. Lessons in trust are hard and on-going. The journey of motherhood and being a child of God can be frustrating, but rewarding in the end.