Things I'm Thankful for Today

1. Tiny baby bodies
2. The nap I got to take this afternoon
3. The fact that this is the easiest of the three c-section recoveries so far. I stopped taking the prescription pain medication on day 6 and have just been taking ibuprofen as needed since. Don't get me wrong. It's still not easy, but it's been so much better than the first two.
4. My husband. He's been so helpful, which is a huge blessing to me!
5. Chet's mom came to help us for 10 days!
6. Gabe is almost completely potty-trained and will even go when we're out somewhere strange.
7. Both the boys LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their baby sister! They take such good care of her!
8. I've been able to lay on my side for the last couple of days when I sleep (as opposed to only being able to lay on my back). This means that when the boys come downstairs in the mornings, they can lay by me on the couch for a few minutes.
9. I've lost almost 23 of the 28 pounds I gained... without doing anything except take care of our family and avoid a bunch of junk food. I do not necessarily expect that the rest will come off at the same rate or that my abs will be flat right away, but we'll see. It's not like I can exercise at this point. I'm still limiting myself to no more than two trips up and down the stairs each day, and we all know that two trips up and down the stairs is not exactly a good cardio workout. Speaking of cardio workouts, I was just telling Chet yesterday that I am so pumped that I should soon be able to walk briskly or even jog for longer distances again! I can't wait!
10. Our friends here are awesome! Their help getting things done before the baby came has helped so much now that she's here!
11. When Claire does that involuntary smiley thing that tiny babies do when they're just waking up or dozing off. She's so cute! I think it's the Lord's way of giving us the joy of seeing a little glimpse of what it's going to be like when they're smiling on purpose and even laughing!
12. Our neighbors blessed us with a bag of really awesome stuff for Claire tonight! Our power went out in a storm this afternoon, so we were all out on the front porches hanging out when they gave it to us. Linda (the wife) cried when she got to hold Claire. She's a grandma and a neonatal nurse, so she said she can't help it.
13. While we were out on the porch, the boys were running and splashing in the puddles of rain that blew up on the porch. I love watching them have so much fun in puddles. Usually I run with them, so Gabe said, "Come on, Mom! Run!" I explained that I couldn't run because my tummy hurts still. He replied, "Can you walk?" So I started walking, and he stood on the other side of the porch leaning over, clapping his hands, and saying, "Come on, Mom! Come on, Mom!" in his best encouraging voice. It was so funny!
14. Our laundry is on the second floor where our bedrooms are. At first I wasn't too sure that this was superior to having it on the first level. However, I can just barely make it up and down the stairs carrying my pillow and a few other miscellaneous items... clearly making it impossible to carry baskets of clothing up and down. Needless to say, it's great to have it all right there.
15. I finally get to have hot pink, lime green, orange, yellow, turqouise, and all manner of bright colors decorating a room!!!! It's not my own room, but it's a room in our home that doesn't have muted colors, and I LOVE IT! Anyone who knows me well knows that I thoroughly enjoy color and would like it everywhere. However, Chet prefers more muted shades (which I like okay, but I wouldn't choose them over bright colors)... and until we can afford new furniture and paint for our walls, we have a ton of beige everywhere in our house... but not in Claire's room. It makes me happy every time I walk past her door. I can't wait until she can use her room more!
16. There were quite a few things we needed from the grocery store last night. However, after a trip to the splash park and Campus Town to get ice cream on Friday and then swimming lessons and a visit to Target on Saturday morning, I wasn't exactly up for walking through the grocery store. So we went to the store as a family, and Claire and I both took our first ride around on one of those motorized scooter carts while Chet pushed the regular cart with the boys in it. It was lots of fun to go to the store together, and we actually got everything we needed without me doubling over in pain by the end of it! I'm always blessed when Chet and I can do something together as a team, and he absolutely hates going to the grocery store, so this was particularly fun for me!
17. They gave me an elastic binder to go around my mid-section when I was in the hospital, and it's amazing. It holds my muscles all together, and it helps keep things away from my incision. As I'm losing my baby belly pretty rapidly, it's starting to get a little bit less comfortable simply because my incision is right there next to it all the time, but it's still a DRAMATIC improvement over having my clothes hitting it all day. If any of you ever has a c-section, and they don't give you one of these in the hospital, you have to go out and buy one yourself (well, have someone do it for you). They carry them at Motherhood Maternity and Babies R Us for sure.
18. Cameras. I have so much fun taking photos of our family! I can't wait to post some of the recent photos I've taken of life around here. They're not all fabulous photography worthy of an award of any kind... but they will definitely be the type of photo that brings good memories in the future.
19. Claire is eating lots better, and I can tell she's filling out at least a little bit. She's still a sleepy little thing, which is very different than both the boys.
20. I just heard Chet go into the boys' room after the power was restored for the second time tonight. I'm pretty sure he was showing Ladan how to use the flashlight if it goes out again. As he was leaving the room, I heard Ladan say, "Okay! I can do that! I'll obey right away, Dad."

Well, there are many other things I'm thankful for today, but I'll stop with these for now. I'll try to post more photos soon.

Here She Is... Claire Ellise

We are SO EXCITED to announce that the Lord has blessed us with a precious baby girl!

Claire Ellise was born August 6, 2009 at 10:02am.

She weighed 7 lb. 11 oz. and measured 20.5 inches in length.

She has tiny little features; dark blue eyes (we'll see if they change); long skinny arms, legs, fingers and toes; squishy little cheeks; a super-cute face; and two big brothers who ADORE her!

Here's the story....

We arrived at the hospital at 6am on Thursday. We were scheduled for 8am, but we had a slight delay because there was a woman who needed an emergency c-section ahead of us. I was that woman needing to bump someone else five years ago, so we didn't mind. It was nice to have the extra time, actually, because I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic they gave me and needed some time to let the Benadryl take over. Here we are waiting.

Things were in good shape after they gave me the anesthesia and got me past the associated nausea and super-low blood pressure leading to cold sweats and lightheadedness. I know that those things are going to happen, so I warn them, and they have the stuff ready to remedy things and get me back to normal quickly. This photo was taken during the surgery. Kind of funny, huh?

And here is Miss Claire making her entry into the world! They invited Chet to look over the curtain when they had just her head out, but for some reason, he declined and waited until this moment! :) Seriously, I'm pretty sure I would have passed out on his behalf if he had actually looked over that curtain. Smart guy!

Ladan and Gabe were in good hands with Chet's mom and sister back at the house. They were very excited to meet their baby sister! Ladan was very quiet and reserved entering the room, because he knew what had just happened to me and that I'd be pretty sore. He crawled up into the bed with me very gently and asked if he could hold his baby sister. He is AMAZING with her! He holds her so gently, gives her kisses on her cheeks and forehead and tells her he loves her all the time. He will literally hold her for an hour, and he asks multiple times a day if he can sit with her. It's so great to see him protecting her and caring for her this way!

Gabe loves her too! He wants to give her hugs and kisses. He also enjoys messing up her hair and saying, "Crazy hair!" to her. He was thankful to hold this little dog that my mom sent for Claire. He took care of the dog while Ladan took care of Claire. It was really fun!

Here are some of Claire's visitors...

Aunt Megan, Keith Sparrow (Claire is the first baby Keith has held, and he was FANTASTIC with her!), and my mom (Stephanie)

Chet's mom (Glenna), and of course another one of Mommy and Ladan with Claire.

The sleeping girl. She loves to sleep, that's for sure!

We spent quite a bit of time like this in the room... me holding Claire with the boys at the foot of the bed eating a snack or watching a movie. In these pictures, they're watching Tom and Jerry for the first time ever. Ladan was belly laughing through much of it!

We were also blessed to have a helicopter pad right outside our window! The boys got to see helicopters lift off and land several times a day, which was great fun! As soon as Gabe would come into the room, he'd run to the window and exclaim, "I wanna' see a pretty cool helicopter!" Chet was at least as entertained by it as the boys were!

On our way home Sunday morning!

And here we are at home! The boys were sporting their "Big Brother" t-shirts that my mom sent them, and they were ready to greet their baby sister as soon as we arrived!

While we were in the hospital, Claire lost quite a bit of weight--10% of her original weight--but she was on the uphill climb by the time we left. We took her to the doctor today, and she had gained back another ounce. She isn't in any danger of jaundice, so that's great! And it seems like everything else has checked out okay.

While this c-section has been difficult just because of what it is, my recovery has been better than the other two for sure. There seem to be several reasons for this. I didn't have to labor like I did with Ladan, and Claire wasn't gripping my insides like Gabe was. They also gave me a binder to wrap around my mid-section in the hospital, and it is an amazing help! I didn't have anything like this with either of the boys, but I so wish I had! It really helps to keep things off my incision and holds my muscles in better position so that they're not constantly being strained all day. I'm very thankful for this band of elastic!

We are more than grateful for the extra help we've had! Chet's mom is here with us for a total of 10 days, which is a huge sacrifice for her at this point (though she would never ever make us feel badly about it). She's taking time away from work and from getting her own home back in order after the tornado that went through a few months ago. She's excellent help! After she goes, my mom and then my stepmom are coming to extend our help for an extra week and a half or so. Not everyone has this kind of help, and we are not taking it for granted!

Well, I'm off to try to get some sleep! It's a good thing I'm on pain medication that requires me to sleep. Otherwise, I'd probably be overdoing it right now!

(For some weird reason, I cannot get Blogger to follow directions when I return down to start a new paragraph... and I also have no energy left to continue trying just so it looks perfect... so thanks for bearing with me!)

Gabe's Surgery

I'm taking a quick break from the Family Planning series to give you an update on Gabe's surgery today. We took him in for an inguinal hernia repair and a circumcision revision. He was scheduled at 8:30am, so we had to arrive at 7:00. Cali (one of the high school girls I get to hang out with often) arrived at our door at 6:10am--even earlier than I asked her to be here--and she looked GREAT! How does this happen, anyway? I hadn't slept nearly enough, and in contrast to Cali, I did not have it all together.

This started a series of opportunities for Chet to laugh at me. For example,

• I forgot Gabe's shoes and had to turn around and get them.
• On the way to the hospital, I made a series of wrong turns (but thankfully ended up in the right place).
• When we arrived in the parking garage, I failed to put our vehicle in park and almost ran into the wall. So I put it in park and started to get Gabe out of the van... without turning it off or taking the keys out!
• We arrived in the pre-op waiting room, and I was asked for my cell phone number. I promptly provided it in the following order: first three digits, area code, and last four digits. The woman asked, "So, is that local?" Nice. I got that corrected.
• We waited a few minutes and got Gabe back into his little pre-op room and started getting him ready. It was at this point that I realized I had forgotten my cell phone outside... the same cell phone connected to the number I gave the waiting room attendant to use in case they needed to reach us while we were in the hospital. Whatever.

All I can say is that this is why I do not wake up before 9:00am except for Sundays when I wake up at 7:45 to go to church. I do not EVER wake up at 6 am, and it is for the good of everyone else around me.

Back to Gabe... We met all the people that would be helping him throughout the process. He screamed at every single one of them. Thankfully, he's cute even when he's crying, and they're used to it, so it was actually a source of amusement for everyone in the room (which probably wasn't all that amusing for Gabe himself). He was able to go to the play room to hang out for a few minutes. His surgeon came to talk to us and marked the site where he'd operate. We got him dressed in the tiny little gown they had set out for us. Then I gave Gabe his "happy juice". Basically, he just became friendlier to people but didn't act crazy or anything. I was prepared for something much more dramatic. When Ladan had surgery at the age of 28 months, he acted totally drunk as a result of the happy juice. Additionally, there was a preschool-aged boy across the way from us this morning, and his happy juice caused him to make a bunch of pig noises and then laugh hysterically. I was ready for worse, but it is a bit unnerving to see your toddler acting drunk. I was thankful I didn't have to watch Gabe act that way. After he was good and glassy-eyed, they took him down the hall. He cried for 3 seconds or less and was in good shape.

The surgery took about 45 minutes. The surgeon came out and told us how it all went. Apparently, the circumcision revision was a little bit worse than normal in that Gabe's skin was fused all around his private part, so they had to do a little bit more work to get it off, which caused more bleeding than normal. He was unable to find a hernia when he went in. He said this happens to him about 2-3 times per year (because it's very difficult to diagnose a hernia until you actually get in there) and described what he did find. There was a fat pocket in there that was possibly causing the appearance of swelling. So he removed that. He also drew a nice diagram of Gabe's inner anatomy on his scrub pants to help show us that it's possible that Gabe's floor (similar to a female pelvic floor, but I'm not sure if it's called a pelvic floor or just a floor in boys) was weak even if there was no hole in it. This weakness could have made it feel like there were organs popping through even if they weren't actually coming through the layer of tissue. So he pulled a bit of muscle down and stitched it across the floor. This will serve to make the normal hole where hernias develop smaller and will also strengthen his floor so that hopefully we won't see a hernia pop up in the future.

We waited about 40 more minutes while Gabe was in the recovery room, and then we were able to meet him in the post-op room. He was SO CUTE when he rounded the corner in that tiny little stretcher and soft green toddler-sized gown with his little blonde curls poking out from behind his ears! I was able to pick him up right away, and he was asleep on my shoulder again within 7 or 8 minutes. As long as no one tried to take him from me, the only fussing he seemed to do when he was waking up was when they checked his vital signs. It was lots easier than when Ladan woke up from his surgery. Ladan insisted on trying to walk even though he couldn't support his weight at all on his legs, and he did a lot more screaming than Gabe. I guess that extra 10 months of age made a difference.

We waited with him in the post-op room about an hour. The nurse showed us his incision sites. The hernia incision was closed up with internal stitches and has a clear plastic protective coating over the top. It looks a little bit yucky, but that clear plastic layer makes all the difference. His circumcision site, on the other hand, looks DISGUSTING! He has a tiny ring of little black stitches all around, it's swollen, and it's bloody. I had to walk to get a glass of water after that, because I was pretty sure I was going to pass out or throw up. I can handle pain, but stitches are another story. More on that in a minute.

His surgeon came to see him one more time and verified that everything looked good. Chet was reading some of his ethics materials, and the doctor asked him what he was studying. When he said he was reading about euthanasia, we branced into a discussion about how science has outpaced ethics and how it's crazy to think about the implications of so many things that are being done right now or that are coming up in the near future. Can I just say that this is one more reason that I think we have an awesome surgeon?!?

On the way home, I made at least two wrong turns... just so I didn't let Chet down, of course. :)We arrived at home at about 11:30. Ladan had just woken up at 11:15, so Cali was bummed that she didn't get to hang out with him longer. Another day.

I went to get Gabe's prescription filled while Chet fed him and put him down for a nap. He slept for a few hours. Chet went to bed as well since he hadn't gotten much sleep between work and the surgery. When Gabe woke up, his diaper was totally full, and his clothing and sheets were soaked... and Chet was still planning to sleep for another hour! Great! That means I have to do the diaper change. I sucked it up and forced my way through it. All the while, I made sure I spent as little time looking at the stitches as possible. However, you kind of have to watch what you're doing when you're applying ointment to the wound. Let's just say I worked as quickly as possible without hurting him and had to IMMEDIATELY sit down before I passed out. (I've done that enough times that I know what it feels like when it's coming). Whew! Narrow miss! Chet was gracious and did the rest of the diaper changes until he had to go to work. I've had one since then during which I made sure the lights were dim, and it was lots better. Maybe I'll be a pro at stitches by the time this is all over! I'm just praying that handling stitches is NOT one of the things that the Lord is preparing me for more of in the future!

Gabe got better and better throughout the rest of the evening. He sat in my lap for a while. Then we went for a stroller ride outside just so he could be still for a while longer. By the end of the night he was laughing, running a bit, and I had to try to keep him from dancing around too much. Can you even imagine bouncing back like that?

It seems like all our experiences with surgery have proven that day 3 is the worst, so we'll see how it goes on Sunday. We're off to a good start though.

When Ladan was saying his prayers before bed tonight, he said, "Thank you, God, for Gabe not burning up!" Amen to that! He said this because, when Gabe woke up from his nap, I said he was "burning up". Ladan and I had to take him outside and walk him around in the breeze in order to cool him off until his medicine kicked in again. Ladan was just thankful that Gabe wasn't on fire, I guess. He was so great all day with Gabe. He brought him toys and tried to help him. There was only one occasion where he forgot that he couldn't roll around on the floor with Gabe. Gabe is certainly blessed to have a big brother who loves him so much! And we are blessed to have two amazing kids!

In the end, the possibility of the hernia is what helped us to go ahead with the circumcision revision, and I'm so thankful that we decided to go for it. I think that if we hadn't done the circumcision revision now, it would have caused him lots of problems later. Better to do the operation when he won't remember it. So his circumcision is fixed, and hopefully he won't develop a hernia anyway! There is One who knows better than I do!