Where I've been.

(Warning, this one is LONG)

Well it's been about 3 months since I last posted an entry.  I guess you could say I took the summer off.  It started out with me just not being on the computer very often, we played outside and went swimming and all the other summer activities and being on the computer fell to the wayside.  Then, as the temperature climbed we spent more time in the air conditioned house and I still didn't blog.  Now I'm so far behind that I could write a novel, it may take me weeks to catch up with all the stuff that has happened this summer.

Here's the Cliff Notes version of our summer:

Went swimming, planted a garden, chickens started laying eggs, Eli skinned his knees, Abby rode her bike and played with the neighborhood kids, went to visit family in Kansas City, Eli got splinters in his hands, worked a lot, was hot, ate a lot of frozen yogurt, bought bunk beds and Eli moved into Abby's room, got mosquito bites, finished the nursery, laundry, had a lot of doctor's appts for the baby, was scared the baby might be really sick, Jeremiah and Abby camped in the backyard, was induced, had a tiny baby, brought her home, Abby started kindergarten, made zucchini bread.

No wonder I'm tired.  And we didn't even get to go to the zoo.

A lot of my summer was eaten up by various doctor's appointments.  The baby was on the smaller side at her 20 week ultrasound, so we did a follow up 30 week ultrasound and she was still small, so we did another one at 33 weeks and she was even smaller at that one.  She went from 16th percentile on the growth chart to 7th percentile.  So then I had to go to weekly appts at the perinatologist from 34 to 37 weeks and get ultrasounds and biophysical profiles and non-stress tests and it all got rather boring.  By 36 weeks she had fallen off the growth chart and they were estimating she was 3 pounds 12 ounces (to compare, my other two children were about a pound bigger at that stage).  There was talk of hospitalization, bed rest, early delivery, so on and so on.  Each week I would go to the appts and watch my little girl on the ultrasound screen.  She would kick and roll and wiggle around, she had the hiccups, she practiced her breathing movements, she sucked on her knee and fingers and thumb, she even peed once (we could see a full bladder, then the next thing, it was empty!)  The perinatologist would come in and tell me that the placenta looked good, and there was adequate fluid and the dopplers were good and she was looking great, so then, why, I wondered, was I doing all this extra testing?  And why was she so  small?

I finally asked my own OB what the deal was?  Why is she so small?  Should I be on bedrest?  Should I stop working?  Can I drink protein supplements to help her?  She told me what the perinatologist told her, that they still believed, as they had all along, that our baby had down syndrome and that she was just genetically made to be small and I couldn't change that (so why try, it felt like they were saying).

I cried when I got off the phone.

I had all but dropped the down syndrome thing from my mind.  It all came rushing back to the surface.  The same fears awakened, only now my due date was so close, the nursery was finished and her tiny clothes hung in the closet and I wondered if we would be bringing her home or if she would be staying in the NICU for weeks.

I would go to work and talk to my nurse friends there.  I decided to share the whole story with them, the truth would come out eventually.  They listened with sympathetic ears and reassured me that the doctors were wrong.  My husband claimed the perinatologist was an idiot and declared it all a cruddy placenta at fault (I've had problems with my placentas breaking down early in the past).  Everyone reminded me that we would love our baby girl, no matter what.  But still in the middle of the night I worried.  I wondered what would happen the day she was born.  I worried as my induction date crept nearer that she would be  to small to stay in the well baby nursery, that her lungs wouldn't be mature, that something else would go wrong.  Maybe she wouldn't tolerate labor and I would end up with an emergency c-section.

We shared with our friends, with Jeremiah's parents, we kept the whole thing from my parents.  Sorry Mom and Dad, you know now, but we knew you wouldn't sleep a wink if we told you the whole story.  And I was not sleeping enough for everyone.

On Tuesday, July 26th, our daughter, Hannah Joy was born.  I was induced and delivered without to much incident.  Everything started out really slow, and then suddenly I was ready to push and the doctor almost didn't make it.  There were a lot of people in the room.  Jeremiah and my best friend, my mom and his step-mom, at least 2 L&D nurses, my OB, the neonatal nurse practitioner and a nursery nurse, there may have been more, I really don't remember.  Hannah came out screaming and squirming and peed on my doctor who gently placed her on my stomach after Jeremiah cut the cord, the NNP looked her over and told me she looked perfect, and a whole new wave of tears hit me.  She was screaming and pink and in no sign of respiratory distress, just tiny, and she didn't have down syndrome.  Everyone in the room was crying.  Jeremiah and I were so happy and so relieved, we were overjoyed at her birth, that's where we got her middle name from.  My placenta was tiny, and looked old and broken down.

I wrestled with whether or not to blog about all this.  So many of my friends and coworkers already know the story, but not everyone does.  And how much of my own emotions and fears did I want to share with the internet?  I've wrestled with my thoughts since Hannah's birth.  Relieved that she doesn't have down syndrome and feeling guilty about it.  Like I'd missed a bullet or something.  I was worried sick about what might be while I was still pregnant.  I prayed and prayed that she would be okay, whatever okay was, healthy and strong, and that God would help me to love her and comfort my aching heart.  Hannah was born healthy and strong, just the way God had made her, and I love her so much.  I don't love God more or less because of my youngest daughter, but the whole experience has brought me closer to my husband, and closer to God.

I could go on and on, and I probably will in the future, but it's getting late, this is getting long, and I need to feed Hannah.