Carter update

On Thursday morning, Jeff called from the hospital and said that Carter had done so well during the night that they were going to extubate him. This was incredibly great news! After four days of being on the ventilator, it was a huge relief that he didn't need it anymore. They pulled the tube out of his throat, and his poor little voice was so hoarse when he cried, it made me so sad. After a breathing treatment and some suction, they put him on some nasal oxygen to see how he'd do. There was always the possibility that he'd have to go back on the nasal CPAP if he wasn't getting enough oxygen, but we thought we were done with the ventilator.

Since then, he has done very well. He was pretty miserable all day Thursday and Thursday night. I'm sure he felt awful. His throat probably hurt, he was trying to shake off all the sedation meds he had been given, and he was probably just as sick of the hospital as we were. I was so happy to hear his voice again, the crying didn't really bother me. Until about 1:00 am when I was desperate for a little sleep. I knew he must be so worn out, and that eventually he would have to sleep, but he held out. He'd sleep for a few minutes at a time and then wake up and cry. The nurse came in to check his vitals at 1:00 and I about passed out on the bed. I vaguely remember her asking if she wanted me to feed him a bottle (he still wasn't allowed to nurse until he got the hang of feeding again. There was a lot of coughing and choking involved the first few times).

Finally, after being up and down to the point of not really remembering much of anything, at his 4:00 feeding, he fell asleep. And we both slept until 7:30. The worst part of it all was that I couldn't walk around the room or really wrap him up. He still has monitors, oxygen tubes and his picc line to worry about, so we were confined to a 2 foot radius next to his bed for any and all comforting. I would have loved to put him in bed with me, where he loves to snuggle, but that was not an option.

Friday morning, the pediatrician came to see him and took him off the oxygen for a test run. He didn't pass, but started desatting a little, so he put the oxygen back on and turned it down to 1/8 of a liter, just a "trace," as they call it. He was still breathing fast, but his last chest xray looked better and his lungs sounded better. All good signs. Jeff spent all day with him while I tried to get things caught up back at home. Jeff can handle things at home, but the dishes, the laundry and the general cleaning gets neglected. So I spent the afternoon trying to put the house back together. Last night I went back to the hospital to spend the night there. He was so much happier, almost like the little boy I remember from a week ago. He slept 2-3 hours at a time and didn't have any of the fussiness he had the night before. He looked at me for a long time, and I thought I just might get that first smile out of him, but it didn't come. Soon, I know.



Now, we are just waiting to see if we can get him off the oxygen altogether. He is still breathing faster than they would like, so the Respiratory Therapist is still suctioning his nose to see if that helps. He still has a couple more days left of the antibiotic, and the doctor doesn't want him to come home with the picc line in, so it may be a few more days before he is ready to be out of there. We are getting anxious, but trying to be patient. We really want him to be well before we bring him back home, even though the kids seem to be over their sicknesses. It will be nice to be a family again.

Carter vid

Carter is a little better today. Improving slowly. Still the sweetest thing you can imagine. If you have time, you can check out this clip from yesterday afternoon.

One Step Forward...Two Steps Back

(Sorry no pictures with this post--I am using the hospital's wireless to write and don't have my pictures accessible).

One step forward, two steps back. That seems to be the way things have gone since we got into the hospital, and it was that way again Sunday evening. Carter had been doing well on the ventilator, although he was having to get more oxygen than they would have liked. Around 5:00, he started having trouble, and there were people running around frantically, taking x-rays, listening to his chest, and paging the neonatologist (never a good sign, right?).

The xray came back showing no major problems, but a lot of "haziness," or areas of the lungs that oxygen wasn't able to get into. He just wasn't getting enough oxygen. The doctor decided he needed a little more support, and had them put him on another ventilator called an oscillator. It is the kind that is used in the NICU with sick babies, and is supposedly more gentle on the lungs. It vibrates back and forth, holding the lungs open and also helping to move the secretions around more, so they don't get stuck blocking the airways. And although he was encouraged that Carter would do well on it, it was a step backward.

An hour or two after he was put on the oscillator, we had a scary moment, probably the worst moment we have had since this sickness started. His O2 level (which is usually around 90) started dropping, and the respiratory therapist turned up his oxygen and used some suction to pull mucus from his airways. She got a couple of clots out, but his oxygen level continued to drop. He was down in the 40's and dropping. She had the mask ready to bag him, as the oxygen was turned up to 100%. Finally, just before she had to bag him, he started coming back up. I just stood by, helplessly, watching and praying that he would recover. What a terrible feeling that was. The good news is that he stopped doing that, and only had minor issues after that.

I think that was the first time I realized just how sick my baby is. The words "Primary Children's" were thrown around if he continued to be unstable. Of course I didn't sleep well that night, and I know it wouldn't have been any better had I been at home, as I was just so worried that was going to happen again. I know it's silly, because he has a nurse with him 24/7 and a respiratory therapist is never than a room away. He is getting the best possible care, and an untrained mommy a few feet away isn't going to make one ounce of difference. Still, it was good to be here with him especially after he had a pretty good night.

By morning, his chest had cleared up a little bit. His right upper lobe is still not getting oxygen (not surprising, apparently, because the tube leading to the right upper lobe is the smallest and most easily blocked), and the doctor can't be sure it isn't a bacterial pneumonia (although he thinks it's strictly caused by the RSV). He had a good day yesterday, not doing any of the scary desats he had done on Sunday. He is now getting breast milk, a full feeding of about 2 1/2 ounces, through his tube every 3 hours.

Because bacterial pneumonia has not been ruled out completely, he is going to stay on antibiotics for the full ten days. So, this morning he had a central line put in so that they won't have to start IV's every day (his little veins just weren't handling the IVs very well). He is stable now, and we are all hoping that we will start to see more improvements so he can slowly be weaned off the ventilator.

Most of the time, I feel okay about things. I am optimistic that everything is going to be okay, and that Carter will make a full recovery. But every now and then, doubt creeps in and I lose some of that optimism. At church on Sunday (after I had heard that he was on a ventilator, but before I saw him), I was a mess. People were asking how he was doing, and I just cried. I was just not feeling like I was handling it very well. The closing hymn in sacrament meeting must have been chosen just for me. It was "Be Thou Humble," and the first verse goes like this:

"Be thou humble in thy weakness, and the Lord they God shall lead thee,
Shall lead thee by the hand and give thee answers to thy prayers.
Be thou humble in they pleading, and the Lord thy God shall bless thee,
Shall bless thee with a sweet and calm assurance that he cares."

It was definitely a tender mercy from above, as I really felt that "calm assurance" that he cared about me, and that he was most definitely aware of my sweet baby. And suddenly, I realized that I didn't feel alone anymore (and I hadn't known I had felt alone before).

I know he still has a long way to go, so my optimism now is carefully guarded, but I also know without doubt that all the fasting and prayers in our behalf are helping. They are not only helping Carter get through this trial, but they are helping me. I feel an immeasurable amount of gratitude for the love that has been shown to our little family. I truly do feel humbled by this experience, and am vowing to be a little better, a little more faithful, and a little more grateful.

RSV

For any of you who aren't my friend on Facebook, or for those of you who haven't heard, little Carter couldn't handle all the sickness floating around our house. My girls have been struggling with a cold; they have been coughing and complaining of a sore throat for over a week now. Carter started with a runny nose first and I panicked a little (that's my major struggle with anxiety--I always imagine the worst when it comes to health matters). I put him under a humidifier and started putting saline in his nose and suctioning it out the best I could. A couple days later he had a little cough, but he was still doing well, eating fine and not too sad.

Thursday night I kept feeling like he was getting worse, but there was no evidence of that. He didn't have a fever, was still nursing, and sounded like he was breathing alright. Friday morning he was awake for about an hour, and not sad at all, so I still thought he was okay. By 11:00, his appetite had diminished and by 2:00 he had a fever of 100.5. I called the doctor's office and told the nurse what was going on and we got in to see the doctor around 4:00. By then, he had really taken a turn and was not doing well at all. He was only getting about 80-85% oxygen on room air and really grunting a lot. It was decided that he needed to be admitted to the hospital.

An hour later at the hospital, he was down to 75%, with some major retractions when he breathed. He had completely lost his spunk and didn't put forth any fuss when the nurses started working on him. Respiratory suctioned him out and started him on oxygen, but within an hour or so, they decided it wasn't enough, and put him on a machine called a CPAP, which essentially blows air into his lungs to keep them open so he wouldn't have to work so hard. They started two IVs for fluids (he wouldn't eat or even try), and put a tube down his throat to vent his stomach and to get some of the mucus out there. I took this picture after they were finished hooking him up on Friday night.


Since then, he has gotten a little worse. He stayed on the CPAP and was doing alright, but was still working a little harder to breathe than they wanted. He wasn't allowed to have any food, but got IV nourishment. Yesterday he was a lot more feisty, and wasn't the least bit happy about what was happening to him. Jeff stayed with him last night, and said around 3 am his coloring wasn't good and he was lethargic again. The decision was made to intubate him. When I heard that, I was sad. I thought that meant he had taken a step back. But after seeing him for myself today, I realize that it's not all bad. He just wore himself out trying to breathe, and he can't get the secretions out by himself. Also, RSV takes a few days to peak before it plateaus and you see improvement, so it was probably a combination of the RSV getting worse and his body tiring out that made it necessary for the ventilator (I don't have a pic of him on the vent yet, but it doesn't look nearly as bad as that scary pic of the CPAP mask).

He still will be in the hospital for several days. It's hard to know how many, but we are hopeful that within a day or two he will start to improve and will get to be extubated. For now, he is sedated and resting comfortably and just needs time to get better. We are starting to give him breast milk through his tube and we'll see how he tolerates that. I'm glad to be able to do something, even something so small, for him. It's hard to see him helpless and I have found myself wondering what else I could have done for him. I tried to keep the sick kids away and do everything I knew how to do to make sure he didn't get sick(including pleading with the Lord daily to keep him healthy), but it didn't help. I guess we have more things to learn from this experience and I am determined to learn them. One thing I have realized is that it isn't my fault. I am sad that I can't protect him from everything, but I know that's not realistic. One of the "blessings" of a mortal body is the ability to experience all things, even sickness that lands you in the hospital at 3 weeks old.

Today I am feeling encouraged. I feel peaceful. I know it's because of the many, many people who are fasting and praying for him. Thank you all so so so much. We have felt such an outpouring of love that puts a lump in my throat. Carter is so lucky to have so many people caring for him. And I am patiently waiting the time I can hold him again and tell him just how lucky he is.

More updates later as things change (hopefully for the better!)

V-Day 2010

Today is my first day alone with all four kids. It just so happened that it falls on President's Day, when no one has school. And I must say, having four kids wouldn't be hard. If there were four of me. :)

My mom left us on Saturday, and now real life begins. Because it is RSV season, we are supposed to stay home as much as possible until Carter is a little older. That is going to be hard. Not for me, but for the other kids, especially Kyla, our stubborn little mule. She started showing her independence by peeing on the floor. In the bathroom. In front of the toilet. Twice. Then she announced that she had peed on the rug. I asked her why, and she had a perfectly good explanation. "Because I want to." Fortunately for me, the scrape on her leg was irritated when she peed, and now believes that if she goes on the toilet again, she won't get any more sores. I am willing to let her believe that if it means she is cured of her regression.

She also cannot keep her hands off of Carter. Anything I ask her not to do ("please don't wipe your face on his," or "please don't cover his mouth"), she instantly does. It makes for fun times, as I can't trust her to be anywhere around him when I'm not in sight. This is usually what happens (she is trying to put his binky in his mouth, but actually, she is about to suffocate him).


She did have a lot of fun "helping" grandma with all the cooking and baking. Maybe that's what I need to do while we are stuck at home--just bake and let her help. That would probably keep her entertained, but I'm not sure it would help me start to get the pregnancy pounds off.

Damon has kept busy with Valentine's Day. He is very much into gifts and gift giving (I am reading the Five Love Languages of Kids right now, and he seems to be fairly equal in Gifts and Touch, FYI), so of course he decided to make Valentine's for his class. He probably spent upwards of 5 hours making them, and they turned out great. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture of the final product before he handed them out.


My mom made sugar cookies (twice), and these are the ones the kids got to decorate.


Meanwhile, I got to spend a lot of time with Carter. Probably the most helpful thing my mom did while she was here was entertain the other three kids. I got to have quiet time every day enjoying my newborn (and yes, falling asleep as I enjoyed him). I know I have done this three times before, and it should come as no surprise to me, but I honestly can't believe how much love I feel for him. Even when he is crying and I feel like crying because I just want to sleep, I can't help but feel anything but love for him. For months I worried that there might be something wrong with him, and I am constantly amazed at how perfect he is.

At 10 days old, he weighed 7 lbs 11 oz (50th%, and up 10 ounces from birth), was 20 1/2 inches long (45th%, and up an inch) and had a head of 34 cm (5th%--I hope that isn't a comment on the size of his brain). He sleeps a lot, but has been awake for as long as two hours straight, and routinely will stay awake and happy for over an hour at a time. He still loves to pull his knees under his body when he is lying on my chest, and often seems to have his arms folded. He has yet to sleep for more than three hours at time at night (and usually it's more like two hours at a time), but is on a good nursing schedule of every three hours. He loves his binky and will easily take a bottle of breast milk, 3 ounces at a time.


Here he is at two weeks. His belly button stump fell off the next day, and he had his first bath (which he hated).

Jeff and I got to go out for Valentine's day on Thursday, before my mom left, and he got me some beautiful flowers (and I can't remember the last time I got flowers). What a great way to celebrate the day of love this year, when my heart already feels big enough to burst through my chest. Carter was due on Valentine's Day, so maybe it's fitting that he is my "love baby." Not that I love him any more than I did my other babies, but it's so fun to remember again why we do this. And, yes, I look tired and pale, and my hair is a little greasy. But luckily, Carter's eyesight isn't very good yet.

Carter's B&W shots

We staged a small photo shoot for Carter to try to capture the "just born" look. We quickly learned that we had no idea what we were doing. And the first time we tried, Carter was awake and didn't much enjoy curling up on a pile of towels mostly nude. That being said, I think we still got a few cute shots. I especially love the last one with the small smile on his lips.

One Week

It was the quickest of weeks, it was the slowest of weeks...

Isn't that always how it goes with a newborn? I stayed in the hospital for two nights (so as to get the most money back from Aflac and Conseco) and came home on Sunday. Since we've been home, things have gone extremely well. Recovery is never fun and/or easy, but I am feeling better every day.

My biggest complaints post-partum were:
1. The uterine contractions. Supposedly they get worse with each delivery, and these ones were extremely painful. The most painful contractions I felt during any part of my labor (blessed epidural!). Fortunately, the worst of the contractions happened in the hospital, where I had percocet at my disposal, and I managed to get through that.

2. The pain of breast-feeding. Despite my religious use of Lansinoh, I always seem to get have a hard time adjusting to nursing every few hours. That pain is getting much better, but I still cringe every time I begin nursing. And the engorgement. Oh, it's so painful. And one tiny baby cannot begin to drink enough milk to relieve that pain. I am currently without a breast pump (it has been misplaced), and waiting for the one I ordered on eBay to get here, so I haven't been able to really pump much either. On Facebook, I posted that my body thought it was fun to make enough milk for 4 babies. Now I am down to enough milk for twins. And that isn't a bad thing.

3. The hemorrhoids. I don't think much else needs to be said, but that is definitely included in my recovery process.

The kids seem to be adjusting fairly well. I know that is probably because my mom is here and takes them to do fun things every day. What are we going to do when she goes home on Friday? I'm not anxious to find out. Damon and Allie don't seem to be affected by the baby at all. They just live their normal lives, albeit much more fun when grandma is around, and haven't shown any signs of displacement.

Kyla, on the other hand, has suddenly become the most stubborn, strong-willed little girl imaginable. Don't let that smile fool you, she has not been the least bit cooperative since we brought Carter (she pronounces it "Cado," like "avocado") home.

She hasn't taken anything out on the baby (she loves him tremendously, and is always wanting to hold him. One day she even got out of the chair and was standing on the floor, bouncing him up and down because "he likes to be bounced."), but she has started fighting both my mom and me on everything we ask her to do. I understand that her world has completely changed, and I am trying to be patient with her, but there are only so many times I am willing to let her do things by herself or make her own decisions about what she is going to do, and then I can't give in anymore. I mean, no matter how much she may not like it, she has to ride in her carseat in the car. And so, we fight. But I know it will get better. It just may have to get worse first.

Carter is doing amazingly well. He has figured out his days and nights and will wake up a couple of times at night to eat and then goes right back to sleep. So far, he is a dream newborn, with very few issues. I know it's way to early to proclaim him a calm, content baby, but I am enjoying it now. We'll see how he does once he hits the six week "wake up period." He was a bit jaundiced, so we let him have a little sunbath one afternoon.

The forehead crinkle seems to be his trademark. He is always doing it.

He is also very alert, and will turn his head to hear my voice when I'm nearby. He sleeps a lot, but when he's awake, he seems to really try to engage whoever is holding him.

The kids all love to hold him and he doesn't seem to mind too much.

Finally, here is one of my and my four kids. Wow, that is weird to think about. But I am so happy. Despite the one melt down I had on Monday (I think everything had just caught up to me; I was feeling a lot of pain, I was tired, I was emotional, and I had to just go into my bedroom and have a good cry. I felt much better after that and much more equipped to handle life), I feel pretty good. I can't believe how much love I have, not only for Carter, but for all my kids. And even with little sleep, I can feel that I am being given more patience to deal with all the craziness around me. I truly feel so blessed.

Baby's here!

Phew! What a whirlwind couple of days! I went in to the hospital on Friday for my weekly non-stress test. Jeff had spent the night at his brother's cabin (out of cell phone range), but came back early just in case anything of interest happened at the appointment. In the 45 minutes we monitored his heart rate, he had four decelerations, which were enough for him to fail. Suddenly, January 29th became baby day!

Although I knew it was a possibility, I was a little shocked that it was actually happening, and was a bit emotional as I was admitted and made the necessary phone calls. My mom, who had driven home on Wednesday, immediately jumped in the shower and prepared to make the drive back. I was alone for a few hours as I tried to find someone to watch the kids (there was really no rush for Jeff to get to the hospital, since we knew it was going to be several hours before anything happened), so I got to really think about what was going to happen. And request the epidural before the nurse even started the ptocin. The timeline for the day went like this:

10:00 am-failed non-stress test
10:30-admitted, dilated to 1.5
12:00 pm-epidural and pit started
2:15-dilated to 3, 60% effaced (Jeff got there about 1:00, missing out on the multiple attempts to start my IV and the epidural. Good timing, since he isn't a big fan of watching needles pierce skin).
3:30-met Dr. Weibell, my doctor's partner who was on call, who broke my water. Dilated to 5, 80% effaced, 0 station. We started to worry that my mom, who was still 2 hours away, wasn't going to make it
4:15-dilated to 8, 90% effaced, started me on oxygen as baby wasn't tolerating contractions very well. I was feeling very little and happy as could be. The oxygen stabilized baby's heart rate quickly, no concerns.
5:00-started pushing. Mom still 22 miles away. Baby posterior, not making much progress. I could feel the contractions by this point, but they were not super painful. We learned quickly that I probably wasn't going to be able to push him out on my own, without a little help from the "vacuum." But baby's heart was fine, I was fine, so we decided to wait for my mom before getting the vacuum, just pushing with each contraction with little to no success.
5:25-mom finally arrives, doc pulls out vacuum
5:32-baby boy makes his way into the world with a gigantic cone head! 7 lbs, 1 oz, 19.5 inches long, apgar scores of 8, 9.


My first thought is that I am so glad for modern medicine. Not only the ptocin to stimulate labor, the epidural to make it bearable, the vacuum to help speed things along, but also the ultrasounds and heartrate monitors to begin with, that let us know that our boy was headed for trouble. We were able to get out in front of it and he really didn't scare us at all with his cord compression. We were able to get him here safely and quickly (almost too quickly!), and everything went amazingly well.

We named him Carter Edward Trapnell. Carter was the name Jeff and I agreed on, as one of the few we both really liked. Edward is after Jeff's dad, Frederick Edward, as well as Jeff's grandpa and great-grandpa. It has nothing to do with a certain vampire. But a fun coincidence...

I'm sure there will be plenty more in the days to come, as well as lots more pictures once I figure out how to get them off of my mom's camera, but here are some to start.

Damon's waited a long time for a brother!

Kyla making us laugh in the hospital with Grandma's glasses

Going home on Sunday


Staring intently at grandma today. He definitely wanted to wait for her, and she couldn't be happier about that!