About the Day Eli Came to Our Family

This is a long one, but a very special part of our lives that has to be shared :) Even when Eli is 18, we will be sharing his story!

At 23 weeks into my pregnancy with Eli, I started to have high blood pressure.  It was around 140/90. Dr. Garde had me start Labetalol (medicine for HBP) once a day. I had also experienced this with Rylin but it didn’t begin until 34 weeks. We made it safely to 37 weeks. She was only 4 pounds 9 ounces but healthy as could be and I had a complete normal pregnancy with Kendall.

At 27 weeks my high blood pressure was still around 140/90 on the medicine. Dr. Garde   quadrupled my amount of Labetalol and told me to take it easy and spend as much time as possible laying on my left side. Baby boy was a little small but doing fine.  

At 29 weeks Dr. Garde added one more dose of medicine and put me on complete bed rest. I believe my BP was averaging around 160/100 or so. My amniotic fluid was now a little low and baby was measuring a little too small. Luckily, we have a ton of family around to help, and they all jumped right in and took over and a lot of friends started bringing meals. 

On May 3, (day 5 of bed rest) my friend Kara came to keep me company. Funny thing is that my blood pressure was consistently staying around 120/80! I noticed after she left that evening that baby boy hadn’t been moving a ton. I decided it was probably just because I had too much time to sit and pay attention since I was laying down holding still all day. I remember talking to a few people on the phone and mentioning that he hadn’t moved a lot, but also acknowledging that my “mothers intuition” would kick in if there was a real problem. So I tried to relax. 

*blessing/miracle: this is also the same day we (after 2 months) FINALLY got approved to put the kids and my pregnancy on a state health care plan. 

On May 4th, I spent the whole day waiting for baby to move, and he did. He rolled a few times, and nudged me a few times. Nothing as strong as usual, no sharp jabs or kicks to the pelvic bone or ribs. As the evening went on I began to get more worried. My sister in law Amanda made us dinner and hung out for a while. I think my niece (then 6 months) knew something was wrong because she was pretty upset the whole evening which is unusual for her. I tried to sleep, but failed because I was getting really nervous. I had been continuously pushing on my stomach all day trying to get a response from him, only feeling those little nudges. 

On May 5th, I fell asleep around 1 am. I woke up an hour or 2 later to check for movement again, after basically pushing him around in my stomach I felt him do a little roll. I dozed off. Woke again at about 5 am. Got up for a while and then laid in the recliner. This woke Rylin up and she seemed nervous too. I still had not felt a strong movement from baby. I was beginning to get really worried. I texted my doc and told her what was going on. She told us to come in right away to labor and delivery to see what was up. My intuition had kicked in, although I hoped I was over reacting. Grandma Soptich came to sit with the girls until Uncle J could come after work at 7am. Once we got to the hospital -30min drive- I was hooked up to the monitors and baby’s heart rate was pretty good (moment of relief), but he still wasn’t moving a lot. My doctor had the nurses start IV fluids. As we look back, this is when Dustin says he knew something was up, I was started on IV fluids and hadn’t even seen the Doctor yet. My BP was super high at this point. After a while of waiting, the ultrasound tech came in to check for a few things. The first thing they looked for were the black pockets (amniotic fluid) around the baby so they can measure them. The tech was looking everywhere and couldn’t find a black pocket big enough to measure. That is when I knew there was a problem, a big problem. I looked at Dustin and I lost it, before the tech could say anything I knew we had a huge problem. No fluid around our sweet boy. In Dustin’s terms “he was saran wrapped in there” and he really was. After not seeing what they wanted on the ultrasound, Dr Garde came in and said “you earned yourself a helicopter ride to Seattle”. There was no fluid and my BP was super high. She told us that she wasn’t sure how long I would stay pregnant down there. That our baby would probably be delivered in -max- 2 days. Enough time to allow for steroid shots for his lungs. Dustin left to go home to get some things. While he was gone, the helicopter decided it was too windy to fly and I had to go by ambulance. At that point, I had had one steroid shot and they had started magnesium in my IV. After begging Dr. Garde to come with me, I soon was on my way to Seattle, alone, with Dustin hopefully not too far behind. 

*blessing/miracle: the ability to text our OB at 5 am, making it possible to avoid the debacle of trying to contact whoever was on call which would have cost us a few more hours. Do you know how much we LOVE Dr. Garde?

It was a long 2 hour ambulance ride. It felt like we were going 30mph. I texted a few friends to let them know what was going on. I received texts from family saying they had already prayed for us. I still get choked up when I remember the feeling of comfort knowing that I had parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends dropping everything they were doing to get on their knees to pray for us as soon as they heard the news. It is an indescribable feeling. When we were about 20 minutes from the hospital I, of course, was looking out the back of the ambulance and had noticed we passed a dumped over milk truck, and the traffic was beginning to pile up behind it. I knew Dustin and his dad would get stuck behind it. We barely missed the backup as it was. 

*blessing/miracle: not getting trapped in the traffic. 

When we arrived at UWMC, it took maybe 10ish minutes until I was in my room. A few minutes after this, two nurses were helping get baby on the monitor. My heart rate was in the 80s. One nurse got worried and said that the baby’s was in the 80s as well. Exactly the same as mine. The other nurse said that it was my heart rate and we hadn’t found the baby’s yet. In comes doctor #1 and we found baby on the ultrasound, his heart rate peaked at 130 then dropped again. This was when the nurse put oxygen on me and I knew it was bad and getting worse. Then came a few more people. The anesthesiologist and his entourage came and started asking me a ton of questions. More people came in. Most importantly, the chief resident Dr.Josh came to the head of the bed. He was the first person to make eye contact with me out of the 20ish people who were in there. He explained that baby wasn’t doing well and asked if anyone was coming to be with me. I told him yes but they were stuck in traffic. I also told him that it didn’t matter, I knew the only solution was to get baby out, so lets get it done. I knew he agreed. I had been in this situation before, not as severe, with the same solution. He decided to get me in the OR to monitor me and the baby to see if there was time to wait. After getting to the OR there was a lot of commotion. I was introduced to someone from the NICU and a few more doctors that would be there to help the baby. That is when I realized the journey we were about to make. Dr. Josh and the first doctor kept glancing between each other and the monitors, it didn’t look good. So he made the executive decision to deliver the baby, right away. As I was laying on a cold table, half naked, shaking uncontrollably, with everyone else running around and looking at the monitors, I watched and listened to the conversation between the anesthesiologist and the doctors, trying to hear, trying not to rip the oxygen mask off my face because I couldn’t breath. Epidural? No, it would take too long. Spinal? No, blood pressure too high. I prayed in my mind they would just knock me out all the way and get it over with. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be awake when they got baby boy out of me, I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing him with out my husband by my side. Dr. Josh must have read my mind because he said there wasn’t enough time. Before I knew it, I was being prepped for my cesarean section and counting backward from 10. I was so tired and I remember thinking “don’t close your eyes, because they will think you are passed out when you really aren’t and then start to cut!”. 

The next thing I remember was was hearing my name. I was dreaming. In my dream I remember seeing Ry and her best girl cousin, Brin, walking away from me holding hands. It was sweet. Then I remembered everything and: Ouch! My stomach! The rest is a blur. I semi-remember being rolled into my room. I know that Dustin was there. He was talking to Dr. Josh and said something about his mission and I just remember the two of them laughing because were are all Mormon. 

*blessing/miracle: out of the millions of doctors at the Hospital, I know Dr. Josh was meant to be the one with us. He helped us in so many ways. At some point, I will share more about HIS experience that day.

There were many blessings and miracles that happened to us during the week Eli was born. The few that I listed are just the ones that stand out the most. 

Things That Are Meant To Be

The first time I was pregnant, I developed a pattern. It started when I miscarried that pregnancy. Next, we had a perfectly beautiful baby girl. About one and a half years later, I miscarried again, followed by another healthy beautiful baby girl about a year later. Two years after we had her, I was expecting again.

I was pregnant and was curious if my pattern would continue. If it did, I would lose the pregnancy a few weeks after the positive test. I found out I was pregnant just after Halloween. By Thanksgiving I was smack dab in the middle of the woes of morning (all day) sickness. Towards the 2nd week of December, I was sure all my symptoms were fading. The first ultrasound wasn't scheduled until a few weeks later. I decided I couldn't wait that long, so I called my doctor. In my experience, no symptoms meant no healthy baby growing.

At the ultrasound later that day, everything looked fine. No reason to worry. Eventually I began to feel sick again, another reassurance.

When Eli was born a few months later, he started to get really sick within his first few days of life. He started to turn a grayish dusky blue color and retain fluid. All the nurses, doctors and nurse practitioners were stumped. Finally, when Eli was about a week old, Maneesh (neonatologist) and his team had one last test. It was for me. I needed to be tested for a sickness I could have been carrying called Toxoplasmosis, the kitty litter disease. It is the reason they suggest pregnant women don't clean litter boxes while pregnant. It usually causes miscarriage. Luckily my blood came back negative for this, and a few days later Eli turned a corner and started to do better.

It was after having my blood drawn that I realized how my pattern had been broken. It would have been crazy if I had carried Toxoplasmosis, because in my history it would have meant Eli was supposed to miscarry. We never found out why we had such a sick preemie little mini-boy those first 10 days, but I do know I am thankful the pattern was broken and we have him here with us.

About Our Ten Month Old

 About a year ago, we found out I was carrying a healthy baby boy, about 20 weeks along, but that was last February. Now February is new. It has brought us a 10 month old and it has surprised us.

(Eli at 3 weeks)

Our Ten Month Old claps. He stands in his exersaucer and claps his soft skinned puffy little hands together and smiles his gummy smile ear to ear. Our Ten Month Old thinks we are funny. He squeaks, he growls, he screams, he cries, he laughs. He is happy.

Our Ten Month Old is a baby who wants to eat big boy solid food, but his gag reflex won't let him. While his 10 month old brain tells him to bite a cracker, his 7 1/2 month old gummy mouth won't let him chew. This is something that makes him frustrated. Our Ten Month Old is a boy who wants to be in the middle of all the action and he believes he should be able to, he is a determined little boy who tries so hard to scoot and to move. His brain tells him he can, but his arms and legs won't carry him. Our baby has a 10 month old brain in a 13 pound body.

Our Ten Month Old makes us laugh. He makes smoochy noises, which then makes us all freak out with excitement at a new trick by the baby boy. Our Ten Month Old sits up like a big boy to play with his toys. He drinks from a sippy cup and likes to try feeding himself with a spoon.

Our Tenth Month Old is a healthy boy. A boy who has made it almost through his first winter with no surprise sicknesses. He surprises us every day. He may be different than other babies his age, but he is ours and we love Our Ten Month Old.

(Eli at 10 months)

(*3 weeks after this was written we have been surprised again! Eli eats graham crackers, and vanilla wafers like a champ. He also is learning to scoot and rolling everywhere. He got his first tooth and the second isn't far behind. Just this morning, he decided he knows how to make consonant sounds - dada, blabla, baba, and has been shouting them all day!)

Dear Kennel

I know this letter to you is a little late. I have wanted to start one since your birthday, but I just don't know how to put your crazy personality into words. Over the last month I have been thinking daily about what to tell you. So, now that I know what I want to say, here it goes.

You just turned three and three is a magical age around here. I have noticed that things change with a 3 year old. You have become a tester of the rules. At dinner time, you like to not eat your meal. The usual encouragement for us is to tell you that if you don't at least try to eat, you will go to bed. Well, when we say this to you, you tell us that you are ready for bed. When it is raining outside and you want to play out there, I tell you to put a coat on because you will be cold and wet, you tell me you want to be cold and wet...that you like it. When I make you a sandwich you tell me that you are done and "full" after only a few bites. You L-O-V-E your purple pillow. You would lay on it all day sucking your "fumb" if I let you. You love to wear fancy shoes and hate wearing sweaters or jackets.

I want you to know that I LOVE you! You came out as our most snuggly baby, and have remained that way. You have just a little bit of fluff around your bones and it just makes you so squishy. You sneak out of your room after bedtime and ask to snuggle me about every 10 minutes.  I want you to know that you have amazing olive toned skin and always look a little suntanned. I want you to know that you have a lighter spot on your wrist from a blister that you gave yourself (from sucking on it in my tummy) before I had you. I want you to know that when you smile, you scrunch up your whole face. I want you to know that you have little "bucks" from sucking your thumb and you love to show them to everyone! All we have to do is say "show us your bucks" and you smile your hugest buckiest smile we have ever seen. I want you to know that your huge brown eyes stare into my soul. You have the longest darkest eye lashes that surround your brown eyes and one puppy dog look is all it takes to make me smitten. I want you to know that I have been smitten since the day you were born.

I want you to know that you are funny. I want you to know that you are capable of making everyone laugh. The other day we had the missionaries over for dinner. You were prancing around being goofy, not really saying anything and they just kept laughing at you, not even knowing why. They just said you are funny. I want you to know that we all knew you were funny from the beginning. Something about the way you looked at me made me laugh. I want you to know that I remember telling your Grandmas how funny you were and you could barely even smile.

I want you to know that you are a vital part to our family. I want you to know that you look up to your big sister. You love to play with her, and she loves to play with you. I want you to know that you two are seldom apart from each other. You will stay in your room and play dolls for 3 hours straight on some days. I want you to know that she needs you. You make her happy. I want you to know that there are many times when she is just relaxing and you walk into the room and instantly she lights up. You do something goofy, then she will look at me and chuckle. She knows that you make her happy. I want you to know that Your baby brother needs you. He needs to know that when you came to see him in the hospital, you just stared at him and did nothing but calmly wonder and worry about him. I want you to know that you said prayers for him. I want you to know that you are going to help him find funny things as he gets older. You are going to show him how to be naughty!

I want you to know that you will brighten peoples days for the rest of your life. I want you to always remember you are capable of doing so.

Love you,
Mom

Dear Christmas

I think we all get to an age where Christmas begins to lose it's magic, for me I remember it being when I first moved out of my parents house. The first Christmas I was in my own place, I worked A LOT! My dear friend Jules and I would work all day, then go to my apartment and eat warm peanut butter rice crispy treats and play Tetris on my Super Nintendo. We did this for almost 2 weeks straight during Christmas break from college. It was fun, some of my best memories from college, but not quite the same celebration as when I was with my family.

When I first married Dustin, our first Christmas together was great. We were newlyweds and loved spending our first holiday season together. I knew it would only get better with time. The year following that Christmas, we spent with my parents in Utah. I still had fun but was really beginning to notice that something was missing. Still, I knew it would only get better. The next Christmas, our sweet miniture Ry was with us. She was only 4 months old, and I felt a glimmer of Christmas in my heart, knowing that as the years went on, Christmases were, still, only going to get better. Two years later, we had our sweet newborn Kendall with us. There is something so wonderful about being able to hold your new baby at Christmas time. I felt a minuscule amount of what Mary felt as she held baby Jesus. It was magic. Holding a newborn, snuggling her surrounded by Christmas lights. I still knew it was only going to get better. Last year we had a 2 year old and a 4 year old. there were presents to be opened, candy to eat, and new toys to be played with. The door to Christmas in my heart and mind had been blown wide open.  I was so excited when I went to bed, I could hardly sleep. I wondered (with my girls of course) where Santa was and when he would be coming to our house. I couldn't wait to spend the next day with my family. We were expecting our third child, and this was the first Christmas I can think of in the the last 7 years where I felt like we were having our first family Christmas. Only, neither mine or Dustin's parents were with us. It was only him and I and our babies. Our family, our Christmas.

This year, with our 3 children and our family being complete, all together all under one roof Christmas was amazing. We celebrated one day early because Dustin had to work on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. One thing I have tried to do every year is to remember traditions. This year, I didn't have to remember them, they just happened. We looked at lights. We danced in the Smith's house with their huge singing Santa Claus and singing snowmen. We jumped over the flashing rope lights on their lawn and checked out their decorations. We left ice cream for Santa and vegetables for Rudolph. We wrote him a letter and he wrote one back to us. Even some fuzzy hair from his beard wound up in the ice cream bowl. It settles my heart to know that I was right, Christmas has gotten better every year. I can only wonder, what does the next Christmas have in store for us?

Love,
one happy family

Dear Ry and Kennel

Tonight I saw you girls sleeping. Tonight, after Kendall came out of your room for the millionth time around 9 o'clock, she finally went back to bed and fell asleep. Tonight I thought that I needed a break and really needed you girls to go to bed.

Tonight I forgot how little you are. Tonight I forgot that Kendall will only be 3 in two weeks. Tonight I forgot that Rylin is only 5. Tonight I forgot how much you need me. Tonight I forgot how much I need you. Tonight I forgot how many more years I will have you at home with me.

(Rylin and Kendall, November 2008)

Tonight I remembered that those years are few compared to the years I will have without you at home with me. Tonight I looked into your closet and remembered how little your dresses and jackets are. Tonight I remembered that 10 years from now, your dresses and jackets will take up more space and hang lower to the floor. Tonight I remembered how little you are. Tonight I remembered that you are only 2 and 5. Tonight I remembered how much you need me and how much I need you. Tonight I remembered how many more years I will have you at home with me.

(Rylin and Kendall October 2011)

Love,
Mom

Dear Major Milestones

When Ry was born, she was our first. Every thing she did was new to us. The first time she smiled was uplifting. Making me feel like those endless nights were worth it. To feel the love that comes through a first smile is something that one could never imagine until you see it coming from your own baby. With her cheeks scrunched up, and eyes squinting, she showed me how much she loved me. It was a moment I never want to forget. It was when I first learned about the part of your heart that opens up to hold more love than you ever imagined. That part that only becomes real after you have a baby.

When Kennel was born, I had expected some things. I knew she would smile at about 5 weeks. I knew she would roll over after a few months and I knew she wouldn't walk until after she was one. I had experience. We knew what we were doing the second time around. Kendall showed me what it was like to have a normal pregnancy, to have a planned delivery with an average weight baby. For her, the milestone I will never forget is hearing her cry (scream) as soon as she was born. She is our only babe who came out and showed us she was ok. There was nothing to worry about. We would have a lifetime of surprises with this one.

When Eli was 5 months old. He touched my face for the first time. I was changing his diaper and his arms were flailing all over the place. He was babbling and chewing on his fist. He reached to my face with one fist, and opened his fingers as much as he could. He latched on with his fingertips onto my cheek. He held still. I stopped in my tracks. This was the first time he has been able to have enough control to touch me on purpose. I will never forget that momentous milestone. The control he had over his hands. Most babies gain this control after a few months. 5 months after Eli was born, he reached up and touched my cheek. The look of contentment on his face told me he had wanted to do this for a long time, and he fought so hard for the chance to do so. Those endless days staring at a baby in an incubator, those days where we could only hold our baby for a few hours before he got too tired, those days I spent with my sweet princesses while my prince stayed in the hospital 2 hours away, all became worth it when Eli touched my face. The funny thing is, he knew it too.

Dear Major Milestones,
You have always been around. The difference is: now, I know how important you are.

-Ciera