I love boring appointments!

I haven't posted about my medical status in while, and the reason for that is that everything continues to look really good--there just hasn't been anything to update. But after a very routine appointment today, I thought it would be a good idea to let everyone know how Baby Campbell and I are doing.

My fluid continues to look awesome. Since the doctors determined that my membranes resealed, we haven't been terribly concerned about fluid levels, but it's still nice to know that there's enough of a cushion around the baby. 

This baby is a mover and a shaker and has flipped several times, but today he or she was head down. I know that we're still early enough that this could very easily change, but it's still a relief to know that right now he/she is in the right position. Because of the location of my placenta, I don't always feel him/her as frequently when he/she is head down, which causes me a little bit of panic from time to time. But I'm trying to be faithful, so I take a deep breath, pray, and then poke him/her until he/she moves again. 

My antibody titers went up a month ago to 1:2, but we're still within the safe range. If they get to 1:8, we'll need to monitor the baby for distress. 

I had my one-hour glucose test last week, and everything came back fine. So no three-hour test for me! Yay! 

Blood pressure was good, temperature was normal, pulse was normal, etc. In other words, this was a very boring appointment--praise the Lord! 

We've made our next four appointments for ultrasounds and ob checks, and when they gave us the printout of the days and times we're to come, my eyes filled up with tears. We're scheduled all the way through the end of October. The next appointment we'll need to make is to have the cerclage removed, and then I will either have a baby or I'll have a short reprieve from bedrest before this little blessing arrives. It's miraculous that we've made it this far, and yet for the past number of weeks our appointments have been so uneventful it's hard to believe that 13 weeks ago we were in crisis. Here I raise my Ebenezer. We are here by the help of the Lord. Looking at that last appointment date in October, I am overwhelmed by how far we've come. 

And thank you, all. We would not be here without your intercessions or without your practical help.   

So, although I've jokingly said that this was a boring appointment, we did get to see the baby. The ultrasound tech was kind enough to let Caden hear the heartbeat twice (since that's his favorite part), and she also got some really great images for us. I'll leave you with one. Scott thinks it looks like a boy. What do you think? 

 

Letting Go

A few weeks ago Caden fell off the side of Scott's recliner and landed on his head. He was fine. Just a very small scrape on one side of his head from where he brushed the leg of the end table on his way down, and a bruise on the other side where he landed. He wasn't even messing around on the recliner (which he's known to do despite Mommy's reprimands) -- he was just standing on it and tipped over. After he had calmed down and Scott and I had ascertained that he didn't have a concussion or any permanent injuries, I joked that it was a pity we didn't have one of these. But even though I was joking, I am ashamed to admit that there was once a time I was sorely tempted to take this measure to protect my son. I never would have gone through with it (I would have been mercilessly teased by my husband), but nonetheless, there's something appealing about the idea of taking that one extra step to protect my child.

I am that mom. When Caden was a newborn and was finally sleeping stretches longer than two hours at night, I would poke him and wake him up, just so that I knew he was still breathing. When I would make the 15 minute drive from my house to church, I would stop two or three times along the way to make sure that his hat hadn't fallen over his face and obstructed his breathing, that I had remembered to buckle his car seat, and then I would poke him to make sure he was still alive. When he was four months old and he unexpectedly projectile vomited all over me, I had a brief moment where my thought was, "Well, this is it. He's going to die from this."

I know that there are those of you who are thinking, Well, of course she's paranoid. After all, she's lost one child already. And for those of you who are thinking that, thank you for your generous spirit toward me. I'd love to blame my paranoia on the loss of my daughter, but the truth is, I think I would have likely been that mom anyway.

When I was a young babysitter, I would sneak into the babies' rooms after they were asleep and gently put my hand on their chests. I would count their breaths until I got to 20, and then I would leave the room. An hour later I would do the same thing. When my best friend's twins were playing on the second-from-the-bottom step on their carpeted stairs,  I held my breath waiting for them to fall. The imaginary emergency passenger brake in our car is well used on the highway when Scott is driving.

Despite being frequently smacked upside the head with Matthew 6:25-34 by God and well-meaning friends, I am a worrier. It's one of my many sins, but probably my most persistent besetting sin.

I'm a glass-half-full kind of girl in many circumstances. I can see the positive in most people, I usually have a good attitude about life's challenges, and mostly I'm content in my day-to-day circumstances. (By the way, this is less true right now. I am pretty grouchy when I'm on bedrest!) But even though I can frequently look at the bright side of current circumstances, it's future possibilities that bury me. I have a very active imagination that runs away with me in a very bad direction when I start to think about what might happen: I can picture exactly how the car accident is going to happen and what it's going to look like, I can imagine the worst-case scenario when Caden decides to climb on the bookshelf, and I can envision what the outcome will be the next time Copper barrels through the house without watching where he's going. I see all these things clearly in my head, played out like a movie.

It's not only about my irrational fears of catastrophic accidents and horrible situations -- I just like to be in control. (Hence the imaginary passenger brake.) I think that if I'm in control, everything will be all right. After all, I know to make sure that Caden isn't eating poisonous mushrooms, or climbing on a precarious rock, or heading down to the creek -- and no one else will think to watch him properly. (Just so you know, I am aware that these are illogical thoughts.)

I've fought against this side of myself ever since Caden was born. I wanted him to feel comfortable going to other people, so I didn't want to be the only one who ever held him as an infant -- but I knew he was safe in my arms. I want him to be brave and secure in his physical abilities, so I want him to climb and explore and run and jump -- but every time he does, I feel like my heart is about to stop. I don't want to pass along my fears to him, so I bite my tongue when what I want to say is, "Get down from there! You're going to fall!" I don't want to instill any sense of uncertainty in him. Of course, I want him to have a healthy sense of caution, but I also want him to try new things and figure out what he can do. It's just hard for me to let go. I want to send him outside in hockey pads and a helmet.

But since being on bedrest, I've had to learn to let go.

It started when I was released from the hospital. We stayed with my parents for a week while we sorted out what it meant for us that I was on complete bedrest. The first or second night I was there, I remember gritting my teeth and saying to Scott, "I know I'm not in charge, and I'm not trying to to micromanage you, but it is causing me a great deal of anxiety that it is 8:30 and Caden is still awake." To his credit, Scott took Caden and put him to bed then. But this wasn't able to continue. With me being unable to lift Caden, change his diaper, or hold him while he fell asleep, and with Scott taking on all the other responsibilities of the house, the schedule began to slip. And I had to let it go.

Before being hospitalized when my membranes ruptured, I had only been away from Caden overnight once -- and I cried that night. We rarely left him with a babysitter other than our family, and I would frequently check in to make sure everything was okay. Once I was home from the hospital, that had to change. My mom had taken the bulk of the responsibility of Caden's care for a couple of weeks, but it wasn't fair to ask that of her for the duration of the pregnancy. She has her own life to live. So, we had to reach out and ask for help from our friends. That meant that others were taking care of Caden, making sure that he didn't eat the mushrooms or topple off the slide. I had to let go.

But I still maintained some control. I never let anyone take him if they were going to take him more than 20 minutes away, and I actually preferred if they watched him at my house. That way I could still feel like I could protect him in some way. But it wasn't realistic to ask people to give up their days to stay at my house, and I've recently gotten some new projects from work that require my full attention, so it wasn't practical to ask people to stay here. I had to let go.

A few weeks ago, my lovely and generous cousin Jenni offered to take Caden during the day on Wednesdays. I trust Jenni completely. She's a mom with three children of her own, and she's a very responsible person, and I love the idea of Caden getting to know his cousins better. And, quite frankly, we need the help. So I accepted her offer...but with trepidation. It has nothing to do with Jenni. Like I said, I love and trust her completely. It's that she lives an hour away, and no one will be in the car to step on the imaginary passenger brake if something were to happen on the highway.

As Jenni drove away with Caden that first morning, I fretted and worried, and then I handed it over to God. As my best friend constantly says, "I have to remember that He loves my children more than I do." I can't follow Caden around with a safety net, watching for him to fall. For one thing, I need to give him space to grow and learn in order that he will someday become the man he's supposed to be. For another thing, I can't keep him safe. This is probably the greatest lesson I learned with Isobel. I can love him, and I can do the things I'm supposed to do to protect him and help him grow, but in the end, I am not the one in charge. And if I hold on too tightly, it will ultimately hinder him from reaching his full potential, and it won't guarantee that he'll be safe.

I always knew that I was going to have to let go someday -- someday just came a little sooner than I expected. Don't worry, I'm still going to hold on to an appropriate amount of control. I still insist on a reasonable bedtime, I still make sure that Caden eats fruits and vegetables every day, and when he climbs on his new play set, I'm watching from a window or from a chair in the yard. When he finally goes to school, I'll volunteer in his classroom and get to know his friends. But I'll try to stand a little farther back with each passing year, so that he can make his own way. And I'll hold my breath and fret, and then I'll give him over to God. I'll let go. Because after all, He loves my children even more than I do.

24 weeks!

Looks like we made it...to 24 weeks at least. This is a big day for us in many respects.

If our baby were to be born now, he or she would have a fighting chance at survival. As I said in a previous post this is still an incredibly early gestation, and our child would be considered a micropreemie. We would have a lengthy NICU stay followed by the likelihood of some long-term health consequences, but it still means the possibility of life over death. We of course are still fervently praying to make it to 36 weeks, but 24 weeks is a good place to be.  

This day is important in another regard, because today I'm not in the hospital. When my amniotic sac ruptured ten weeks ago, we were told that if my membrane did not reseal I would be re-hospitalized at 24 weeks. At this time I would have been given antibiotics to further protect the baby and me from infection, and I would have started to receive steroid injections to help the baby's lungs develop. (I received these while I was in labor with Isobel, but she was too ill from infection to benefit from them.) I could have been hospitalized for days or months--there is no way of knowing.

Thanks to your prayers, the skill and diligent care of our doctors, and the grace of God, I am writing this post from the recliner in my house instead of from a hospital bed hooked up to IVs. Because my membrane was healed, this morning instead of driving to the hospital to check in for what could have been a potentially long and unpleasant stay, I was able to sit on the porch and eat cereal with Caden and later watch him dance around the living room with his tractor. This gift is huge.

For the blessing of healing and the grace of 24 weeks, I am overwhelmed with gratitude.