18 Miracles

A couple months ago we watched the movie "17 Miracles".   It inspired me with the idea to count the miracles in Kate's journey once she came home.


 I believe miracles happen daily.  They don't have to be huge, most are small.  I know if we are looking, we will find them.  I don't believe in coincidence or irony.  I tend to believe in and look for signs. I think our Heavenly Father is always trying to show us he is near!  I believe that even though things don't always happen the way we want them to, the good, the bad, the ugly- there are always valuable lessons to be learned. Some trials happen due to the choices we make, and other trials happen just because- with no understandable reason behind them. I believe the Lord's hand is in every trial to help, heal, and provide miracles!

These are just very short descriptions- most of the details are in past posts. 

WARNING: The first part of this might be one of those posts that is "too much information"....

18 Miracles

1. Making the Call- My very minimal pre-labor symptoms gave me a strong enough feeling that I needed to call and get an appointment with my doctor rather than ignoring or watching them for a couple days.
2. Scheduling-I saw Dr. Young on Monday and he was headed out of town on Wednesday. Although my pre-labor symptoms were very minimal and I wasn't dilated, he felt like I needed a Cerclage.  He had a full schedule on Tuesday, but felt he should still try to fit my Cerclage surgery in.  He was able to arrange the schedule so I could have it done.
3. The Cerclage itself was a miracle.  I was already dilated to a 4 by Tuesday morning and Kate's head was right there- she was ready to come.  It was almost impossible to put the Cerclage in.
4. Prolonged Labor- It was a miracle that the Cerclage prolonged my labor for another 10 days.  Emergency Cerclages like that usually don't hold for more than just a few days. 
5. The Picture- After I had only been in the hospital for a short time, I was taken down to ultrasound to see how things looked with my labor and Cerclage.  The ultrasound tech and Dr. Granier, a neonatal specialist, were in the room.  They took pictures of the ultrasound and showed me what was going on.  The baby's head was right at the opening, the Cerclage was nowhere to be seen, and the amniotic sac was bulging.  They basically told me I had better not do anything except get up to use the bathroom.  I most likely wouldn't make it much longer before I had the baby.  I went back to my room and called Josh.  I then called extended family to tell them what was going on.  I was pretty scared at this point and asked them all to pray for Kate and I.  They all immediately gathered together with their kids and had family prayers for us.  My dad came up that evening and we talked and cried for awhile.  He asked if he could give me a blessing.  It was a very touching and reassuring blessing that all was in the Lord's hands.  Shortly after my dad left, my doctor came in to see what was going on.  He looked at the picture and decided he needed to check what was going on for himself.  His findings were nothing close to being in the same ball park as what the picture showed.  He said the Cerclage was completely in tact and closed, and he couldn't feel the amniotic sac or the babies head.  He said the picture had to be wrong.  He even had a nurse come check also to get a second opinion.  She confirmed what he had said.  I was in awe and knew I had just witnessed a miracle due to a priesthood blessing and many very sincere prayers!  I stayed pregnant for almost a week longer- and every day made a tremendous difference in Kate's development.   
6. "The Angel's Veil"-Kate's birth story
7. Timing-The timing of the delivery- Dr. Young had the intuition of what needed to happen and when.  Had I not been in the OR ready to deliver at that time- both Kate and I could've died from the placenta abruption.  It was a miracle that it didn't abrupt any sooner. 
8. Ecoli- When Kate was born she tested positive for Ecoli.  Babies get super sick when they have this.  Kate was immediately treated for it, but the doctors were baffled that she had it because she showed no signs of it by the way she behaved. 
9. PDA- One of the first things we worried about with Kate was that her PDA valve in her heart wasn't closing on it's own.  This is actually a very typical thing.  The first treatment for this is through medicine and that will usually close it.  A second round of medicine is given, if not.  The third step is surgery.  The surgery was explained to me as somewhat simple in comparison to other heart surgeries, but I couldn't stand the thought of Kate undergoing that. We had a family fast as Kate received her second round of medicine.  I later found out that many people in the community also joined in with us.  Just before we headed to church on fast Sunday, I received a phone call from the doctor confirming that her PDA had closed. 
10. Small Triumphs- Kate had many small triumphs in the NICU: only two blood transfusions, and she was the NICU's best 25 weeker binky sucker (which played a role in how quickly she learned how to eat).
11. No Complications- The fact that Kate had no complications during her NICU stay was a huge miracle!
12. Reconnect with Kristi-One of those tender mercies, in which I consider a miracle, happened on a random day that I visited the NICU at a time when I usually didn't go in. I showed up to the NICU and Kristi was Kate's nurse.  I didn't recognize her at first, but after a few minutes of talking to her, it hit me that she was one of Kam's primary nurses 8 yrs. ago.  She now worked mostly as a charge nurse, but today she was taking a small part of a shift for someone.  I was so excited to reconnect with her.  We were able to visit for quite sometime.  She shared some very sad, hard, personal stories with me about her experiences with two of her own babies- one of them being a preemie.  I learned a lot from her- and truly admire her strength with what she has been through.  I saw the Lord's hand that day. I know he cares about our relationships and the things we can learn from eachother- that's why the world- truly is "a small world after all".
13. Modern medicine and technology- all that tangible "stuff" that saved Kate's life. 
14. The staff at the NICU are all miracle workers- I believe most are guided by spiritual promptings to do what's best for all those babies. 
15. Eating- Kate learned to eat so quickly - within one week.  
16. Discharge date- The fact that Kate was discharged one day before Kam was released (Nov. 9th) from the NICU is kind of a really weird- mind blowing- miracle.  She was supposed to come home close to Christmas and she came home Nov. 8th. 
17. Kate's friends- Other miracles I met along the way- Baby: Kash, Rosie, Boston, Jack-Jack, and Lucy.  These babies filled the nursery with their sweet, strong spirits.   I will forever cherish the friendships I made with their parents. 
18. Tithing- Josh and I don't live "High on the Hog."  Usually, we are living pretty tight, and pay check to pay check.  I take care of the finances and keep it on a frugal budget plan.  I choose to work as little as possible so that I am able to spend most of my time as a Mother.   When Kate was born our finances flew out the window.  We had medical bills coming at us every which way on top of the additional $300-$400/month we spent in gas to commute to the hospital.  I simply didn't have the time or the mindset to deal with it all.  For the 11 weeks that she was in the hospital, we somehow were so blessed not to have any financial complications.  I wasn't able to keep track of where the money was going or how much we had left, but by some miracle we managed.   We received blessings that came through paying our tithing.  I know our Father in Heaven helped us to manage and survive.  He also blessed us through the service of others.  We were blessed by so many people who sacrificed and gave of their own income to help us out.  We saw it in the form of money, gift cards, and the many meals that were brought into us. 

Smile

Kate's First Smile



Kate finally shared her first smile with us two days ago!  Although she is a Mama's girl, she gave her dad her first smile.  I was starting to get a little anxious for her to smile.  I eagerly wanted her to meet her first developmental milestone- the Smile:)  I feel like this is a great sign that she is mentally there and capable of responding to us. Such a relief.  Even though she is 5 months old,  she is realistically only 6 weeks old.  Her smile came right on her adjusted age norm.  She's still very particular about giving her smiles out, so I haven't been able to catch it on camera.  But as soon as I do- I'll add it to the blog.   

She Knows Me

She Knows Me

One of the hardest things for me when Kate was in the hospital was feeling like she wouldn't know me.  I didn't feel much like her Mom during that time period. It seemed the longer she stayed the more disconnected I felt. 

It's very obvious now that was not the case.  Kate is most definitely a Momma's girl.  She will tolerate Josh, but she prefers me.  She fusses and becomes agitated with anyone else. If Josh is holding her, and she can hear me talking she turns her head to find me.  When Josh is having a hard time with her, I will take her and she settles down almost instantly. 

She knows me....

out of all my babies, she has shown the strongest bond with me at such an early age. 

I am certain now- throughout her stay in the hospital- she did know me.  Even though the time I spent with her was minimal, it was meaningful! 

Glimpses

Take time to notice the Glimpses

 

I think often times as parents it is hard to see we are making head way with our kids.  It is easy to get frustrated and wonder, if it's even worth trying. But I have found that if we look closely- our children will provide us every once in awhile with "Glimpses" of who they can become.  We need to take full advantage of these moments- tell our kids how proud we are of them, pat ourselves on the back for the efforts we have thus far given, and continue to press forward with vigor in teaching them the values/lessons we believe are important. 

(Parents do need Pats along the way!  That's what keeps us going.)

 
Examples:
 
Recently I walked into the kitchen and Kaden was sitting down to eat lunch alone.  He had his head bowed and was saying a prayer.  When he saw me, he seemed a bit startled and embarrassed.  I quickly went over to him, gave him a hug, and told him how proud I was of him for saying a prayer before he ate.   
 
Scripture study in our house has been quite interesting.  With such a span of ages to accommodate it hasn't been easy.  We've tried a variety of different tactics to make it a useful, fun, and an interesting time to learn.  Usually the younger ones play the role of the distractors.  Kinnli has had that job for the last 5 yrs.  She has spent many a time on a stool in the middle of the living room to keep her contained from bothering her brothers.  There has been an abundance of tears shed by her as we have lost our patients and lectured her on being reverent, listening, and sitting still. We have even prayed about it in family prayer afterwards. 
Tonight we had a "Glimpse" into the future. Kinnli grabbed her scriptures when it was time to read them.  She cuddled up next to Josh, asked him to find her place, and begged him several times to help her read a verse.  She doesn't know how to read, so he would read a phrase and she would repeat it.  She beamed -the smile on her face was priceless- and she was, for one of the first times, actually NOT a distraction. 

Glimpses aren't always a spiritual thing either.  Kaden, Kale, and Kam will sometimes surprise me by cleaning the house:) or making pancakes/French toast for everyone before I even wake up.  (They are very early risers.)  Values of work, self-sufficiency and service are also important at our house.

When you see glimpses happen- write them down.  Your kids will love to read them. 

A Hole in her heart

Kate has a small hole in her heart.  It is different from the PDA that we were worried about in the beginning.  When she was released from the NICU I was told she would need a follow-up appointment in a couple months to see if it had closed.  Today I took her into a pediatric heart specialist.  A few tests were done on her that showed the hole has shrunk in size.  It is very minimal and the doctor thinks that it will close on its own.  It's so small now he doesn't think it will cause any symptoms for her.  We will do a follow-up appointment when she is 3 yrs. old.

We were able to take Kate back off oxygen on Sunday.  She is almost completely over her RSV:)

Make them do it themselves!!

Finally- I figured it out... how to make my children appreciate what I do for them:)  Well, at least in a small way. 

Tonight, before Kale went to bed he gave me a big hug and told me thanks for doing his laundry.  He went on to tell me he was so excited when he came home from school to see all his laundry folded and in his basket.  He was so happy that all he had to do was hang up his shirts and put the rest of his clothes away. 

Wahoo- lesson learned and a pat of gratitude on my back.

 

A glance into the past: I do laundry all day, every day.  I fold and sort pile after pile of laundry on my bed.  I ask the boys to come put their clothes away and they grunt and moan.  Their clean laundry often ends up in a heap in the corner of their room- soon to return to the dirty without even being worn.... 

Oh, how that made my blood boil! 

 

You want your kids to appreciate what you do for them- make them do it themselves!!

My boys do their own laundry.  Every once in awhile I like to do it for them.  It's fun to see their reaction- they think I'm amazing that I helped them.  I do this with some of their other jobs as well.

This summer I taught my boys (8, 9, and 11 yrs.old) how to do laundry.  Before this, I was buried in heaps of laundry-day in and day out!  I was sick of seeing clean clothes recycled into the dirty and newly folded clothes laying on their closet floors because they were too lazy to put them away or they had fallen off their shelves.  I tried to teach them they could wear pants and hoodies more than once, but often times I saw a different pair of pants worn for each day as I washed their clothes. C'mon- pants aren't like "Days of the Week" underwear, you can usually get a little more time and use out of them.  

I decided if I made them do their own laundry they'd be accountable for all of this.  They could now wash their own clean clothes as much as they wanted and could dirty as many clothes as they wanted as well.  So I got them each their own plastic laundry basket, wrote their name on it, and told them when it was filled they needed to do their laundry.  One of my boys still hasn't learned the lesson of being conservative on laundry and continues to do a couple loads each week.  My other two boys usually do laundry about once a week.  If they run out of clothes, it's their own fault for not doing their laundry.  My "load" of laundry has been lifted!  I am able to keep up on doing laundry for just Josh, I, and the girls. 

I taught my boys to check their pockets, take out the whites(I wash them), how to pour the detergent, take out the lint, and start the machines.  I used a sharpie and drew a star by the setting they needed to turn the knob to-a sticker would work also.  I taught them to fold their own laundry.  They have to do it upstairs on the table and when they are finished I check them off then they go put it away.  This way it doesn't become a wrinkled mess.  When I tuck them in at nights I take a quick look at their closets to make sure all is well- no clothes left abandoned.

I'm a pretty simple person and try to keep things to a minimum.  The easier, the better- not much time for the "above and beyond" with 6 kids.  I know many could argue that I'm not teaching them the specifics, the sorting,  and the fine details of laundry perfection.   But we don't have a lot of fancy clothes or even new clothes that I have to worry about. I'm just starting with the basics and it has worked. As they grow up they will learn more. 

RSV

Kate spent two days in the hospital this week while she was treated for RSV. 

Over Christmas break my family picked up the most yucky, sticky, long-lasting cold.  Of course, the inevitable was destined to happen with 6 kids in our home. Kate caught the cold and had it for about a week.  The common cold is more than just that for a preemie.  It often goes hand in hand with RSV.  She was due for her Synergist shot (RSV prevention) on January 6th- Monday.  I took her and Kennadi into the clinic to see Dr. Grandpa and get her the shot.  Kennadi had the awful cold also and she ended up having a double ear infection. Kate was actually doing pretty good.  She just showed minor cold symptoms.  I was so proud of her that she was fighting it off.  BUT-It seemed as though the minute we walked back in the door of our house she started to worsen with a cough.  Within 24 hrs., she headed downhill quickly.  She was miserable, with non-stop crying and coughing.  She was having a hard time breathing.  She was moaning with every breathe.   Tuesday afternoon I took her to the clinic again and we did a bunch of labs, nose swabs, and a chest x-rays. Everything came back saying it was a common cold- no Pneumonia, RSV, Strep, or Influenza.  Such a relief- I was glad we were still just dealing with a cold. My dad had us do one more test before we left- it was a nasal suction in which they sent the fluid from it to Utah Valley Regional to test a second time for RSV.  That night Kate had a rough time.  She stopped drinking her bottles and her oxygen saturation was dropping.  I called my dad early Wednesday morning to tell him and he said that Utah Valley had just barely called and said her test was positive for RSV.  Josh quickly came home from work, my mom was able to change her work schedule and made it to my house in a matter of minutes to watch my kids, and my dad came over to assess Kate and take us to the hospital to be admitted.  Thank goodness for MOMS and DADS!!!  I am so grateful to live so close to my parents and for all they do for us- especially to have an on-call doctor! We have been so blessed that both Josh and I have such supportive parents!  Before we headed out the door we knelt down with our kids to have a family prayer for Kate.  I was a little emotional at this point- worried about how Kate was going to respond in upcoming days to the RSV. 

The hospital stay was all too familiar, but much better this time because I was able to stay, hold, and cuddle Kate the whole time...  AND I couldn't have asked for a better doctor to take care of her!  Kate responded well to the breathing treatments and improved quite quickly over the course of the two days. RSV is a virus that closes down the small airways in the lungs through inflammation. It makes breathing very hard.  Because it is a virus, there is not a lot that can be done for it except steroid and Albuterol treatments.  She was put back on oxygen, because her stats kept dropping.  Over the course of the hospital stay she caught up on some much needed sleep, she was exhausted.  I wouldn't consider a hospital a place of rest though!  It's virtually impossible to get any sleep with people coming in and out every couple hours-and I won't even comment on the beds.   I'm not much of a TV watcher, but I became addicted to HGTV.  I was a little worried about getting bedsores on my hiny, from sitting for so long.  By Thursday evening I was ready to be discharged- I was hoping for a long night of real sleep in my own bed (take into consideration Kate still eats every 3hrs.).  My dad came to take a look at Kate and she was doing pretty good.  He said, "Let's get her out of here before she catches something else."   She has continued to improve throughout the last two days.  Dr. Grandpa comes over each day to do in house check-ups.  Today he said he can hardly hear any crackling in her lungs now.  We have a couple more days of breathing treatments to give and hopefully only a few days to a week left on oxygen.  She still has such a sad little cry and cough due to the inflammation of her lungs. One of the side effects of RSV is that asthma is more prevalent in children that have had it.

I can testify once again that the power of prayer is real! Family and friends sent out immediate prayers as soon as they heard she had RSV.  She recovered quickly and her stay was short.  I have seen Kate overcome many hurdles and obstacles, which I know is in result to the prayers of many. 

 Kennadi had some awesome bed head:)

(Kate weighs 8.8 lbs. now.)



 I'm not looking forward to the next few months- the season- of the dreadful sickness circulation. My dad said it's already hitting hard this year.  I wish my kids could stay home from school until April to keep them out of the hot pot of germ stew each day!