Looking Back

We’re HOME!

God has blessed us with a wonderful child, and now has placed our happy family all in one location. The Little Man came home with us yesterday. He is doing fine, but came home on a monitor “just in case”. Mommy still isn’t allowed to pick him up in his car seat, and especially not with his monitor, so I continue to play chauffer when we need to go somewhere.

The good news is, unless it’s to a doctor’s appointment, we’re not allowed to go anywhere for a few months anyway.



We’re also ICED in, so no plans for anyone to travel anytime soon. I would say “snowed” in, but considering there’s 2 inches of ice on the ground, who really cares about the snow that’s falling now.

On this momentous occasion that everyone is home and safe, I thought it rather fitting that I now tell the story of the day H and I came home from the hospital after her C-section.

As most of you know (hopefully by reading an earlier post) H somehow convinced the doctor’s to discharge her about 20 hours post C-section. After we went to see Samuel in the NICU, and got to see H’s parent’s (who dropped everything and flew up here as soon as things went sour) they let us know that we needed to get some rest, and they weren’t going to do anything to add to our stress. So they left and went to a Hotel to stay close for the night (a very selfless act to say the least).

H and I headed back to the house, but decided to stop for some dinner. Unfortunately Wendy’s was the only thing open on New Year’s Day, so we picked up some burgers and headed home. We scarfed them down and went to bed, knowing that we would have to get up every few hours in order for H to pump.

Things were going smoothly at 11 pm, but I noticed a twinge of something that was amiss down in my plumbing system. This isn’t anything new to me as I have the worst pipes in the world, so I wrote it off to a long day, and went back to bed after we finished.

The 2AM pumping came around, and life was starting to frown on me. Before we even started our new routine of, get the bottles, get H up, start to pump, etc, I was hugging the toilet hoping this was a bad dream. This was a moderate case of nausea accompanied by some cramping, and although extremely uncomfortable, I was still able to cope with it in order to take one for the team. As I got up to help H sit up in bed and prepare, we found out that her spinal block medications were beginning to wear off, and they were wearing off much faster than the other pain meds to catch up. Remember, earlier in the evening, in order to see her son, she checked out of the hospital and was traipsing all over town (refusing a wheel chair) just to see what she could see. She was SUPERWOMAN. We soon found out why she was superwoman – good old narcotics.

I say all of this, not to make light of H’s situation, but rather for you to get a laugh out of mine. As I go to sit H up in the bed, we have to take it extremely slow, because she’s in so much pain. Unfortunately, I realize I have about 1 minute of standing time in me, anything longer than that and something’s coming violently out of me from one end or the other.

So here I am, sit her up, run to the bathroom, run back, help her, run back to the bathroom. I swear I looked like Lucy and Ethel trying to keep up with the candy, so to speak, but we were definitely not dealing with candy. The dialogue went something like, “OK, here you go baby, up just a little – HOLD ON – oooooohhhhhh, aaarrrggggg – OK I’m back, OK, Let me help you over here and – HOLD ON – aaaahhhhhh ooommmppphhhh – Alright now, I’ll get our le – HOLD ON – deeeeeaaaarrr Looooorrrrddddd heeeelllllpppp – OK, no I’m fine, really, now let’s get you back in bed, I’ll get the shee – HOLD ON.” This went on all night. H couldn’t sleep because she was trying to catch up on pain med’s, and I was splitting my time between her bedside and what I consider “my closet” which was now beginning to smell something akin to a porta potty at the state fair after an Alabama Concert and dollar beer night.

The next morning we woke up to meet H’s parents and head to the hospital. We spent an hour so there and I put on my best “Oh it’s nothing, must have been something I ate” face. We leave the hospital and head to Panera to grab some lunch. On the way there, my digestive track starts its’ imitation of Mr T. and begins to give me the “I pity da Fool!” treatment. It’s a 30 minute drive from the hospital to Panera, and let’s just say that my truck isn’t yet equipped with the emergency bathroom, but should be. You know when you were a kid, and you were playing outside, and you fell into a mud puddle. At first you were horrified, and it could have just ended there, but something in you said, “hey, you’re already muddy, let’s just make the most of it, play in the puddle for a while, and then we’ll clean up later.” That was a fun time wasn’t it? Yeah, you can’t do that as an adult.

I’m walking into Panera like my clothes have 6 gallons of starch in them, and I’m just hoping I don’t see anyone I know and I can quietly make my way to the bathroom and stay there until the place closes in about 10 hours.

After about half an hour in the bathroom, I re-emerge from my close brush with death and go sit down with H and her parents who kindly act like nothing is wrong. I know on the inside they were about to call the ambulance … or the toxic waste cleanup team, but they were nice enough to blow it off like nothing happened.

They order lunch for us and sit down to eat. I take one bite, literally one bite of my chicken soup, and head straight back to the bathroom for another couple of hours. After coming back up for air again, they all pack my lunch up for me and decide I better get home before someone else goes into the bathroom and calls the police because of an obvious homicide that must have occurred in there … a week ago.

We head home, and so I don’t repeat myself too much, let’s just say that the next 24 hours went pretty much the same way. I had to burn my clothes.

So that’s my story of “the day we came home from the hospital” … let’s hope this time is a little less eventful.

Thanks for the prayers.

Help Wanted

It’s been quite a few days since I have had the chance to update – so I thought it was due. Here's a couple of pics for the reading impaired like me.

Although Mom and I are looking more and more like extras from the night of the living dead, Samuel seems to be taking all of this in stride. Today he should be moving to a crib, and if all things continue to go well, we may be able to go home within a week.

H has asked me to secure her some black military fatigues (bdu’s), a couple of flash bang grenades and a balaclava “In case they don’t send us home.” I have no idea what she’s planning to do, but she’s got this crazy momma look in her eye. I was going to tell her I broke her favorite coffee mug yesterday, but I think I’ll let that little piece of info slide for a few days.

Samuel seems to have learned how to eat, sleep, and poop all at the same time. Isn’t it amazing to see your kids accomplish something you’ve dreamed of for years? I think it actually brought a tear to my eye.

My last point is a sad revelation in my life, and what I consider poignant reminder of how technology, although wonderful in its aspects of improving life, has limited the career paths of our children.

Growing up, almost every kid finds the perfect job for themselves. They usually grow out of this and end up becoming the night manager for Piggly Wiggly, or something like that, but for the most part, we all want to “be something” when we grow up. For boys, those first jobs (that aren’t influenced by our Aunt Martha saying, “Don’t you want to be a doctor when you grow up?”) are directly related to a vehicle. They want to be a policeman, or fireman, or even a mailman. These are vehicles that we see on a regular basis, they look kind of cool, and as far as the emergency services are concerned, make some cool sounds and are only seen “in pursuit” of an emergency. If we actually got to follow the fire truck to the scene of the accident and saw Mr. and Mrs. Robertson’s house burning to the ground and the hysterical pandemonium that accompanies those sort of life changing events, maybe we would change our mind about those professions.

My childhood revolved around the fascination of a different profession. It also involved a “cool” truck that I got to see pretty often. I wanted to be a garbage man. Hey, what’s not to like? You get to hang on the back of a truck … while it’s moving! That’s cool. And every now and then, you hit this button, and it smashes all of the garbage. Awesome. I know some of you are saying, this answers a lot of questions, but think about it. To a kid, the garbage man gets to hang onto a moving vehicle, jump off before it even stops, and then gets to smash things. I couldn’t believe they actually paid someone to do this. I would have done it all for free!

Well, no longer. The garbage truck in my neighborhood is equipped with an automatic arm that just reaches out, grabs the can, and dumps it in the truck. Although the equipment is still kind of cool, the job has eliminated the elements of danger and destruction from the field and reduced its essence to that of merely an operator rather than the integral part of adventurer it once was. It’s no longer something to aspire to, but rather, just another job.

I’m wondering how I’m going to relay this loss to a son that will grow up never knowing the wonders of this profession. How do you explain the intricacies of a job that cool without the benefit of a visual respresentation? Like any parent striving to live their dreams vicariously through their children, I will set myself up for ultimate disappointment. Now that the world has changed so dramatically around us, how will I ever be able to look my son in the eye and say, “Don’t you want to be a Garbage Man when you grow up?”

Thank you for the prayers.

Si Hablo Espanol

It occurred to me the other day that it’s interesting how, as we go through life, we pick up a few tidbits of foreign language and incorporate them into our vocabulary like it’s no big deal. Of course, some of this is forced on us by society as foreign sayings become part of the vernacular. Such terms and phrases as “Faux Pas” and “C’est La Vie” have been entrenched in our culture and are in essence unavoidable for normal conversational habits. Other sayings however, are purely used on a voluntary basis as we pick them up and at times, what seems completely benign to us, can actually cause more of a problem to our communication than is truly worth the effort.

This situation presented itself rather clearly the other day. I’m not sure if you know this, but some of you have picked up on the fact that I have a child in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Those of you that haven’t picked up on that little tidbit also just happen to be late on your monthly fee for the subscription to this blog – please send me $20 now.

One of the requirements of taking a child home from the NICU is that the Mother and Father must take (and presumably pass) an infant CPR class given by the hospital. Fortunately for my benefit, I have a life coach that pretty much puts the fear of God in me should I fail to recall the basic steps for performing CPR. It was in this class that we truly learned the pitfalls of only knowing enough of a language to get you in trouble.

As we were seated, preparing to begin the class with 3 other couples, in walks a Hispanic Father and Mother. The first question that the instructor asked them was, “Do You Speak English?” Their reply was a somewhat muddled, “Yes, I speak English.” Looking back, this seemed an appropriate question and a reasonable response, but in reality, perhaps the question should have been, “Do you speak English well enough to communicate and to take instructions effectively?” It seems that although they had sailed through the strenuous preliminary requirements of, “Do You Speak ENGLISH?” that their vocabulary was limited to, “Yes, I speak English” and “One, Two, Three” accompanied by the occasional smile that suggests, “I have no idea what you are saying to me, so I’ll just smile and nod and hope that you start talking to someone else.”

We start the class and blaze through the material that includes verbal instructions, written instructions, previously recorded demonstrations, and live demonstrations, redundant to say the least, but considering your typical audience of rural American highly educated poultry attendants, it’s probably a good thing. We get to the “testing” portion of the class and H and I breeze through it in less time than it would take to open a can of soda. The next couple gets the same questions, and probably listened intently to our answers because they were going to get the same questions. Next came the Hispanic couple. Now if they could have just repeated exactly what they heard twice, 30 seconds earlier, they would have slid through without any difficulties, but as it stood, this is the sort of conversation that ensued.

Instructor, “Now after you call for help, what do you do?”
Couple, “Yes” and starts to give mouth to mouth to the plastic kid in front of them.
Instructor, “No, You call for help and then ???”
Couple, “Yes” and starts to give mouth to mouth.
Instructor (Getting somewhat concerned) “No, No, We have to check for breathing for 5-10 seconds.”
Couple, “Yes” and starts to give mouth to mouth.
Instructor, “No, Wait, Wait, Look, Count, One ..”
Couple, (Smiling and Nodding)“One” and starts to give mouth to mouth.
Instructor, (Extremely concerned at this point)“No, No, Wait, Stop, Look, One ..”
Couple, (Smiling and Nodding)“One” and starts to give mouth to mouth.
Instructor (trying desperately not to reach over and smack someone) “Wait, 5-10 Seconds, One, Two …”
Couple, (Now with raised eyebrows signaling deep understanding)“One, Two” and starts to give mouth to mouth.

This conversation went on for about half an hour. I think the instructor finally handed them her cell phone, taught them how to dial 911 and yell, “Does Somebody Know See Pee Are?!!” I think I’m going to call them and ask if they will baby sit for us later on.

So … an update, I know, I know. Samuel is great, eating more by mouth now than by NG tube. He has been taken to room air temperature and is keeping his heat up very well.

I get to sleep about 3-4 hours a night, and Heidi gets at least 15 minutes of rest a day – so she’s probably holding up the best out of all of us. She’s eating well, Mountain Dew and Doritos, so at least we know those valuable nutrients are being passed along to the little one.

I was going to take another picture, but for the life of me, I can’t quite remember how to use the camera anymore … or the toilet. Oh well, I’m sure it will come back to me sooner or later.

Thanks for your prayers.

For Sale - Diapers, slightly used

I was told I need to update the Blog ……. And you know I always do what I’m told.

Sorry, no pictures today (correction to the left - thanks H), I’ll try to add them later – guess you’ll just have to read the stupid thing … alas, if Hemingway could only draw, we wouldn’t have to read the classics, we could just look at them.

The Little Man did really well yesterday, he didn’t spit up, and he took his food very well from Mom. His weight has been see-sawing over the past few days, but that’s to be expected for now I think. He has come off the caffeine and for some reason has seemed a little edgy lately, I think he must be under a lot of stress at work.

Mom is spending the majority of time at the hospital in order to feed Samuel as often as possible without disrupting his schedule.

I have started a shuttle service, gone back to work, and I’m considering working on an internet startup between the 2AM and 5AM pumpings. All of you that have expressed concern over my health, I just want you to know I am Ferfectly Pine.

Heidi’s wonderful cousin’s sent us a few items in the mail, one book in particular caught my eye, “Daddy needs a drink”. I think it’s going to be fabulous.

Thanks for the prayers.

Feeding and Growing

I (H) am pleased to report that The Little Man is doing better everyday. They removed his pic line yesterday. So he just has a feeding tube and the monitors still attached to him. He is taking most of his feedings through the nasal tube but they are letting him breast feed 2 times a day. He is still spitting up more than they would like so they have placed him on meds to hopefully reduce the spit-up. He is back up to 4lbs 5oz - each day we are gaining weight. We are so proud of our little man and can't wait to take him home. Thank you so much for all of your prayers.

Rockin and Rollin

Here's the Family update.



Bad News - H is still very much feeling the pain.


Good News - The pain meds are helping her, and she isn't complaining about any of it.





The Little Man is doing GREAT. He is off oxygen, and just sucking down air right now. Mom and Dad got to hold him, and Mom got to even feed him orally for the first time ... and man was he hungry (must be like his dad). He ate and promptly fell asleep (definitely like his dad). H held him for about 1/2 an hour while he slept.












They are increasing his food intake regularly, and have seen no problems yet. He's still suntanning, but he was awake for quite a while yesterday checking everything out.















Much thanks for all of your prayers. We can't wait for him to come home so that H can parade him around like she's supposed to do.

New Years Rockin Eve

Since we've been married, H and I have not had an uneventful new years eve. Either I have been deathly ill, or she has been the same, other interesting scenerio's have popped up as well. Our goal this year was to finally have a quiet New Years Eve where everyone was healthy, happy, and comfortably at home.

Guess What .... ?

Well, H said she wanted to go somewhere on New Years Eve, I guess she should have been a little more specific about the place and time.

We awoke at 2 AM with some "complications" and after a day long struggle, The Little Man arrived at 7:35 PM. He weighted 4 lbs and 6 oz and was 18 inches long. Really good for 8 weeks pre-mature.

The Little Man was transferred to the NICU at a nearby hospital, as H recovered from the C-section. She somehow convinved the Doctors to discharge her from the hospital less than 24 hours post-op (yes, she's crazy but convincing).

As of this post, the Little Man has been removed from the respirator and is on oxygen (a good thing). He is doing quite well. Although he is the youngest in the NICU, apparently he is the best and they say, shuld they need the room, he will be the first to get a private room (how about that, an upgrade after 3 days ... he must have some pull with someone)

H is managing with the pain very well, considering all she's put herself through in the last 48 hours. She got to hold The Little Man yesterday, which did her a world of good.

Thank You all for your prayers and offers for help. Although the parents are here now, we know that very soon, they will have to go back home, and it will just be us again, so although Daddy doesn't do too well asking for help, I might take some of you up on offers to help cook, or let animals out.

They give a rough estimate of The Little Man being in the hospital about 4 weeks ( +/- a few weeks) so when I head back to work, there still will be plenty to do.

I will do my best to update this daily now, but since The Little Man kind of surprised us, we are trying to juggle finishing a nursery, a house, and keeping up with him as well as taking care of Mommy.

Praise God for a healthy Baby Boy ... he just has a little more growing to do and we'll be all together at home.