How Do You Like Me Now?

E during her stay at Loma Linda.

 I held out no hope of this.. DiGeorge? condition thingy that they were testing her for.  I had taken my baby to so many doctors and specialists and she had been tested for so many conditions, that I had no feelings of anticipation on her test coming back.  I just wanted them to help me keep her alive and start gaining weight.  She was just so small and so miserable and I wanted her to have relief.  If a diagnosis assisted in that relief, then that would be nice, but I was not about to become obsessed every time a new possibility came our way anymore.  They hooked her up to intravenous fluids and antibiotics.  Occupational therapy would come to her bed and watch my efforts to feed her and it would go something like this:
  E is in her high chair.
  Mommy offers her a spoon of eggs or mashed potatoes.
  E takes a bite.
  E then looks Mommy straight in the eye without swallowing, opens her mouth full of food, and pulls the entire mouthful out with her tiny fingers like a rake.  She throws the food to the floor and smiles innocently.
  Mommy cries because she is full of pregnancy hormones and frustration.
  Occupational therapist sits shaking their head and pats sad Mommy on the back and notates in E's record.
  They have Mommy try with a new food or give up and leave to return with something different at the next meal.

  I felt defeated and when her doctor would make rounds each morning and go over whatever was going on we would go over possibilities.  Shortly after E received the NG tube for feedings, she began to spike a fever and vomit indicating that her body was not going to cooperate with the tube and it was removed.  With E's worsening failure-to-thrive and refusal to eat, the doctor finally approached me with the fact that E needed a feeding tube surgically placed in her stomach.  It scared me, but it would be something to get nutrition into her so I signed the paperwork and her surgery was scheduled for the next day.  I was just past 38 weeks and my scheduled c-section was set for only days away.  I made a call to my OB and tried to see about adjusting my c-section to be with E.
  "Hello?"
  "I was wondering if I could reschedule my c-section, my daughter is in the hospital and has surgery two days before I am scheduled."  This sounded legit to me.
  "Ma'am, we don't just reschedule c-sections.  You and your unborn baby are just as important as your daughter.  You need to come get registered for the surgery by the 4th for your surgery on the 6th."
  "My daughter's surgery is the 4th and I am 2 hours away.  Do you expect me to leave her to come register while she is in surgery?"
  "Yes Ma'am, I do expect that.  You are having a c-section for safety reasons and I can't risk yours or your baby's health.  I am sorry."
  Dejected, I hung up the phone and called D to tell him he had to drive to Loma Linda.  One of us HAD to be there with her tomorrow and I could not put off my own surgery.  When I called D, he reminded me that he would be in the area tomorrow anyway because his parents were flying into the L.A. airport.  He would meet up with them and head straight to the hospital and stay with her so I could go register for my baby to be delivered.  Knowing E would have her dad and grandparents gave me comfort when I knew I would have to leave, but I still hated it completely.  As I sat loving on E, a team from plastic surgery showed up and asked to look in her mouth.  I let them, but they barely tried to flash a light in her mouth before giving up and leaving without accomplishing anything.  They were looking for a cleft palate and didn't try hard AT ALL so they didn't see anything.  I was confused, but figured they were just ruling things out.  Just as they wandered off, a cardiology specialist showed up with a portable echo-cardiograph machine and ran a full test on her heart.  He mentioned something offhanded about "ruling out the FULL condition" and I couldn't understand what he was talking about.  He deemed her heart to be in perfect condition and left me very confused.
  Everything became crystal clear the next morning during rounds.  Usually one or two doctors would wander by and we would have a chat and I would go about taking E to the play area, attempting to feed her, or helping her sleep.  Today was a very different start.  A team of 10-15 doctors walked in with a look in their eyes of anticipation.  Shocked by the shear volume of people filing into her room, I hoisted my full-term pregnant self to sitting from laying down with E.  Once I was ready, the lead doctor began to speak:
  "We got back E's genetic testing.  Dr. V was right in her suspicion after seeing a chest x-ray taken when E was 7 days old and seeing a missing Thymus shadow by her heart.  E has a genetic disorder called Velo-Cardio-Facial Syndrome and partial DiGeorge Syndrome.  She has a very mild form of it that made it so hard to diagnose, but her FISH test came back showing she does, in fact, have a missing piece in her 22nd chromosome causing all her health issues."
  Words escaped me as tears ran down my face.  The doctors misunderstood my tears for being upset and tried to comfort me, "She is very lucky!  Over 75% of babies born with DiGeorge are born with life-threatening heart failure and deformation.  E is among only 25% of babies spared that part of this condition.  We even ran the heart test yesterday to make sure."
  Once I realized that I had them thinking they had scared or upset me, I found my words,  "I am so relieved you found out what is wrong!  I have been told I was a bad mother, a neglectful mother, accused of starving my child for attention, treated like I was crazy, and all while pouring every single ounce of my love, time, fight, and resources into keeping her alive and well.  You have validated me, not scared me.  No matter what she has, we have been in this battle for 16 months and now I can sleep peacefully knowing I did nothing wrong to hurt her.  Thank you."
  Shocked silence followed my words as the reality of how I was treated sunk into all of them.  Even some of the doctors standing in that room for the news to be delivered had tried to make snide comments and give me the same answer-less "sometime babies just don't want to eat" only 24 hours earlier.  To that I replied that no one wants to eat if every time they eat, they suffer horrible pain immediately or minutes later.  No baby is born just thinking, "Gee, I am gonna starve myself just because I want to be difficult."  My baby learned to fear food and eating.  Agonizing constipation from days old, painful GERD, acid reflux that shot from her nose and stopped her from breathing, colic... no, doctor, babies don't just starve themselves.
  I gathered myself back together and went forward with the conversation.  "What happens now?"
  "We will definitely move forward with her PEG G-tube surgery this afternoon and send a laundry list of necessary tests for Dr. V to start ordering for her as soon as she is released and can go home."
  "About that... I have to leave as soon as her dad gets here to get registered for my c-section on the 6th.  How soon can E come home?  I can't have this baby alone if it is at all possible to let her go home and be watched closely by Dr. V."
  "We will see how she does after surgery and hopefully let her go home tonight so you can all be together for your newborn's birth."  She smiled kindly and then added, "The geneticist will be coming to see her any time today to go over her condition with you and get things set up for her to be seen in the genetics clinic.  Also, there are about five other specialist that will be contacting you to set up seeing E."  With that, she and her massive team saw themselves out and I made a call to D and my mom to tell them the news.  E was DIAGNOSED!  My mom was so eager for answers that as I spoke the name of the condition, she googled it and as soon as the pictures loaded, the told me on the other end of the line that they HAD to be right because these other children looked EXACTLY like E!  The waves of relief were beautiful to me and I just held E's tiny body as my unborn baby swished and adjusted to her weight against my abdomen.  The three of us just indulged in that precious moment.
  When E took a nap shortly after some time playing, I asked the nurses to keep an eye on her and excused myself.  I looked for the chapel and quietly entered the empty worship area.  I went to a pew and slowly lowered myself to my knees and I let myself cry unchecked.  I cried for a long time and spoke to God.  I told him of my gratitude that he had spared her of the heart defect, that she was finally diagnosed, and how heartbroken I was that this was going to be part of her whole life.  That this might affect her future children.  Then I prayed for her doctors and for her for her imminent surgery.  I was so scared.  I finished up asking for the courage and strength to get through my baby's birth the next day and for his safety and health.  This was all happening in a pileup and if He was with me, I would get through it and I knew that.  I waddled out of the chapel with swollen eyes and a weight lifted off of my existence to take my two other little girls with me to register for my c-section and E went into her first surgery.
 
 

Dr. V

 I had unrealistically high hopes for the new pediatrician to take one look at E, her medical history, and just be driven to find what was going on.  I wanted her to be psychic.  I would search for E's symptoms online for hours a day, watch "Mystery Diagnosis", or "House" daily desperately hoping that even the briefest of mentions would throw an idea my way.  I was sold on this being genetic, but what on earth it was beyond that was out of my reach of knowledge and I felt like a teeny tiny fish in a massive sea of information I couldn't organize or understand.  I questioned my own sanity.  All the time.  I would look at her and wonder if I was just losing my marbles and creating an illness in my head for some sick reason.  It would hurt to be so tangled up in this mystery that never seemed to have any light shed upon it.
  I took her in to the new pediatrician, Dr. V, and she did the normal first visit routine.  She had her weight and vitals taken, looked her over, had her nurse run vision and hearing tests on her.  She failed the hearing test.  She had us out the door without any fanfare or accusations and homework to get debrox and work on cleaning out any and ALL wax in E's ears before she went to be seen by an audiologist a couple of weeks later.  As I drove home I spoke to God.  "Dear Lord, I can't do this any longer.  I no longer care what is wrong.  She is a precious gift from thee and if all I can ask is that you help me take care of her, keep her alive, and keep her thriving, I will take it gratefully.  Amen."  I made peace with having no control or sway and no one knowing what was wrong and I transferred it to her creator.  He made her, I was gifted with her as my surprise baby, and had already made it through her entire first year, so what did it really matter?  I went about life with a new sense of peace as I tended to my family full of little girls and my baby on the way.
  E's audiology results were not good.  Her hearing was bad enough that they wanted her seen by an ENT and advised Dr. V of this.  To add insult to injury E got sick yet again, but this time it was worse then the usual.  Dr. V put E on amoxicillin and after weighing her began to show signs of concern.  "Don't worry baby E, we will find out what is going on with you."  I sat with tears in my eyes hearing this pediatrician say those words.  A medical professional was not making me out to be some munchausen biproxy or lazy overwhelmed mother that neglected her or mother with too much time to over that was just blowing this way out of the water.  I had a drop of validation rest on the tip of my tongue and it made me go home and immediately call my mom and rejoice over the wonderfulness that was Dr. V.
  E didn't get better at all and she had a follow up appointment after the antibiotics didn't work AT ALL and she had gotten much worse by four days in.  Dr. V was super busy that day and her nurse practitioner saw us and was immediately alarmed by E's condition.  She asked us about E's health history, but asked different questions than anyone else ever had.  She asked us how often E was sick and D and I looked at one another and answered "when isn't she sick is easier to pin down because she has been sick with something at all times since a matter of days old".  She told us to try the new antibiotics she was going to give her, but that E was very clearly in need of Dr. V and that her medical issues were out of her scope of expertise.  She advised us to make an appointment with Loma Linda and see her gastro specialist about her excessive state of failure to thrive to consider a gastro-tube being placed.  She was clearly concerned for E and it was a huge relief to not be alone in that concern.
  The day before E's Loma Linda appointment she had gotten so ill on the second antibiotic attempt that I took her back to see Dr. V yet again.  Dr. V looked her over and sat down to talk to me.  "To be honest she is so sick at this point that were you not headed to a children's hospital tomorrow morning, I would admit her here right now and start i.v. treatment.  But with her going the three hours with you tomorrow to a wonderful children's hospital, I am going to personally call her doctor there and tell her how bad things are looking here. Take her to the hospital here to get bloodwork done so I can look at her immune system.  Then home and watch her for any signs of things getting worse and if she gets through the night okay go to Loma Linda and they will be waiting for her."  I took her to get her blood drawn, then home.  Once she was comfortable and sleeping, D told me it would be smart to pack a hospital bag for us both because she might be admitted at Loma Linda.  I took his advise and he made some calls to get emergency leave in case.
  We drove three hours to Loma Linda and waited for about an hour and a half after our appointment time to actually be seen.  When she finally got called back, we got situated in an exam room and waited another thirty minutes for her doctor to come in.  Once she did come in, she seated herself and we had a talk:
  "I got a call from Dr. V in Ridgecrest about E last night and she thinks she has a condition called DiGeorge Syndrome.  She also told me just how sick E is and that she has not been responding too all efforts made with oral antibiotics.  Mrs. M, exactly how many weeks along in your pregnancy are you because I really cannot send E home in her condition.  I need to admit her."
  "I am 36 weeks and scheduled for a c-section in two weeks from tomorrow."
  "You have other children at home don't you?  Will they be taken care of if E is admitted here?"
  "Yes, two others and their father was approved for emergency leave to stay home with them because Dr. V was talking about admitting her yesterday.  We are good on the other two and I am not due for weeks."
  "Okay, I am going to call over and order E a bed and run the genetic testing for DiGeorge and treat her for her infection and weight issues.  I will have my nurse give you all the information and as soon as a bed opens up they will call your cell."
  I packed E up, the nurse gave us the admitting paperwork for me to sign, and I went to the local Wal-Mart to get food and little things for E and I that we might need before she was admitted.  I was thankful that even if D had been an increasing mess, he had had clarity enough to have me pack the hospital bags for us since we were three hours away from everything we owned and everyone we knew.  I got the call from the hospital about the time I parked and I took E to the floor she was assigned and the nurses lead us to her bed and we settled in.  At 36 weeks pregnant, I was to sleep on a recliner that converted to what was about half the width of a twin sized bed and E wanted to be close in the strange environment so I held her in my arms in the recliner/bed for the next two weeks she was in the hospital getting treatment and awaiting her genetic testing.

Oh Sweet Child of Mine

 
When we arrived home from UCLA, our home became a revolving door of RN's, CNA's, and therapists.  Once a week E would be weighed by an RN that would make house calls, Monday through Friday we were blessed to have a CNA that would come to our home and give me relief so I could sleep, exercise, grocery shop, or run errands.  Considering I had been on 24/7 duty with E for the last 8 months of her life, I eagerly welcomed the support and help.  E was given at-home therapies as well to help her with her developmental delays and finally began to make progress.  I was even finally given the "OK" for E to be seen by a civilian pediatrician in town and made an appointment as quickly as possible.
  E kept pulling her NG tube out and after watching her vomit everything she got from it, we stopped placing it and started working on beefing up her formula.  I was given permission to start offering her soft and NOT pureed foods like scrambled eggs.  I would give her anything that she would take and learn from mistakes if it made her sick or regurgitate.  Almost nothing made the cut and her weight continued to be a significant concern.  After another bad weigh in by the visiting RN, I was told that this looked pretty bad and to start keeping a food journal and even taking pictures of feeding efforts "for your protection".  She and I would talk about ways to convince E's body to digest even the tiniest of anything NOT formula and she advised to slowly start adding rice cereal.  I would add a tiny 1/2 teaspoon per bottle until E stopped rejecting it and up it by 1/2 teaspoons until we reached tablespoons.  It took time and patience.
  With E's weight continuing to keep her so small that on a growth chart she had dropped to -10th%, I took her to her doctor to go over the possibilities to help her.  I was visibly pregnant and had her in her car seat sleeping as we sat in the exam room waiting for her doctor.  The one I had chosen was the same one that had hospitalized her as a newborn and got her better so I felt good about going back to him.  He made sure to prove me wrong as quickly as possible.
  He walked in disgruntled with the results from her weigh-in and looked me up and down with disdain.  I broke the silence by saying I was very worried about her weight and that nothing we were doing was making the difference for her.  He refused to even make eye contact with me as I spoke.  After letting me "rant", he asked me:
  "Do you HOLD your baby?"
  Taken aback I answered "yes, I hold her all the time".
  Unhappy with my answer he elaborated "do you hold WHILE you feed her?"
  Again I answered "she is too weak to hold her own bottle so that is the only way I can feed her, is to hold her".
  "What about your husband?  Does he HOLD her enough?"
  "When he is home and I need a break, he does his part."
  He looked me over like I was lying to him, looked at my pregnant belly, and made an assessment of his very own without listening to anything I had been saying to him.  "Well, it is obvious she must not be loved enough to want to live and I will refer her to behavioral pediatrics."
  "Excuse me?  We love our baby and take care of her!"
  He literally walked out the door without so much as looking at E or listening to a word I had said.  I gathered our things and left the exam room in utter shock of what had just been said to me.  When the check out receptionist asked if I wanted to make a follow-up appointment, I told her I would NEVER return to that office again.  I stormed out and put my baby E in my van, got myself in the drivers seat and called D.  I cried on the phone to him and he became enraged in a way I had never seen before.  When I got home, he was there waiting and immediately went to the insurance representative on base and reported the pediatrician.  They told him how bad they felt for what he had done and would investigate his treatment of other families in the future.  I was not accustomed to D being that angry about anything ever.  It worried me, but I just assumed the stress was getting to him too.
  I decided to talk to the Navy clinic about just having them follow E's care as long as her original doctor was NEVER allowed near her and they worked with me.  I took her in to see a new military doctor and she was wonderful.  She did weigh-ins on her for a short time and would send her to different specialists and after a very short amount of time finally pleaded with me to give a civilian pediatrician another chance.  She told me that E's medical needs were just out of her scope of expertise and so I did research and decided on a new pediatrician.  By this point, I had openly asked for a case worker to do a walk-through of my house to protect D and I and they had found not a single thing that we could be doing better.  I was in full defense.
  I had a small encounter with the original doctor during E's last exam when we were leaving and she snidely sauntered up to me.  "So, I guess they didn't anything at UCLA???"  I looked her steely in the eye and said, "not yet, but they sure did find that she was failing to thrive and had to hospitalize her, didn't they?"  She sneered and went back to whatever she was up to and I left that clinic feeling like fire was coursing through my veins.  I felt like I was losing my mind and chasing a ghost the further into this I went with E.  As I drove home with a one year old E that looked like she was a small nine month old, I decided to get her seen by the new pediatrician as soon as possible and made the appointment for her once I got us home.

E on her 1st birthday.

E eating the frosting of her cupcake on her birthday.

Every Step You Take, Gets You That Much Closer

E during a visit to Nevada and very sick as per the norm.

  "She is LOSING WEIGHT and needs something done!  I mean, I bring her in to you every two weeks and she losses weight.  There is something wrong here.  I watch her suffer every day!"  I had my crazy eyes going and the Navy doctor looked completely uninterested.  I wanted my baby admitted into a hospital and tests run and she wasn't interested.
  "She is six months old, have you tried baby food?  She probably just needs baby food for extra calories."  I stared at her in shock.
  "She chokes on liquid formula and you want me to give her solids?!"
  "Just give it a try mom and come back in a couple of weeks to have her weighed."
  With that the conversation ended and I packed up my tiny baby and went home.  I told D what this awful doctor told me to do and although he had the same look of fear in his eyes at the idea as I did, we agreed to let her attempt to eat baby food.  I went to the store and bought some baby food bananas and went home to try this insanity out.  Her vaccinations were so far behind at this point because every single time I would take her in to have them done, she would have a new cold, flu, or horrible inexplicable rash indicating an allergy we couldn't pin down.  She never felt well and we never had a moment's rest.  I feared this baby food experiment but the only way I was going to be taken seriously by this doctor was to do what she prescribed and give her the results.
  I sat E in a high chair and propped her as best I could because she was so far behind in her developmental markers that she had just barely gotten down rolling from front to back and visa versa.  Sitting up was not even a remote possibility for her weak core muscles.  She eagerly took bite after bite of the baby food until we reached the halfway mark on the little container.  Out of nowhere her body rejected it and just like the normal formula rejection, the pureed baby food shot from her stomach into her nose and mouth.  She stopped breathing and turned purple.  I grabbed her from the high chair and immediately began to perform infant Heimlich maneuver until she was able to vomit the rest out and began to breath and cry hysterically.  I sat comforting her and crying from the let down of adrenaline I was feeling in saving her.  I saw my baby aspirate on solid baby food.  Happy now doctor?
  Her following poop came out pure white.  I knew nothing about poop colors, but my common sense told me it was bad.  Really, really bad.  I became enraged.  I gently placed her in her carseat, put her in my van, and drove straight to the Naval medical clinic.  I walked straight up to the corpsman at the desk and demanded the civilian RN.  The look on my face spoke volumes because within seconds I had the nurse talking to me and looking E over.  I described everything that had been happening and told her I had asked her doctor to release her to a pediatrician and that she had refused.  The nurse actually listened and heard me.  She looked at and saw my baby and her condition.  The doctor was called over to speak to the nurse and they exchanged words.  Pretty soon her doctor came running to me and SWORE she would get E in with the UCLA pediatric gastroenterology clinic as fast as possible.  I went home.
  After the marathon that is obtaining referrals from insurance companies, we received the "OK" for E to go to UCLA and the appointment was made.  After a three hour drive to Los Angeles, we went in and saw a specialist that immediately diagnosed her as a failure-to-thrive and told us she needed a lot of tests run that would require admitting her to the hospital.  Unfortunately, they were transitioning from an old building into a brand new fancy one and he couldn't admit her until about two or three weeks later.  He ran blood work that day to look for anything and we drove three hours home to wait for news on when she would be admitted.  The minor validation I was feeling got smacked down pretty quickly when I told people about E's diagnosis of failure-to-thrive because I learned very quickly that the number one cause was parental neglect.  I was warned to expect a cps visit and my worst fears started unfolding in my mind.  The main comfort I had was that I knew that D and I both were doing EVERYTHING we could for her and that is what they would find if they showed up.
  Just before E's hospitalization came through, I got the news that I was pregnant again.  I was worried, but too busy to obsess over it and after how I had acted with E's pregnancy, I chose to be happy about this surprise.  Not anger or negativity was on my mind.  I needed to take care of E right now.  I had been taught by my mother-in-law that a family was only as healthy as it's sickest member and right now, we had a very sick baby.  When E was seven months old I made the drive to UCLA children's hospital and she was admitted into a bed.  One nurse could not stop herself from being rude and nasty to me about how "not sick" she looked to her and how she was taking a bed unnecessarily.  Other nurses would just gush about how insanely beautiful and perfect she was.  It was hard to go through the shift changes and not know what attitude I was going to be faced with next.
  They admitted her on a Friday knowing that the tests would not be run until Monday.  They watched me like a hawk in my every action, inaction, and interaction with my baby.  They recorded my every move for two and a half days straight because just as I was warned, most failure-to-thrive diagnosis are from parental neglect and abuse and they had to rule it out.  I passed their test as a mother and on Monday, the medical tests began.  She was given test after test after test for five days straight and they all came back normal.  They could give me no answers.  At one point, I asked to speak to their geneticist because I had been studying a lot online and her wide range of symptoms appeared genetic in nature.  This awkward and rude man came into her room while she lay sleeping in my arms.  He did not examine her and he asked very few questions before standing up and telling me "I cannot help you" and walking out.  I cried so hard that the nurses had to call in a counselor to talk to me and find resources for us.

E with her NG tube and i.v. going.

E having an EEG run because of her developmental delays.

  At the end of the week and after multiple efforts witnessed by Occupational and Speech therapists of my unsuccessful efforts to feed her, a nasal gastric tube was placed.  It was inserted through her nose and down into her stomach so that she could be fed by a machine.  Medical supplies were ordered to arrive at our home in Ridgecrest in order to continue forcing food into her unwilling body in hopes of increasing her weight.  I was taught how to safely manage her tube and feedings and the early intervention center was contacted by her medical team to start as many therapies and services as they could.  They had no answers for us, but they provided us with what they could while we figured this mess out.  I was devastated and more determined then ever to prove that there was something wrong and took her home dejected.  I just told myself that at least we got all those tests out of the way to take us that much closer to a diagnosis.  It was all I had to cling to...

Welcome to the Rabbit Hole

  "I had a positive pregnancy test a week ago."  My doctor looked at me in stunned silence.  He gathered his composure and said "Then we better take a look.  Let me go grab my portable ultrasound and a nurse."  He asked me to put on a gown from the waist down and once I was situated, he and a female military nurse entered the room with a small portable ultrasound machine.  I got into the pelvic exam position that all girls learn once they start getting their lady parts checked and he started the ultrasound up.  "Oh yeah, you definitely have a resident."  He then adjusted the screen for me to look upon a 7 1/2 week fetus.  I went blank as I stared at that screen and all I could think about was why he would show me a pre-recorded ultrasound of someone else's pregnancy.  Because that certainly wasn't my growing fetus in my uterus.
  "How is this possible?  You ran a pregnancy test and it came back negative!"  I was ANGRY.
  "By my calculations, you were exactly 5 days into the pregnancy when we ran the test and you have to be 10 days for your HcG levels to be high enough for detection.  You were just too early for our test to find it." With that he printed off a picture from my ultrasound and handed it to me.  I looked down at the picture of a little baby shaped like a bean lying resting against my uterus lining.
  "What about the birth control patch and antidepressants I have been on the last FOUR WEEKS?  Is that a danger here?"
  "Not that I know of, but we will make sure to keep an eye on the baby just in case."
  "So you are telling me that I got pregnant when G was only 3 months old?  This doesn't seem possible!"
  "Well it does happen with the mini pill.  You are definitely having another baby... unless you want to do something terrible like terminate it..."
  I shook my head NO, but I sat there quietly and just for a moment, I understood the desperation of a woman that would consider terminating a pregnancy.  I was so scared and this was so real and for the first time in my life I could finally empathize with a woman faced with that urge.  I wanted this to go away.  I even told myself that my body could not possibly carry another baby and that I would miscarry.  But in no way would I take a measure of any kind to harm this pregnancy.  Some part of me knew that once I looked at the baby and held the baby, I would be in love, but that love was not here yet.
  After the appointment I sat in my car and anger filled me like poison.  There was no God.  God knew my limits and if he existed he would NEVER do this to me!  All there was was a planet full of people and nature and there was no purpose or direction or anything or anyone running the shots.  I thought I knew things.  I thought I was tight with my maker just enough to be warned or protected.  It unrooted a deep and passionate faith system I had had for years.  I sat in a state of utter despair and loss of faith in my car.  What was I going to do?  I could not possibly be the quality level mother I had envisioned and planned on to my already born children if I was pregnant or taking care of a newborn.  This was so unfair to my two children!  God should have known my limits.  If he was real, he would not have done this to me.  I used protection...
  D could see I was in a dark rabbit hole.  He offered to give me a blessing and I obliged.  Not because I believed in blessings at the moment, but because I didn't want to destroy his faith by refusing his efforts to be a man of God.  I wouldn't wish the darkness I was feeling on him or anyone.  I sat down in a chair arranged in the middle of the floor and closed my eyes as he rest is palms on my head.  He spoke words to me straight from the heart of God that night.  He told me that I WOULD have this baby, but that it would be hard.  Hard on me and hard on my family.  He told me that God would be by our sides and with every medical professional that took care of us and that our baby would be "protected" against illness.  He gave me a sense of closure that this was real and that God knew exactly what he was doing even if I didn't understand or accept it.
  I finally cried.  No part of this made a freaking bit of sense to me but I numbly went along with it.  I would bring a throw up bag with me for when I changed diapers because if there was poop, my morning sickness would not tolerate it.  I would do what I could to take care of my other two babies while the intense exhaustion of the first trimester worked its way through me during D's work hours.  He would have to come home and immediately take over because I was too sick and too tired to do much once I had backup.  The only time I would fall apart completely would be if I had to make the 20 minute drive from our satellite housing base to the main base.  With the other two strapped into their carseats, quiet and happy with whatever toys I supplied them with, I would have time to think and it would wash over me in waves of panic and fear.  I was pregnant again.  I avoided driving anywhere for any reason for a while.
  By the time I was 18 weeks, we went in for the ultrasound that determined our baby was a girl and then two days later, left Japan to move to a new command in California.  We first made a trip to Tennessee to visit with D's family that he had not seen in three years.  Even though I should have been overjoyed to be back stateside, one day I simply laid my head down on a couch in my in-law's upstairs and wept from what I think was culture shock and pregnancy depression.  D made me promise to get help as soon as we got to the new command and I thought it would be best myself.  I knew I was not well.

Pregnant with E and putting on a brave face.

  We went and picked up a van we had ordered from Japan in CA and drove it to check into our new home of Ridgecrest, CA on the China Lake Naval Base.  We got into housing relatively quickly and I kept my promise to get help.  I went to a psychiatrist that was approved by our medical insurance (Tricare) and he asked me a lot of questions that I answered yes to over and over.  Within an hour and a half he diagnosed me with mild bipolar type 2 and put me on bipolar medications.  I called my mom to tell her and she was relieved by the diagnosis.  She had blamed herself for my sometimes outrageous behaviors and would shield me from the ADHD craze when mothers were being told to put their kids on Ritalin by teachers and doctors and now she was validated in her decision.  I opted to start therapy because I needed to get guidance on the denial I felt about my disorder and pregnancy.  I stuck with that therapy the entire two years I lived in Ridgecrest.  I needed it.

A Catch

  Even though she was an awesome eater, G was not gaining weight with my exclusive nursing efforts.  By three months in, I had to make the tortuous decision to start supplementing her with formula after each nursing.  I was on the mini pill for birth control and it had to be taken literally 24 hours to the minute from the last dose to prevent pregnancy from occurring.  Miss it by 5 minutes or stop breastfeeding 100% of the time and you were unprotected for two weeks while you started all over doing it perfectly.  It was the only breastfeeding-safe birth control so I used it.  My post-partum with G was far harder than it had been with M so I was on shaky ground as it was.  Weening her left me feeling like I had failed, but I couldn't watch her starve on what my body was making to stave off my feelings of inadequacy.

  I went to the doctor and talked to him about getting on a more stable form of birth control and opted for the patch since there was no having to remember to take it.  Just stick it on and a week later take it back off to replace with a fresh one.  Simple enough.  He ran a pregnancy test just to rule it out and it came back negative, but something felt... off.  I felt like I would be doing something somehow wrong if I put that patch on myself.  I procrastinated until my milk ran out a about a week or two later and bit the bullet.  G was being bottle fed now so there was no more snuggling while she would at nurse at night, I had to get up to make and then feed her the bottles.  By two days into my patch being on I woke up in a state of pure exhaustion and a sense of desperation to make it stop.  The lights went out in my brain and I felt nothing.  Not happiness, not sadness, not anything at all.

  I robotically went about feeding and taking care of my baby and toddler while this thought kept running through my mind that I could jump off the balcony.  Not because I wanted to die, but because I would get rest once I hit the ground four floors below.  I heard this voice tell me to call my husband so I did.  "D, I think I will jump off the balcony today."  He was home in half the time it usually took and had me to an emergency room as soon as he got to me.  They put me on an antidepressant and sent me home with a diagnosis of post-partum depression.  I took my pills, but they were like peeing on a wild fire.

  After three weeks on my birth control patch, it was time to do a week of no patch to allow for a period.  I took off my patch and... nothing happened.  Well, no period that is.  Other things did start to happen like food aversions, intense fatigue even after G was in a good night sleep pattern, and morning sickness.  It hit me as I attempted to make dinner one night and became so ill at the very thought of the food that I had to go lay down on the couch until D came home from work.  As I lay there I thought about my missing period and how familiar this feeling was and it hit me that I might be pregnant.  I told myself I was losing it and promised myself that once D got home, I would sneak off to take a test and get this wacky thought out of my head.

  D came home and I made an excuse to go to the store like wanting a Sprite or something and he didn't think anything of it.  I started doing a mental checklist of pregnancy symptoms I didn't have and almost had myself convinced out of testing when I pulled into a parking spot.  There was this voice that whispered to me "don't do this alone LaNae, it is going to be positive" and I brushed it away as I buckled down and went in and bought a pregnancy test.  I didn't want to freak out D so I opted to take the test in the store restroom and put this nonsense behind me.  After a matter of 0.2 seconds, it was bright positive.  I sat shaking and although I wanted to cry, the tears felt trapped in my chest somehow.  I just sat there in shock and terror looking at this test telling me I was very pregnant.  I had a 4 1/2 month old at home and this didn't seem possible.  No.  Just NO.

  I tucked the test into my purse and stormed from the restroom clearly upset and got behind the wheel of my van not sure how I was even going to drive the 2 minutes to my apartment.  I managed to go into auto pilot and got to my parking garage and wobbly made my way to the elevator.  When I opened the door to my apartment, I literally screamed out D's name.  He thought I was hurt and rushed to me.  I thrust the positive test at him and then he had to catch me as I lost my leg strength and almost hit the floor.  I wept into his chest not to hate me and how sorry I was and how scared I was.  He reassured me that there was nothing to worry about and that it would all be okay.  As he worked to try to calm me, I suddenly remembered that moment after G was born and how I told him, "A baby this perfect will come with a catch.".  Well, a catch is exactly what we got.

My Amazing M

  I have been a mother for eight and a half years if you count from the day my first child was born. My baby M took me 40 hours of labor before I was able to push her out into the brisk air of our hospital delivery room.

39 weeks, 5 days and in labor with M.

She was so perfect in every way that I got over the amount of time she made me suffer instantly.  Once home I would hold her as she would slip into a peaceful rest and in my postpartum state, I would cry at her beautiful perfectness.  Every morning she would wake up with a giant smile on her face and my whole day would be brightened with her spirit.

As a toddler, she would tell me that I was her best friend and even now she will tell me she is the luckiest girl in the world to have me as a mom.  I tell her it is more the other way around as she is so wonderful to have as a daughter.

Now she is so grown up that it is difficult to wrap my mommy mind around.  She is intelligent, kind, and imaginative.  She can be ubber creepy in her sense of humor and is ready to laugh. She is full of compassion.  Her heart is bigger than I can ever fathom my own being and she wears that big heart on her sleeve.  She is a joy and an honor to raise and love.

San Diego beach at Coronado

Sand Mountain

Weird and hilarious girl that makes everyday interesting for everyone lucky enough to be in her life.