Wow. I definitely apologize for slacking there. Life has been different lately, to say the least.
Back in March, when I last wrote anything (again, sorry for that) we had just found out that we were NOT going to be moving to Texas and would, in fact, be staying put in Mobile. Not a bad result, but definitely a stressful time period. Hubby went back to work, but it was a totally different atmosphere, as we expected it would be. In actuality, they fixed it so that he had just used up some ETO and had not officially "left" the company, so he never really quit. He did turn in his notice, but after all that mess happened, the offering company called back and made sure they would let him come back. It was a nice gesture, considering it was not hubby's fault that they were big poopy-heads. The issue became the fact that he ALMOST left and the management over his department basically used him for every trivial little thing. They used his "almost resignation" as an excuse for them to pile things up on him. He came home very frustrated almost every day. It really bothered me a lot to see that so I tried to be as helpful as I could. Then the real kicker came when it was time for his yearly evaluation. June marked his 5 year anniversary with the company. He went in for his eval, and they basically told him that they still didn't feel like he knew the system yet, so they couldn't promote him to senior support rep. If they had any actual evidence to support their claims, it would have been easier to understand. Jack continues to be one of the best support reps they have. He gets emails and letters sent back from site after site commending him on his outstanding service. It became very clear, after this eval, that he needed to make a move to get out of that department. So, he did some looking around and got set up to move to a newer department in July. It's still stressful because they are still tentative about him and the "almost" move, but it's mucho better over there. They are much more appreciative about the hard work that he does. He doesn't come home as frustrated with the management over there.
As far as baby news... We chose not to find out what we were having this time because we already had a boy and a girl. We were just praying for a healthy baby, so we weren't really leaning towards anything else. I didn't have any pregnancy effects that were too similar to my previous pregnancies, so I couldn't guess. I intended to work up until my due date, but I felt sure that s/he would come a bit early. Imagine my surprise when I did work right up to my due date! My due date was October 28 and I delivered a beautiful baby girl on October 29! We learned from my doctor that if I wanted to have a natural delivery that I should probably stay at home for as long as possible because once I got to the hospital, they would be likely to try to get me on medicines to speed up the process. So, my water broke around 6:15 on Saturday morning, October 29. We hung out at home, called parents and got them going, and just stayed set. I walked around, sat on my birthing ball, and just tried to stay in a calm state. I wasn't really in a lot of pain at all while I was at home. Around 3ish, we decided it might be a smart idea to head to the hospital. It had already been 9 hours since my water broke and they really like to have babies delivered within 24 hours after your water breaks. I still wasn't in too much pain - barely any really. When they checked me at the hospital, I was only 4 cm dilated. I was pretty discouraged then. I had been in active labor for 9 hours and I had only gone 4 cm. At that rate, I probably wouldn't have had her until October 30th... Also, since I had gone on to the hospital, they were going to give me pitocin to speed me up. Pitocin increases (dramatically) the intensity of contractions, and I knew that I would not be able to go hours on pitocin with no help. So we got an epidural and the pitocin. I was only in the hospital for a total of 5 hours before I had her. My labor was a total of 14 hours with this one and it was just under 12 with my other two. Her first name (for all my friends who are also a member of the geek-dom) is taken from LOTR. I did look it up though :) It is also of Gaelic/Celtic origin, which is the main reason I liked it. It pays homage to Jack's Irish heritage. However, on the blog, we're just going to call her E. We've really enjoyed becoming parents again. D has been fine, of course. B is still adjusting, but she's doing really well.
Life has been stressful these last 4 months though...
At the end of September, my Aunt (dad's sister) had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. She'd been having episodes of gout previous to that and the medicine she was taking for gout, combined with all her other medications, had started eating a hole in her stomach lining, which released gas into her abdomen. She had successful laproscopic surgery at Mobile Infirmary and was expected to make a full recovery from that. My mom and dad got her set up to go into a nursing home/rehab facility for a 21 day stay that Medicare would pay for. She had been in bad health for a while and we felt that if she was in a rehab facility, she would get her meds straight and get some physical therapy so that way she would be better capable to take care of Memaw. We didn't really know that it was the beginning of the end though. Before she got discharged from Mobile Infirmary, she tested positive for MRSA. She's had it before, and once you've had it once, it never goes away. It will go dormant, but if you ever get in an environment where it's present, it will activate. So, she was able to be discharged to the rehab facility, but we couldn't go see her without being robed and masked until the MRSA was gone. I couldn't go see her because I was pregnant and I couldn't take the kids to see her either. She was in the rehab facility for over a week before the MRSA finally deactivated. Before her 21 days were over, she got a stomach virus and got dehydrated at the facility and had to be put back in the ICU at Mobile Infirmary. After she recovered from that, she went back to the facility to finish out the stay. They decided to have her stay longer than the 21 days (since she had not really been getting any treatment) and she'd just pay OOP for it. She got well enough for the kids to see her the weekend that E was born. Mom took them by to see her before she brought them to the hospital. A short time after that, her MRSA came back for a bit. It didn't stay as long this time though. I didn't get out and really go anywhere with E until Veteran's day weekend. We went to church that Sunday and we were planning to all go up to mom's the next weekend to do out Thanksgiving with them. On that Friday, I learned that she was in the hospital again, but at Springhill. She had come down with pneumonia on Monday or Tuesday of that week and it had not gotten any better. She was not getting enough oxygen and they had her sent to Springhill so she could get hooked up to a breathing tube. We were going to leave on Saturday going up to mom's so I thought I'd stop by on my way out and take the kids (with the baby) to see her. I called mom on the way and she said not to go by because she was in ICU and not just a regular room. Dad was down there and the kids wouldn't have been allowed to go back anyway. So we went on up to mom's. Dad called mom before he left to come back up and let her know that it was not looking good. Up until that point, I had not thought that it would be that bad. When he got home, he gave us all the details. She was sent over to Springhill on Thursday evening. She was still not getting enough oxygen even after she got there though, so she signed off to be put on a ventilator. They did that on Friday and from what the doctor said, they had to work all night long to keep her from dying on Friday night. Her pneumonia was no longer just in her lungs. The infection had spread just about everywhere. All the medicine that she was taking for all the infections and everything else was causing her blood pressure to drop and they doing everything they could to keep it up. Her lungs and heart were not strong enough to keep fighting. The doctor said that she only had about a 10% chance of getting over the pneumonia and even if she did clear the infection, she would likely have to stay hooked up to a ventilator for the rest of her life. She didn't have any kind of advanced directive, so dad couldn't tell them to stop any treatment. The doctor asked him that if her heart stopped, did he want them to start it back and he said no. I don't really know how to explain emotions then. I know that she would never have wanted to live hooked up to machines. That wouldn't have been a life worth living. We all came back down to the hospital on Sunday. Mom told me that one of the times she had visited her when she was in the rehab place, she had said that she probably wouldn't make it out of Mobile and that she'd probably die down here. On the day before Thanksgiving, the doctor called dad and said that the needed to come down to make a decision about things. The infection was not getting any better and they were giving her the highest dose of blood pressure medicine that they could give her. Basically, if they gave her any more meds, the meds themselves would kill her. They had to make the decision to take her off all the meds and the ventilator. I was not present for that, but mom said it didn't take long. They had to leave the room for them to start taking her off of everything, but once they got it all off and out, which was around 3:30 pm, mom said it didn't take but about 5 minutes and she was gone. I still can't believe that she's gone. It's been a very hard Christmas for me. She was so looking forward to being able to help me with the new baby and she never even got to see her. I also don't really feel like I've had the chance to properly grieve for her. I have too much that I have to do and take care of. I'm always having to be strong for someone and it would be so nice if I could have the alone time enough to fully grasp everything. But of course, being a mom, it's hard to have any alone time. I can't complain though. Even though I've lost one of the most important women in my life, I am still blessed beyond measure.
I only have a little over 3 weeks left on my leave, but I think we're going to try things with me staying home. If I went back to work, my paycheck would basically pay for daycare and maybe a few other things, so we're going to see how it works for me to stay home. I'm going to try to get into selling Mary Kay or Avon to help bring in some money so it won't be too hard on us. We'll see though. I haven't yet had a good long time to sit and read up on that. I tell ya, if we have another kid, I'm hoping it will not be the holiday season when we have it. I loved being off work this time of year, but it's been hard to get stuff done with a newborn and a toddler around all the time...
Anyway, now that I have written all that I can stand to write at this moment, I'll leave it as it is. Maybe I'll get a little better about keeping up with this. Ha!
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