png">Yesterday = not a good day.
i am off work again today. i went to get my cast. the appointment lasted 2 hours. we got seen and the dr asked "who the heck put your splint on?!" i told her 2 nurses from the ER. they put it on wrong. my foot was flexed, which means it was pulling on my fracture, which explains the excruciating pain all day/night long. so i had to work for about a half hour getting my foot to a right angle to cast it. that was incredibly painful. i got the cast put on. i picked black. i was going to go with pink, but it apparently gets dirty fast. this thing is going to be with me a while, and i hate dirty. so i went with black. after that, i got an xray to make sure the fracture didn't spread because of the incompetent people in the ER splinting me. xrays were good, and i go back in a week to make sure it's healing properly. i can't put any pressure on it for at least 2 weeks, they will check and see if i can put a boot on and start walking on it. i did a number on it. should be off in 4 - 6 weeks. nice.
today, i fell. i got up from my desk chair while my desk drawer was open. i forgot my desk drawer was open. i tripped. i was wearing sucky shoes. i went down on my ankle. it looked disgusting. my foot was one way and my leg was the other. i instantly knew it was broken. it was the worst physical pain ever. worse than labor. seriously. i laid writhing on the floor. my boss and another lady in our office came running out to see why i was crying out and saying "ow" over and over. my boss ended up calling 911 for an ambulance cause i was in so much pain and needed to be careful moving it. the ambulance had to call for pain control to come because i was in shock from the pain and my ankle was clearly deformed. on the ambulance i got morphine. it actually worked this time. they had to give me 10 of morphine. the max dosage. they took xrays, and found a fracture in my fibia down by my ankle. they splinted it, and tomorrow i will get a cast. the pain is terrible. vicodin isn't working. why don't they send you home with morphine!? just kidding....sort of.
No, I did not blog yesterday. I didn't even realize it until today. It's not even 1 month into this whole "I'm going to blog every day this year"...and I failed. I'm a failure. (I'm totally not serious about the whole "I'm a failure" thing...so don't worry. You don't have to call in the troops).
My daughter has a "horrific" ear infection. That's right folks. Go big or go home. That's our motto in our home. If you can't have something HUGE wrong, then just don't bother. Last Thursday she came down with a head cold. Daddy gave it to her as he was just wrapping up his week long battle with it. So Thursday night my daughter was up for hours in the middle of the night. Clutching me, crying, not letting me put her down. We slept standing up leaning on a wall at some point I think. I just thought she couldn't breath. Nasty green snot was running from her nose. Sneezes sent my husband and I running from the other side of the house to clean up the HUGE mess of snot that came with it. Friday night, up again. Saturday night, again. Sunday we decided to stay home from church because she still had a bad cold. I don't like when people take their sick kids to nursery. **seriously people, your mansion isn't going to be bigger because you don't miss church even when your kid is sick!!** I hate when I take my daughter to the nursery and there are a handful of kids with neon green snot coming out of their noses. I can almost bank on the fact that in 7 - 10 days, my daughter WILL be sick. So, I don't bring my child when she's sick. It means we miss a lot of church in the winter, but thankfully, I have the ability to watch my church online. She needs to be home when she's sick, taken care of by her mommy and/or daddy. OK, bunny trail over. Anyways, she woke from her nap on Sunday, a brief 40 min nap, crying and holding her ear. She would point to her ear and start saying "ow" and scream/cry. Great timing. Sunday afternoon. I can do nothing. I gave her Motrin and Tylenol every 3 hours. Monday morning I called the dr to make an appointment with her pediatrician. I had other things I needed to go over with her, so I figured I would kill about 7 birds with 1 stone. They made our appointment for 11am. It was 8. My child was screaming. When she refused M&M's (her FAVORITE) for a calming bribe, I new I couldn't wait. I packed her up and went in for walk-ins. We got there at 9 on the dot. We were there until 11 I might add. 11am. AND I didn't get to see her dr. That sucked royally. The nurse practitioner we did see was thorough though, so I am thankful for that. I described how very odd it seemed that since the beginning of October my daughter has been sick with one thing or another. I asked if this was normal. "No, absolutely not" was her answer. Awesome. At least you know how to keep a worried parent from freaking OUT! We went on to go over everything she's had since October, her symptoms this time, and then she barely looked in my daughters ear and said "Wow, that looks horrific". Did I mention this lady has a gift with words? She looked her over and pointed out the "rash" on her face that I have addressed every time I go to the dr's office and no one's been able to reassure me of what exactly it is. I'll get back to that. She then gives my daughter numbing drops in her ear, chewable Amoxicillin, and Advil. We started talking about the rash at this point. I told her it's been there since she's been a baby. That the dr's have said it was broken blood vessels from crying or throwing up, etc. My daughter SCREAMED as a baby. A lot. All day. And she threw up a lot too from her severe acid reflux. So I bought it. But lately, she doesn't cry, she hasn't thrown up in months....and it's still there. STILL THERE! So, I want answers. She asked if my daughter has eczema. I told her yes, patches all over her body. They are bad in the winter and seem to go away through the summer. She told me that those patches on her face were a form of eczema. There is apparently 3 or 4 kinds, and she has at least 2 of them. Like I said....go big or go home. It's just what we do.
ALL that to say, I didn't blog yesterday. I didn't have time. Taking care of my daughter who clutches her ear, won't sleep, and won't stop crying in pain, still maintaining my house, making meals, doing diapers/laundry...then as soon as my husband walked in the door yesterday, I walked out to put in a few hours at work so I wouldn't be terribly behind...I crashed when I got home. We ate, we ran around being silly with my daughter who started perking up, and we went right to bed. After watching Grey's Anatomy of course (that's a post for another day).
Walking with You - Meeting Our Babies
Meeting our babies was bittersweet. It wasn't supposed to happen so soon. I felt like I needed to push, and the pain was pretty intense. I had decided against and epidural because I wanted to feel as much as I could with their birth. It was going to be the very last time I would ever get to feel them inside of me, and I wanted to be aware of every single moment and know exactly what was going on.
It was 7:20ish in the morning on a Sunday, August 28, 2011, and the dr said if I was ready, Baby A was right there and I could push. I looked at my husband. I didn't want to. I wanted to keep them inside as long as I could. I could still feel Anthony Jr and Malia moving. This wasn't right! As I looked at my husband, he looked back, nodded, held me and through tears and determination I pushed. At 7:26AM Baby A was pronounced a boy! My first son! Nathan Richard was his name. I didn't get to see him, because instantly my water broke for Baby B, Malia. A few pushes later, Malia Elizabeth was born at 7:32AM. I still didn't get to meet her or Nathan just yet. The nurse took Malia and cut her cord. My husband couldn't look yet, he and I were just holding each other crying. Baby C, Anthony Thomas Jr's sac wouldn't break. The pressure was almost unbearable. It shot down my legs, into my feet. I was screaming, partially from physical pain, partially from emotional pain. My dr finally had to break his water because he was trying to come out, sac and all. My water burst, and when I say burst, it went all over my dr, across the room, I even felt it up my arms! He was under a LOT of pressure. Finally, at 7:46AM Anthony Thomas Jr was born. I quickly asked if they were alive. I had been informed that because they were so premature, they most likely wouldn't survive the birth process. My dr answered, yes, yes they were born alive! I cried harder! Their first entry into the world they didn't get to go right onto my chest! I begged for them. I remember crying how I didn't want them to die alone, I can't believe they would have to die alone! The dr quickly had the nurse place them on my chest and listen to their hearts. They were still alive. First, Malia, then Anthony Jr each took a breath. They both kept smiles on their faces. Nathan was on my chest as well. I held them tight. I kissed their faces. I wept. My heart was torn. I never felt that way before in my life. The grief was more than I could bare! I looked them over from head to toe. I unwrapped them. We marveled at how much like my oldest Anthony Jr looked...also like daddy. And how much Malia and Nathan looked like my baby pictures. It was so nice to know A couple of my children would look like me. My oldest is a spitting image of my husband.
I didn't know how much someone could love. My heart exploded with my first daughter was born. When my triplets were born, it exploded all over again. What do you mean I couldn't bring these 3 precious children of mine home!?
I couldn't stop looking at them. I covered them and uncovered them over and over again. I whispered how much they were loved, how safe they would be, how beautiful they were and how much their sister would love them. I told them about how they looked like their daddy or their mommy. I touched every inch of their skin. I kissed every part of them. I examined their faces, their head, their bellies, their fingers, toes....their little butt cheeks. All of them. I couldn't stop looking. But I had to. I wouldn't stop bleeding and the cords came detached from the placentas, and the placentas wouldn't come out of me. Double dose of morphine, dr trying as hard as he could, they wouldn't budge. I had to go to surgery. I begged them to let me stay with my babies. We were running out of time though and my infection wouldn't go away until the placentas came out. They promised that my babies would be in my room when I returned. The nurse weighed them, dressed them all while the dr was trying to do everything he could to keep me out of surgery so I could stay with the babies. I kissed them goodbye. They were pronounced dead just before they had to take me to surgery.
I can still smell their little heads. I can still feel their skin on my lips when I would kiss their sweet faces. My beautiful Nathan, Malia, and Anthony Jr.
