Homecoming!

The nurses and doctors in the NICU at Reston Hospital have been so amazing...maybe a little too amazing! Hudson has been perfectly content to live in the NICU. However, after his circumcision Monday, he decided he had had enough of hospital life! It was like a light bulb was turned on and he all of the sudden had the will to eat! Up until then, he had been very lazy with his feeds, taking over 40 minutes to finish an ounce and a half of milk. Friday of last week his doctor was telling me they would most likely discharge him Monday (5/16) as long as he was eating well. He had been nursing great for me and even taking a bottle really well from me when I tried. I had every hope that he would come home Monday. I can't tell you how discouraged I was to hear that he was struggling to eat well through the weekend! I skipped church to go be with him Sunday morning and he nursed really well for me. They only let me nurse him twice in a 24 hour period because he needs more calories in his food, the rest of his feeds he gets breast milk in a bottle with calorie fortifier. When I got to the hospital Monday morning his nurse told me he had eaten very poorly for her and for the night nurse. She said she didn't think it would be a good idea to take him home only to have problems feeding him. I couldn't have agreed more but I was confident I could get him to eat for me. I asked her if she thought he'd be able to go home in the next couple of days and she said she thought it'd be three days at least! I know you all are thinking; what's a few more days but I was just trying frantically to hold myself together at this point!! I quickly made arrangements for someone to have the other 3 kids for the rest of the day and settled in, determined to get him to eat well for me. In the middle of all this of course was his circumcision. The doctor talked over the possibility of Hudson doing worse after a traumatic afternoon and having to be put back on the feeding tube if he was too exhausted to eat was a real possibility which would automatically mean 3 more days in the hospital at the very least! Well, you already know he did wonderful, praise God!! He ate like a champ for me the next two feeds and did well through the night! His doctor and nurses were visibly surprised at his progress in such a short time...the power of prayer for sure!

To say I am happy to have him home and my family all in one place is an understatement! This has been so physically and emotionally exhausting...I can't even begin to tell you! Last Friday I ended up spending the whole afternoon in the ER because I started having numbness and tingling in my left arm and hand. I didn't think much of it, it felt kind of like my arm had fallen asleep. Ned's twin brother's wife Becca (we call her Drew's Becca) was visiting from Texas and had come with me to the NICU to see Hudson. I mentioned to her casually that my arm had fallen asleep...odd since I wasn't really resting on it. After we had finished visiting with Hudson we went to grab lunch. We were sitting waiting for our food when I told her my arm was still tingling...it had been well over an hour since the feeling started. Just after I told her this I started having chest pains. We both thought it'd be a good idea to run on over to the ER. :/

After going though a bunch of tests including a blood test that came back abnormal and pointed to possible blood clot (a real scare in light of my history and blood disorder) they ordered a CAT scan which came back clear...praise God and I was sent home with follow up order to make an appointment with a neurologist about the numbness. All that to say...it's been stressful! :) I'm glad to have my littlest son home whole and healthy!! In just the day and a half he's been home I already feel better rested!

A couple quick updates:

Brain Bleed: They did another head ultrasound on his brain Friday and it came back looking really good! Bleeding has started to dissipate.

Temp: They were concerned when we left yesterday about his body temperature. He is borderline for being able to keep his body temp up since he is still pretty small. We keep him bundled really good so he doesn't have to burn much needed calories on keeping himself warm.

Blood Count: As is very common in preemies, Hudson's blood count has been low since he was born. They never had to do a transfusion like they did with Charlotte but they have been monitoring it closely since birth. It is still low but has improved...our pediatrician will continue to monitor his levels every two weeks until it is normal.

First Night Home: He did wonderful!! Fed him at 10pm, had to wake him up at 3am to feed him and again at 6:30am! He's been eating great since being home and had even gained an ounce overnight!!

James can't get enough!

Charlotte and Nathaniel loving on their new little brother!

Thank you all for keeping up with this little guy and our family!!

Need Caffeine!!

You and me both baby boy!! Well, it looks like Hudson will not be weaned off caffeine this weekend like we hoped. I guess our little man is more dependent on caffeine than I am right now (which is saying a lot)! His doctor wants to see him go longer without having any spells before they'll take him off. Once they do take him off they will want to monitor him in the hospital for a minimum of 7 days.

I know I didn't mention this in my last post but they did a head ultrasound on Hudson a couple weeks ago (standard for all preemie babies) and it showed he had some bleeding on his brain. This completely threw me for a loop since Charlotte was so much smaller and the risk of this for her was so much greater but she never had a brain bleed. The way they measure them is from zero (being no bleeding) to a four (being massive bleed and most likely brain damage). Hudson's bleed was a level 2 on both sides of his brain. We are praying that the blood would absorb itself and there would be no fluid build up or swelling. They did another ultrasound last Friday to make sure it hadn't gotten worse and check to see if it had started to dissipate and it looked the same as the first...still a level 2 but no new bleeding and no fluid build up or swelling. The doctors have assured us that as long as the ble

ed stays at a level 2 it should not be a problem for him. We know that there is no new bleeding and they will do another ultrasound just to follow up next Friday.

I was only able to be with him for an hour yesterday but it was during one of his feedings and he took a whole bottle for me!! His nurse told me he had taken most of a bottle for her earlier that day and he took a bottle for the night nurse...baby steps!! :)

Thank you all again for all your encouragement and prayers! Looking forward to spending the afternoon with him today and will better keep you all posted on his progress!

Overdue Update

Daddy and Hudson

I've been meaning to update this blog for a few days but haven't had the time or energy until now. Thank you all for your words of encouragement and prayers! We are so amazed at how well Hudson is doing. It's hard not to be really positive after everything we went through with Charlotte...it's really incredible what just six more weeks of growing in the womb will do for a baby. I've realized that, because he looks so much better than Charlotte did, and because he is making such huge progress everyday, we haven't really asked for specific prayer requests and there are still so many things we need prayer for!

So many people have asked about time frame for him coming home and it's really hard to know that right now. The soonest he could possibly come home would be the 14th since he will be 35 weeks but he would have to accomplish so much before then and I think that would be asking a lot of such a little guy. He is still in a heated incubator since he does not have enough fat on him to keep his body temp up on his own. When the doctor took him off the ventilator a couple weeks ago they put him on a very high dose of caffeine to help him with his breathing and with the apnea and bradycardia spells (below is a link with info on bradycardia).

http://preemies.about.com/od/preemiehealthproblems/f/AsandBs.htm

Even on the caffeine, Hudson is still having a couple spells a day...he will need to go 3-4 days without any spells before they will discharge him and he will also need to be weaned completely off of the caffeine. Another huge step will be for him to start taking all his feeds by mouth. They just introduced the bottle a couple days ago and he's taking at least one of his feeds by mouth a day. Yesterday I tried nursing him but he wasn't interested. I was able to get him to take almost one of his feeds by bottle (breast milk) for me. He is still so small and it is so much work for him to stay awake for a feeding and he has to be able to take all 8 feeds in the day by mouth before he can come home.

On a positive note, he is gaining weight every day now and has surpassed his birth weight of 3lb 7oz! He is now a whopping 3lb 13oz!! They are adding calories to his feeds putting him on a 24 calorie diet (breast milk is 20 cal.) and it has really helped with the weight gain!

Thank you all for praying for my recovery!! I'm am doing well, just really low on energy and sleep. Ned is still having to travel some for work and juggling the three kids at home and getting to the hospital to see Hudson, all while pumping every three hours and once in the middle of the night is exhausting!

Somehow through all of this God is sustaining our family and giving us an extra measure of grace to get us through this tough time. We are so incredibly blessed by all the help from family and friends! I cannot imagine having to do all this without all of you! Thank you for the rides you given me to the hospital, the meals, the words of encouragement, your prayers, the help with the kids, we are truly grateful.

29 Weeks!

Praising the Lord for bringing us through 29 weeks of pregnancy! Praying for 8 more!!



The kids holding the "countdown to Hudson" chain above.


I feel as huge as I look.

The Countdown

For me, waiting is always the hardest part about being pregnant especially when having a very active baby squirming around inside of me starts to get pretty uncomfortable! However, after Charlotte came four months early, and after losing a baby (around 12 weeks last spring) waiting is something I pray this baby does every day!
When Ned and I first discovered we were expecting we were overjoyed. After the initial excitement over this new life growing inside of me, fear slowly started to take the place of joy. I started thinking, what if I lose this baby, or what if something happened when I was pregnant with Charlotte that makes it impossible for me to carry a baby full term, I began to try not to form an attachment to the new baby. I told Ned I didn’t want to tell the boys yet because I feared we would have to tell them once again how their baby brother or sister went to be with Jesus. I didn’t want to go to the doctor only to see the baby and heartbeat and have it “taken away” all too soon. Ned and I decided that it would be best for us emotionally if I waited till I was 12 weeks along before I went to the doctor. Well, needless to say God got a hold of me about 8 weeks into the pregnancy. One of the great blessings of being raised in a Christian home and being taught scripture at a young age is that, even when you’re not actually reading the Word, God can still use scripture that you've learned through the years to convict and encourage. My absolute favorite passage of scripture ever since I was a young girl has always been Psalm 139. I could have never known then how God was going to continually use this short passage of truth to strengthen and encourage me throughout my life! I won’t take the time to write out the whole chapter here but if you have a couple minutes, pick up your bible and read it…I promise you will be encouraged even if you’ve heard it a thousand times! It wasn’t that I knew after dwelling on the scripture that God was going to deliver to us a healthy whole baby but more that I was at peace knowing He would be there for me whatever happened just as He was when we welcomed Charlotte 4 months early and when we said goodbye to baby Ryun last spring. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” After spending some time in prayer and confessing my fears I went to Ned and told him I really wanted to go to the doctor and see the baby. Ned went with me to that first doctor’s appointment at 9 weeks gestation and we both had tears in our eyes watching our teeny tiny baby move around and seeing and hearing that precious heartbeat for the first time.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body."

Turns out it was really good I went to the doctor before 12 weeks because, after doing some tests, they found I have a blood disorder that was probably the cause of the miscarriage and what caused the blood clots with Charlotte. They had me go on blood thinners right away. For the first 20 weeks of pregnancy I was giving myself injections twice a day, since 20 weeks they had me cut back to once a day which I will continue up until 6 weeks after Hudson's birth. We are ALL completely head over heels for this sweet baby boy and anxiously wait his arrival! It's been hard trying to explain to the boys how long they'll have to wait before they can meet their brother face to face so a few weeks ago they helped me make a "countdown to Hudson" chain. Each day that goes by they take turns tearing of a link to the chain. Because of the way they had to deliver Charlotte, I will have to have another c-section with Hudson. We already have a day to look forward to...May 26!





Okay, this post has gotten away from me...I guess that's what I get for trying to catch up on 29 weeks of pregnancy in one blog post! I'm not making any promises but I will try to be better at updating this...especially for my sisters in Okinawa! Love you two and all my sweet nieces and nephews! More pics to come...

Happy Birthday Charlotte!

In the very early morning of November 1st I woke up to find myself lying in a puddle of blood on the bed. My first thought was that I must be losing the baby at just a little over 23 weeks gestation there was no way I could be bleeding this much and not be miscarrying. Panicked, I woke Ned up and had him call my parents to come watch the boys while I called my doctor. The bleeding had stopped so we made our way to Reston Hospital praying all the way that what we expected would not be the case. My doctor was on vacation and Dr Alfreda Jones was on call for him. By the time we got to the hospital everything seemed completely normal. They did a couple tests on me to see if my water had broken and immediately hooked me up to monitors for the baby. Charlotte seemed to be doing great...her heart rate and respiratory rate were completely normal but I was having very small contractions. They took me downstairs for an ultrasound which determined my water had not broken but they saw something of concern on my uterus. After two more ultrasounds they told me what they saw on the ultrasound were blood clots on my uterus; this is what had caused the sudden bleeding. I had what they call a placenta abruption (where the placenta tears away from the uterine lining) and in some cases this heals on it's own but because of the huge concern they had for me with the large blood clots they wanted to keep me at the hospital on strict bed rest and monitoring. Later that afternoon after a ultrasound done by a high risk doctor they saw that my water would most likely rupture in the next 24 to 48 hours and talked to us about our "options." If we decided to work to save our little girl I would have to be taken to Fairfax Hospital since Reston Hospital is not prepared to care for a baby under 26 weeks. Of course we wanted to do everything we could to save little Charlotte and as soon as we caught on to what this doctor was asking, we quickly told him we wanted to talk to our doctor and take the next steps to ensure that Lottie was taken care of.

Off we went by ambulance to Fairfax Hospital and up to the high risk floor I went to remain on bed rest until Charlotte was born. After I was settled in I sent Ned home to be with the boys thinking it could be days or weeks before I actually had her. Not more than two hours after he left, I started hemorrhaging again. I lost quite a bit of blood and they felt it was necessary to take me to labor and delivery. I called Ned to come back but knew it would take him a while so I called his sister Heather who lived down the road from the hospital and she came and stayed with me until Ned got there. Charlotte still seemed fine but the growing concern were the clots that were dislodging and the loss of blood. We went all day on the 2nd like this (bleeding on and off and multiple ultrasounds and shots to stop labor) and most of the day on the 3rd the same. On the afternoon of November 3rd the ultrasound they did found that my water had ruptured but they still thought the best thing for Lottie was to stay in the womb. Early on the morning 4th we were met in our room by Dr Jones, the neonatologist, and the high risk doctor. They were all helping prepare us for Charlotte's delivery. They told us that the ultrasound they did earlier that morning showed that the blood clots on my uterus were getting bigger and causing lots of risk for me, they were also concerned that keeping Charlotte in the womb much longer would increase her risk of infection and make it harder for her in the long run. They wanted to deliver her as soon as possible. Ned and I hardly had time to take it all in before they were wheeling me into surgery! Ahhh...the joy I felt seeing Charlotte for the first time right before they took her to the NICU. What a sweet and perfect baby girl!

I had some trouble after the delivery. I lost alot of blood and had to have a transfusion. The worst part was I wasn't able to see my little girl again for 2 days! When I finally did make it down to the NICU what I saw was amazing! I remember thinking of Psalm 139, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." I had no idea really what to expect and I'm kinda glad...He promises never to give us more than we can handle. It would be six incredibly long weeks before I could even hold her for the first time. It was over 8 weeks before I heard her cry for the first time (the things we take for granted) I remember hearing other babies in the NICU cry and having to hold back tears . What I wouldn't give to just hear her sweet cry. We are so thankful for the most amazing doctors and nurses! We got the three best nurses Fairfax Hospital has to offer!! They really loved on our little Charlotte when we weren't there to do it.

Charlotte is 1 year old today and we've been so busy celebrating that I'm just now updating the blog! God is so good! He continues to show His mercies are new every morning! She is such a joy and blessing to us. She's such a happy baby laughing and "talking" to us! We are working on her birthday video and will post it as soon as it's finished. Thanks to all who have loved our little girl and prayed so faithfully!