The Lighter Side

About a month ago my husband returned from a trip with an authentic dream catcher for our son. It immediately went up above his bed and is often looked at and talked about by him. He loves to tell stories about how it catches his bad dreams and keeps them in the bead. He even took it to his preschool show-and-share to tell his friends. And of course by the next week I had moms asking me about it because their little ones came home talking about how they need one to catch their bad dreams too. I wish we would have had a dream catcher back in our first year of marriage....

My husband was in his second year of General Surgery. A dreaded year known for its heavy brutal workload of trauma, in one of the busiest trauma centers in the country. They spend half of their second year in the trauma center seeing things that are unimaginable to some of us. They worked 24 or even 36 hours at a stretch seeing patient after patient after patient. Only to go back the next day and do it all over again. There are two nights that I will never forget during that period of time. For a second they made me think to myself what in the world did I sign up for. He would come home from his shift looking worn and beaten. The fatigue of the battle written all over his face down to his blood soaked Danskos. He would shower and then go straight to bed. Often not eating a thing. One night in the haze of sleep I felt my right arm being lifted into the air. Not sure if I was in a state of sleep or not, I could hear the words being spoken but unsure of what was happening. "There is obvious deformity. I don't feel a radial pulse (as I feel the fingers checking my wrist). I do not feel a brachial pulse either (again feeling the fingers checking in my inner arm). I think we need to amputate."

Say what?!!

I jumped out of bed faster than the speed of light. I immediately turned on every light in our room to which my husband, in his sleepy delirium, was asking why I turned the lights on. Gee, I don't know something about my arm being amputated! I knew that we had surgical instruments in the house. Unable to sleep the rest of the night I laid there staring at the ceiling trying to remember where he kept those instruments.
A few weeks later I had another night of interrupted sleep. Though not quite as traumatizing, still made the heart beat a little faster. That night as I lay on my left side I feel a finger run down my back accompanied by the words "skin incision". Though there were no incidence of sleep walking, after that night I found the practice instruments that were kept in our apartment and put them all in the same bag. They were placed where I knew they all were on the off chance he found one sleeping walking in the middle of the night, after his post trauma slumber, and felt the need to do an amputation. He still had many tough rotations during the next three years and even more rotations in trauma but they didn't seem to plague his dreams as much. Now he just incessantly grinds his teeth all night. But I'll take that over a possible surgical incision any night!

The Little Things

In our six plus years of marriage I can say there have been missed birthdays, missed holidays, forgotten appointments, etc. One anniversary my husband and I went to dinner only to have his pager go off in the middle of it. I desperately called my friend who lived near the hospital, and he dropped me off so that I didn't have to sit in the hospital for hours (thank you Michelle for graciously taking me in). There have been the nights with the kids when I wish more than anything I had an extra pair of hands to help me with them. So many things I could write of as inevitable short comings of the job. These come with his job's territory. Though it would be nice to occasionally have the extra help with the kids, I can manage it.  If you read last weeks post you know that it was a bit of a rough week. One morning last week my husband pulls out of his work bag this gem. It honestly is one of the best gifts I have ever received. He bought this book and added his own messages to me in it.

It made me laugh and it made me cry. It was exactly what I needed. I think my favorite page was the one in the top right corner where the author wrote, "your spirit shines through in everything you do." With the added message "especially when you are mad with me."
I can be a passionate person.

Then this week, there was a day when he actually had some time in between cases. He texted me and told me to let him know when I was leaving to go pick up our son from school. He wanted to surprise him and be there when I picked him up. Since his hospital is on the way it was an easy task. He doesn't get much time to spend with the kids and so they miss him a lot. But on that day you would have thought he hung the moon. As my son walked out of his room and saw his daddy standing there it was as if he had received the best gift in his little lifetime. After we dropped my husband back to work on our way home, all he could talk about was how daddy had surprised him and that was the greatest. And how he can surprise him like that every day. Although I had to tell him it likely wouldn't happen for a while, it didn't matter.

It's so easy to get caught up in the business of life. We forget how much the little things mean. How good it feels to receive a thoughtful gift or a kind gesture. To know that you are thought about in that one moment makes the tough days bearable; on the nights when we are having little people meltdowns in our house and I am frustrated and wish I had help. Or on the kids' birthdays when I have to send him a video of us singing happy birthday and blowing out their candle for him because he won't be home.

I'll look at my book sitting on the counter and I'll remember that he makes it count when we need him the most.

Loss

When I set out to write this blog I promised to write not only the good but also the bad. As much as it is difficult to write about something so personal, here it is. February 8th will be a day that I won't need to mark on a calendar but will be embedded in my mind as a day to remember. Just like November 6th and April 8th. On the morning of February 8th I went into the doctor's office hoping to see my little peanut and though I did, it's tiny heart had ceased quietly some days before. I was one day shy of being 12 weeks. This is not the first baby we have lost in this manner. The dates given previously were also dates of our sweet angels when we found out their hearts had stopped beating.
Two days before our anniversary back in December we found out the exciting news that we would be adding a new member to our family. It came as quite a surprise but a welcomed one none the less. The course of the pregnancy at best description was a roller coaster. With the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Without getting into all of the details, there were signs in the beginning where they thought the pregnancy wasn't going to progress. Then the very next week we saw the little one's heart beating nice and strong. And then three weeks later it wasn't anymore. Because this is not our first experience with this I knew what to expect but it never makes it any easier. It hurts. It's sad but this time I can talk about it.
The first baby we lost back in 2012 was a very hard situation. I had made it past the first trimester and so thought I was in the clear. Now, I worked as a Labor and Delivery nurse for years and so I wasn't naive to the fact that you can lose a baby at any point in pregnancy. However, the risk is significantly less after the first trimester. So it was a huge blow to me when I found out the baby's heart stopped beating. I withdrew from people. I felt lost. I had to return to work where I was surrounded by babies, moms holding their babies, and helping moms deliver their babies. Pregnancy loss is not something people generally talk about and so you feel alone. It wasn't until one morning at shift change one of the day nurses sat down with me and told me her heart breaking experience of losing her baby at 6 months of pregnancy. And then she hugged me and gave me permission to grieve. She let me know it was ok. I drove home that morning enveloped in my sadness and dealt with the aftermath of the situation. We lost another baby five months later. But conversations were more open to me then. I am still dealing with the emotions of losing our most recent baby but I know it will be ok. It is because of people like the nurse I worked with that have empowered me to be more open about our own experiences. It is ok to talk about pregnancy loss. It is ok to grieve the loss. And then it is ok to move on. These babies will forever remain in my heart. They occupy a space just like my other two children. They were and will always be loved.

...And with utmost certainty God knows what is best for us.

Mom Conference

Two weeks ago my husband went to one of his annual professional conferences out of state. The conferences usually last about 5 days. Before we had our daughter, my son and I attended two of these conferences with him. At the last trip my son and I developed food posioning. We had a miserable flight back home. We have since decided that for now he can go by himself and we'll find something to occupy us at home. Those who have attended conferences know how it goes. There are meetings or lectures to attend. Lunches, dinners, social events and let's be honest, there is plenty of down time. I know that people in the medical profession are not the only ones with the ability to attend conferences. There are business conferences, marketing conferences, religious conferences, etc. The other day I was thinking about this and thought to myself I wonder if there are any "mom conferences" out there. And so I opened up my handy laptop and Googled my way around the internet. I found a few parenting types of conferences but nothing what I was looking for. In my mind I want to see a mom conference in a beautiful city. Different places where moms can convene annually. Where we can go to lectures on different parenting subjects, attend meal prep for family classes, or tips on saving and budgeting for the family. There will be time to learn about new family products and items. Also during this time a mom can attend a yoga class or meditation class. We can get a group together to run a local trail or bike a fun new path. Find people of common interests and network and socialize and build friendships. These can be working moms, stay-at-home moms, work from home moms, moms of teenagers or moms of babies. A 5 day, 4 night trip where we get the king size bed all to ourselves and there are no eyes staring at us at 6 a.m. wondering when is breakfast. Maybe some day I will put something together with my visions of the perfect mom conference.