Between Feeds

Between feeds I can think of 1 million things to blog about. I have about 3 hours between each feed and that gives me plenty of time to do... NOTHING! I can think about all of the the things I need to do. I can even make a "todo" list, but it is the execution that has executed me - sorry for the lame humor, but it's between feeds and I am too tired to do anything but sit here and eat some chips while I write this post.

I still owe you week 8 to 35 in the NICU, but I wanted to post a little something about a goal that I have for the summer. You see, Olivia and David are very in tune with God and His love. Nothing that I (we) have actually done. I can't take any credit, except for the occassional Veggie Tales, trying to set a good example and using real life situations to explain God (easier said than done - they ask hard questions). We try to have them communicate as much as possible with us so that we can use any opportunity to mold them into strong Christian adults.

My goal for this summer is that either one or both accept Christ as their Savior. So, let's see what I have been doing to steer them in that direction...

Praying, daily for everything and giving God credit for everything good that happens to us. Helping them understand that God is in control and that we all depend on Him. Making them aware of their sin. This one is hard and I am not doing so well, but I will continue working on it. Even at this young age opportunities abound - remember the first time your child lied to you? One other thing I did last week between feeds was take them to an Easter play at my mother's church. The play is called "Por Amor" (For Love). It is attended by more than 2000 people every year. It is like a local production of the Passion of the Christ. I have posted some pictures and if you'd like to read more about it you can go to http://www.iglesiadelatrinidad.com/. Finally, my secret weapon and hopefully the deal breaker: Vacation Bible School. This summer they are both old enough to attend and I am going to send them in the hope that their hearts will be stirred and they will acknowledge their need to be saved.

                 

So, you could say that I am a mom with an agenda. Well, I am a woman with an agenda. I just have to get it together and I also need more time between feeds because I am not meeting up to my own expectations for this blog.

While I was in the hospital with Jonathan, I was very dedicated to the things that I had to get done between feeds. I knew that between 12 and 3 pm, I would Kangaroo him (I looked forward to each Kangaroo session with all of my heart). I also had to eat and the truth is that I like hospital food. The cafeteria at SMH had its really good days. I would also visit the Au Bon Pain - yummy. Now at home, I barely have time to eat, I don't get any sleep, but between feeds I do homework with my kids, take Olivia to piano lessons, heat up food (definitely not cook), do laundry (definitely not fold and put away - have you visited me lately?!). Consider all of these simple and silly tasks and think what would happen if one was left undone (please think about something other than the laundry to avoid getting personal). Don't know how we do it, ladies and I certainly don't know how God does it.

He is in control of everything. Can you imagine? I lose control at least 3 times a day. He is everything, He does everything, He controls everything and He has to listen to us pray and possibly even complain. For the past few days the Bible studies on the local Christian radio station have touched on the many trials in the Christian life, difficult situations realted to health, finances, etc. The things we rather do without.  All of the teachings have led me to one verse: Phil 4:6-7 - do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

My mother-in-law, who has taught me so much about being a wife and mother in the little time that I spent with her and during the last 10 years that we have kept in touch mostly via email, says that we should always thank God in all circumstances. I try to teach the children (wow that is super plural) to do just that and I try to teach myself to do it as well.

The time that I have between feeds is so precious because taking showers and putting dinner on the table are so very important. I thank God for every sleepless night, because it means that Jonathan is home and healthy. I thank Him for every day I spent in the NICU and every person that I met there. What a blessing in disguise the preemie experience has been for me that I can be thankful and humbled by God's love.

Gotta go heat up Jonathan's milk now...

Rosie

Branded

I am going to take a break from the journal for now. DOL 8- 35 (weeks 2 to 5) will be continued on the next post... I promise! I've also been quite busy and not able to update the blog as ofter as I would like.

I have been waiting a long time to write a post titled "branded". I thought about it while we were still at the hospital. I would sit in the NICU for hours and apart from praying (my prayer life was running on red bull), I would also think about work. Yes, WORK! Because I like what I do. If I could only sell my ideas, instead of giving them away to corporate America. I thought about at least 3 possible marketing campaigns specific to the NICU. Would any one like to hear? Maybe, on another post.

I will often start my presentations with a few definitions to make sure that the audience and I are on the same page. I think the following rings true to any profession: just because you dabble in something doesn't mean you are an expert. Let me bring it closer to home - just because you read PC Magazine that doesn't make you an IT guy or just because you have that professional grade hair trimming kit doesn't mean your 5 year old son's haircut will look like a barber shop cut (I must continue repeating that second part about the trimmer to myself - poor David!).

...I digress.

So, what is a brand? It is an identity. What do people think about or feel when they see a brand like Coca-Cola or Starbucks? A brand should evoke certain emotions in the consumer that will persuade him/her to buy your product over the competition. Maybe, because you have associated your brand to a cause that the customer can identify with. That is why in October we see all of the products in the stores that will donate to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. The pink ribbon campaign is huge and if you have known me long enough, you know that I have always supported that cause. Now-a-days it is all about the "brand", but not only related to products such as the iPad, but personal brands like Kim Kardashian, Obama (the single most impressive marketing campaign that I have ever seen... the iPresident) and Justin Beiber just to name a few and to upset Edwin by including Justin Beiber's name in my post.

While I was at the NICU, I would read the headlines on yahoo.com. One day, the headline read: "Jennifer Aniston's new hair style". Being in the NICU with my son and on my last nerve, I was livid. Why was I having to read about some one's hair when at the NICU there were dozens of much more dignified stories about nurses and families and God. I will get back to this later in the post.

Parents of NICU babies wear a wrist band. It is your access to the NICU and to you child. The wrist band gets weathered as the weeks go by. By week 2 or 3, the security guards don't even look at your wrist. They already know your face and sometimes your name. In the parking lot, on the elevator or in the cafeteria you can always tell who are the NICU parents beause of the wrist band. One day, Edwin walked into a customer's office and when one of the managers saw the wrist band he immediately asked what was wrong. That man had been in the NICU with his twin daughters a few years before and even though he wasn't wearing the wrist band, he was still wearing the mark of the NICU. The NICU will BRAND you in more ways than one.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we were fortunate that Jonathan did not to have any complications, other than being premature. The first 72 hours were the most intense as you may have read in my previous post, but God being so merciful carried us through the rest of our time there with a healthy, normal growing preemie.

In high school, I graduated second in my class. I gave the opening speech at graduation where I urged every one to leave their mark. What did I really mean at 18? Several years wiser, I realize, I didn't know what I was talking about and I would have never believed it if some one had told me how certain events, decision, actions can leave their mark and in some cases a scar. At the NICU, I never asked why. I felt as if I knew why. Reasons abounded. I also knew that I couldn't negotiate myself out of the will of God - what ever it was, but I could beg for mercy and I did.

The experience of having a premature child, as frightening as it was, didn't leave a scar. I was branded at the NICU, but not by what you would imagine. I was Branded by the Love that I received from being in the NICU. Agape. Unconditional Love. The greatest of all Loves. A Love that brings forth caring regardless of cricumstance. Charity. The Love that is perfect and that can only come from God manifested through the care of the NICU nurses, doctors, others who reached out to me while at SMH and our friends and family. The Love these ANGELS gave to us. The Love that God manifested through His saving grace.

This Brand that I now wear on my heart has evoked emotions like affection, friendship and gratitude. It has humbled me and I am persuaded to react differently than I would have reacted before. The physical pain I experienced the day Jonathan was born, although it was intense, could not be compared to the pain I experienced when I felt I had been forsaken and that he would surely die. It was like a hot iron on my chest. And although that pain has subsided, [happily] I will never be the same again.

Isaiah 49.15-16: Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.


Rosie

PS - that is not my tattoo! ;)

It's all in the details... Part Two

I am going to do my best to keep this short and to the point, but in all honesty, this one might be longer than the last...

Jonathan was taken to NICU 2 after birth, then during the night he was moved to NICU 3. The higher the number, the higher accuity. Although I saw him that night before I was taken to my room, I don't remember much, except that there were so many turns and the nurses had a hard time getting the gurney through the doors.

Now this next part is more for me than for you. I want to briefly give an account of the 5 weeks in the NICU. Each day, each nurse, doctor, respiratory tech, etc. represents a milestone for me and even though I have all of this in my journal, I don't just want to share it, but also create a digital copy.

DOL 2 (day of life 2): Jonathan was intubated at birth. On this day he was extubated. Julie was the nurse. Olivia and David met Jonathan. I may not remember everything about this day. I know a friend came to visit - JV - but I have no recollection.
DOL 3: Over night suffered a Pneumothorax - air bubble in right lung. Air was aspirated with needle. Dr. Herring and Veronica the PM nurse came to give us the news around 3 am. By morning, he was intubated once again. Martha was his nurse that day and the next. Dr. Boykin was there that weekend.

DOL 4: Got touch time with baby - I changed his diaper for the first time. CB/JT, RR/CM and Olguita came to see us.
DOL 5: Lydia was the day nurse. HandH were low and they had to transfuse. I remember not seeing the bag of blood. For those of us who have ever seen an adult receive a transfusion, you see a large bag of blood hanging from the IV stand. After taking a closer look, I finally found it. It was a syringe... not a bag. Everything is so different when it comes to little babies and you just can't imagine it until you are there. He had a head ultrasound to dismiss the thought that a cerebral hemorrhage was causing the low hemoglobin. Jonathan only received one transfusion in the 5 weeks we were there. Some babies receive as many as 35 transfusions. He was extubated once again (I think the RT was named Carlos. I remember his face. He also had his baby in the NICU once). I heard him cry for the first time after he cried at birth. I also saw him sucking. I was discharged. Left late and came back to say good night. Veronica was the night nurse which made me feel secure since she was there the night he had his pneumo. 
DOL 6: Good news! We were moved to NICU 2. Nurse was Stacey - she is from Jamaica. Head ultrasound came back clear. Cardio ultrasound was clear - small ASD (tiny hole in heart) should self resolve. Cardiologist had his daughter in the NICU too. She was born at 2 lbs 2 oz. She is 24 now.
Off vent for 24 hours, got a binkie and had his first poopie. Weighs 1370 gms (~ 3 lbs) from 1530 at birth.
DOL 7: Stacey recommended a PIC line to get rid of his UV and UA (umbilical vein/ umbilical artery lines). The PIC would protect his good veins from being ruined due to long term venous access for medication and nourishment. PIC went in. Started feeds - 3 mL x 6 hrs. I helped Stacey with a bath. Started physical therapy with Rocio. Had a few Apneas and Bradys. They were all self resolved. He would remain on oxygen for some time.

I will stop at DOL 7 and regroup. By this time, I was use to some of the terms and I was over the initial shock, but the fear still remained. It was an hour by hour journey. I was as dependent on the nurses and doctors as was Jonathan. For the first couple of days, I was sure that Jonathan would die. My prayer was literally "Lord, please don't let my son die". My prayer changed in the days ahead. The NICU started to grow on me. I was branded.

I usually close with a Bible verse. This verse I bookmarked on my BB so that I could read it anytime I needed it. Isaiah 40:31 - "but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

Rosie

It's all in the details...

If you have ever attended any event that I have planned either for my kids, for school or work - you know I am all about the details. There are details about my work that are unique to the way I do things - call it my signature. My marketing plans are more like a set of well orchestrated activities executed to produce a desired outcome. I control what is being communicated and how the customer is perceiving it. I love what I do. Booth traffic, branding, key messaging, integrated communications, marketing strategy. Those are the terms that I am familiar with. TPN, KUB, HandH, ROP, ASD - these are terms that I became familiar with while we were in the NICU. Although, I have been in the healthcare field for over 15 years and I can reset alarms on a patient monitor and the environment was not new to me, the circumstances were.

Being in the NICU with your child (or in any situation where their health is at stake) will strip you of every honor and expose your weaknesses and remind you of everything you have ever feared. I take [took] pride in being a strong woman, having a strong character, being in control, but on that Thursday, 9 weeks ago today, as I lay in the labor and deliver area in SMH, I realized that I had lost control.

After being in what I refused to admit was active labor for 5 hours, I asked the doctor if it was reversible. I think I remember him laughing when he said it was not. The plan, you see, was to deliver Jonathan around March 31. That would have put us at 38 weeks and both Olivia and David were born around that age. On Thursday, February 3 at 10:00 AM, I started to feel some pelvic pressure. I was so aware of every little detail during this pregnancy because I had done it twice before - two perfect pregnancies, two perfect deliveries and two perfect children. I decided I should move my next appointment to Friday morning instead of waiting until Monday to avoid any stress during the weekend. By 1:30 PM, I started to feel something more than pressure and I called the doctor's office to move the appointment to that afternoon. I picked up the kids, I fed them and left them with Edwin. When I walked out the door I thought I would be back in a couple of hours.

I arrived at the doctor's office at 3:30 PM. I started contracting as I was sitting waiting for her to see me and the contractions were 10 minutes apart. When she came into the room, I had been waiting for about 40 minutes and I was keeping a log of my contractions: 3:30, 3:50, 3:57, 4:08. The doctor sent me to the hospital. She said they would put me on a monitor and run a few tests. When I arrived at the Triage, I had to again wait for a bed, my contractions were becoming stronger and stronger, but when they connected me to the monitor, it wasn't picking up the contractions. By then it was around 6 PM. When the doctor came in to see me, he said that he knew that this was my 3rd baby and there was no reason to think anything was wrong because my other two pregnancies were term. He didn't doubt I was contracting, but since the monitor was not picking up the contraction, he was going to run a test (FFN) that predicts the risk of labor within 2 weeks with 99% accuracy. For other reasons the test was ruled null and they sent me to ultrasound. I couldn't walk to the US suite because of the pain so they wheeled me there. The tech told me it would be a 45 minute exam. I assured him we would go through 9 contractions together since I was contracting every 5 minutes even though the monitor wasn't picking up the activity. He picked up on the contractions right away and called Triage to inform them. He then continued to complete his exam, which was 45 minutes indeed, however I counted more than 9 contractions... When he was done, he said that I would be taken back to Triage where they would give me instructions, but that I shouldn't walk. I had called Edwin a few times to update him and I would always tell him to stay put and that I would keep him informed. I was certain that I wouldn't deliver the baby on that day. In my head, worse case scenario was bed rest for a few weeks. On my way back to Triage from US, I called him and asked him to pack the kids in the car and come to the hospital where my mother and father would pick them up. I then called my mother and [very calmly] asked her to come to the hospital. She asked me if the baby was coming that night and I said no.

Once I was back at Triage, the nurse told me that I was 10 cm, membranes buldging (sorry if there are any gentlemen reading the blog) and that I was going to be taken to L&D for a steroid injection for the baby's lungs. Baby was coming, but I was still convinced that it couldn't be happening. In L&D, I signed a bunch of papers with an X. I was in pain like never before. The doctor came in to tell me that I had something called placental abruption. "Is this reversible?" I asked. He said no with a smile. I asked him if I could deliver the baby and when he checked, the baby was transverse and he determined it would be emergency c-section.
Edwin arrived, baby was born at 8:50PM, 3 lbs and 5 oz. I heard him cry. It was a beautiful noise. Then I broke down and he was off to the NICU.

I will continue the story either later today or tomorrow. 

Thanks for your interest in the details. More details to come...

Let me leave you with this verse: Joshua 1:9 - "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

Rosie

... I Digress

And I do. All the time. Also, I like to say it "I digress". Makes me feel smart. Sorry for the silliness, but it's Saturday and I am in good spirits, feeling blessed in so many ways. So, this post is going to be about an uncertain number of things. I've been wanting to tell everyone (and I have) about Olivia's timely comments while Jonathan was in the NICU. During those 5 weeks, I would often explain to them why I was away so much and that I would be back as their full time mom very soon. Helped my guilt to think I was mothering them at least in spirit. As we were nearing the planned discharged date, I was doing my best to build some hype and probe for feelings, concerns, etc. One day in the car, I said "Jonathan is coming home soon. Are you guys ready?" and Olivia quickly answered in the most unexpected way. She said she didn't really want him to come home yet "because we are going to miss being excited about him coming home". These are the kinds of answers you get from Olivia and David. When we told them that I was pregnant, David was so happy because he said he had been praying for a baby brother. And just around the time that Olivia started talking, she surprised me when she replied to a question I asked [the universe] about her. I was looking at my precious little girl and out loud I asked  "Where did you come from? Where were you before you were in my belly?" and she said "I was with Jesus, Mami". David will often say things like "I dream about you every day" or my favorite: "Mami, I love you, but I love God more - sorry".

Now that we are home with Jonathan and we get to enjoy him as a family, Olivia and David have felt a little jealous at times, but we have worked through it (i think). David will let you know on the spot when he is jealous and sometimes he will walk away until I am done feeding or holding the baby. Olivia has been less affected or at least she hasn't cried about it. David did cry before he understood that it was ok to share his feelings. Olivia will sweetly talk to Jonathan. She will tell him how much she loves him and how he makes every bad thought go away and makes everything beautiful for her.

Ok so I haven't been off the subject of my AMAZING children yet. Don't you wish I had gotten off track? Well, here I go...

I love billboard ads. Yes, I said it. I love to drive down the Palmetto and see the ads. I love the ads in the highway in Puerto Rico, Mexico City and the entrance to Sao Paolo from the airport. But I don't like the new digital billboards. I have been in Marketing for a long time, but I have never been able to place a billboard ad. I am not even sure they are even effective from an ROI standpoint, especially in the industry that I am in, but wouldn't an ad about Kangaroo Care be an eye opener? I have also seen pro-life billboard ads. I would venture to say that billboard ads make the most impact, not as a sales tool, but as a reminder of things like morals, do-the-right-thing, socio-political and religious matters by causing somekind of conviction or interest in the common good.

Where am I going with this you ask? I have no idea, but I do want to "market" Kangaroo Care and I do want to use my experience in the NICU to help others and most of all to glorify the name of God. Do you have any ideas of how I could do it? If so, leave your comments or just give me a call and we can talk.

... I digress.  :)