My Wet Nurse

I once knew a woman who made a savory soup with her newborn's placenta. She told me this while I was at her house...eating dinner. Granted, this conversation took place in Boulder, Colorado, a place where such practices are not only normal, but also encouraged, but still...

Since this episode some 10 years ago, I have been a little freaked out by objects that are expelled from the female body during and after birth. This would include breast milk. I felt this way, that is, until I had a growth-restricted baby with no immune system who really needed it.

While most women produce breast milk like manna--just enough for each day--Tim's sister is one of the select few who produces enough milk each day to feed all of Egypt. When she heard about our plight, she very generously volunteered to donate her frozen supply. On Wednesday morning, a cooler full of frozen milk boarded a Southwest flight from L.A. to Philly.

Any weirdness that I may have felt about feeding my son someone else's breast milk disappeared when Cameron stopped puking after his feedings. In fact, the more that I think about it, the more that I like the idea of having my own wet nurse. For one thing, it enables me to pretend that I live in the Middle Ages, something that is not too hard to do given that most members of my household also bathe irregularly and eat with their fingers.

The only downside of having a wet nurse who lives in California is that I have had to come up with some place to store all of the frozen milk. When Tim's mom (the milk's escort) said that she was bringing a cooler, I was expecting a small Igloo; neither me nor my freezer was prepared to receive 25 gallons of frozen liquid. To accommodate the sheer volume of my sister-in-law's gift, I had to ask a friend if I could store some of the milk in her freezer. My friend agreed to my unique request under one condition. She is selling her house and wants to include the stash in her home's asking price. She is hopeful that the 50 pounds of "liquid gold" will be the feature that sets her property apart from the competition and brings in a motivated buyer.

The Witch and the Nurse

My plan to spend the day at a local farm with my kids--going on hayrides, picking out pumpkins that have been shipped in from Kentucky, and consuming overpriced doughnuts and apple cider--was foiled by a freak blizzard.

The joy of wading through 2 inches of snow all day was made even more joyful by the news that the storm's epicenter seemed to be directly over my house. It didn't snow at all downtown and only slight flurries were reported 20 minutes to the west and east.

Although we were sad that our field trip had to be postponed, we were fortunate to have available to us a number of alternative (and indoor) forms of seasonal entertainment, including a scavenger hunt at a nearby bookstore, which was free for kids dressed in Halloween costumes.

"Get in the car!" I shouted up the stairs.

Camber slowly emerged from her lair, wearing underpants and a pink kitty shirt.

"I think that something is missing," I observed, "Besides the obvious."

"I'm not wearing pants," she threatened.

I was thrilled to to not be the evil witch for once.
"That's fine," I said, "Because you're supposed to wear your Halloween costume anyway."

"I'm not wearing my Halloween costume either," came the reply. "It's disgusting."

The offensive object to which my daughter was referring was a $29.99 non-refundable nurse costume that she just HAD to have a week ago.

"Put the costume on please," I said firmly.

"No! I'm not going anywhere! I'm staying right here!"

I could feel the evil witch returning. I tried to bribe her with a package of M&M's, but she would not be silenced.

"Put the nurse costume on now!" shrieked the witch, "Or you are going to need a doctor."

Pants

I had no reason to worry: the process of transitioning Camber from dresses and skirts to long pants went as smooth as silk.

"Everyone is wearing pants today," I announced before my star students got out of their beds this morning. Before my daughter could say "No way, Jose!" I added, "It's not an option: it's snowing."

The long moan that came from the pink bedroom turned into a loud shriek once its occupant realized that while she was sleeping, I had removed all of the beloved short-sleeved muumuus from her dresser drawers.

The loud shriek escalated into an angry yell when, after ten minutes, I informed the pants hater that her failure to get dressed was causing her to miss breakfast.

By the time that the hideously ugly, itchy, scratchy, sweaty jeans made their way onto my daughter's body, breakfast was over and school gear was being assembled. Due to the fact that she had trouble keeping her hands to herself , Camber had to put her socks and shoes on in the corner.

"I'm never wearing these pants again!" she screamed.

I decided that it wasn't the best time to tell my daughter that because of her 45 minute temper tantrum, she was going to have the privilege of wearing the exact same pair of pants to school all week.

My Day in Pictures (and Quotes)

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that I'm not the only person who has had a day like this:

"I'm not eating dinner! Tortilla soup is disgusting. If you make me eat it, I'm going to throw up."

"Don't puke on my floor. Use this bucket instead."


"Please hold your skull goblet with two hands."

"I'm fine."

"Hold your skull goblet with two hands or I'm taking it away."

"Oops. Sorry. I should of held it with two hands. Instead of cleaning up the mess that I made because I didn't listen, I'm going to just sit here with a dumb look on my face and wait for you to hand me a paper towel."

"Mom, we need more toothpaste."

"I just bought you some."

"I didn't do it."

"Please hold the Santa bowl with two hands."

"I got it!"

"I'm sure you do, but please hold it with two hands anyway."

"Oops. I should have held it with two hands."

"Here's a picture that I made in school. It's of you."

"What's that circle with the dot in the middle that is between my legs?"

"Your breast."

It's Good to Be Clean: Part II

(This picture isn't the greatest, but it's the best I could do from behind a big bush. From past experience I know that workmen aren't super wild about people taking pictures of them. Especially when they aren't working).

At 6:30am on Tuesday morning, a monster truck rally convened in my cul-de-sac. Upon looking out my window, I saw two very large and very loud trucks blocking my neighbors' driveways. Grateful that they weren't blocking mine, I shrugged my shoulders and went about my business, which included taking a shower.

While I was not the least bit curious as to why one of the trucks unloaded a gigantic backhoe and why that backhoe was digging up the asphalt in front of my house at the crack of dawn, my husband was. While I washed my hair, he went outside to talk with the group of men who were standing on my neighbor's front lawn.

The foreman informed my husband that a water main had burst and that one of the men in attendance was there to fix it. The other 9 were there to supervise.

"Is our water o.k. to use?" asked my husband.
The foreman quickly assured him that it was. After thinking about it for a few minutes, however, the foreman changed his mind.
"Well, I wouldn't shower in it or anything," he told my husband.

My husband broke the bad news as I was rinsing out the shampoo. After I was dressed, he congratulated me for not freaking out that I took a shower in dirty water. I didn't tell my husband this, but frankly, I was saddened by the news, as it offered a reasonable, logical, and totally sane explanation for the brackish film that coated my skin. I was left in ignorance just long enough to convince myself that my shower head was rewarding me for good behavior and was dispensing a spray-on tan.

My New Job

Remember a few weeks back when I hinted that I was a teensy weensy bit bored and that I was looking for something to do in the NICU? Well, I found it!

About two weeks ago, a new baby was admitted to Cameron's NICU bay. After getting the baby settled in her isolette, the nurse took a Polaroid of the baby and gave it to the baby's father, who was standing nearby. The mother of another baby in the room saw the nurse take the picture and asked the nurse to take a picture of her baby too. The nurse was very nice, but explained that she was only allowed to take pictures of babies whose mothers weren't able to visit them in the NICU. The mother's face fell and when it did, it hit me: the woman didn't own a camera.

My suspicions were confirmed the next morning when the mom showed up to the NICU with a disposable drugstore camera which she didn't know how to operate. The camera only had 12 exposures and the poor mom wasted at least half of them trying to figure out how to get the flash to work.

I went home that night and couldn't sleep. My son was a week old and had hundreds of pictures to show for it. This woman's baby, by contrast, was six weeks old, and hadn't had a single picture taken of him. That was simply unacceptable.

I waited 24 hours before violating the hospital's privacy law. Then I asked the mom if I could take some pictures of her and her baby. I was a little afraid to ask because I didn't want to insult the woman and, truth be told, I was a little scared of her as well (the woman yells at the nurses and doctors a lot). Before the woman could give me an answer, I told her that I was going to get my camera and that I would be right back. When I returned a few minutes later, the woman had reapplied her lipstick and had put a new outfit on her baby. Anyone who reads this blog with any sort of frequency can bear witness that I am no photographer. Similarly, my camera is nothing to write home about, but it does take pictures and the ones I took, printed, and copied (at a whopping cost to me of $4.58) made this woman unbelievably happy.

I'm not telling you this just to "toot my own horn;" in fact, if anything, the ridiculous length of time that it took me to pick up on the need of those around me demonstrates how self-centered and clueless I am. What this incident reminded me of is that small gestures can make a big impact on other people's lives. Over the past month, I've been the beneficiary of many simple acts of kindness--a sweet email, a thoughtful note, a handmade baby blanket, a hug at just the right moment--yet I've fallen short in my responsibility to pass it on and pay it forward.

No thanks to anything that I've done, that has changed. Word has gotten around the NICU that I have a camera and I'm not afraid to use it. My list of "clients" is still small, but is growing. Most people are very supportive of what I am doing. Some of the older nurses, however, get kind of cranky when I wander around the NICU, but I've let it be known that if anyone crosses me, I'll take pictures of their butts and put them on the bulletin board by the front door.

Our Little Dracula

The bad news is that last night Cameron's hemoglobin count dropped again and he needed another blood transfusion.

The good news is that he was healthy enough this time to wear his vampire cape during the transfusion.

We got a smile!

Here's the latest from the NICU:

Cameron is doing great. The hole in his heart valve is closing up on its own (we have another echo cardiogram on Monday to check the progress) and he's off oxygen. He's making rapid progress on his eating as well; today he ate 50% of his feedings by mouth (they inject the rest through the very attractive orange tube sticking out of his nose).



For the past three days, we've had a male nurse named Rick. We like Rick because he lets us eat sandwiches in the NICU, gives us hourly sports scores updates, and tells us that Cameron is going to be a linebacker when he is in high school, even though we all know that he is going to play the trombone in the marching band.

Happy Halloween!

Last week, Samantha Cleaver from momcentral.com interviewed me for an article about kids' Halloween costumes. She was very generous in her write-up; she omitted the fact that I am clinically insane.

http://www.momcentral.com/feature-articles/halloween-costume-central.html

The Nun's Rash

Yesterday afternoon, I took a break from visiting Cameron in the NICU and went to see the folks at the Dermatology clinic at Penn. My appointment was at 2pm, which, in hospital time, meant 4:15pm.

Knowing that I had some time to kill in the waiting room made my decision of where to sit very easy. Specifically, I bypassed the long row of empty chairs near the television set and magazine rack and parked myself instead in a chair located directly behind four nuns with New Jersey accents. All of the women were in their late sixties at least, and were dressed in matching black clerical garb. Sitting next to one another, the women were virtually indistinguishable, except that one of them had a rash between her legs which she kept itching.

When I approached, the three unafflicted nuns were trying to talk their sister into donating her body to science.
"Let the doctors take a picture of your rash for their 'book,'" said nun #1.
"They could block out your face in the picture if you asked," added nun #2.
"No," said the afflicted.
"You could help other people," nun #2 pointed out.
Nun #3 didn't say anything, but she nodded in agreement.
"I said 'No!'" shouted the afflicted.

Having myself answered the call to pose nude for the clinic's famed "Book of Rashes," (http://themeanestmom.blogspot.com/2008/04/paper-underpants.html) I wanted to offer my moral support to the nun and tell her that both the pictures and the process of taking them really weren't that bad. I kept quiet however, on account that it is unwise to lie, especially to a woman with a four-inch cross draped around her neck.

Finally the nun gave in. After signing a waiver, she was led down a long, dark hallway by a medical student with a pitchfork dangling from her back pocket. Since no one else stood up to the plate, I took it upon myself to give the poor nun her last rites.

After sending their sister off to what would surely constitute the most traumatic 10 minutes of her life, the three unafflicted nuns made themselves feel better by counting their blessings.

"I feel very fortunate that I didn't get that rash," said nun #1.
"I wouldn't want someone taking pictures of a rash between my legs," admitted nun #2.
"Me neither," said nun #2.
"I have a rash between my legs," confessed nun #3. "I've had it since May."

Before I could contract the mysterious rash, I switched seats.

P.S. Cameron is doing great. His red blood cell count has remained stable all week. Although we were hoping for some improvement, we're grateful that the numbers didn't go down. Cameron is eating about half of his feeds by mouth now and he was weaned off the nasal cannula this morning. So far, so good.

Have a great weekend. It's absolutely beautiful in Philadelphia; I hope the weather is gorgeous wherever you're at.

The Paint-Your-Own Pumpkin

There are lots of scary places to take your kids this time of year. Far more creepy than a Kiwanis Haunted House, but just as expensive, is your local paint-your-own pottery store. The one in my town is made extra frightening by the perplexing overuse of personal pronouns in the store's name: Color Me Mine.

Based upon this flagrant abuse of grammatical convention, I decided that I was justified in never stepping foot into the store. My daughter, however, had a different opinion.
"Please?" she asked.
In a moment of weakness, I agreed.



The contents of the store made my spine tingle. Lining three out of the four walls were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with unpainted ceramic figurines, organized by genre. The left wall housed the mammals (represented heavily by sea creatures and house pets), while the back wall held an impressive collection of life-like fruits, vegetables, and desserts. The wall to the right was filled with mammoth-sized coffee mugs, an assortment of decorative plates, and other mock serving ware.

"I want to paint that!" squealed Camber, pointing to a $50 stallion jumping over a rainbow.
"I like this pumpkin," I said, holding up the least expensive item in the store.
"How about this?" said Camber, pointing to a ceramic rope basket holding a large bundle of grapes.
"I like this," I said again, taking the $13 pumpkin ($5.50 pumpkin + 6.00 "paint/glaze fee" + tax) to the cash register.


After paying for the pint-sized pumpkin, I turned to find my daughter sitting at a table with a small dish of orange paint.
"Don't you want to paint your pumpkin a lot of different colors?" I asked, figuring that if I was forced to pay for five colors of paint, then we might as well use them.
Camber looked at me like I had two heads.

Not only was my daughter not interested in my paint color suggestions, she also didn't want me to watch her paint. This was fine by me, as it freed me up to watch other people in the store. Of chief interest was the mother and daughter sitting at the table next to us. The other mom clearly loves her daughter a lot more than I love mine because she bought her little darling a $45 porpoise jumping over a large wave.

After listening in on their conversation, I was relieved to discover that I was not the only mom in the room concerned with using my money's worth of paint supplies.

"I didn't pay 50 bucks for an unpainted whale!" hissed the mom to her daughter, who had just announced that she intended to leave the porpoise "white."

After watching this exchange, I began to feel pretty good about my $13 pumpkin.

"I should have bought that pumpkin," the mom mumbled under her breath as she glanced in our direction.

The nice thing to do would have been to console the poor woman, or at least validate her judgment. I couldn't bring myself to do either. The presence of the $50 unpainted porpoise made such gestures impossible.

Unattended Belongings

I was eating lunch in the hospital cafeteria the other day when a woman sitting in the booth next to me leaned over.

"Excuse me," she said. "Are you going to be sitting here for a few minutes?"
Before I could answer in the affirmative, the woman said, "Would you mind watching my stuff for me?"
The assignment seemed to be relatively low risk, so I nodded my head.

I waited for the woman to exit the cafeteria before peering over the booth to see what I was babysitting. Included among the objects scattered across the table was a laptop, a BlackBerry, and a large red purse.

The sight of what I conservatively estimated to be $3,000 worth of electronics made me feel very relieved that I was not the stupid person who had asked a complete stranger to protect my valuables from other strangers. I was just the stupid stranger who agreed to do it.

I spent the next five minutes feeling resentful over my loss of freedom. I spent the five minutes after that trying to figure out ways to displace some of my stupidity onto others.

I thought first about asking another stranger to watch the woman's stuff. Then I thought about hiding the woman's stuff (to teach her a lesson). Eventually I combined the two ideas and came up with my best idea yet: asking a stranger to hide the woman's stuff. I was mentally interviewing two prospective job candidates--a man with two screws protruding from his left temple and a woman who was stabbing hundreds of small holes into the top of a piece of apple pie with a plastic fork--when the owner of the electronics store returned, carrying a chopped salad and a Diet Pepsi.

"Thanks!" she chirped, and sat down.

I gave the man with the screws in his head a sympathetic look, not because he had screws in his head, but because my hesitation cost him the opportunity to play hide-and-seek.

Quarantine!

"Where's Cameron?" I asked a nurse in the NICU Saturday morning. My son and his crib were M.I.A.

The nurse pointed in direction of a small room attached to the back of the NICU. The one with a sign on its door that read "Quarantine."

"Cool!" I replied before realizing that my son was the one being quarantined.

A few days after Cameron was born, a herd of hematologists took blood samples from both Cameron and me and shipped them off to the CDC in Atlanta. The lab results that came back on Friday night revealed what every doctor told us was "biologically impossible:" namely, that Cameron has active Parvovirus in his body, and so do I. Why Cameron and I are still infected with the virus--six months after exposure to it--is a complete mystery, as the virus is supposed to be cleared from the body within a matter of weeks.

Hey wait! What's Parvovirus? If you don't know, but want to, read one of the following articles.
In descending order of dryness:

http://otispregnancy.org/pdf/fifthdisease.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/respiratory/parvo_b19.htm

http://www.aafp.org/afp/991001ap/1455.html

Regardless of how the virus has managed to hang around so long, its presence in Cameron's body goes a long way in explaining why he has had such a tough time since birth; he isn't recovering from the effects of being exposed to the virus in utero, but rather, he is actively fighting off the infection that has grown alongside him (and inside him) since the second trimester.

Although it was the weekend, the hope of a research publication got several few infectious disease experts--and their residents--out of their beds. I was very encouraged when I returned from lunch yesterday to find an immunologist sitting at a computer outside Cameron's room, reading the same articles on the Internet that I had read 20 minutes earlier.

"Please tell me that that is not all there is out there," I said, pointing at the computer.
"Oh no," said the immunologist, holding up a thin stack of papers. "There is this."
She handed me the article she was holding. It was written in Chinese.

To make a long story short, no one knows what to do with Cameron. At this point, there aren't any anti-viral medications that he can be given; he is going to have to fight the infection himself. He is going to be fine in the long run, but since he was sick for so long in utero, it may take awhile for his little body to build up enough strength to kick the virus to the curb once and for all.

As for the reason why the virus was able to outstay its welcome in the first place, we may never know. Hematology's best guess at this point is that one of the immunosuppressants that I took during my pregnancy for my Crohn's may have played a role in lowering my and, by extension, Cameron's resistance to the virus. If this is true, then it is somewhat ironic that the same drugs that enabled me to get pregnant and stay pregnant with Cameron for so long (by repressing my disease) also let an infection rage that almost killed him. For the landmine that we sidestepped one way or another, we are very blessed.

As with all setbacks, there have been unexpected blessings that have come with Cameron's NICU quarantine (Parvovirus is contagious an thus the gowns, gloves, and masks); namely, no one can see what I'm up to in that back room. Devoid of any real supervision (Cameron's nurses are more than happy to pass instructions on how to operate Cameron's machinery to me and Tim through the doorway), I am now free to eat cheese and crackers at my son's bedside (a NICU no-no), examine the contents of the medical supply cart without embarrassment, and read my son's medical charts without impunity.

Cameron

Just wanted to give those who are following a quick update on Cameron:

Overall he is continuing to improve, but yesterday we suffered a little setback. Cameron's most recent set of lab results revealed that his hematocrit levels have dropped significantly and that his bone marrow has all but stopped producing red blood cells again. Normally this would mean another transfusion, but his doctors have decided to give his bone marrow a chance to "get its act together and start doing its job" on its own. If his levels don't increase by Monday, they'll do the transfusion. Despite all this, we're doing well and are enjoying the little guy a lot.

Nurse Hot Flash

I am thoroughly confused by why my five year-old daughter wants no part of the baboon Halloween costume that I purchased for her two months ago at a local thrift store.

http://themeanestmom.blogspot.com/2008/08/halloween-costumes.html

"It has a red bottom!" she wailed the other day.
"Yes!" I agreed. "That's the best part!"

Although I am perplexed by my daughter's refusal to wear prosthetic butt cheeks to her kindergarten Halloween party, I have decided to take my husband's advice and let her choose another costume.

Over the past few weeks, I have made a number of very excellent costume suggestions including jellyfish, cheese steak, and Copacabana dancer. Unfortunately, none of these ideas struck my daughter's fancy.

Just as I was beginning to get excited over the prospect that by default, I may get my little baboon after all, my daughter went and crushed all of my hopes and dreams.

"I want to be a nurse for Halloween," she announced to me yesterday morning in the NICU.
I snarled at the perky twenty-something NICU nurse standing next to me.
"Bad example," I whispered under my breath.

As we discovered on our afternoon shopping trip later that day, child nurse costumes are easy to find. Another good thing is that all of the costumes are really good quality. I pulled a $19.99 nurse costume out of a plastic bag at a Halloween superstore and, in the process, almost popped my hand right through it. I was pleased to discover that the costume was made of the same durable paper as the dressing gowns in my doctor's office.

"I'm not buying this," I announced to my daughter.
Before I could suggest that we try some other places, she started to cry.

"Do you know why I want to be a nurse for Halloween?" she asked me through crocodile tears.
I did not know, but I had a feeling that the cute NICU nurse had something to do with it.

"It's because you and I could be nurses together," Camber continued.
I had no idea what my daughter was talking about until she disappeared down the next aisle over and returned carrying a plastic bag containing the uniform belonging to "Nurse Hot Flash."

"Mmm," I said, examining the picture of the overexposed and extremely well-endowed nurse on the front of the package.

"This is a very nice costume," I agreed, "Especially for our church trunk-or-treat."

Camber beamed in anticipation.

"But I'm worried that I might get a little cold."

"You could run around a lot to keep warm," Camber suggested.

"Oh yes," I said, "That's a very good idea. I didn't think of that. In that case, I'll give it some serious thought."

The Night Nurse

During my entire hospital stay at Penn, I was blessed to have the same night nurse, a woman named Helen who had a badly sprained ankle, which she dragged behind her like a dead body.

As I staggered back to the maternity floor from the NICU at 1am one night, I stopped at the nurse's station, where I found Helen playing a game of solitaire on her computer.

"I'm going to try to get some sleep now," I told Helen. "Do you need anything from me before I head to my room?"

My question was met with a blank stare, so I clarified my request.
"Do you need to take my temperature or look at my vagina?" I asked.
Helen said that both my privates and my vital signs could go unsupervised until morning.

"Perfect," I said, "See you later."
I woke up to a flashlight shining in my face. The clock read 1:15am.
"I need to take your blood pressure and your temperature after all," giggled Helen.
I opened my mouth and stuck out my arm.

At 2:45am Helen remembered that she also had to draw some blood.
"I'm not very happy about this," I told her.
Helen apologized and asked where I wanted the tourniquet.

I pointed to my favorite vein, but Helen "didn't like the look of it" and selected one in my wrist instead. After digging around for five minutes, she decided that my suggestion wasn't a bad one after all.

At 4:37am, Helen brought in a large Styrofoam cup of ice. She woke me up to ask me where I wanted her to put it.
"I don't want it!" I screamed nicely.
Helen said she was sorry for trying to make me more comfortable. She left the light on and the door open on her way out. I counted to 10. Ten times.

Helen's shift ended at 7:00am. At exactly 6:58am, I buzzed the nurse's station.
"Yes?" said Helen, poking her head around the door.
"Before you go," I said, "Could you get me a drink of water and a handful of saltines....and a towel and two washcloths please?"

I could hear Helen's leg scraping down the hall to to the ice machine. I tried not to smile, but it was hard.

CCD

Every Wednesday evening, my neighbor works as a waitress at a swanky Italian restaurant in town. I help her out by watching her two daughters (aged 5 & 10) for an hour until her husband gets home from work.

A few weeks ago, the husband got stuck in a meeting and called to say that he wouldn't be home in time to take Christina, his older daughter, to her first CCD class at the local Catholic church. When I told Christina that it was her lucky day--I was going to drive her!!!!--the blood drained out of the fifth grader's face. I didn't have the slightest idea why until I looked in the hallway mirror and saw a bloated whale wearing a cowboy hat and socks with sandals.

The outfit was non-negotiable, as were the four five year-olds dressed in Lightening McQueen and Sleeping Beauty pajamas. Still, I felt bad for the poor girl, so I cut her a deal.

"I'll tell you what," I said t0 Christina as I pulled into the church parking lot, "Why don't you walk 10 steps ahead of us and pretend like you don't know us."

"Christina?"

I found the girl curled in the fetal position in the back of my car.

After I agreed to repark the car down the street and around the corner, Christina mustered enough courage to get out of the vehicle. Very slowly, she began to slink toward the building.

The pajama train followed 100 yards behind singing "This Little Light of Mine" at the top of their lungs. I like the song, so I sang too.

By the time that we entered the church gymnasium, Christina was already sitting at a table with a group of her friends.

"Let's go," I told the children's choir, "Our work here is done."

We turned and exited the building in an orderly fashion, but not before the choir broke into loud, exuberant song again.

"So long! Farewell! It's time to say good-bye!" they screamed.

I tried to stop them...unsuccessfully.

Christina is still not speaking to me. As if there would be any question.

Being Clean is Good

The doctors and nurses at Penn constantly wash their hands, which is a good thing. Since the invention of hand sanitizer, a thorough hand scrubbing is, more often than not, followed by a generous squirt of Purell.

As someone who has trouble remembering to wash their hands at critical times (like after chopping onions), I am fascinated--to the point of unhealthy obsession--by those who wash their hands unconsciously. Yesterday, I dedicated a whole hour to counting how many times one specific NICU nurse dispensed Purell into her left palm. At the end of the hour, I told the unwitting object of my curious gaze that she had sanitized her hands an amazing 52 times.

"That's almost one squirt per minute," I added, patting myself on the back for solving such a complex mathematical equation in my head.

The nurse thanked me for providing such a valuable public service.

Another nurse overheard my conversation with nurse # 1 and failed to avert eye contact fast enough.

"If you want, I can count how many...."

"That's o.k.," nurse # 2 interrupted, turning her back to me.

Nurse # 1 suggested that I find something else to do in the NICU to occupy my mind...and fill the time.

Any suggestions... other than honing my skills in eavesdropping and making infant-sized pirate eye patches out of bilirubin goggles? I'm pretty good at both already.


P.S. Cameron continues to improve, albeit slowly. We're waiting for the results of several blood tests, which should give us a better idea of where his bone marrow is at right now. We'll take whatever we can get at this point... and are grateful for it.

The Stormtrooper

I have a new best friend; her name is Bonnie. I met her two days after I gave birth to Cameron. More specifically, I came out of the bathroom and found her sitting on a lounge chair in the corner of my hospital room. Unlike every other visitor to my bed side, Bonnie was not interested in looking at my impressive collection of stomach staples; she had eyes only for my breasts, and the industrial-sized breast pump which she had wheeled into my room.

"I'm not breastfeeding," I told Bonnie as she came at me with two cone-shaped suction cups.
Bonnie wanted to know why.
It was none of Bonnie's business, but I told her the truth: I am taking a new drug for my Crohn's Disease and both my G.I. and OB-GYN advised me against breastfeeding while I am on it.

Bonnie had never heard of the drug before, but she was sure that the Chair of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania didn't know what she was talking about.

"Stay right here," said Bonnie, standing up. "I'm going to do some research and I'll be right back."

Bonnie blew her breast pump a kiss and then headed for the door. As she left, I silently admired her outfit. She was wearing solid white army fatigues and what appeared to be white snow boots. She couldn't have looked more like a Stormtrooper if she tried.

After Bonnie left, I felt an urgent need to protect my breasts from future unwanted advances. So I put on three sports bras. Then I made a beeline for the safety of the NICU.

About thirty minutes later, I felt heavy breathing on the back of my neck. I looked up to find a very angry lactation consultant staring down at me.

"You disappeared," said Bonnie, flatly, as she handed me a 1-inch stack of papers. The top pages were covered with drawings of circles held together by sticks; the pages beneath them were filled with chicken scratches that I vaguely recognized as mathematical symbols.

As I flipped through the stack, admiring the quality of paper on which the symbols were printed, Bonnie started using scary words like "molecular weight" and "atomic mass" to describe the form that my drug takes in breast milk. After a few minutes, I interrupted Bonnie with a quick plot summary of the parable of the pearls and the swine. I felt that it was only fair that she know that she was speaking to someone with the math and science skills of a third grader.

Upon realizing that her diagrams of molecules and atoms failed to impress, Bonnie produced a write-up of a comprehensive study on women who took my drug while breastfeeding.

"But the study only included six women," I pointed out.
To Bonnie, this was an acceptable focus group.

I had a feeling that my conversation with Bonnie was going to get real interesting, real quick. I was unfairly deprived of the opportunity to discuss the value of breastfeeding on a new, largely untested drug, however, by Bonnie's beeper.

Having been alerted by Darth Vadar to the arrival of a number of new admits to the maternity floor, Bonnie decided to abandon this fight for others in a galaxy far, far away.

The Latest on Cameron

Cameron's hemoglobin and platelet counts rose after his most recent transfusions, and then dropped again. Instead of transfusing again right away, Cameron's doctors decided to wait a few days in hopes that his bone marrow will wake up and start doing its job. Over the weekend, we also learned that Cameron has a very small opening in his PDA heart valve (a very common condition in premature and anemic babies). He can't start feeding until this issue gets resolved by nature or by medicine, hopefully in the next few days.

All in all, though, Cameron is doing great. He is becoming less lethargic and more alert every day, which is a wonderful thing to witness.

Cameron Update

Thank you again for all of your thoughts and prayers. I have read your comments, cried and laughed (when appropriate) over them, and have shared many of them with Cameron's doctors and nurses. My family feels very much loved and supported by your outpouring of support.

Cameron received another platelet transfusion yesterday and so far, is responding well to it. He's regaining some energy, as evidenced by the fact that he cried (for the first time) and is opening his eyes. Doctors removed his central line and downgraded him to a nasal cannula yesterday (both very good things) so we got to hold him for the first time! It was very exciting, and overwhelming. Here are a couple of pictures from recent days.

What I Learned from my Children

Prewritten Post # 2

Small children are blessed with unabashed pride in their own accomplishments and attributes.
"You are very beautiful," I told my daughter the other day.
"I know," she replied.

Somewhere along the journey to adulthood, however, most women stop taking compliments as incontrovertible truths about ourselves and instead, start viewing them as cruel jokes. This is proven by the fact that if you ever tell a young mother that she looks pretty or, heaven forbid, sexy, she will first laugh at you, and then insult your intelligence.
"You don't know what you are talking about," she'll bark as she pinches a layer of fat around her middle.

I worry sometimes that I am so focused on teaching my kids how to be better people that I forget that I have much to learn from them on the subject in return. Specifically, I fear that if I don't start following my children's example, then they will follow mine.

The next time that someone pays you a compliment, join me in resisting the urge to stomp on it. Instead, smile and simply say "thank you."


P.S. Have a great weekend! I'll be back "live" on Monday. I hope!

Baby Update

Announcing Cameron Timothy Mathews
Born: September 30, 2008
2:04pm
5 lbs, 11oz
15 1/2 inches

As many of you know, I contracted Parvovirus 19 (Fifth Disease) when I was between 14 and 18 weeks pregnant and, in turn, passed the virus onto my unborn baby. Usually the virus' effects on fetuses are very mild; unfortunately, in our case, the virus attacked the baby's bone marrow, thus making him anemic. How anemic, however, no one really could tell while he was still inside.

Shortly after Cameron was delivered on Tuesday, it became apparent that his anemia was far more severe than anyone thought. Tests revealed that his hemoglobin and platelet counts were extremely low. In addition, he had a significantly enlarged liver and heart. His enlarged organs, in turn, pressed on his lungs, making it nearly impossible for him to breathe.

The first 24 hours were pure hell (I feel bad even saying this, knowing that there are a lot of moms of triplets and quads reading this who have had 3+ months of NICU hell with their babies). In addition to receiving two blood tranfusions and a platelet transfusion, Cameron was put on a ventilator and given a paralyzing drug. Doctors also did numerous things to reduce the amount of extra fluid in his abdominal cavity and decrease the strain on his lungs and heart.

In the past 24 hours, Cameron's condition has significantly improved. The chief neonatologist told me this morning that Cameron is very lucky to be alive. The transfusions were successful and his bone marrow is starting to reproduce new blood cells, albeit at a very slow rate. Tim and I feel blessed on so many levels and for so many things. Sometime later, I'll write about it all. All I can say now is the obvious: God answers prayers.

At the moment, Cameron is in the NICU and will stay there for at least a few more weeks. Although he isn't out of the woods yet, we're hopeful that he'll make a full recovery.

Thank you so much for your continuted thoughts and prayers. Your support means a lot to our family.

What I Learned During This Pregnancy

I knew that my D-Day would come sooner or later, and since I couldn't guarantee that I would have access to a computer in the hospital, I wrote a few entries in advance. Here's #1:

Most women in Penn's High-Risk Pregnancy Clinic have been asked at least once if they want to terminate their pregnancy. My friend (let's call her Aalia) has been asked this question more times than the rest of us, and for good reason: Aalia has Brittle Bone Disease, a debilitating form of dwarfism. Standing no taller than the average kindergartner, the eight-month pregnant Aalia is all belly....literally. The added weight and pressure of her unborn baby has put such a strain on Aalia's petite body that she has a tremendously difficult time doing things that most of us take for granted (i.e. walking, sitting in a chair).

Because our doctors' appointments are scheduled on the same days and times every week, Aalia and I have had a lot of opportunities to talk about our pregnancies, and the choices that we have made in relation to them. Last week, Aalia told me the story of when her 20-week ultrasound revealed that the baby she was carrying would be born with the same debilitating disease with which she struggles.

"Would you consider terminating your pregnancy?" asked her doctor.
"Not any more than I would consider terminating myself," Aalia replied.

It's been a week, and I can't stop thinking about Aalia's response to her doctor's suggestion. Specifically, I am overwhelmed by this mother's love for her child...and for herself.

How often do we look in the mirror and lament our physical imperfections? More often, I bet, than Aalia does. As I catch myself focusing with increasing frequency on the inconveniences of pregnancy, I can't help but acknowledge with great admiration that Aalia understands with perfect clarity what many in the world never will: namely, that beauty lies in the gift of life itself.

It's A Boy! (you already knew that)

Baby Mathews was born yesterday afternoon at 2:04PM. He weighed in at 5lbs. 11ozs. Jana is doing well and is in good spirits.

The baby is surprisingly handsome (compared to his two older brothers, also born at 35weeks). He came a bit early and needs some special attention at this point but he is in good hands. Please keep him in your prayers.

I don't frequent "The Meanest Mom" but I know Jana appreciates all your support, whether you are a close friend or a loyal reader on the other side of the country (or world for that matter).

"The Nicest Dad"