hello blog

Hello blog. I haven't seen you in a while. Since someone is over here fussing like his hair is on fire (neat trick for someone who doesn't really have any hair) I expect it will be a while since I see you again. Here, then, is (unedited) the reason why. No time for editing these days; if this information gets used against me that will teach me to be indiscreet....

May 28, 2006



Greetings to all our friends and family!

Sorry I haven’t been able to be personally in touch with all of you. Paul Stephen was released from Emerson Hospital four days ago, on Wednesday, May 24, 8 days after his birth. Since then we’ve been getting into a comfortable (more or less!) routine with feedings, changings, cuddlings, big brother bonding time, and so on, and so on. So if I haven’t regained my customary level of efficiency… well, who cares!?

We stayed at the hospital so long because Paul was born at 36 weeks and 4 days gestational age; technically that makes him premature. He was healthy at birth and weighed 6 lbs, 5.5 oz, which was just 4.5 ounces less than Jordan when he was born. However, he had some trouble coordinating his breathing when he nursed, which made the oxygen level in his blood drop so they had to keep him on a heartbeat and blood saturation monitor. We had to teach him when the monitors went off to stop swallowing and breathe! Needless to say he mastered that pretty fast so we were able to bring him home.

The other complication for Paul was that he developed jaundice two days after he was born so he was on a “bili-bed” for five days. This isn’t uncommon, particularly with premature babies… I think they told me that 50 – 80 percent of babies born prematurely develop jaundice. It just took him a while to beat it. And it’s a fine family tradition: Steve was premature and jaundiced at birth, I was jaundiced, and so was Jordan. The yellow Newbolds. Why should Paul be different? It has made him into the cuddliest baby I’ve ever met, though. Jordan was cuddly, but not like this. Paul doesn’t sleep well unless he’s being held or snuggled against someone’s heart. I think it’s because he could only be out of the UV lights for a half-hour at a time for so many days he craves bodily contact.

It’s probably my fault that Paul arrived early. I developed high blood pressure about two or three weeks into my third trimester and from weeks 31 – 36 had tests twice weekly at the hospital to record my pressures and monitor Paul’s well-being. Sometimes if they didn’t like the results they’d add another test that week. I went in for a routine test on May 13 and they told me they wanted me back at 8:30 the following morning for a repeat test and that they would probably admit me. So I was admitted to Emerson on Mother’s Day and they kept me there on bed rest until Tuesday May 16, when they induced labor. My doctor had hoped to wait one more day until Wednesday, but my blood pressure readings were too unstable and there were indications that Paul was ready to be delivered anyway. So they started the pitocin IV to induce labor at about 11:30 and Paul was born at 2:56pm.

I felt euphoric after he was born! I remember that the nurse brought me red jello before I went to sleep for the night and it tasted like ambrosia, and the hot water to wash my face felt like heaven. She even massaged my back before I slept. When was the last time somebody did that for you?! They brought Paul to my room to nurse at about 2am, and I remember feeling really groggy, as if I couldn’t focus my eyes. It didn’t matter… he had been bathed and smelled wonderful and his hair was the softest thing I’d ever felt against my cheek. He nursed for a little while and then they took him back to the special care nursery and I went back to sleep.

When they brought him back again around dawn (it must have been 4:30 or 5am) I still felt as if my eyes wouldn’t focus and I thought I was slurring my words. My sinuses also felt congested. By breakfast time when Steve came I realized I had double vision and could only read if I closed one eye. Trying to track across the room with my eyes made me dizzy and disoriented. And when I looked in the mirror my face was so swollen my eyes were almost shut. When my doctor came in to check on me and I told her these things her face fell. She had a neurologist come in to examine me and at 6pm on Wednesday I went for an MRI.

I think this was scarier for me than the hypertension. I remember thinking that I was could handle just about anything, but if they discovered a blood clot or something that required surgery on my head to repair I wasn’t prepared for THAT! Also I’d never had an MRI before and although I’d never experienced claustrophobia when they put me in the tube my chest constricted and I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I thought “I don’t know if I can do this.” Luckily that only lasted a second or two and by the time I was all the way into the machine I was able to relax and breathe again. I thought of all of you and I actually felt as if I were being held up by wings of prayer and good wishes and I was sort of smiling when they did the tests. The technicians must have thought I was crazy! Of course, being stuck in what feels like a metal culvert while someone hammers on it with a pipe wrench is sort of an absurd circumstance!

By dinner time I realized that the double vision had gone away when I was able to read the paper mat on my dinner tray that described all the different types of hospital diets. They came in about an hour later and told me all the results of the MRI were normal. The neurologist saw me the following day and said they thought what I’d experienced was an allergic reaction to the epidural anesthesia, but they didn’t know for sure. I didn’t have any anesthesia when I had Jordan, so it’s entirely possible. Anyway, it resolved itself completely and I didn’t give it much of a second thought, except to be thankful that there was nothing seriously wrong.

Paul and I both passed our first post-discharge exams and are doing excellently. I still take blood pressure medicine once a day but should be able to discontinue it in two to three weeks, and I feel terrific. I was in the hospital for 10 days and just being back home with all my boys together is a blessing! The house and garden went a little to seed during that time, but we’ve got all summer to fix them up. And to figure out stuff like how the pool skimmer works and why we can’t seem to control the algae in the koi pond.

In other news, Steve is having a new hydronic electric heat system installed in the house. It was supposed to be done the week that I was in the hospital but some of the panels arrived damaged and the replacements haven’t arrived yet. It is supposed to be 100% efficient and save money on electricity because the utility delivers the power off peak – at night when demand is lowest. There’s a huge box of bricks in the cellar and the electricity heats the bricks overnight, then the bricks heat the water for our hot-water baseboards. It gets rid of the 40 year-old gas boiler in the utility room, which used to make me nervous because Jordan’s playroom is next door and the gas flames were too easily accessible to little hands. We used to have to leave the door to the utility room ajar so the gas would get fresh air and once one of Jordan’s battery-powered trains ended up underneath the boiler. Luckily the gas was not on at the time and Jordan came and told me. So I’ll feel much more comfortable with the new system.

We’ve replaced all the appliances in the house except the electric stove (I’m keeping the gas line in the cellar so that eventually I can have a gas stove). We’ve gotten into the habit of buying ourselves things with plugs for holidays – we celebrated New Year’s Eve with a new dishwasher, bought a washer and dryer for Valentine’s Day and gave each other a refrigerator for our anniversary. I forget what we were celebrating when we replaced the toilets. (Probably doesn’t bear remembering.) We still haven’t bought any furniture yet but all our fixtures work great!

I hope I get a chance to talk to all of you personally over the summer and catch up, but in the mean time I hope you’re all doing well and thank you for all your love and prayers – it really means so much to us!

Love from all of us --