Stupid Thyroid

During this time, I also had to battle a problem that arose during my pregnancy. Through a routine exam my family practice doctor thought my neck looked slightly enlarged. He ordered thyroid blood work and an ultrasound. The ultrasound came back showing a multi nodular goiter. In other words my thyroid was enlarged and had growths all over it. A thyroid biopsy was ordered. It came back showing nondescript atypical cells. This means they don't know for sure if there is cancer or not. There is quite a family history of thyroid problems coming from both sides of my family but as far as I new no hereditary link to cancer. I saw a specialist during my pregnancy and he said to wait till I had Gracie to tackle the thyroid problems. I remember him saying that the chances of it being cancerous were very small and that he would "bet me some fries" it wasn't cancer. We had a followup when Gracie was just a couple months old and some of my levels had elevated which was a little concerning but he still didn't think it was cancer. He said there was a 2% chance it was cancer. He recommended I have my thyroid removed because I would have to monitor it yearly because of the atypical cells and it might just be better to get it out. He sent me to a surgeon. The surgeon also didn't think it was cancerous. He said if I was his daughter he would recommend she just get it out so that she didn't have to worry about it. Since our out of pocket maximum was reached for the year and both doctors were recommending we get it out, we decided to do it. In order to get it removed before our insurance rolled over we had to do it while Gracie was just a newborn. The surgery required an overnight stay and I couldn't nurse her for 24 hours because of the anesthesia. Being in the emotional state that I was in, this seemed like too much to handle. I had so many second thoughts. I called my mom and few days before thinking maybe of just biting the bullet and paying our out of pocket maximum and second time to delay the surgery and not have to worry about it right then. I even had the surgeon call me on his day off to ask more questions because I was seriously thinking of backing out. I was pumping every chance I got and Brian was practicing a bottle with Gracie, which she took like a champ. Michelle was kind enough to be willing to watch an extremely fussy newborn for the day of my surgery and Brian had to spend a night with a super fussy newborn. That ended up being an adventure because Gracie wasn't used to waiting for a bottle to warm up in the middle of the night so there was quite the dramatics on her part. The surgery went well. He took all my thyroid out because it looked horrible. Something about my thyroid made the chances of it being cancerous go up to about 10%. I remember thinking how horrible it would be if it were cancerous, but in the back of my mind I was convinced it wasn't. I didn't fit the profile. I didn't have the family history. It was also during this time that I found out that it was cancer. Whaaaat!?! Stupid. I'm still mad about it. It was spread all throughout my thyroid. Who knows how long its been there. Thankfully its an extremely curable type of cancer. Because they cant get every piece of thyroid out with a thyroidectomy they have to leave some tissues attached. If it ends up being cancer then you have to do radiation to kill off anything remaining. Problem is that while you are doing radiation you are literally radioactive and you can't be around anyone...especially children...especially especially babies. Extra stupid. By some miracle, my doctor was super understanding about my desire to nurse Gracie and said that it would be okay for me to nurse her a while before doing the radiation. How long I will nurse her is still up in the air. I will be getting tests soon that will give us a better idea and I will also be seeing the specialist again to ask more questions and nail down how long will be acceptable. I, of course, want to nurse her as long as possible. I'm an emotional nurser. :) I feel such a bond with my babies when I nurse them and it's hard for me to stop. I feel jipped that stupid cancer is going to cut it short. I am so so grateful for my doctor allowing me to do it as long as possible. There was a time when we thought I may have to stop right away. So I AM grateful to still be doing it but feel bitter about the added stress that this has added on a time when I am trying to do nothing by enjoy little Gracie. I nursed Meg and Adin till they were 15 months. By that time they were only nursing maybe once a night and not at all in the day, but I was still technically nursing them. I am positive I would have done the same with Grace but definitely wont be able to go that long. I'm trying to focus on gratitude for doing it as long as I will get to but I am fighting off bitterness over those months that I will lose. This will have to be an ongoing topic as we're still right smack dab in the middle of this mess. :*(

Gracie Goose...the first two months

So that sweet disposition I sensed in the hospital went away within a week. Holy smokes. Grace had an extremely sensitive stomach. She was always gassy. She would scream for hours. I paced our front room area for hours while she would scream. Once she fell asleep I couldn't put her down or she would wake up. Gracie was definitely, by far, my hardest newborn. It was exhausting. I was exhausted and recovering from the c section. Brian was exhausted and trying to run the house and care for the other kids. I felt like it would never end. Grace had trouble latching perfectly but was always hungry so nursing was excruciatingly painful. I saw specialists for that. We saw doctors about her fussiness. I cut dairy and chocolate from my diet completely. We would think it wasn't doing anything then I would add it back in and we would debate if she was worse so I would eliminate it again. It was quite the cycle. Those first two months are such a blur. I remember thinking it would never end. I was highly emotional. Crying all the time. ALL the time!  Darn hormones. For a couple weeks I battled migraines. The medication they prescribe for migraines while nursing gave me excruciating pain while nursing. I saw a few doctors about migraines. I felt like I was constantly at the doctor. We both ended up with yeast infections which we both had to see doctors about. Blah. Grace would not let me put her down so I had trouble showering, brushing my teeth, getting ready for the day. Unless I could find a dinner I could make in 5 minutes or less then dinner was out. She hated (really hated) the car and her car seat. I was driving to the kids school for pick up and drop off 3 times a day and it was a 30 minute round trip. She would scream at the top of her lungs the entire 30 minutes. My blood pressure would be through the roof the whole time. I slept on the couch the entire first two months with her. It was just easier for me that way. I could hold her there while I slept without worrying I would roll on her and it was easier to nurse her a billion times a night that way. Having a colicky newborn, for me, made it harder to connect with her as immediately as I was able to with the others. I remember being very emotional about that lack of connection. I remember thinking there was no way I would ever be a good mom to Meg and Adin again. I remember thinking I would never be able to cook a meal for my family again. I remember wondering if I would ever shower again. It was hard...the hardest.

 Oh my heck I need to reverse time and have her this little again. So sweet!

 These two were absolute troopers. To this day neither of them have complained once about Gracie. They love her to pieces...sometimes too much. They fight over her incessantly. They think she is the greatest thing that has ever happened to them. I didn't see that coming at all.

 Mommy's snuggle bug. Thank goodness she is so snuggly.

 Look at those little rolls.

Writing this as a backdated post, I can remember this time pretty vividly. The connection concern is not an issue by any stretch of the imagination. That little diva has me wrapped around her finger. I cannot get enough of her. I squish her and squeeze and hold her as tight as I can without hurting her. I am grateful beyond words for that little girl. I am so beyond grateful for a chance to be a mother to another sweet baby. Everyday is amazing. I am in awe of her. I have decided that being a mother and experiencing a new baby is the most amazing blessing of my life. What can I say, I'm passionate about it. Having Gracie has renewed my love of mothering Meg and Adin as well. Not that I didn't love it before Gracie. I very seriously loved it and would pray prayers of gratitude all the time for it, but having Gracie has renewed my passion about it. I now look back on those two months and it was seriously so so hard, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. They say that over time you forget how hard it was and that's why you keep having more kids. Ha, I remember it vividly and would do it again. Why, oh why, must she grow so fast. So incredibly worth it!

Grace Kathryn

I'm attempting another ride on the blog wagon. Most people have long since forgotten I ever had a blog so I kind of like the idea that it will be more just for a record for our family than a way for other people to know what's going on in our lives. If you haven't forgotten and you still check my blog after all these years, then your loyalness (not a word?)  has earned you a "sneak peak". Now the name is even more fitting.

I'm going to backdate occasionally but get overwhelmed when I realize how much I have missed documenting. Plus we are so busy that it will be hard enough to just keep up with current events. The most important thing I want to backdate is Gracie's birth story.

Grace was my first planned c-section. With Adin we hoped to revert to a vaginal birth so the c-section was last minute and Meg was an emergency. It was odd with Grace because we pretty much picked her birth day in January. Friday, March 8th at 7:30 was the plan. It was so weird. My pregnancy with Grace was almost exactly like the others with the exception of the first few weeks. I was so so sick for the first couple weeks. Holy smokes. I don't know how women handle morning sickness. Since I didn't have a day of sickness with the first two I was sure that it meant I would be sick the entire first trimester. It was hard to take care of the other two since I was so horribly nauseated all day long. No medications worked at all. It was horrible. Did I mention that. Thankfully it completely went away after just a few weeks. Heavenly. Then my pregnancy was like the others. I was active up until my delivery date and was able to deep clean the house and accomplish a lot before she came. Meg was excited but I could tell it was all pretty unknown. She had been around babies a little but was always very offish. She wasn't the type of girl who loves babies and wants to hold him all the time. I didn't know what to expect with her. Adin was not excited at all. I had very nervous feelings about Adin. He had been the baby in the family for 6 years. He is a total mama's boy and I worried that he wouldn't feel as close to me or that he would be resentful of Grace. I cherished everyday that I got to walk Adin up the hall to his kindergarten class. He would hold my had and talk baby talk to me. He called me mama gaga and I tried to soak it up and remember that time with him because I knew once Grace that I wouldn't be able to walk him to class as easily. I really wanted him to stay a mama's boy. His attitude toward the baby was all negative. He didn't want her. He wasn't excited. He said he wasn't even going to look at her in the hospital. This was his attitude from the second he found out she was a girl rather than a boy. Needless to say, I was quite worried about how he was going to handle the change. I headed into the day with a lot of apprehension.

Although my section was at 7:30 I had to be at the hospital by 6. Aunt Sarah came over at 5:30 in the morning (bless her) and slept on the couch. She was going to get the kids ready and take them to school. It was a little surreal driving to the hospital. I felt like the 9 months had flown by and I didn't think I would ever feel ready. I had wanted another baby in our family for so long that it felt really strange to drive to the hospital knowing I would meet her in a few short hours. Everything went really smoothly at the hospital. They were ready for me when I got there. I got hooked up to monitors and filled out paperwork. The dr came in and talked to us briefly. I met the anesthesiologist who I liked. I told him I wanted to be able to see them pull her out of me like I got to do with Adin. He said I could watch as much as I wanted. He put a mirror right by me that would let me decide what I wanted to watch. Brian got dressed in his awesome outfit. They asked if I cared if an intern observed. He was probably my age. I was so nervous about the csection that I really didn't care at that moment. I cared a little more later. Everything was happening quickly and smoothly. Before I knew it it was time to go.

The operating room is always so freezing and feels so sterile. There were so many people in there. You feel a little exposed because you are just laying there naked from the waist down in a room full of strangers. There's always just a bunch of weird tugging feelings. Brian would peek every once in a while and then mutter something like, "Oh boy" or "wow" and then quickly look away. I didn't look at the mirror at all. I'm not to into blood and gore so I didn't want to see myself being cut open. Dr Terry and the Dr assisting him talked the whole time. I just laid there and listened to their conversation, but can't remember for the life of me what they talked about. The did comment that my body had healed remarkably well from my first two c sections and that I could have 10 more c sections if my body kept healing that well. :) Before too long they said they were pulling her out. I looked at the mirror and got to see Grace for the first time. It's always so awesome...that first glance. It's a moment that is seared into your brain forever. A lot of the details have faded away from Meg and Adin's births but not that first moment. Awesome. She cried, which is always a relief. The showed her to me close up really briefly before going over to clean her up. The anesthesiologist was awesome and moved the mirror so that I could lay there and watch them clean her up while they stitched me up. This was totally new for me. I didn't know it was unusual until Grace's birth, but both Meg and Adin were taken away to have tests done pretty immediately after they were born. Brian would go with them and I would lay there all alone waiting for them to finish stitching everything up. I was always so anxious to get out of the surgical room and get to my baby. I thought that was normal. Grace was healthy and free of breathing problems so her and Brian stayed in the surgical room with me. It was so much better that way. It was so so fun to get to watch them clean her up, suction her out, do footprints, and put on her tags. 

The very first picture of Grace.

7 lbs 9 oz exactly. 

The lights in the OR were so bright that she kept her eyes squinted shut. The nurse was blocking the light and Gracie peeked at Brian.

Being able to watch them with Grace made the stitching up part feel SO much faster than it felt with Meg and Adin. We were taken back to the room that we started in and the nurse said that I should nurse Gracie right away. What? This is normal. With Meg and Adin they spent a few hours having tests run so I didn't even get them with me for a while. This was so much better. I honestly thought she wouldn't have a clue what I was trying to get her to do but it she took right to nursing, which was also so different from Meg or Adin. I don't know if it was because it was so fast after having her that made the difference or not, but she was a rock star nurser. This was the point when I wanted to tell the "observing" nurse to get the heck out. The female nurse was there helping me and the guy nurse just stood there watching. That was a little uncomfortable. If I were a more assertive person I would have asked him to leave. He eventually made himself busy instead of just staring so that was better. 

So cute. They change so much from when they are newborns but I can totally see Gracie in all these pics.

I love that she is totally watching Brian in this pic. Not sure how much of him she could see but she was totally looking his way.

  She was so alert for hours. Literally hours. I remember the others being conked and not alert enough to eat. Not Gracie. She was taking everything in.

Unfortunately this picture is grainy. Stupid camera. This is the way that she would look at us. She was so calm and sweet and had this little smile on her face. I felt like I was getting a real glimpse at Gracie's personality. She seemed so sweet and calm. 

All the darn pain meds were making me nauseated and itchy and so sleepy. I hate feeling so groggy when I just want to soak up this perfect moment. I love that even though 6 months have passed I can still put myself in all these moments. I know they will fade. 

It was early out day for Meg and Adin and the plan was for Brian to go pick them up to bring them to meet Grace and that's what he did. 

Our room lights were always a little dim so a lot of our hospital pics turned out grainy. Bummer. Contrary to what Adin told us, he did look at Grace when he came to meet her. He was very excited to see both me and Grace. Grace melted his heart immediately. :) 

Big sister. Another shock, Meg adores Gracie. Apparently, she likes "her" baby sister.

Gracie's stats. Born at exactly 8:00. Clockwork I'm telling you. My section started at 7:30 and she was out at 8:00.

The proud parents. I look sleepy...I probably was. :)

The mama.

The daddy.

The hospital was not quite as awesome as Orem Community. Orem is a very small hospital. The nurses give you special attention. IMC is huge. Probably the biggest in hospital in Utah right now. They were understaffed and I was constantly having to beg for my pain pills. Noone ever remembered. So annoying. Other than that I loved the hospital time for the same reasons I loved it the first time. There is nothing like getting to spend 3 days one on one with your baby. I'm one that never sends the baby to the nursery. I like her right there with me. We snuggle all day. I cherish that one on one. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. ;)

*Next I want to do a synopsis of her first 6 months to catch us up to now and a Meg post and an Adin post so I remember what they are like right now.