Burdens

I work at Huntsman Cancer Hospital in the ICU.  I am not a nurse.  I am what is called the Health Unit Coordinator.  Even though I don't work directly with patients I see them every day, I hear their stories.  There are a lot of deaths here at work.  Most of the time I am able to stay disconnected, but not today. 

I came into work to find out that not even an hour after a patient was admitted, she died.  She was in her mid thirties.  She had been here before and I recognized her husband.  She was traveling from a ways away and was coming into the hospital today to get chemo.  Instead a routine visit turned into her last day of life.  Cancer sucks.  What really got me was when her family was finally able to get here (hours after her passing), she had young children.  As they were leaving her son probably about 4 or 5 said to his dad "we were just saying bye-bye to mommy".  I must admit I started crying.  No young child should be saying good-bye to their mommy.  I thought of my own children, I thought of Joe.  I thought, what if that was my family.  How can a father explain to young children that mommy has just died? 

My heart aches for this family that I don't know.  I pray that the father will have strength to bear this burden.  I pray that those children will know that their mommy loves them.  I know this because I know of the love that I have for my children. 

We all have burdens.  Mine are different from yours but we each have something that makes our heart heavy.  I don't understand why some have to bear certain burdens but I am comforted in my knowledge of our Savior.  I know he lived and died for us.  I know that without him there would be no hope.

(This doesn't even show what I am truly feeling but I had to write something right now, while I am feeling it.  My emotions needed to be written.)     
 

I have a blog post in the works but it is taking a little bit longer to write.  It is something that I need to make sure is written well and I can't just do that on a whim.  To hold us all over, I am going to post some pictures that Adrianna has taken for me.

 I love this picture of Joe and Owen!  They are both so handsome. 

 Cutest little pigtails ever!  This is a fairly decent family picture.  It is nice to get those, especially as the kids are growing up so fast.  I love Owen with his baseball bat, I think he has a future!  At least he already knows how to pose with the bat. 

 Grandpa Keyes loves to take the kids to the dollar store.  This is from my birthday and Owen is checking out his options.

I just love Kenzie's smile.  I truly am so lucky to be blessed with these two beautiful children. 

Joe= Awesome!

My last two posts were about my beautiful children.  It only feels fitting to make this post about my wonderful husband.  I feel that I often nag and don't give him the credit that he deserves.  I tell him, I want him done with school, I'm sick of waiting for him to figure out getting into a master's program, we need to lose weight, we shouldn't be so hard on the kids, blah, blah, blah.  Enough already!  He needs to know that I apprecieate him.

Here is a short list of why my husband is wonderful:

* About once a month (sometimes more) he will bring dinner to me while I am working.  He is so awesome to take the time out to do that so that we can see each other.

* He cleans the house more than I do!

* He is a great cook, he makes some great fajitas.

* He pays all of our bills (before we got married I told him that I am awful at paying bills and he has followed through and made sure to get those all paid on time).

* He folds the laundry.  I hate folding laundry and he will do it for me.

* The other night I was making dinner and he asked me if the kids had had a bath that day.  I told him no and the next thing I know he has both the kids in the bath.

* He gets up in the middle of the night with the kids even though he has to be at work by 6:30.

* Every night Joe lays with Owen so Owen can fall asleep (for some reason Owen will not fall asleep without someone laying with him.  Probably a bad habit, or he is really afraid of something but hasn't told us what it is yet).

* Joe is very patient

* He teaches me math and he knows that I expect him to teach the children math (I really struggle with math).

* He will rub my back even if he has had a hard day and needs it more, he will still do it for me.

* Joe gets the kids ready for church.  When Owen has nice combed hair, it's because Joe got him ready, not me.

* Every night Joe makes sure that he prays with the kids and reads scriptures to them.

* While working  and being a husband and father he was able to get his bachelor's degree in Psychology.  He still plans on getting a master's degree. 

*He goes along with many of my crazy ideas and doesn't complain.

*Joe spoils me.

* Joe knows that one of my biggest dreams is to own a house.  He is making that possible this year.  We are buying a townhome in Daybreak, UT.  I'm beyond ecstatic! 

* Along the same lines of the comment above, Joe knows what my hopes a dreams are and he has helped fulfill many of them.  He knows the secrets of my heart. 

* Joe lifts me up when I am down.  He loves me like no one has ever loved me before. 

These aren't the only reasons why he is wonderful, but they will do for now. 

  

In the mean time...

I know I haven't posted in a while.  To be honest I'm just not in a writing mood lately.  I have a lot of ideas swimming around in my head with what I want to write about, but I need to work on a way that I can present them in an appropriate fashion.  So in the mean time here are some pictures that I have taken on my phone in the past month. 

 Kenzie is now eating solids.  She likes the fruit a lot better than the vegetables.  This is the complete opposite from Owen.  In fact Owen just barely started eating apples and I'm so excited. 

 This was the picture that I sent to my brother for his birthday.  I love my brother Drew so much.  I know that he loves the kids and I know they love him (even though they don't get to see him often).  This was the only picture that wasn't blurry and you could read the happy birthday.  I think it is cute how Owen is looking at Kenzie.  He adores her so much!  I am so lucky to have a son that loves his sister.   

Don't you think Kenzie is a doll with her hair in a pony tail?!  I love that it is starting to get long enough for me to put it up.  She hates me doing her hair, but I still do it.  I just need to learn to be fast. 

We are trying to teach Owen to potty train.  It is not successful one bit.  I hope that one day he will want to go in the potty instead of just sitting there.  In 15 years he is going to be so mad at me for sharing this but it is too cute not to. 
I think I have been depressed lately.  I feel like even though there are happy things going on in my life I seem to only see the negative.  I don't want to be working anymore and that will not end for a couple years.  It is so hard to be patient and happy in being a working mom when I really just want to stay at home.  I feel like when I try to motivate Joe to be more proactive in getting into a masters program it just makes him mad at me for bringing it up.  Because of that I then let myself get into a downward spiral by thinking that we will be in this situation for the rest of our lives.  Being able to see a light at the end of the tunnel is really hard for me. 

There you have it, probably the main truth as to why I haven't written.

However one happy thing is that we ordered a double stroller/bike trailer.  It came yesterday!  We went on a walk yesterday and today I went on a walk/run.  I have not ran since before I was pregnant with Owen.  It was hard but felt fabulous.  I hope I can motivate myself to exersize since I really need to lose weight. 

McKenzie

Okay, I said that my next post would be the birth story for Kenzie.  So like I said with my post about Owen, this is more for me so that I have it documented.  I don't expect anyone to really pay attention. 

Because Owen was so big we automatically knew that I would have another C-section and my Dr decided to schedule it at almost 38 weeks. This was a big deal because my Dr said that he never does a scheduled c-section before 38 weeks but he felt with my situation it was just fine to schedule it earlier rather than later.  Throughout my pregnancy I felt that I had low blood pressure.  Whenever I would go in for appointments I was in the low 100's over 60's but often when I would stand up or be on my feet for a while I would get very dizzy and light headed.  Of course that never happened when I was in for an appointment to verify but I'm quite certain it was low.  There were a couple times I felt close to passing out but if I just sat down I would be ok.

My c-section was scheduled for Friday August 10 and the Friday before I felt that my braxton hicks were getting really bad.  They were really close together but every time I would change positions it would stop.  I just assumed it was the braxton hicks or false labor.  Quite honestly from the things that I read it was describing false labor and I never was in labor with Owen so I really didn't know what to expect.  I went to my appointment on Monday morning and told my Dr what was happening but brushed it off saying it was false labor.  He asked if I wanted him to check my cervix and I told him no since I felt certain it was false labor and I didn't want to since that is uncomfortable and awkward (I now regret that decision).  I worked Monday night from 3pm-1130pm.  I was in a lot of pain, very uncomfortable and could hardly stand for more than 5 minutes before feeling like I would pass out.  I went home exhausted but knew that the next day was going to be busy.  I had hardly seen Owen and I would get to spend a little one-on-one time with him and I wanted to pack my hospital bag.

The next morning Joe left for work and kissed me goodbye at about 630.  I immediately fell back asleep.  The next thing I knew I felt a gush of water.  My first thought was "oh great I just peed the bed, how embarassing".  Then I moved to go to the bathroom and there was another huge gush.  At this point I knew my water just broke.  I looked at my phone and saw that it was only 645.  I called Joe (side note his first thought when he saw me calling was "did I forget to take out Owen's carseat again" since he had done that the day before).  Apparantly he whipped his car around, called his work and came speeding home to get me.  In the mean time I had ran to the bathroom to try to clean up but could not think clearly.  All I could think was I want my mom.  I tried calling her at home and then her cell and then my dad's cell multiple times and no one answered.  I finally called my brother to have him get a hold of my parents when he reminded me that they were at some training.  I finally realized that I should call my in-laws to come be with Owen since he was still asleep.  Luckily, Joe had already done that.  Joe got home, gave me a kiss and tenderly asked me how I was feeling referring to me being in pain. Honestly with it being a whirlwind to get me cleaned up and ready I hadn't even thought of pain and looked at him and said, "I'm fine and not really in pain".  A minute later his dad was at our house and we were off to the hospital.  I was in awe that I had actually gone in labor.  I was not ready!  Our camera wasn't even charged for crying out loud!  I guess that was the problem with having this scheduled, I didn't have everything ready.

We got to the hospital by 730 and they put me in one of the OB emergency rooms.  I was feeling great, a little nervous but not bad.  It went so well with Owen that I wasn't nervous about the c-section this time.  They got me hooked up to the monitors and asked if I wanted to try and labor on my own.  I told them that my babies are too big, I'm not a good candidate for a VBAC and I just wanted to do a c-section (once again, wished I would have had them check me but I didn't-I would have liked to know how far progressed I was).  Aparantly, it was a really busy day for them and they already had a lot of scheduled c-sections so they told me that it would be a couple hours.  I was fine with that, because I was feeling fine.  The aide was in my room and I asked her if it was ok if I went to the bathroom to have a bowel movement.  She asked me if I was only feeling that during contractions or all the time.  I said, I don't know let me check.  I sat there for about 30 seconds, had a contraction and said yup now I have to poo.  She looked at me, said don't go to the bathroom, that is the baby bearing down on you.  She left the room and about 5 minutes later (or less) the nurse came in the room and said you are going to the OR now (I later found out that Kenzie's heart rate was also dropping during contractions). They wheeled me to a different room, started an IV and while doing this the anesthesia team came to me and had me sign consent forms.  About 20 minutes later they took me to the OR room and tried to start the spinal on me.  It took them a really long time to get that- I think it was about 4 or 5 tries.  They would stick it in and then I could feel them moving the needle around in my back....not pleasant.  They got me all ready and Joe wasn't there.  Everyone kept asking where Joe was.  I guess he was all dressed and ready to go but no one had come to get him and they forgot to give him the booties and cap and they had to go find those.  By the time he got there they started immediately.  They pulled Kenzie out and she had a very strong cry.  Something neat with her was that the Dr (who wasn't my normal Dr) showed her to me over the drape which I didn't get with Owen.  Joe went with Kenzie to the nursery while I was getting stitched up.  As I was lying there I felt like I was going to pass out and throw up at the same time.  It took a huge effort for me to roll my head to the other side to look at my blood pressure.  I saw it in the low 80's over 40's, then 79/38 and then 77/34.  At this point I was willing myself not to pass out.  I called to the anesthesiologist and said to him "do you see my blood pressure?"  Of course I would have the audacity to point that out to a Dr.  He pointed to the medicine he was pulling up and said I'm getting something right now.

Because of me Kenzie's blood sugars were REALLY low so she could not be with me for the first 3 days.  She had to have an IV in her head (so sad) and was hooked up to a drip that was giving her sugar.  Every three hours I would walk to the nursery and stay there for an hour, get about an hour and a half of sleep then do it all over again.  The first night I probably shouldn't have been walking by myself, especially with a fall risk band on my wrist, but I just pretended every thing was fine even though I was pretty wobbly on my feet.  Recovery for this c-section was a lot harder.  I think me being in the hospital scared Owen because he never even wanted to be by me when someone would bring him to me.  Someone charted some information incorrectly so there was this drama of them thinking Kenzie was losing too much weight.  At first I thought I was going to go home without her but we were able to go home together on Saturday.  This time around was very lonely during the day since Joe was at home taking care of Owen.  I would stay in the nursery as long as possible and would go back to my room and try to get rest but it wouldn't really happen.

McKenzie Jane Keyes 08/07/2012, 9lbs 14oz, 20.5 inches long.  If I had known she was under 10lbs I would have tried to do a VBAC, oh well live and learn.  I think I had been in labor since about Friday until my water broke on Tuesday. 

In this picture she looks a lot like Owen did when he was first born.  When I first held her, I thought "oh no, my baby girl looks like a grumpy old man because that's exactly what Owen looked like."  Don't worry within a couple hours I was able to see how beautiful she is and she's not a grumpy old man.

Adrianna is holding Kenzie and Owen is seeing Kenzie for the first time through the glass.            

I haven't written in a while.  I think it is because whenever I write I feel it needs to be amazing and quite frankly I wasn't in an amazing mood.  Or it could have been the fact that I have been in more of a reading mood than a writing mood.  Nonetheless, I'm here now. 

For a while now I have been wanting to write down my thoughts and memories about when each child was born.  So, today is as good of a day as any to write down the story of Owen being born.  Yes I know this is almost 2 and a half years later but I have never written it down and should do it before I forget all the details.  This is a post more for me, so if you don't have to read I won't judge you for skipping.   

Most of you know I am Type 1 diabetic.  Because of that, for both of my pregnancies I was considered high risk. One of the problems with being diabetic and pregnant is that I can have big babies from increased blood sugar levels.  From 30 weeks on 2x a week I go in for a Non Stress Test, in addition to that I would visit my Dr at the clinic and I would visit my endocrinologist.  Needless to say by the end I was sick of appointments.  Even though I had good control of my diabetes they expected me to have a big baby.  Every time I went in they informed me how big my baby was.  I had an ultrasound at 30 weeks and they predicted that at that point Owen weighed about 6lbs.   Not only did I have a big baby but I had a lot of amniotic fluid.  So add those two things together and I was huge.  I was hoping that I could do a vaginal birth but my Dr felt that Owen was too big and it would be best to schedule a C-Section when I was 38 and a half weeks.  I was sad but had full confidence in my Dr. Here is a picture to see how big I was 2 days before Owen was born.



My C-Section was scheduled for Monday Oct 25, 2010 at 7:30am and we needed to be there 2 hours early.  Since this was considered a surgery I could not eat or drink anything after midnight.  I had a really bad cold with an awful cough.  When I got to the hospital, I felt very dehydrated.  Even though I was not in labor, I felt like I was having contractions every minute or less.  They told me that dehydration can make it feel like you are going into labor.  I was really nervous and in a lot of pain from the fake contrations.  While waiting to go to the OR I remember I would lay on the bed, then sit up and then stand and then do that over and over.  I could not sit still because I was in pain and also because I was a nervous wreck.  They were running a little late so they didn't take me back to the OR until about 7:45.  The moment I walked into the OR it was FREEZING.  It was so cold I started shaking uncontrolably.  The moment they put the spinal in me I turned goofy....and warm!  The pain was instantly gone, I said some weird things to the nurses (that I won't repeat) and I just talked a lot.  They brought Joe in and had him sit next to me on my left hand side.  The drape was up so I couldn't see anything.  I could just feel them tugging and pulling.  Someone told Joe to stand up because they were pulling Owen out.  When they pulled him out all I heard was a nurse proclaiming "Look at those cheeks!"  I couldn't hear him crying and I was so concerned so all I said to Joe was "He's not crying, is he ok?"  a moment later he started to cry.  The best sound I could have heard.  They cleaned him up and then let Joe bring him to me.  He looked so precious wrapped up like a burrito and all I could see were his huge cheeks.  Everyone was saying how big he looked but all I could think was that he didn't look that big to me.  Joe and Owen went to the nursery and they stitched me up.  I vividly remember hearing them do a count making sure that they didn't leave any tools or sponges inside me before they sewed me up.  They took me in the recovery room (the big thing I remember about this was throwing up and shaking a LOT when coming off the anesthesia) and I think it was one of the pediatric residents or interns coming into the room and asking me to guess how much Owen weighed.  At this point I still hadn't held him and all I had seen was a little bit of his face.  I said "I don't know, 10 something", the nurse guessed something in the 10lb range and the guy excitedly proclaimed, "No, he was 11lbs 11oz!"  I was floored.  No wonder I was so uncomfortable!  Owen had to be on oxygen so I didn't get to see him or hold him until about 6 hours after he was born.  I kept pestering the nurses and aides to see when I could see him.  I couldn't leave my bed because at that point I was bedrest and he couldn't leave the nursery because he was on oxygen.  They brought him in to me and he had to be accompanied by a nurse.  I was able to hold him and do skin to skin.  After about a half hour I was getting really tired and so they took him back to the nursery.  About 45 minutes later the nurses called my room and said that Owen was doing better and could stay with me.  I really feel that the skin to skin really helped him to get better.  We weren't sure what we were going to name Owen.  It was between Owen and Cooper.  Joe really like Cooper and I liked Owen, more for the fact that we were planning his middle name to be Christopher and Cooper Christopher Keyes was quite a mouthful.  Joe had spent a lot of time with Owen while I was recovering.  After I was able to hold Owen, Joe and I were able to have a moment alone.  I asked Joe what he was thinking for the name.  He told me that his name should be Owen.  I was so excited becuase after I had held him I still felt like his name should be Owen and I was glad Joe felt the same way.  Also we felt Owen was a good name for a strong boy.  Owen was the hit of the hospital!  Most of the staff had heard of the big baby boy that was born and they all told me how handsome he was.  I felt that he was so handsome but it is always nice hearing others tell you that about your child.  I never thought I would like such huge cheeks, but how can you not love those huge things?! 

Here are some pictures from the day he was born.  Owen Christopher Keyes 10/25/10 11lbs 11oz 21.5 inches

I forgot to mention that this picture was taken the night that Owen was born.  He is holding his neck up!  He has always been so strong! 

I completely forgot

Yesterday when I was so upset I didn't even write what I had intended to write.  Yesterday was my brothers birthday, this is the brother that Owen is named after.  Owen Christoper named after my brother Christopher Lee.  I love Christopher so much.  I am so grateful for my brother.  It is because of him that I have such a strong belief, testimony and knowledge of the plan of salvation.  I have never met Christoper but I look forward to the day when I will see him. 

Christopher was born about 3 months early and died 3 days after he was born.  He would have been 34 years old yesterday.  Ever since I was little I have just loved my brother.  I have always felt a special connection to him.  I know it's weird since he died before I was born, but it is true.  I think of him like my guardian angel. 

My parents only had one picture of him and I loved just looking at it.  When I looked at it my heart would hurt thinking of how sad it must have been for my parents to lose a child.  I would hurt thinking of a baby dying and what he must have felt.  I would hurt thinking of the life that he could have had.  I imagined that he would have been tall like my brother Drew but skinny like my brother Ben (Drew, you aren't fat, Benj is just super skinny).  But then I always felt happy and comforted thinking that God must have needed him in heaven and that he was a special angel.  Every now and then I would go find the picture and just stare at it thinking of those things.  I am ashamed to admit that sometime between middle school and high school I think I lost the photo.  We can't find it now and I know that I was the one that would look at it most often.  I don't know what happened to the photo and losing it breaks my heart.  I'm sorry mom and dad for losing that one physical image that we had of Christopher. 

So since I don't have a picture of Christopher I am going to post some pictures of Owen.  These pictures were taken right before Owen turned 1.  They are my favorite pictures of him.  I want Owen to be proud of who he is named after.  He is named after a very important person in my life.