Susan's Thoughts

Stabilizing

susanhvt — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:23:39 +0000

Things are finally getting back to whatever normal is for my family. We all still have times when we really miss Isabelle, or realistically, miss “what might have been”. Ususally when we see something we would have loved to share with her like the holidays.

Heather is going to go back to school in Jan. and has put her name in at the day care center she used to work at as a sub after Christmas. I am really proud of her. I still have baby things in my trunk and shoved in weird spaces from when I shoved it all away after we found out we lost Isabelle. Slowly those are getting spread out to where they belong or put away for when Heather has another baby.

Sometime soon we are going to have to make an apt. with the Geneticist to learn what her odds are of having another baby with Down Syndrome. I am pretty sure the odds are only slightly raised which means that she probably has a better chance of hitting the lottery. I feel weird hoping that her next baby won’t have downs as somehow that seems to imply that Isabelle would have been less than welcomed baby. I certainly don’t mean that. I will have to think about that some more and try and process exactly how to say what I mean.

Yikes!

susanhvt — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:14:47 +0000

I haven’t posted anything in way too long.

Heather is doing well. She has passed most of the one month anniversaries (Of the discovery, the surgery etc) and thus doesn’t have too many days that she knows ahead of time will be rough. I have a feeling Christmas might be even though Isabelle wasn’t due till Feb 14th. Of course, that will be a really rough day. Hoping she has a good, healthy boyfriend by then.

Life is kinda getting back to normal, whatever normal means. Matt’s cat shadow has what I believe is his 2nd abscess in less than 2 months. He is now offically a house cat. Which he won’t like and neither will the other cats as he tends to take it out on the others. But this way he will live longer and won’t run me out of house and home with vet bills.

I really am hoping for a more restful few weeks, but my final projects for class will be due soon and I know it always gets busy during the holidays. So we shall see.

Update

susanhvt — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:33:16 +0000

Heather is still in quite a bit of pain but it does seem to be subsiding a bit. She got out yesterday to visit Otter Creek Child Care and is going to an apt today. Both of which are good as she shouldn’t hang around the house alone too much.

Matt was so sweet, he gave her a beautiful wooden plant holder that he made, more like a very small table. It is perfect for her to put next to the couch and it can hold things like cups or small plates. I’m still worried about him, but not as much as before.

The Memorial

susanhvt — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 01:35:52 +0000

Isabelle’s memorial was on Saturday morning. It was a really good idea. We had it at the Church Heather and Justin grew up in which made it a familiar and special place.

I don’t watch YouTube but they each chose a special video from there to dedicate to Isabelle. Justin chose :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MIJShOqh8Q

His explanation is that to him she’s not growing up in real life, but is growing in his heart, and so he dedicated this song to her.

Heather chose:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsLeLYV-rus&feature=related

Both of course made us all cry.

I think and hope that the memorial will give them some closure. I have a feeling that some of the older ladies were there because they had suffered miscarriages back when it wasn’t acceptable to morn an unborn child. I hope they got some closure also.

Heather is still really having bad contraction like cramps and started lactating on Sunday. Such fun, (Not!) Stinks to have things happen that are hard to put up with even with a baby to hold. Sat and Sunday she was still really weak but she is starting to get stronger, I didn’t have to help her up the stairs to the house today, but she still won’t try the stairs to her room.

Unfortunately she is almost out of the Tylenol 3 and Motrin just isn’t doing it for her. I really wonder what that Dr. did to her. I normally am extremely trusting of Doctors. I love the practice my family and I have gone to for about 16 years now. There have only been three doctors I didn’t trust in my adult life, and my feelings of distrust of her are extremely strong. I know that I am probably putting some of my emotion from the miscarriage into anger at her, but I also am pretty sure that it is only a small part of my distrust.

I really don’t want to end this on a negative note. We have had wonderful support and love and I am very grateful for that. The grief counselor at the hospital was wonderful as were all the nurses.

Heather and Justin are going to donate money for a memorial to Isabelle at the church for playground equipment.

After the D&C

susanhvt — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:41:41 +0000

I want to thank everyone who covered Heather in Prayer. She actually had a fairly good afternoon and evening on Wed night and then did really outstanding Thursday. A few breakdowns but nothing like she had been for the last week. Please continue to pray for her as it will still be rough for quite a while but certainly through the memorial on Sat.

A big prayer request. The “fairly routine” 20 minute procedure that we were told to expect lasted over one and maybe 2 hours, she went in at 7:30 we finally saw her at 11, but don’t know how long she was in recovery. The doctor insisted that the procedure was nothing out of the ordinary, she just lost a bit more blood than normal but nothing unusual. And that, oh yah, Heather is correct when she says she had a transfusion but nothing was unusual….And that she still needed to go home today even though she couldn’t even sit up at 3 without almost passing out.

The nurses who she almost passed out on didn’t agree and neither did the anesthesiologist (Who happens to be my landlord). In fact he said that her taking so long to recover was due to the very large amount of blood she lost. After her bp fell to below 50/30 each time she got up to go to the bathroom (With a ton of assistance), and never going over 98/50, the dr ordered a second transfusion and said that oh sure, no problem, she could stay overnight if she wanted too….

Other than feeling very dizzy and her IV’s hurting all day, (her arms are both very bruised from all the needles) she has actually done very well. She has been distracted enough just trying to cope with her physical problems that she hasn’t had time to concentrate on her loss. Then some friends came to the Hospital Thursday evening and kept her sidetracked and laughing the whole evening. I left her with her dad spending the night (I had to get back to Matt) a very tired and somewhat sore young lady.