Ameena

Today we celebrate one wonderful year of having Ameena in our lives.  

What a full year this last one has been. 

Being pregnant while living in Africa was interesting.  I felt healthy, but had more physical symptoms than with any of my other children.  Crazy high blood sugar that I monitored much less than I should have—seriously, you think they have glucose meters and testing strips there?  I think the chemist laughed me right out of his pharmacy when I asked about it.  About 4 months into the pregnancy my in-laws were kind enough to bring a meter and strips…and I rationed those babies out til almost a month before the baby was born.   I perfected a pretty good routine of walking a brisk path from our house to the Centre office, around the playground and back to the house…generally before I started dinner as darkness falls quickly and routinely every night there by 7pm.  On some evenings if my sugar was especially high I’d lay on the thin rug covering our concrete floor in the living room and do the “bicycle” like I was escaping town.  I’m sure it looked humorous, but it was pretty effectively in bringing the sugar levels down.

I also dealt with some horrid lower back pain which was in no way helped by the fact that we did all of the washing by hand until mid November.  Unlike our Kenyan househelp who would come twice a week and stoop to do the laundry, I happily seated myself on our little green plastic stool to dunk the clothes in and out of the bin.  The laundry (aka shower room) was my home for good parts of the day.  Sometimes I’d go to stand, and would cry out in pain……it seemed like the only relief would come from going into the child pose.  Many a Kenyan walked into our home in the evenings and found me there in the middle of the room practicing some good ol’ yoga.

I also suffered a great deal more nausea than usual.  This was not helped by the schizophrenic driving conditions we navigated on a daily basis.  One day, when driving with Megan into Nairobi I had to pull over to vomit on the side of the road.  We had just passed through a rural town and I carefully picked the pullover spot to ensure that it would be free from the usual roadside gawkers.  I got out of our car, crossed in front of the car to the side of the road and bent down to vomit.  Out of no where  a group of school kids appeared and in broken English began to ask questions like, “Why the muzungu vomit?”  “Muzungu vomit?!?”  “What wrong pretty lady?” as they pointed at me.  Megan yelled from the car for the kids to go away.  They were unphased.  I quickly signaled for her to take the wheel and climbed into the car hoping to escape their curious stares and prying questions.  A staff member at the Centre later informed me that Kenyan’s have all sorts of beliefs about white people:  1)  We never vomit   2) If we are in the sun too long, our skin might melt  3) We can get anyone into the US and so on.

Even my delivery with Ameena was interesting and so Kenyan.  I was pretty determined to not have to have an epidural during this delivery…I mean I was at a nice hospital, but crazy stuff happens in a 3rd world country and I didn’t want first hand experience.   Having had my first two babies in the US, I was used to nurses coming in and out, checking the vitals, seeing how “far along” things had progressed, bringing in ice chips, wiping down your forehead, fluffing the pillows, telling you what a great job you were doing.  Pretty high standards.  While I did get a visit from my doctor at 9 am, I had labored all morning mostly alone and had walked my room (not a delivery room) wondering when someone might come to check on me.  I parked myself on that labor ball and counted the floor tiles in my room.  There were a good 30 tiles that I could count through on every contraction.

Same position for about 5 hours….and all I could get on t.v. was the election of a new Prime Minister in England. Torture.

Ian finally arrived back from breakfast (it’s never an easy trip in Kenya) at about 10am and after one good look at me went for a nurse.  She came back and decided we better MOVE!  We barely got into that Labor and Delivery room, had me on the ball and in a position to see a good 30 tiles when DANG that pain ramped up.  I started to panic and asked if we might put that sweet bathtub to use.  I’d always wanted to try it during labor.  True to Kenya again, the nurse indicated that it would take a while to get some hot water into it. I was willing to wait.

 

My body wasn’t.  My water popped like a good summer water balloon.  Ian and I later cringed over the thought of that birthing ball rolling over to the corner of the room without a second look from staff.  Gross.

 

I really started to panic.  No hot bath.  Was there anything else I could have?!?  PLEASE?  You know that moment.

 

The nurse started babbling about laughing gas, but that we would need a fetal heart rate first.  She got me up onto the delivery table, strapped that monitor on my belly and started to fiddle with the machine.

 

At that moment, I went a little CRAZY.  The pain was insane.  I starting that horrible writhing around and ripped the belt off of me.  The nurse (Yes, only one) was a little taken aback by my behavior and decided to check me.  “Just 7 cm” she pronounced.  I wanted to kill her.  7 freaking centimeters?  Was she high?

 

She proceeded to get on her cell phone (nope, no landlines, not even in the hospital) to call my doctor on over…..and as she did, I think I made some vulgar comment about either having a major bodily function happen or I was having this baby. 

 

“NO!” everyone (ok the nurse and Ian) yelled.

 

“Whatever” I thought….and you know what?  I pushed that freaking (sorry Ameena) baby out as that darn nurse about had a stroke (trying to hold the phone and put on her dang gloves) while yelling out into the hall and Ian jumped to keep this surprise from dropping on the floor.  The nurse  recovered, and quickly grabbed her goo basin to put at the end of the table and took over for Ian in holding Ameena.  Poor Ian slumped and an additional nurse who had just walked in grabbed his arm and a paper bag for him to breathe into.  Poor  guy.  Too much blood, too much gross, too much baby–all way too fast.

 

Not enough doctor.  She sauntered in 10 minutes later to check everything out.   All I could think was, “Man, I still have to pay her delivery fee and she didn’t even deliver the baby!  But then again, it’s a good thing we don’t pay them for how long they “attend” or some of us would have some ridiculous bills!

 

With all that said, it has been quite a ride Ms. Ameena.  The first 3 months of your life in Kenya have made these last 9 months in the US pale in drama, but I wouldn’t trade a second of it.  You are everything God intended you to be for our family.  Without a doubt I can say that we all adore you and are thankful for the gift that you are to all of us. 

 

Baby, you were worth the wait.

 

Therapy

Ameena is now [gulp] 10 1/2 weeks old (I think?).

She had her 8 week doctor’s appointment last week at 9 weeks.

We had the usual developmental checklist.  All fine.

She’s gained plenty of weight…..getting pretty close to doubling her birth weight, which isn’t nearly as hard when you start out so light (6 1/2 pounds).

I told the doctor she had a problem with me taking dairy.  He noted it.

I told the doctor she seemed to have mild torticollis (I only know what it is because Eli had it at birth because he was a shoulder dystocia baby!).  He noted it.  We discussed simple exercises, positioning of Ameena etc.

OK, all of this background to say that I have found the PERFECT stimulus capable of getting Ameena to turn to her non-favored side.  I have tried toys, and cooing at her, the kids, blah, blah, blah, all to no avail.

Until……

TELEVISION.   She is mesmerized by it.  Even a boring movie about Leo Tolstoy.

Mind all of you, this is my third child, I’m not gonna wig out about a little television use like I might have with my 1st “perfectly” reared child.  This is serious medical therapy.  So hush.

The morgue

If you’re a facebooker and follow the Karibu Centre posts or see my status updates then you will know that on Monday we got the devastating news that one of our vulnerable pregnant moms had a nonviable baby.

She was 40 weeks when she got the diagnosis, a day away from her estimated due date.  She had felt the baby moving just 2 days previous and had pains like her body was preparing for labor.

After 2 full days of being poked, prodded, and taking a variety of medications to induce labor, she delivered a baby boy this morning.  Stillborn. 

The doctor called our house and let us know.

I went first thing in the morning with Naomi, our housemother who watches after the girls.  Our girl was sitting on a  bed with another women and her baby, in the room where women go after delivering.

Can you imagine?  You’ve just finally delivered a stilborn baby after 48 hours of finding out, and then you are expected to “recover” in a room of about 15 women and their newborns.  Torture.

I asked the mom if she had a chance to  see or hold the baby.  She replied, “No, I was too scared” which isn’t surprising considering that in most hospitals in Kenya a woman labors alone and is told very little of what is going on.

I asked if she might like to  see the baby, if we were with her.  “Yes,” she replied.

The housemother and I went to the nursing staff (4 employees sitting at a desk in the hall chatting like it was happy hour at a bar) and inquired if we might see the baby.  “It’s in the nursery” they asked.  “Uh, no……it’s dead,” I replied.  Seriously, I have to say these kinds of things????  Thank God the mom wasn’t standing there with us.   They looked back at me with this look on their face that read CRAZY WOMAN and said, “You want to SEE it?”  

“YES!” 

Now I guess that it might seem strange to someone, but my reasoning was twofold.  One, you never know what goes on in these kinds of places and I wanted to see with my own two eyes the condition of the baby and that it was actually deceased.  Two, this mother had carried this baby for 40 weeks and it seemed pretty reasonable that she might hold it or at least look at it if she chose.  That whole bit about acknowledging grief and what an incredible loss this had been for her.

We (myself, housemother and mother of the baby) went to locate the morgue where they said the baby had been taken.  We were stopped by the man in charge who indicated that it was much too busy currently with people picking up bodies for funerals.  I thought, “Really?  She can’t take a minute to say goodbye to her baby?”  

I really didn’t understand what was going on, although I should have read between the lines.  The housemother walked the mother and I back towards the maternity ward and we left the mother to go check on another girl that we had brought to the clinic for her well-baby check up.   The housemother and I walked towards the van, but then she veered off on the entrance road like she was leaving the hospital.

She looked back at me as I was going towards the van and the well-baby clinic and motioned for me to come with her.   “What are you doing,”  I asked.   “The doctor is meeting us” she replied, and proceeded to walk outside of the hospital grounds to one of the main roads.  We walked a short distance on the dirt shoulder of the road, passing  the line of matatus that were waiting to pick passengers up.  And then I realized we were going to the public entrance of the morgue.  We came to an opening in the hedge, and the opening to the morgue, and there I saw a huge gathering of people.  All waiting to view and possibly pick up their deceased for burial.  It was quite a sight.  I imagine for them too.  When have they ever seen a white chick at the morgue with her tiny baby strapped onto her chest Kenyan style?

The housemother and I went inside and she said a few words to the man we had seen earlier who had said it was “too busy” for us.  Ahhhh, I thought.  I got it then.  He didn’t want the mother with us.  The man proceeded to speak to the housemother in Swahili, speaking fast enough and with difficult enough words that I couldn’t understand what he was saying….but his tone and body language sad enough.  He was annoyed and mad that we were bothering him.

The housemother came out and told me that we couldn’t see the baby because it was piled together with other ones in a bag.  I shrank back from her in horror.  “In a bag?”   “Who put them all in a bag?”   The housemother didn’t know and so I said we were going back in there to ask.

We went back into the “office” of the morgue where there was barely room for 4 people to stand.  The man must have heard me and understood me because he said, “Ask your question.”   I didn’t hear him at first, or realize that he was speaking to me so he repeated himself, quite forcefully.

I asked who had put the babies all together in a bag?  The doctors?  Nurses?  Him?

Now that I think about it, he didn’t really answer that question but just said, “You can dig through and find the baby.”  I thought he meant right then, so I started to follow him into the next room where I assumed the bodies were, and he turned around, pointed at me and yelled, “Not with her!”

Ok, he had a point.

I went outside and waited with the 30 or so Kenyans and took Ameena off of me in preparation for going inside.  I handed her to our housemom Naomi with the awareness that everyone was watching me as I did so.

And then the man opened the door to the office, and the double louvered blue doors to the morgue “room” and the people formed a line and walked through  the office door, through the morgue room and back out.  They didn’t pause or look at anything that I could tell, they just passed through and were done.

One wooden coffin was brought out by a funeral company and placed in a van.  I’m not sure what happens with the other bodies…if they remain or if they are collected later.

And then the man closed the double louvered doors to the morgue room.  A few seconds later he appeared at the open door to the office and yelled in my direction.  I assumed that meant I should go in.  It did.

He led me into that morgue room which must have been about 10×10 feet in size with a medium table in the middle, a cabinet against the wall, a dirty bucket of water on a much dirtier floor.  There was an adult body under the sheet behind me on a stretcher and another in the corner uncovered that I didn’t linger on.

Then the man went to a bright yellow plastic bag (about a 30 gallon one) and told me to look for the baby. 

“That’s full of babies?”

“Yes.”

“How many babies?”

He shrugged.  He was so nonchalant I almost couldn’t handle it.  But then again, this was his job, and this was everyday for him.  “Maybe twenty,” he responded after a moment.

Suddenly another man appeared, and he opened the bag and started bringing babies out.  My eyes welled up with tears and I covered my nose to avoid the smell that was permeating the entire room.

The babies were each wrapped in the lassos or kangas that the mothers had brought with them to the hospital.  The kangas are used before delivery as a cover-up for the mother, at delivery to wrap the baby, and afterwards as a cover for the mother when they are going to shower or nurse.   In this case, they remained with the baby after delivery.   Each baby was swaddled completely in the kanga, and was labeled on their torso and on the wrap with a piece of tape indicating the name of the mother, the date of delivery, and where the delivery had occurred. 

I asked if all of these babies were from the hospital today.  The men replied no, that they were kept together for disposal.  I cringe even typing that word, but that is the word I heard over, and over, and over today.

The 2nd man continued to pull babies from the bag.  Tiny, tiny babies and also what appeared to be full term babies.  One label read “home delivery”.  I began to cry over the sight of each of those babies all stacked on each other in a bag as they were.  Would we really find the baby?  We were nearing the bottom of the bag and I was getting pretty nervous when the man finally pulled a little bundle out labeled with the name of  our mother.

“That’s it” I told him.

He read the name to confirm.  “Yes, that’s it.”  I asked if he could open up the wrap so I could see the baby.  He looked at me as if to say, “Really?”   I nodded.

He opened the wrap and there inside was a little boy.  Perfectly formed.  Tiny, tiny, his face a miniature version of his mother. Still covered in lanugo and blood from birth.  I asked the man to wash the baby off as I wanted to take a picture in the event that the mother wanted to see what the baby looked like.   There was no way we could possibly bring her into this place to experience this.  I wouldn’t and won’t tell her what it was like.

The man washed the baby with water from the bucket I had seen against the wall.  I wanted to tell him to be gentle, but I didn’t.  I wanted to  take that dirty cloth from his hand and bathe the baby myself.  But I didn’t.  I couldn’t do anything. 

 I took 2 pictures.   

He asked if they should preserve the baby.   I said, “Yes.”  

And that was it.  We walked out of the morgue, and then I realized that Naomi had been with me, inside that room, without Ameena.  I had a frantic moment where I was searching for who she might have given Ameena to, and then I saw an old woman sitting on the cement edge of a large flower bed, holding Ameena covered in the kanga I had used earlier as a sling to hold her in.   I went to the woman, collected Ameena,  and then Naomi and I left the dirt lot of the morgue and walked back to the hospital.

I then proceeded to collect the birth notice which indicated that the baby was born dead.  Fortunately I knew exactly the form  to get as I spent 2 full weeks fussing for Ameena’s birth notice in order to get her Kenyan birth certificate that was needed for US documents.   The birth notice would be required of us  in order to obtain a burial plot from the municipal council.

We returned to the young mother and told her that we had seen the baby and all discussed arrangements.  Almost everyone here seems to prefer she forget about it, leave the baby at the hospital for disposal, and pretty much sweep the whole experience under the rug.  She would have been pushed to do just that by everyone involved and likely discouraged from anything we consider normal grieving.  I have demanded that we allow her to make the choice about what to do.  I have made certain that she understands we will arrange for whatever she wants so that she can be allowed a healthy grieving process.  She wishes to bury the baby.   The young mother indicated that she couldn’t bear to think of her baby being “thrown away in the trash.”   I don’t disagree with her choice one bit.  I’m proud of this young mother’s strength and thankful that we can help her voice be heard and wishes respected. 

I’m thankful that I was the one who went to the morgue, and saw that sight of the babies in the bag, and not this mother.  I’m thankful that when and if she sees her little boy, he will be clean and wrapped neatly in a beautiful soft blanket inside a beautiful coffin.  That her first and last visual memory of him will be him resting  peacefully…just as I know his soul is.

I am thankful that we have been here at Karibu Centre and that we have helped so many women have safe and successful pregnancies.  I am thankful that this young mother will have a funeral for her baby surrounded by loving staff and fellow young mothers.  I am thankful for the prayers of comfort and peace that have been prayed for us all this week.

Baby Aurelio

Baby Aurelio (I’m sure I’m spelling it wrong, but you get my gist) and Mama Aurelio, Joyce, have been visiting our home twice a day since last Saturday as the antibiotic for his pneumonia needs to be refrigerated.

We are happy to see Joyce and this sweet little boy so much!

Yesterday Mama  Aurelio  took her boy to the district hospital orthopedic clinic to schedule the cranial ultrasound…and came back having had it already!  I was thrilled to look at the report which indicates that structurally, everything seems to be there and intact.  What a relief.  There was concern that there might have been frontal lobe damage/deformity in  the brain as well as to that area of the skull.

Joyce seemed relieved.

I can’t blame her.  I’m relieved too.

Mama Aurelio still has a very long road to travel.  She is an orphan attempting to raise a baby in a slum on the income of her boyfriend who drives boda boda for a living.  It is not uncommon for her to wake up in the morning without food to eat.  Can any new mother imagine that??   I’m grumpy if someone isn’t helping to bring me the food right after I give birth, let alone there not being any.

We are seeing what we can do to support Joyce, but also to have appropriate boundaries as it was her decision to leave the Pregnancy Support Program at the Centre a few months ago…..knowing that she would be on her own.

Please pray for strength and good health for Joyce and baby Aurelio.  And for wisdom for us!

A bit dry

As I sit here getting ready to write my absolutely average thoughts….a mosquito buzzes my ear and I wave my hands in the air and jump up like a possessed woman being tasered.  Really, is there anything worse than that sound of a mosquito in your ear?  Perhaps the thought that it might HARBOR malaria and that I can’t take the medication cause I am preggo.  Or, backpacking into the Indian Heaven Wilderness area in Washington State in July when there are more mosquitos than I don’t know what….and those ones didn’t have the potential to inflict serious or lifelong dormant illness!  But then that backpacking adventure (the only one I have ever embarked on) is a story for another time.

What I was thinking of this evening is of my pregnancy adventures this week.  I had my 32 week check up with my OB/GYN in Nairobi, and everything is going fantastically.  We went from concern over a not growing uterus 2 weeks ago to a larger than expected uterus and a baby already weighing (by their estimates) 4 pounds.  I’m not to excited about it all cause there constantly seems to be  such a HUGE margin of error with these ultrasounds and much of what we consider modern technology.   My doctor kindly reminded me to keep off the sugar and to plug away at my diabetes diet. 

The funny part of the  appointment came when we were done with the physical examination and she felt the side of my belly and said, in a very serious & concerned tone,

“Have you been moisturizing???  Your skin seems quite dry!” 

I didn’t really know how to respond at first.  When has my OB/GYN or midwife (that’s what I’ve always had in the past) ever been so worried about A) stretch marks and B) the quantity of moisture present in my baby bump?  I finally  fumbled out some answer of how I had been using the special belly cream she so kindly prescribed in our first days of meeting, but that I simply hadn’t minded to moisturize that morning. 

And then I added, “I guess it doesn’t feel so dry to me, I’m used to it like this.”  And honestly folks, this skin is not dry!  But, I guess I’ll be one of those pregnant women who adds “moisturize” to the things that must be done before going in to an appointment/examination or labor. 

Come on, you women know what I’m talking about.  You are the same ones (like myself) who make sure you’ve got a pretty pedicure the week before your due date and gosh knows all of the other things we might get done in an attempt to “beautify” the process of birthing or examining or whatever.  Why else do people endure Brazilians??  Don’t answer that.  That too is another story, better left untold.

In other pregnant news, I was informed by the gate security at a popular Nairobi mall that I had been absent for some time.  This is while I waited in my car for them to check the boot (trunk) for explosives and my undercarriage for similar.  One looked at my preggo belly and said, “You’ve been gone a long time!”  Another added, “Your husband has been busy” and then the first added, “You are most definitely having twins!”.  Stop Already!  I  must consistently remind Kenyans in general that while I may look big compared to the average Kenyan with child,  compared to most Americans (and myself in previous pregnancies) I am small and proudly so!  I just smiled at the 2 security guards, assured them  it was not twins, but a lovely little girl and proceeded to the parking garage.

And so my pregnant week has gone.  Pretty darn good I’d say actually.

a day in the life of my active child

Last week Ian was able to tag along on a climbing trip up Mt. Kenya. This is one of those things he has hoped to do while we are here, so we both agreed that it wasn’t an opportunity he should pass up. 

It meant that he would be gone for a total of 4 days. The most he’s been gone while we have lived here in Kenya is overnight. I’m pretty ok being by myself here in Kenya now, but the thought of managing house and the work of the Centre was a bit overwhelming. 

The running of the Centre and family proved to be quite manageable, with the help of Megan who is the Volunteer Coordinator at the Centre. She took over a great number of tasks that Ian might generally do, and watched the kids when there were meetings etc. that I needed to be in. 

Just as I was about to pat myself on the back for a job well done on the final night 3 alone of Ian’s trip……drama occurred. 

Drama isn’t unusual in our house though. Especially when it comes in the variety produced by 3 and 4 year olds. 

It started with Eli and Lucy in the shower, taking baths. This is what our shower looks like: 

Lately, bath time has turned into Eli and Lucy crawling around on the tile floor, barking like dogs and taking turns passing under the cold water spigot. It’s a thrilling and cheap experience for them. Kind of like a water park without the park.

Well, Lucy comes out of the shower room yelling and screaming that she slipped and bonked her head. I did a brief inspection of her head, and couldn’t come up with a bump or any redness so I told her to stop her fussing so we could get ready for bed. I think I might have also told both kids to knock off all of the craziness, that bath time was OVER! and to go and get their pajamas to put on. 

I did the regular night time routine, brushing teeth, filled water cups, necessary blankies, books, baby dolls, hugs, kisses, about 20 random questions answered, zipped nets and the whole deal. 

About an hour after falling asleep, Lucy woke up screaming that her head hurt. I gave her some kids Tylenol and laid her back down. She proceeded to wake up every 20 minutes or so for the next 2 hours until I finally decided to lay her down in my bed with me at 10:30 pm. 

Just as I laid her down and opened my AWESOME “Baby and Child A to Z Medical Handbook” courtesy of Paula Smith to head injury and reminded myself of the symptoms…..well….then she proceeded to grace me with the symptoms of vomiting. Everywhere. All over my bed. 

Thus the frantic search for her pediatrician’s phone number (he has like 6 numbers, of which 1 might work at any given time). I made multiple calls, and finally received a call back instructing me to immediately take her into the emergency room of the Children’s Hospital in Nairobi. 

Does anyone recall how long that drive to Nairobi is?? I am certain I have talked in length about the perils of driving the Thika Road highway (yes, Erika, I know you can hardly describe it as a highway or freeway) and how awful it is. And, to mention that we rarely drive at night because of safety issues.  

And here I was staring down the fact that I was alone, with a pretty sick kid, 8 months pregnant, at 10:45 at night getting ready to drive frantically to the hospital in Nairobi a minimum of an hour away. 

I put on my calm hat. 

Called Megan and asked her to come over and stay with Eli (who of course slept through all of the commotion) and changed Lucy into some clean clothes. 

I load her into the car, and get in, and then realize I can’t find my phone. 

As I’m hunting for the phone, I hear Lucy moan from the back of the car, and then she has vomited all over herself and the back seat. 

So out of the car we go again. I stripped her down on the patio, and Megan helped me dress her again. Baby doll, blankie, and her crocs get left because, well, they’re covered in puke. 

I make the drive to Nairobi without any hassle other than a 30 minute traffic jam just outside of town. We arrive to the hospital a bit after midnight, with just one more incident of car puking. A great smell when your closed in, but not that bad when compared to the usual smells of Africa I must admit. 

We were quickly ushered through emergency (we didn’t even have to sit down on a chair), Lucy went through triage, and then the doctor was in to see her within a few minutes with the diagnosis of a concussion and the need for admittance into the hospital for observation for 12-24 hours. 

Then we sat for a while. The typical ER room sit. A good 1 – 1 1/2 hour sit. Then we were checked into a room in the Felicity Ward (which was decorated with a walking purple grape that had eyes and antenna and bright green and purple paint) where I promptly crawled into bed. Lucy refused the “crib” because it was for babies, and crawled in next to me. Food service came in and asked if I wanted dinner. I thought, “Uh, no, it’s 2 am! LET ME SLEEP!” But I politely declined until morning. 

Lucy or perhaps the nurses woke us up at 6 am, and thus our long day of sitting in an empty room on the children’s ward began. For Africa, the hospital was quite nice, but by about 9am, with a restless 3 year old, I was really beginning to question how they couldn’t have a single child’s toy or activity available. It was a children’s hospital after all. I finally scrounged 5 crayons and a piece of paper which bought a good 30 minutes of nap time on my part. I reminded myself that this was how sleep goes with a newborn baby, so this experience was just a good dress rehearsal. 

By 10:30am I broke down and called in emergency reserves and begged a friend who was working clear across town (probably an hour drive) to bring me a coffee. I made sure to call a friend who has trouble saying no. We’ve all got those friends (Eve Stoughton) and love them in moments like these. He kindly obliged and then told me about the cafeteria downstairs in the hospital after he arrived. Whoops on my part, but please, cafeteria coffee (ie a packet of Nescafe) can never compare to real brewed coffee. 

Lucy and I stayed in the hospital the rest of the day and then after a lovely 2 hour discharge process and payment to all of the involved parties, took ourselves on the hour drive home, after stopping off for a celebratory milkshake of course. Who stays in the hospital and doesn’t get an ice cream for goodness sakes? I cheated on my diabetes diet and had one too. I told myself I deserved it. Sorry baby May. I’ll try not to make it a habit. 

And so, my week without Ian ended with a bang, but it was manageable and everyone made it through it, albeit with a few dents and a little puke later. 

　 

Baby pics!

Yesterday, since I was already in Nairobi for another errand, I decided to go ahead with my drop-in ultrasound that my OB/GYN had written orders for a few weeks ago.

Looks like baby girl May is growing along just fine, with no worries to report.  She is right on track for 28 weeks, 5 days in all of her growth, with average weight predicted…..which is great news when you have gestational diabetes & have already had one baby born with shoulder dystocia.

Here are my two favorite pics.  Unfortunately, the profile picture of her face isn’t the best because the umbilical cord kept waving back and forth in front of her face during the scan.

The large blob on the left is the profile of her skull, with the eye socket, mouth and a hand reaching up towards the mouth...

 

And then this picture is of her hands:

One hand is open (left), the one on the right is fisted

 It was great to see blood flow, the heart functioning and everything else as it should be.  I’ll have one more of these types of scans in another 4 weeks for purposes of growth monitoring with my diabetes, which means that this baby will have had more ultrasounds than all of my other pregnancies combined!

Baby News

Ever since being about 9 weeks pregnant, and having a second ultrasound that showed that there was actually a baby in there, and that we were not in the middle of our 3rd miscarriage in a row, I have waited for this day.

I briefly considered being amazing like some of my friends and waiting until the day of birth to find out the gender of this baby.  But really, who was I kidding??  I haven’t ever made it through a birthday or Christmas without knowing some of my presents and I’m not gonna make it 9 and some old months through nausea, puking, back pain, stretch marks and other awesome pregnancy related happenings to find out the gender of who I’m gonna meet.  These kids of mine have plenty of personality to keep me surprised the rest of my life!

So, the day finally came this week.  The gender ultrasound.  Or at least that’s what it was to me.  My order read “20 week anomaly scan” and my doctor referred me to a different hospital that houses a more sensitive sonograph machine.

We arrived early in the morning to the walk-in ultrasound clinic and were promptly received and  routed to a waiting room.  Eli, Lucy, daddy and I waited.  Eli and Lucy were GRUMPS with a capital “G” from about the moment they climbed into the car in Thika.   Not quite what I had envisioned for “our” happy day, but I rolled with it.

Here we are with the doctor, as he was reading the ultrasound.  I have never had such a detailed ultrasound through these last 4 pregnancies and 2 births.  It was kind of cool.  He looked at the different portions of the brain, measured leg and arm bones, checked for the nose bone, ruled out cleft palate, identified the 4 chambers of the heart, ensured that all of the organs were inside the body and checked the spine to make sure that the neural tube was complete and closed.  It was really cool!

Looking at the different parts of the baby's brain

 

And, being quite skilled at his craft, he kept the suspense of the gender to the very end, and then pointed out 2 lines, identifying them as “f.g.”  Huh??  I was thinking for sure, those must boy parts hanging around there.  And now that I think  about it, I remember thinking the same thing during the ultrasound for Lucy.  Nope no boy parts there.  Those lines were female genitalia, as the doctor  very quietly said, “Girl”. 

For sure I thought we’d get a great reaction out of Lucy who had been rooting for a partner in crime since finding out that there is a baby rolling around in my tummy.  Just a slight grin and head turn from her.  Eli just sat  blank stared.  He’s in shock over the fact that there will be 2 little girls to deal with.  He seemed much cheered by my telling him that he was all the more special for being “the only boy” and that for sure this new little sister wouldn’t want to steal his toys…..she’d for certain go after Lucy’s toys.  Now he’s back to his usual self!

Everything looks great, I feel great, and it was exciting to see this new little one.

Here is a picture of the baby  in the 3D mode of the ultrasound.  Here, it looks a bit like that cartoon from the 80’s:  Skeletor, but you can see her holding her hand up to her face.  When we saw the picture at first, Ian exclaimed that the baby, “Looks like your brother Andy!” and I said, “Wow, it has big lips like Eli did!”  I can’t wait to see how she changes and develops between now and 2 months from now when I go back for another scan.

a side view of the baby's head on the left, with the arm and hand on the forehead on the right

 

Thank you to all of you who have shared in this long baby journey with us that began before Africa and will continue long after.  We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Big weekend…

Big weekend.

Megan comes back to Kenya from her adventure in the US

Ian’s parents arrive for a visit from Portland:

And, this wonderful loaf in the oven that we are expecting turns 15 weeks new!  It is a relief to be over so much of the tiredness and nausea that I have had so far!  Some of you have asked how pre-natal appointments go here in Kenya & for the most part, they are very similar to those in the States, at least at the private hospital I go to http://www.agakhanhospitals.org/:

I have a wonderful physician who grew up in Goa, India who sees me for all of my pre-natal visits, and she also delivers all of her own babies.  Amazing in this day and age!

This is where I’ll go to deliver and recover:

Specifically here:

Looks pretty much like in the States huh?  Overall, the cost is less than a delivery in the States, but because our international insurance does not cover maternity (you had to have that well in advance of getting pregnant), we’ll be saving our pennies for the months before the big arrival.

We’ll have a regular appointment the first part of December, and then an ultrasound around the end of December/first part of January where we can find out the gender.  I’m still on the fence about finding out the gender—-with a lot of encouragement from my friend Eve to save the “surprise” until the actually day.  I told her that a 1 1/2 hour drive to the hospital on the big day was about all of the surprise I needed.  What do you all think?  Should we or shouldn’t we find out?  You know, Ian and I  like to play games and place bets on just about everything, even our precious children.

 

Doctor Update

Sorry that I wasn’t able to write yesterday when we returned home from the doctor and Nairobi.  We have been fighting random power outages for about a week.

So I had an appt. with a wonderful ob/gyn yesterday.  She was everything I had prayed she would be:  knowledgeable, empathetic, encouraging….

But she did confirm that I was in the process of a miscarriage, and sent me for an ultrasound to double check  and it came back in agreement.

It is hard to believe that we were in this position not even a year ago.   In God’s grace, he makes this load easier to bear having had that experience.  My heart was guarded during this pregnancy, and perhaps because of such, it makes it easier to process this loss  and continue on with all of the craziness that is everyday life…kids that need to be mediated, laundry, picking up the never ending  mess, food.

The OB/Gyn didn’t have an explanation for the 2 miscarriages in a row, but I will go back in another week for a repeat ultrasound to make sure everything is ok and then we will run blood tests….she has several ideas on what we might do to better support an early pregnancy so this doesn’t keep happening.  We’ll see how all of that goes.

Thank you to all of you for you prayers of support and healing for our hearts.  If you know us, you know that we love kids and I especially love babies.  🙂   Continue to pray that the physical aspect of this process goes smoothly and with less pain than last time.