Trials & Blessings

Another post by William ...

I am sure that some of you are probably sick of hearing from me and the way that I have "sequestered" Nancy's blog. But, I figured that it would be best for you all to hear this from me.

Nancy has done an excellent job of keeping you all updated as to our progress with applying for Medical School. As we explained before, it had been made up of a lot of "hurry-up and wait" moments. Without beating around the bush, I wanted to let you all know that I have not been accepted to Medical School this year, anywhere.

The Lord always seems to have some new trial for us and never lets us go very long without providing us with ways we can grow. Such is true for our present circumstance. After so many years of struggling with the same trial (infertility), we finally found relief in the birth of our beautiful baby Eva. At last, we thought that we could breathe and just enjoy life. But, such is not the case. The same day we came home from the hospital with our little girl, we opened the mail and recieved the "rejection letter" from the University of Utah, the only school that had asked me for an interview.

Our life has changed in more ways that one, overnight, as we are now new parents and are also faced with the prospect that our future is not going to occur as we planned. We are now left with a mixture of disapointment from the rejection and excitement from the birth of Eva.

We are now left trying to re-plan our future. ... We will be staying at our current home and will try to re-apply to Med School this year (and get in the application as soon as it opens up in June). But, that means that our dream is either pushed out 1 more year (to start Fall 2010) or if rejected again we will need to find out what else I can do with a degree in Biology.

As hard as it is, we are trying to look at this as a "very well disguised blessing". It may benefit us to not have to sell our home this year (with the housing market "crisis"). It will also give me a time to be there more for the first year of Eva's life. My little sister will be coming to BYU this fall (first time ever on her own), and this will give us a chance to be there for her. ...

Thank you all for your support and for reading this far as I have rambled on about this current trial. As I'm sure many of you can relate to (from what Nancy has told me of some of your blogs), despite the blessings it still is difficult.

100th post, and giving you what you want

Amazingly, the first post I've done since the birth of little Eva just happens to be my 100th post as well. :) In celebration, I am giving you what you want... pictures! And lots of them!

Here we are at the hospital, I think I'd just gotten my epidural, and I was happy.

About 3 minutes after my epidural was in, they gave me oxygen since my blood pressure plummetted, and the baby didn't like it.

Here she is! 8 lbs and 19.5 inches long.

Here we were together for the first time.

Once they got her to the nursery, the tubes were abundant... kinda sad.

Eva didn't like her first bath.

Here's my parents and my sister Robin watching. Check out Robin's blog for more pics.

Getting her hair shampood (is that how you spell that?).

They styled her hair with KY jelly. I could say so many things, but I won't.

I'm ready for my close up!

After HOURS of waiting, I finally got to see her again... I was feeling pretty maternal.

The whole family together, thanks to some strings pulled by Will.

It only lasted 15 minutes or so before they had to take her back to Level 2 (kinda like a NICU).

She had me wrapped around her little finger in no time flat.

This was the first time she'd opened her eyes, and it was to look at me. I love my little Eva!

A day at the Level 2 beach... under the bilirubin lights.

I thought you were supposed to sleep when they're sleeping.

I was pretty tired by this point! That hasn't changed much.

ISN'T SHE ADORABLE!?!

I'll try and post again soon. We'll see what that means with a new baby at home! :)

The Grand Update

((another post by Will))

I know that you have all had to wait, but it has been unavoidable (I will explain below). To all those that we wished we could have called with the stats / updates -- I'm sure you will understand after reading.

As you can tell by my prior posts, Thurs looked really promising. Labor started due to the "preparatory" work done, even before the pitocin. Friday, they started the pitocin and eveything still went well. She got up to a "5+", but then did not progress any further (even after the doctor broke her water). 6 or 7 hours later -- still no progress. Worst yet, Nancy's epidural started to be "not effective" on her left side (still working on her right).

The doctor came in and gave us a couple of options: he could check to see if there was progress (he didn't think there was) or we could just do a c-section. The "risk" of checking again is that if there was a slight change, it might end up that we would labor for several more hours and still eneded in c-section. ... We opted for c-section at that moment as Nancy was really tired and in pain with every contraction.

The c-section was "text-book" according to our OB. In fact, Nancy is doing great and is already moving around quite a bit. The doctor found out, by doing the c-section, that Nancy's pelvis is tilted just enough to make it difficult / impossible to deliver a large baby (something he could not have known any sooner).

Eva Marie Hale was born at 8:06pm, Fri 3/13/09. She was 8lbs 0 oz, 19.5 inches long. When she came out, she had quite a bit of fluid on her lungs and the had to give her oxygen to turn from blue to pink. Nancy was shown Eva for a brief moment, and then I went with Eva to the nursury where they began testing.

Eva's blood oxygen levels were low. The put her on a CPAP machine for a while, and it helped quite a bit -- but she still needed to breath "28% oxygen" (regular air we breathe is 21% oxygen) to be where she was supposed to be. Also, they wanted to give her anitbiotics for 2 days as a precautionary measure. So, she was admitted to the "Level 2 Nursury" (basically like a low-grade NICU) and not allowed to be taken to our room. They were going to "wean" her off of the Oxygen during the night.

This was hard on Nancy. She only got a few brief moments to see her after birth and then would not be able to go to the nursury until the next morning. ... I talked to the nurse, who "stretched" several rules and brought Eva (on an oxygen tank) to Nancy in her room for several minutes. During that time, Nancy was able to hold Eva and even attempted to nurse. It was exactly what both mother & baby needed.

That was all last night (Friday). This morning (Saturday), I went to see Eva and they had completely weaned her off of the Oxygen. She was breathing fine, and now only has to stay in the nursury because of the antibiotics. The doctor disconnected Nancy from all of her IV's, etc and she was free to be taken via wheel-chair to the Nursury.

We have taken Nancy over for 2 feedings so far, and have loved every minute of it. Things are looking up and the Pediatrician said that the baby will definately go home when we do (probably Tuesday night).

Things have been difficult, both emotionally and physically, but is fine now. Both mother and baby are truly doing fine and we are all getting to know each other. She is a wonderful, beautiful baby that is very pleasant (so far).

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. We are eternally grateful for all the support that has been shown to us through this whole process. Eva is that much more special because of all we have been through, together.

We might try to post a picture or two .... But Nancy's Sisters Melissa & Robin took plenty of pictures and will also try to get them up on the Blog-iverse.

Dictation from Nancy

Here is the message dictated by Nancy:

"Here's the update. Dialated about 4.5. Labor started last-night. Pitocin drip started this morning. Doctor will break my water when the baby is sitting down further. Hopefully, baby this afternoon."

Progress Update

(( this post is done by Will -- Nancy's hubby ))

I am sure that all of you out there in Blog-land want updates on how things are going -- so Nancy has asked me to post this quick update.

We are currently at the Hospital. We arrived at about 4:30, and they started "preparing the applicable area for the great stretch". Without going into details -- the preparations have brought on some pretty bad contractions. So, Nancy has now gotten the epidural and wonders why she ever thought she would do it without one. :)

So ... the original plan was to start the "actual" induction tomorrow morning. But, that may not be neccesary anymore. It may just happen on its own. ..... We will keep you posted.

Coming soon...

I just got back from the doctor's office not too long ago, and I finally have some good news. We're having a baby this weekend! My blood pressure was high again, and after some testing and whatnot, the doctor said I would either get admitted today (depending on the results of more tests at the hospital), or I'd go in on Thursday afternoon for induction.

My testing at the hospital went well, everything came back fine, and the doctor said to schedule me for Thursday!

So the plan is to go in Thursday afternoon, they'll begin the preparations for the induction. Basically they'll try and get me to start stretching in the appropriate place... I'd go into more detail, but that's a little too much for my blog. 'nuff said. Then Friday morning they'll start a Pitocin drip to get things moving, and hopefully the baby will come sometime Friday.

So I'm feeling pretty good, a little nervous, but excited mostly. Considering the fact that Will's birthday is on Monday, I told him he's not getting any presents except for a baby. I figure I've put more work into this present than anything else I'll ever give him! :) Hopefully the next time I post I will be including pictures of our new baby. Keep your fingers crossed that everything will go alright!

are we there yet?

I'm sure you're all tired of my constant updates on my pregnancy, but posts about nothing else, but to be honest, I don't get to do much more than grow this baby. We did go to a bed and breakfast for my birthday, and that was fun, but I haven't gotten to putting the pictures on the computer. Someday... maybe.

As for how things are going... no baby yet. I'm getting impatient. I'm tired all the time, and I'm ready to be done. It's not that there aren't things to be grateful for, I'm more than thrilled to be having a baby, but it's that I'm so uncomfortable. I saw the doctor on Monday and he knows that all my symptoms are getting worse, but he's having me wait until Tuesday to talk about scheduling.

So for now, I'm still here. We'll see how I'm doing by Tuesday.