JoshsBlog.greenfamily.net

As some of you know, this week unfortunately has not been the 'lay at home, grieve, make arrangements' week that would have been nice after everything that has happened. Its so unbelievable that I haven't even had the energy to post about it. So this post is lengthy to fill in the blanks as well as let everyone know where we are currently at.

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Monday
After Lily (Baby B) was born, the doc tied off the umbilical cord and it seemed the contractions had stopped. The NICU team evaluated Lily and was not able to intubate. There was nothing they could do. The nurses cleaned her up and Lauren and I were able to hold and be with her. To describe what its like to be in a room full of doctors and to watch your child's heart beat slower and slower until it beats no more is not possible. Our focus now had to be on keeping Lauren, C & D healthy for the next couple of weeks.

Right as Lily was passing, Lauren began to have more contractions. Bedside ultrasound showed that C & D had moved down and had to be delivered as well. There was nothing the docs could do to stop it. It happened so quickly. Before we knew it the baby warmer was full of our precious green beans. The docs again were not able to to anything for them. We sat, crying and in shock, holding our babies and watching them pass away. Rest in peace Lillian Nicole, Paige Elise, and Rylan Otto. Send our love to Heidi Michelle. We will always remember and love you guys.

I wont go into the gory details, but if you've gone through a delivery before you'll know that after the baby comes out, more is supposed to as well. In our case, because of the multiples as well as the gestation, not everything was so willing to come out. For almost 6 hours, the doctors gave Lauren drug after drug. Some to help with pain, some to make the uterus contract, some to stop the uterus from contracting - all with the goal of avoiding surgery and having the stuff come out without physical intervention. If things remain inside, it can cause additional issues including infection, etc. By 11am things were not progressing so the call was made to take Lauren into surgery for a 'D&C'. She ended up not having to have the D&C (which is a good thing due to its own set of immediate and future complications); when they were in the operating room they were able to get everything without going in. Lauren was placed into recovery for a couple of hours and then sent to her new room.

Tuesday
As a precaution the docs wanted to evaluate and give her more antibiotics for 24 hours before sending her home. Also, her being able to walk and get around on her own was important. With no fever and Lauren able to walk without help, she was discharged Tuesday afternoon. Monday was such a flurry of activity that it didn't seem real. The size of Lauren's stomach and the 3 memory boxes brought us quickly back to reality.

The same funeral home that cremated Heidi was contacted and arrangements were made for Lily, Paige, and Rylan. We do not plan on having a service at this time.

Leaving the hospital was difficult. We were supposed to be able to look in the back seats of the SUV and see car seats and balloons. Instead there were empty seats and bags of clothes.

Going to sleep was just as difficult. Were were supposed to be sleep deprived from getting up and taking care of our children. Instead we cried ourselves to sleep with only the sound of the TV in the background.

Wednesday
My Dad flew into town to be with us. From the airport my Dad and I went by the new house to check it out. Wow is it coming along! The docs had told Lauren to gradually increase her movement and that it was important to not just lay around. Lauren and my Mom had gotten out to get some fresh air and pretty their nails up. On the way home they met us at the new house. It was the first time in months that Lauren had gotten to see the progress -we are very pleased.

Lauren rested for the afternoon, took a nap, and watched some TV. The 4 of us had a nice dinner at the dinner table. What a concept! After dinner we put in some movies and got comfortable in the living room.

After the movie Lauren started feeling warm so we took her blood pressure and temp. BP was normal but her pulse was in the 100's and her temp was 100.4. Lauren called the on-call doc to let them know and they were 50/50 on if she should come in yet. So she took a Tylenol and we waited. When we took it again it was 101.5 so we grabbed a couple of bathroom items and headed to the hospital.

Oh I wish I had the energy to fully vent about one Dr. Sheila Connery. I'll just say that when of your most complex post-op OB cases pages you after hours to say you are on the way to the ER and asks you to page the on-call High Risk doctor, you don't refuse and then hang up... Ridiculous. Once we got to the hospital, the ER of course sent us up to L&D. Connery told the nurses to send us back down to ER. Thankfully we saw one of the nurses who had been with us through several of our trips and we asked her to page our high risk doc. So as directed we went back down to ER and they were all confused saying that we belong up in L&D. While they are making calls trying to figure out what the heck is going on, the doc who delivered the babies shows up. After confirming a few things she tells us that she is going to direct admit Lauren. This helped us avoid the 3 hour long ER wait and get Lauren in and hooked to an IV quickly.

It wasn't the best night. Lauren was hooked up the the IV getting fluids and antibiotics as well as vitals each hour. Lauren's fever spiked to over 102 in the middle of the night and she was running through cold-packs like they were warm butter in an oven. Drug after drug and her temp finally came back down. Blood tests show that her hemoglobin levels (red blood cells) were really low at a 7. Normal levels in women are 12-16. If you are pregnant it should be above 11. So they upped her iron supplements to account for anemia. Her white blood cell level (which could show signs of infection fighting) was normal.

Thursday
Laurens temp varied throughout the morning but never went beyond the 100.4 mark which is considered a fever. She needs to go 48 hours without a fever before they will consider discharging her.

The docs also ordered an ultrasound. They want to see if there is anything left behind in the uterus (to see if there are any more signs for possible infection) and to check for internal bleeding (which could be causing the low hemoglobin levels). The ultrasound came back fine. Blood work shows her hemoglobin levels decreased to 6 and her white cell count was still normal.

Friday
The docs say that they are becoming concerned that Laurens hemoglobin levels are below 7 and not coming up with the iron supplements. Her hemoglobin is still at a 6 (at least its stopped going down). They are still pumping her full of antibiotics (a rotation of 3 different ones through her IV each 4 hours). Their recommendation is that Lauren gets a blood infusion of two pints. We are currently choosing to decline the transfusion since she is stable but if it dips again will probably proceed. Theres also one more test that hasn't come back since it takes a couple of days. Its a blood test to see if there is an infection in her blood. If that comes back positive, there will be weeks more worth of IV antibiotics and monitoring. We should know more about the tests and whether or not Lauren is going home this weekend, in the morning.

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That pretty much recaps the week up to now. We can't thank everyone enough for the emails, comments, links, phone calls, and flowers that we have received. Our friends, family, co-workers, employers, and complete strangers have all shown us the good in this world. We are hanging in there as best we can and have our eye on getting home soon.