Saturday, October 8, 2005

Besides more waiting and taking on blood-bulking fluids and super antibiotics through her clear vein tube, Drie did naught but feed the tiny girl and rest all day Friday.
Her doctors came through from time to time to discuss her situation and make decisions with her, letting her know that she’d not be going home unless she didn’t mind letting the awful infection she was getting over have a good chance of coming back. Her anxiousness to leave the hospital was quickly changed to a resolute desire to do anything in her power to get as healthy as possible before she left.
We got her showered and set for the day and I went home to fix all that had gone awry since we left in a whirl early Wednesday morning. I worked on the soot-plugged wood stove and the gas heater that Asher had placed a piece of wood and a golf ball into the day we left. It burst into flame at around three o’clock in the morning when the wood stove had cooled, sending my mother-in-law into a flurry of panic and child evacuation before it burned down of its own accord. Two-year-olds are sowers of nervous breakdowns.
I went into work to check conditions generally and to let my coworkers know that all was on the mend. They were all very supportive and generally glad that the week was over, they had endured the week not only without me around, but mostly without our principal, whose wife endured hip replacement surgery over last weekend. There might have been more like joys, but I wasn’t around to know of them. I was having my own fun.
After that excursion, I got a few things at the store for the family and some for the Drie after which I picked up the family for a visit to their mom. Asher began running around saying ‘momma’ and ‘baby,’ while everyone else searched high and low for the sneakers he always puts in separate hiding places at inopportune times.
Eventually that got sorted out and we got over to see Drie, all else but Hyrum with semi-presentable clothes, he with the dross and detritus of three days of four-year- old adventure all over his shirt and faded, holey jeans. Every thing went well in spite of cards stacked against us. The kids and the mom were happy, though disappointed that the time of casseroles and an absent, beloved mother hadn’t come to the quick close that they had been hoping for.
I took them home and took care of a few other to-do's so that I could come back here to the hospital room and sleep on a silly little cot next to my beloved and her newest offspring. All of this is yet worth it, because after everything Drie has had to go through, Anwyn is still here and happy to be learning to smile and coo and yawn for food. And Drie is feeling much better, on top of it.

Friday, October 7, 2005

Dispatch from the field:
Drie and I have spent the past day and a half in the Sanpete Valley Hospital. Though our seventh child, a wee lass by the name of Anwyn Iza, was born well and happy on the night of the first, her mom retained enough placenta to keep us on our toes for the past few days until it finally went septic.
Unfortunately for us and our ‘bronze-step’ but still oh-so-expensive insurance, the decision was taken at one o’clock at night when it turned automatically into an “emergency” situation by classification of what was open at that hour. Nevertheless, we weren’t going to stick by our original plan and wait ‘til the morning at that point.
She was admitted to the hospital. Our old friend, the doctor who took care of Drie when she had a difficult miscarriage back in February of ’02, Dr. Cole, called in a prescription of nasty-ass intravenous antibiotics until the break of day when he’d be in to figure out the rest. By that time, it was about five in the morning, and I don’t think either of us got a wink of sleep.
The day was eaten up by tests, poking, prodding and much waiting. Little Anwyn didn’t mind it at all- she had her mom all to her self and her adoring brothers and sisters were at a distance where she didn’t have be poked and prodded by anybody at all.
Finally, the decision was taken by all that it would be better to have the resident surgeon do the hysteroscopy and d&c instead of the OBGYN. A uterus that’s just been through its seventh big job can be a little thin and delicate for someone scraping and poking around blindly, so Dr. Cole was rightly a little nervous. We waited until Dr. Hansen, the surgeon, had an opening in his day at around five. We suddenly pathetically realized that we could inquire of a nurse after a breast pump so that little Anwyn wouldn’t have to wait the whole five or six hours afterwards to eat to avoid the same sort of anesthetic and narcotics that Drie was about to go through.
While the nurses waited to drag poor Drie to the cutter, she madly pumped a miniature bottle full of milk and was whisked off to her boon and doom. No sooner had the nurses deposited the bottle in the fridge, when Anwyn decided it was time for her supper.
Though she had finished her dinner no more than twenty minutes before, we spent the time arguing back and forth between us over conservation of the precious resource at hand. She inevitably won each warm-hearted exchange, and by the time Drie was wheeled back from her surgery in a drugged stupor, the half-pint bottle of gold was near gone.
Drie emerged from the fog in her usual good-natured manner, asking how everything had gone and how Anwyn and I had passed the time. Her surgery had gone well, if unexpectedly, and she had lost more than a couple of pints of blood and the “reproductive remains” of placenta left over a quarter of her uterine wall. It was a good thing that Dr. Hansen had done the procedure, as having the advantage of the scope and surgeon’s specialties had made all of the difference in a smooth and thorough procedure.
I was very grateful all had gone well- and more than a little glad for a fine male nurse who asked me sincerely and unflinchingly if I needed anything while Drie was away, and who brought me a plate of food, the first that I had eaten since the night before. The rest of the night was spent helping Drie fully wake and come back to herself while watching a great program on PBS about the conquest of Mexico City by Cortéz.
While watching, Ryan came back from his day’s hunt with his dad and graciously called wanting to know what he could do. I wearily mumbled something about cheezebread, grape juice and my laptop. He responded by arriving in less than twenty minutes with just that, minus the juice for the hurry to get to the hospital before the nine o’clock witching hour of the end of visitor’s hours. We had customary, welcome laughs and social and environmental commentary about the hospital while we filled in the gaps in our ribs with mozzarella and bread. Man, did than bread and chatter go down well.
After Ryan went home to his family, Drie and I wound down to my rapidly declining cognitive and physical coordination. I began spilling everything and blathering incoherently, so I made my small, lumpy bed and collapsed in it for the choppy and nurse-interrupted night ahead.

Sunday, October 2, 2005

A little girl named Anwyn Iza was born in our house just before nine in the eventide yesterday. She's doing very well.