dad, I love you

I never had a very close relationship with my dad.  Not that it was bad, necessarily, just not close.  I never talked to him about anything that mattered, let alone about anything intimate.  I never shared my secrets or concerns with him.  Why?

I guess I was just intimidated by him.  He was never around when I was growing up.  He was abroad working most of my childhood, and when I was in Indonesia, I was in the dorms, so obviously, we weren't together.  He seemed almost scary to me, even though I (of course) knew that he was working hard for our family.  I've seen the sacrifice that both my mom & dad have made for us kids...  It wasn't just that they were apart.  That time apart with us kids, it really took a toll on the relationship itself.  I rarely "felt" his love - Asians are bad at expressing love anyway, and with all the distance and once or twice a month phone calls, I was definitely not a daddy's girl.

Anyway.  So when I had Alaise and my parents came to live with us for a couple of months, I thought he would be the same.  See from a safe distance but not touch.

How so very WRONG I was.  He was the most hands-on grandpa I could have asked for.  From when she was a tiny little thing, he held her so much during the day, he always buckled her in her car seat, even always sat next to her when we had to place the car seat in the back seat of the van.  Cramped as he was, he always wanted to sit next to her and take care of her.  He is the master of putting my kids to sleep in his arms, and loves napping with them in the crook of his arms. He made sure that we had a burp cloth & a paci on hand at all times.  He would pat her little bottom gently, coaxing her to sleep when she was fussy.

What a wondrous experience it was.  To watch him defy all of my expectations.  Then I realized, that he was probably that way with me too, when I was little.  When I was just a babe, he probably held me just the same and showered love on me.  Or maybe he couldn't, because he was always working, or always away.  So maybe he was doing all the things he wanted to do with me, now with my daughter.  I can't tell you how much closer I felt to him as I watched him care for my daughter.  It was almost as if I was soaking it all in, pretending that I was watching my own babyhood.  He was loving both me and my daughter through it all.

I remember of something my mom said to me once.  We took a family portrait a long time ago, when I was... maybe a sophomore in high school.  It was really the first formal portrait that we got done that I remember.  We all got a small print of it, and I framed mine, and my brother put his in his wallet (which he still carries around).  Mom & dad had a slightly larger print of it framed.  Mom told me once that dad carried that photo around no matter what and where.  With them moving around so much, it's hard to have too much "stuff".  Well, that photo went anywhere they went, and always got hung in their bedroom.  Spending more time with him now, I see how attached he is to photos.  He loves taking pictures of family, even on a mundane day, he'll take out his camera and take photos.  He saves every photo I upload on Facebook onto his laptop.

So for Christmas this year, I got him a digital photo frame.  Since they can't carry around too many prints of pictures (they get really bulky!), I thought it would be wonderful for them to be able to have a digital frame with photos circulating.  I think he really liked it!  Him and my brother got it working right away and he had photos displaying all day long even before they left.

Just because you can't express your love doesn't mean you don't.  I think that's the case here.  I think my dad loves us much, much more than he can say.

empty

It's amazing how much space two people can fill.  To go from 7 people to 5 in a household - it makes such a HUGE difference.  We came back today from dropping my parents off in Dallas.  They've flown back to Korea, and will be flying back to Indonesia in January.  It was so hard to say goodbye to them, as it is every time.  Goodbyes never get easy, it seems, even though I've said them hundreds of times to close family and friends in my life.  (I wonder what it feels like to live in a same town most of one's life, surrounded by family and friends...  It would be nice to experience the difference!)

It was especially difficult, knowing that my parents were deeply attached to Alaise.  They've spent SO much time with her while they've been here, and most days, mom was almost the primary caretaker for her. Thanks to Skype and video, we get to talk almost daily face to face, (or rather, monitor to monitor) it really is different to have them in person, to watch them hold her, kiss her, teach her stuff, and (fortunately or unfortunately?) spoil her.  I think they'll really miss her.  And of course Kai...  But baby Kai doesn't have much personality yet (except for his temper when he cries - he gets SO mad sometimes!), so he gets held most of the day, and that's the extent of the interaction.

Anyway.  So we drove back home after dropping them off.  I managed not to cry, which is really good...  Last year, I bawled like a little babe.  It may be that I'm absolutely EXHAUSTED down to my bones right now.  I've been sick for three days, and hardly have eaten anything.  (Which is saying a lot, as I hardly ever lose my appetite, even when I'm sick...)  The house feels so much emptier, and it makes my heart ache when I see the last touches of my mother around the house - the dishes washed, the guest room cleaned, the bed made, baby clothes folded, the cups in wrong places in the cupboard.

As I walk around the house feeling lost, I realize I've got my hands full and then some.  :)  And I see my little toddler, making a mess of her toy box...  She sees me, raises her arms up, opens and closes her fists - her way of saying "pick me up please!".  I pick her up, and as she clings to me, the world feels like it's going to be okay.  I think despite what I may feel today, things are going to be okay.  Because I have my beautiful daughter, my gorgeous son, my fun (albeit sometimes obnoxious) brother, and my bestest friend in this house still.

But mom & dad, how I already miss you so.

traditions

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  What traditions do you have in your family??

I wish I could rattle off traditions I had growing up.  But frankly, Koreans don't do a lot to celebrate Christmas, and as my parents didn't even believe in Christmas, we did even less.  Even though I grew up with "Americans" in high school, I went home during the Christmas break, so I never really celebrated Christmas until my freshmen year in college.  I stayed the break with the Wolcotts, a wonderful Missionary in Residence familiy.  (MIRs - John Brown has a missionary family on furlough living close to campus who help and hang out with MKs.)  I didn't think much of Christmas, but quickly I realized that it was a big deal in the family.  I ended up receiving gifts from them, and felt bad that I didn't have any prepared for them.

The second year, I spent Christmas with my friend, Christy, and her family.  In her family, they bought unpainted ceramic ornaments and painted them every year for Christmas.  So I picked one out and painted one, and Christy gave me an ornament that she painted as a gift.  Again, I received gifts...

I think I spent all the rest Christmases with Kris' family.  They don't have any special traditions, just get together on Christmas day at his parents house, and all the relatives gather together for lunch & gifts.  Mom V usually decorates her tree just with blue lights, no ornaments, and her stair case with greenery.

When it was just Kris and I, what we did for Christmas didn't matter much.  I think we didn't even have a tree up most of the years.  We just stayed together, exchanged gifts, and went over to mom & dad's early and waited for the rest of the family.  But now that we have little ones, I really, really, I mean, REALLY, want to have some traditions.  Things that we do every year, things that kids remember Christmas by.  It makes me jealous to read all the other people's traditions, people who have grown up in them.  People who's families have had traditions for generations.  People who look forward to certain things every Christmas because, well, it's always been there.  People who's days before Christmas are full of crafts & baking.

I think we definitely want to do stockings on Christmas Eve and presents Christmas morning.  This year, we actually got stockings with everyone's names on them, and they are actually really really cute!  (Thanks, Walmart!)  I hope to have more traditions figured out by next year, when Alaise will be two years old.

(Let's just not make getting sick after Christmas lunch a tradition, okay?)

shopping

I'm just not a huge shopper.  I enjoy it once in a while, but definitely in moderation.  Unlike my mother-in-law, who almost literally shops till she drops (she ends up buying new comfy shoes cuz she can't walk anymore), I get tired of going through so much stuff quickly.  Kinda like garage sale-ing, I guess - I just don't have the patience to go through everyone's "junk" for hours to find a gem.

So, I hate Christmas shopping.  It's such a challenge for me, especially when most of the time, I don't even know what people like or need.  It is pretty easy to buy for Kris, as I usually have a pretty good mental note from throughout the year to know what he's been wanting, or what he'd enjoy.  But even purchasing gifts for in-laws is difficult...  Clothes, jewelry, stuff...  It seems like they have it all already.  I especially hate scrambling for gifts a couple days before Christmas - it really, really stresses me out.

This year, I've vowed to get my shopping done early.  Thank God for the internet!  Because I hate wandering the mall with Kris, asking, "Do you think they'll like this?  What do they want?" a million times, I've been browsing the internet for my gifts, and I've loved it.  Not only can I stay home (with two babies, this is the most important!) and buy gifts with a click of a button, I can have them delivered right to my door...  All I have to do is wrap them!  And this year, I've been fortunate to have my family here with me, and I think I got something for them that (hopefully) they'll like.  :)  They're such nazis about "stuff", because they don't want to have to move around with more stuff that they have to pack.  But I think what I got them are pretty good and un-bulky.

AND, having babies and their pictures - gifts for grandparents have gotten better & easier, I think. :)

equality?

I don't understand why some people feel that the rest of the society is entitled to the "rich people's" money to make us "equal".

Rich people's money, no matter how rich, (usually) is THEIR  money.  They earned it, or their family members earned it, so it's theirs.  Why do people think that just because they own a lot of it, the rest of the country is entitled to what's theirs?

I don't get it.  I don't get how that is some people's view of equality.  Robin Hood was a hero because he robbed the rich who got there unjustly and gave to the poor.  The same does NOT apply in this world...

<vent over>

what does that mean?

So, what does our delivery experience mean??

1. There is something wrong with me.  The bleeding didn't happen twice for no reason.  They think there is something wrong with my blood.  I've been recommended to see a hematologist, to find out what may be wrong...  If I do have a clotting disorder of some kind, we need to know, in case of accidents where I am bleeding a lot, or major surgeries I may need in the future.
   
2. Chances are, we can't have more children...  We grieved when we found this out, and we still do.  We talked about this before we had Kai - "Hey, what if we just have two?  They'll be close in age and grow up together, and we'll be done!"  But now that I'm faced with the fact that we probably won't have any more kids, I realize I did want one more.  But Kris (& I do too) feels like the risk is just too high.  I don't think we're willing to risk me dying to have another baby.  It breaks my heart.  So, unless the hematologist can tell us that he can reduce the risk significantly, I guess we'll just be having two children.
   
3. It really... "renewed" the bond Kris and I have.  We've gotten SO close the past couple of weeks.  We can hardly be apart for very long, and it's a good thing he's working from home!  I think the experience reminded us of what we have, and it helped us appreciate it so much.  Emotionally, I think Kris was maybe more traumatized than me, as he had to watch me "almost die" twice now.  He's been such a wonderful, wonderful husband.  (more on that later, I'm sure.)

I'm sure there are more implications...  But those are what comes to me immediately.  It seems like my life got shaken around, and now I need to find out where everything landed. 

baby. life. death. love.

(This post was written over the course of 2 weeks or so...  Which explains the tense changes and such.)

Exactly a week ago today, I was lying in a hospital bed, disappointed that my nurse's prediction hadn't come true.  She thought I'd have a baby by midnight, but she was wrong.  Oh well.

My contractions started around 5 o'clock on Nov. 21st, Sunday.  I had had mild contractions all night long the previous night, and I thought for sure I'd be going to the hospital in the morning.  But they slowed down, and we spent the day doing normal stuff - watching CBS Morning, eating, shopping at Sam's.  Then we went to the doctor's for Kris' cough that wasn't going away.  I'm pretty sure my contractions started while we were sitting there waiting for his steroid shot.  They started coming pretty regularly and painfully, which was good news!  We got home, I told my parents what was up (they freaked out and thought I should be going to the hospital pronto).  I really wanted to put Alaise to bed before going, so we packed the hospital bag, Kris tried to fix the porch lock, we ate dinner, and I gave Alaise a bath.  But around 7:30pm, my contractions were so painful, I thought I needed to get to the hospital...  So we said our good byes, and took off.
(Right before leaving, Alaise gave us a treat - she pretended to answer the phone with my phone, putting it on her ear.  Freakin' adorable.)

We get to the hospital.  My contractions are almost exactly 5 minutes apart.  I get placed in the triage, and I get hooked up with all the familiar stuff - pressure cuff, two belly bands, with the rhythmic heartbeat going, going, going.  They check and I'm 5+cm dilated, so I won't be going home.  (yay!)  They move me to our room, and Kris and I get ourselves comfortable.  (Contractions are really painful at this point though, I don't know how comfortable you can get on the hospital bed with them coming regularly...)  I get hooked up to an IV, and our nurse, Christina, asks if I want an epidural.  YES!  (*I know some people thumb their noses at epidurals.  I don't understand why, as it makes the whole labor & delivery process so much more pleasant!!  Also, we wanted the epidural, just in case of complications like last time.)  I sign a bunch of papers, while waiting for the anesthesiologist.  Once I get the epidural (Kris could stay in the room with me this time), I think it's around 9pm.  I'm 6-7cm dilated.  We try to get some rest.  My water breaks on its own (quite a bizarre feeling with epidural) during one of the stronger contractions - I hope that it will speed up my labor.

I doze on and off.  Christina thinks that I might have the baby by midnight, which is fantastic - that will be a short labor!  But around 10-11pm, my contractions slow down, so they put me on pitocin.  Also, the baby is turned sideways, so I lay for a while on my side, hoping he'll turn.  Midnight comes and goes, and around 1:30am, Christina checks me - 10cm!  I think I probably had been dilated that much for a while, but whatever...  They start prepping the room, Christina calls Dr. Eisenhauer, and gets me to give a couple of trial pushes.  Dr. Eisenhauer arrives a little bit before 2am, and after about 4 sets of pushes, my little boy is born!!  2:17am, 9lb 9oz, 21 inches long.  Considering how big he is, the delivery doesn't seem all that bad.  They put him on my chest, and I spend a few moments caressing him - I don't remember much from Alaise's birth, and I want to remember this clearly with him.  They whisk him away to clean him (and how he cried!  His big sister hardly cried...), and the doctor delivers my placenta.  (Good sign, as it didn't with Alaise.)  I have a 2nd degree tear, which is much better than last time.

So everything seems to be going SO much better than the first.  But we're all nervous about what might happen next.  We all hope nothing will happen, but because of the severe bleeding from last delivery, the doctor orders a full pitocin drip & mega dose of (I think) Cytotec.  Christina told me that they usually insert a quarter of a pill in the vagina to stimulate labor...  They put 6 whole pills in me to get my uterus to contract and stop bleeding.  With the precautions taken, we're hopeful that that will be the end of our birth story.  I get to breastfeed our little boy, have some family time until they take him to the nursery.  I think it's around 3:30am...  Kris and I are new parents again, and we're happy & exhausted.  We discuss baby boy's name for a while, and then to bed we go!
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I had drunk a bunch of cranberry juice right after the delivery, and I woke up needing to throw up really bad.  Kris will tell you, I HATE throwing up.  I'd rather lay sick for two hours, rather than throw up and feel better.  But in this case, I couldn't hold it in...  Felt much better afterwards.  Dozing on and off, the nurse came in once in a while to check up on me, massaging my abdomen, assessing how much I was bleeding.  She said that I was still bleeding more than normal (which was a little disconcerting, since I was full of do-not-bleed medication), but it was okay.

I woke up once again, around 6:15am, feeling like I had to throw up.  All I had had after my first episode was a couple sips of water...  But this time, it wasn't just needing to throw up.  I felt SO sick...  I was hot, sweaty, my stomach was turning and I was dry heaving.  I felt claustrophobic, and I was disoriented.  My blanket was soaked in blood. (which felt like dejavu from the first delivery...  blood soaked blankets are never good.)  I was in the middle of trying to wake Kris up, when the nurses came in panicked.  (Later I found out that they had gotten results from my latest blood draw, and my platelet level had plummeted.)  They started looking me over...  Discovered that my epidural site was also bleeding.  (they had left my catheter in there, just in case I needed to go into surgery.)  Which was a bad bad sign...  I was bleeding from places I wasn't supposed to bleed from.  (Later I found out that my urine also had blood in it, which they were extremely alarmed about.)  And I heard nurses mumble something about baseball sized clots.  (SHIT.)

While they are doing Lord knows what, Kris started calling people - my parents (who didn't answer), his parents (who also didn't answer), my brother (guess what, yep, he didn't answer either).  My thoughts at this point was, "Oh my gosh. I'm gonna bleed to death and I'm not gonna be able to talk to my parents... If my brother doesn't answer, who's going to tell my parents what's happening??"

My dad did call back, although I'm unsure about the passage of time from this point forward.  I told him that things were't looking good, and that I may be heading into surgery for a hysterectomy.  (I think that was what the nurses told me was probably going to happen.)  I didn't tell him just how serious the situation was...  I didn't have the words to really tell him what was happening.  I mean, how do you tell your parents that you may be dying?
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At this point, I think they gave me Stadol for pain relief.  And things get real fuzzy.  Stadol had an interesting affect on me...  I got real sleepy, and even though I think I had my eyes open, I don't remember actually seeing anything.  So maybe I was talking with my eyes closed?  Also, I had to concentrate really hard to say anything.  I'm sure I drifted in and out of sleep the entire time.

**Stadol got rid of my "filter".  You know, how you think certain things, but you (obviously) don't say it to people around you?  Or you only say it to your spouse?  Well, all of that came out without that (oh-so-important) filter.

• Example:  During the upcoming (extremely painful) procedure, Kris says I kept complaining why they weren't giving me something in my epidural.  I think I complained and complained about this.
• Example:  When (according to Kris, a very very nice) a lab technician came in to draw my blood, I apparently looked down at it, and said, "Ow.  That hurts.  This stuff isn't working."  (at which point, my nurse went to get me a dose of morphine.)  Sounds like something a little child would say, no?
• Example:  You know, how you don't yell or scream even if you have a bit of pain?  Or, even if it's a lot of pain, you control it to a certain extent?  Yep.  Stadol got rid of that too.  In the aforemetioned procedure, I apparently screamed so loud that it made my (not squeamish) husband sick, he almost threw up.   All the pain I was feeling, came out as blood curdling screams.  (I hope nobody was close and in labor - it probably would have freaked them out.)
• Example:  "Could I die?"  I kept asking the nurse.  I guess it was definitely something that was going through my head, but something I would not have verbalized under normal condition.  But Stadol?  It helped me really "be myself".  I asked whatever I wanted.  The nurse's answer?  "Yes, you could.

**Stadol also messed with my perception of time.  When Kris finally told me that our families were on the way to the hospital, I kept asking him if they were here yet.  "No, but they'll be here shortly."  "You said that 30 minutes ago!"  When in fact, it had only been 8 minutes.  I did that over and over again.

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Anyway.  My OB got to the hospital, and I am sure they started discussing what to do with me.  I don't remember hardly anything during this time.  (Thanks, Stadol!)  Kris told me that they  had the entire area prepped with sterile stuff, and since they didn't know what they were going to do yet, they apparently had everything under the sun ready.  My OB and her partner decided to use the intrauterine balloon.  I think by this point, they did not want to take me into surgery, for fear of me bleeding out on the table from surgery sites, as my blood wasn't clotting anywhere.  So they wanted to do everything they could without taking me into surgery first.  

This is the previously mentioned procedure that made me scream and my husband sick.  I don't remember much, except for the excruciating pain (I thought they were killing me... seriously.) and the (Stadol-induced) thought, "Why (the &@!*) aren't they getting me numb with the epidural?!"  (In their defense, they didn't have the time to call the anesthesiologist and get me numb or anything.)  I don't ever remember being in that much pain in my life, and I am sure I let the entire hospital floor know it.

Anyway.  They did their thing, the nurse gave me morphine, and I was in and out.  Kris kept telling me to rest, that I should sleep, but my thought was, "I don't want to close my eyes yet - I HAVE to see my daughter.  What if I don't wake up??"  I was going to stay awake and see Alaise if it killed me.  And I did.  Our parents and Alaise got to the hospital shortly (I swear, it was like, two hours later, but it was only 30 minutes at most in reality.).  I asked Kris to get my mom and Alaise.  Mom came in the room, and I could hardly talk...  Who knows what I looked like.  (Later, the nurses and doctors all told me how I didn't look Asian at all, because I was so pale from all the blood loss.)  I'm sure I was completely bloated as well.  She just caressed my face, and started massaging my feet.  Kris brought Alaise in, and I wanted to hold her so dearly, but of course I couldn't...  But it was good enough that I touched her, and saw her.

From there, for several hours, they just monitored me closely to make sure my bleeding had stopped and things were progressing as they should.  Kris got some much needed sleep, and me... well, feeling claustrophobic in the bed and in a lot of pain, I just tried to get through.  I had the following things all hooked up to my body:  two IV's, one in each arm, a catheter, a tube from the balloon, a pressure cuff, and compression stockings (to prevent thrombosis, due to all the clotting factors I was getting), one on each leg.  Seven things, permanently attached...  It's a wonder I got any sleep that first night.  I received:  4 units of red blood cells, 2 bags of platelets, 2 bags of plasma, over 6 bags of pitocin, and tons and tons of saline.

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Recovery was...  Rough.  Physically and emotionally.  I thought I felt pretty good when I got discharged from the hospital - I was surprised at the speed of my recovery.  I felt much better than the first time, although the situation this time around was more serious.  I'm still recovering...  physically and emotionally.  The implications of what happened (more on that later) gets me crying at the drop of a hat.

I had had what's called DIC (Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation).  From what I can tell, it's where your body's clotting factors go haywire so your body starts bleeding out.  It's pretty dang serious, and as much as I keep thinking, "Oh, you're being dramatic... You didn't REALLY almost die...", talking to the doctors (and even Kai's pediatrician, who came to talk to us while all hell was breaking loose, was telling me how serious DIC is on his visit) and reading up on the internet (oh, internet.  How you provide me with too much information sometimes.), I realize that God has been so gracious to let us return home as a family.


So that's the "short" story.  Kris and I still talk about it, find out new things, go over old things...  As much as it's scary and painful to go through the story over and over again, it helps with healing.  For both of us.  For everyone who prayed for us in our time of dire need - thank you.  I appreciate it more than I can say.  God's been so good to our family...  I hope this new life we brought to this world will always remind me of that.


Baby.  Life.  Death.  Love.  All the things that matter in life.  It seems I have experienced almost all of it in less than 24 hours.

backlash

Kris and I sat down to watch the episode of Grey's Anatomy from last night.  I had to tell him to turn it off about 10 minutes into the show - all the blood that was pouring out of the guy totally caught me off guard, and I felt such a rush of anxiety, I couldn't watch it any longer.  We did end up watching the rest of it after a Bones episode, but...

I guess I still have a little bit more healing to do.