Our Life Uncommon

Well, these last 2 days haven't gone exactly as I had planned, but hey, I didn't really plan to have our babies at 28 weeks, let alone all of the other stuff that is happening! I thought Mallory was going home today, until yesterday, when I got the suprising information Ryan wrote about.

It is now 2:15pm and Dawson and Mallory are now shunted babies. Dawson went in first thing this morning. With a shunt they put a little "hub" in the ventricles and run a cathater just under the skin from the shunt into the abdominal cavity where all of the excess fluid drains and is absorbed by the bowels and eventually they just pee it off. The shunt sticks up a little bit on there head, just about the size of the resevoir, which is not biggy. You can also see some of the tubing on their heads. This will be covered very easily by hair. There is an incision made on the top right side of their head, a small one right by their clavicle and Mallory has a small one by her belly button. Dawson does not have one there because his shunt is different. For now Dawson's shunt runs into his heart. This is the way that shunts used to be done and although it sounds scary it is fairly common. In about 1 year Dr. Walker will redo the surgery and place it into his abdomen, once his bowels heal from his previous surgery. For every one in Utah, this means that we will be back for sure every 3 months for this first year, so you will see the babies a little more often.

Dawson is still on a ventilator. He wakes up and makes a silent scream (no sound with the tube in his throat) then he goes back to sleep. They are waiting to see him wake up a little more for a longer period of time before they extubate. Then he should be fed by tonight or tomorrow morning. He is doing quite well and looks at me for a second when I come in. He is a sweetie.

Mallory was extubated right after surgery because she was awake. It was a little too early and I had to stand by her and rub her back and feet or annoy her anyway I could to remind her to breathe for about 15 min. They put CPAP on her and that did it. She was so mad!! She screamed and screamed. We figured that woke her up and ticked her off enough that maybe she would breathe on her own. She was on CPAP for about 15 min. and we took it off. She is working hard on her own now and will be fed in the next couple of hours. I think the soonest she will go home will be in about 1 week. They told me that if she is ready to go and all Dawson has left is to do all of his feedings they will teach me how to put in the NG tube and send them both home together. That is exciting!

Well, I have learned a few things in the last couple of days. One to trust the Lord completely. Through blessings we know that these babies will be just fine and not have lasting effects from this. What the road is to get to that point I have had no idea. I have just tried hard to have faith and be patient. I honestly feel that the reason Mallory's surgery did not happen before was, like Courtney said in comments, for us to gain more info and feel more comfortable it. Also having it done for both babies on the same day means they will or should go home at the same time and that is a huge blessing. Once one of the babies goes home it cannot come back with me. I would't be able to be here much with Dawson and that would make it longer for him to come home. He seems to like me a little bit :) and doesn't really like to eat good for anyone but me or his dad. Everything that happens is for a reason and the Lord knows more than we do, it is important, when we feel upset about something that is happening, to draw closer to the Lord instead of pull away. He is the only reason we have made it through this thing with a smile and our sanity.

I keep thinking about 2 books I read just before this all started. "Man's Search For Meaning" and "Fire of the Covenant". In Mans search Viktor Frankl was a prisoner during the Holocaust and talks about how when it seems all your choices are taken from you, you always have the choice of how you will respond. Will you roll over and bury your head in the sand because you can't do it, or will you accept it and make the best of it and try to learn the lesson being taught. In Fire of the Covenant by Gerald Lund, he wrote about the handcart pioneers and all of the horrible things that happened to them. At the end of the book he included an entry from a journal of one of the pioneers. He talked about how he had been in a Sunday School class and many of the class members were talking bad about the presidency of the church at that time. They thought that the people should not have come. They did not know that this man had been one of these pioneers. He told them that he was and that he would not trade any of his experience because through the trials they all faced they came to know God and His love for them. He would not trade this experience for anything.

Through all of this, as hard as it has been, I have felt Heavenly Fathers love and presence. I have seen His healing hand and His power, and I wouldn't trade these last 3 months for 3 normal ones. Through trials we get to know who our Father is and feel his presence and love, if we lean on Him and accept his will and trust Him. It is suprising how easy this is once you do it. In a few short days I will be home with my Ryan and Jakey and our 2 sweet babies. What a blessing that will be!!

I am sorry this is such a long post. It's just a few things I have been thinking about these last couple of days and I wanted to share them, because it would be sad if we had kept all of this experience to ourselves. These babies are here and fighting hard for all of us!

We love you all, Thanks for the Prayer!
Love, The Lindstroms