April 18, 2005
After surprising Randy with the news of a Maui-baby, I was excited to welcome number three into our home. I pulled out all of the maternity clothes, started all of the Chinese charts, and read up on how big my baby was that week. It just happened to work out that the "heartbeat checkup" landed on Randy's birthday. Awww, what a special birthday present for my man! And then came the biggest surprise of all..."There is no heartbeat. I'm sorry, but your baby died three weeks ago." And just like that the birthday surprise backfired. I felt like the floor had fallen away and I was endlessly falling. This would be the first of two experiences. I made a surprise birthday party the next day after the procedure where I walked in pregnant and walked out not. It just wasn't fun.
April 18, 2014
Caden has been eating like you wouldn't believe. With the calories that we could count, he was always getting more than 2,000. Add on breakfast, lunch, and dinner and you have more than 2,5000 by far. One night he even ate a family sized bag of Cool Ranch Doritos in 30 minutes. How's that for high caloric intake?! We were both convinced that he was going to walk in to Sue's office, get weighed, and then they would bring in Congratulation balloons and cheer that he wouldn't need a feeding tube ever again. However, when she said, "I'm sorry. He is still not up to the weight he needs to be at. He needs to get one today." the floor fell out once more on April 18th. I took it as a personal blow. Caden just crumbled. The perpetual smile he'd been wearing since being discharged on Wednesday, the happy-go-lucky boy that had made RMH fun, became angry once again. Sue ordered him a dose of morphine to maybe help with the pain. He said there would be no pain if he didn't have to get one. Sue asked him if he wanted to wean off of his pain Meds again. He said he wanted the choice of feeding tube, or no feeding tube. While doing the exam, Sue asked if we'd seen the double rainbow the night before. I commented on the beautiful weather we had been having. Caden commented that the weather would look more beautiful if he didn't have a feeding tube. And when the time came, he plugged his nose and said, "I am NOT getting that placed. I live in a free country. I don't want it, so I'm not gonna get it!" And it truly broke my heart to realize that I couldn't take on the roll of protective mom, but mean mom, instead. I sent the nurse to bring in another nurse to help restrain him. It was down to this, threatening. I felt like pawn scum! When Aaron arrived (yes, of course it just had to be his favorite nurse!) I asked Caden if he wanted me to hold his hand while Aaron held his head, or the other way around. He persisted that he was NOT going to do it, all the while tears are streaming down his swollen cheeks. Out comes mean mom's voice, we were wasting time. Finally, he just snapped. "FINE!" He sat up, balled his fists, and let her place the stupid, life-saving tube. He held his own head, he held his own hand. And I held back my sobs. I knew it needed to get to the point that he knew he could do it. But I hated that I had to push him to that point. Bully him into facing his worst fear. Failing him the first time was nothing to how it felt to push him to his breaking point. I am SO glad his stomach is getting more calm each day. This means that the probability of that being the LAST time he has one placed is very high. Thank goodness!!
If not for Randy, I can honestly say April 18th would be my least favorite day of the year. By far. No questions asked. That is my final answer.
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