Strength & Sacrifice

From the moment you find yourself trying to decipher the display of that little stick of fate, you enter into the world of life's greatest lessons. You're supposed to wait two full minutes but who actually has that kind of patience! Instead you sit there atop the lid of your Loo. Staring. Watching as one line quickly darkens, looking at the clock, seeing that it has only been thirty seconds. So bummed! And then as your are ready to toss that little stick in the trash you glance at it one more time. Wait, is that what I think it is? No it's too faint. Re-read the instructions, panic, quick google search "one faint line?" Bam! It hits you... you crack a smile, you silently squeal, you cry. All in a quick two minutes. Brace yourself. Life is about to hand it to you.

Lesson 1 : Strength
Before Haddie Mae was born I thought I knew what strength was. I thought that holding my hair back 15-20 times a day over the Loo at work, on the side of the freeway, in Target, in my best friends kitchen sink for twenty-three weeks straight was strength. I thought that arriving at the hospital on Sunday in labor to finally give birth on Tuesday to a 10lb 10oz baby was strength. Well I was wrong. Strength is being born after 37 weeks from a womb that couldn't fully support you. Strength is getting your blood drawn 17 times in one year. Or four Mag-3 Lasix tests. Strength is 8 days in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit after having your tongue operated on. Strength is learning to sit up on your own even with diastasis recti and an umbilical hernia. Or taking your first steps just days after having kidney surgery. In the short 16 months of her little life Haddie Mae has taught me more strength than I could have even imagined.

Lesson 2: Sacrifice
As you enter motherhood sacrifice is something you learn quickly. This lesson comes often and without much notice. Though most of the time, as strong as the word sounds, it goes unnoticed. Because often the sacrifice is followed with reward. With pregnancy comes a loss of many things. Sleep, comfort, body proportion. Immediately following these small sacrifices is the greatest reward. Although you may find much enjoyment complaining about each one you have no idea how much you are going to wish you would have eaten your words instead of that third piece of chocolate cake. These sacrifices are nothing in comparison to two big blue eyes wrapped in a cozy swaddle with a sticky out tongue staring up at you as if you are God all mighty Himself.

And still you have no idea what sacrifice is. And may not yet. But 23 hotel stays in LA away from your two favorite boys. Driving 500 miles round trip often with a screaming baby in tow. And $20,000+ that went from our pocket into the hands of our medical teams, gas stations and hotels sure seems like a sacrifice at times. Putting off dreams, date nights, trips to the hair salon, vacations. But the reward is worth every sacrifice. No matter how big or small they may seem. One very healthy happy girl who has taught our family life's greatest lessons.
Something tells me Haddie Mae has a lot more in store for us and I cannot wait to soak it all in.

Much love,
Melissa Hughes

Thanksgiving, Surgery & Christmas... Oh my!

Well 2012 went out with quite a roar! I think my head is still spinning. I am not exactly sure what I was thinking scheduling a surgery between Thanksgiving and Christmas especially since the Hubs was on his hunting trip in Colorado from Halloween until just a week or so before Thanksgiving. Pure craziness. 

Grandma Hughes traveled with me and HMae down to CHLA for Haddie's pre-op. We traumatized her with all of the Christmas shoppers at The Grove. But had fun anyway.

 

Thanksgiving I cooked my usual turkey and slaved in the kitchen all day. I loved every minute of it! Grandma Hughes played with HMae all day so that I could do my thing in the kitchen.  Koen kept Daddy and Grandpa preparing the property for visitors of course. The night ended with the usual cousin Lori trying to lure us into playing card games but our bellies were too stuffed to move off of the comfy couch and after cooking for two days I was DONE! Next year Lori, next year:) 

 

See this lady down here ... She is AMAZING! She is my Daddy's sister, Karen, but also known as Grauntie to my kiddos. She deserves a blog post of her own...

A few days later we traveled down to Children's Hospital Los Angeles for HMae's surgery. We were so blessed to be able to stay at Ronald McDonald House the night before surgery.  

We arrived at 7am for pre-op. We waited and waited and waited. We tore up paper and made friends in the hallway. We modeled our super cute tiger jammies to all the nurses that have seen them a thousand times but genuinely act like your kid is the cutest one they have ever seen in them. I love all of them for that.

 Finally we went back to surgery waiting and HMae got happy juice. She got a little loopy but never enough to make her calm. The sweet Surgery Nurse carried HMae into surgery. Some how this made it a million times better knowing she was in loving arms while being whisked away to surgery. Surgery started at 8:50am and she was done at 11:30 am. This time they were going in through her abdomen to assess and repair if necessary her right ureter.  It turns out a section of her right ureter where it meets the bladder was paralyzed. It wasn't functioning. Which was keeping her urine from flowing into her bladder and causing her ureter to be distended. Dr. De Filippo removed that section and re-implanted it into her bladder in a new location.

 I warned every nurse and anesthesiologist we met about miss HMae and her strength. I must have repeated myself twice to each one. They didn't listen:) She woke up from surgery and was standing on the bed hollering down the hall to me! I said to the Hubs "I think I hear her" he thought I was crazy. He knows me and my single sided deafness. I hear nothing! Not even my own husband... or do I... just kidding:) They finally came to get us around 1pm to let us see her and sure enough it was her! Wouldn't you know. In a large triage style room filled with crying babies and general loudness there she stood atop her hospital bed with a number of lines coming from her and nurses trying to untangle them. I giggled and quickly ushered to her side to sweep her up and comfort her. I had no idea she was going to be awake... let alone standing up pitching a fit for all to hear.

She is amazing! Her strength is pure and untouched. 

She has an incision much like one you would see on a women who has had a Cesarean section birth. It's about 5 inches long. I wonder what she will think of it when she is older. I hope it never phases her. 

Some of us are stitched together just perfectly.

 And some of us are not. 

A few frayed stitches makes us even more grateful for the thread that binds us all together.

Once we finally got taken to her official recovery room where she would stay for the next seven days(or so we thought) she had too much fun! She drank them about 95 bottles of pedialyte. She obviously was trying to show them she could hold it down because she wanted the ''good" stuff again. She played with Grandma Michelle who brought her presents from Nordstroms and was tickled pink when Grandma let her wear her pearls.

 All of the butterflies wrapped around her crib. The nurses we so delighted when they came in to see how bright and cheery it was. HMae loved looking at all of them. Thank you to everyone who took the time to do that for her. It was absolutely lovely. They are still hanging in her room as decorations and as a daily reminder of the love that surrounds us.     

A nap in her fabulously decorated hospital crib!

Finally got the "good" stuff.

 We could have never imagined that her surgery would have went as good as it did. Dr. De Filippo told us to prepare to be in the hospital for seven days and just a day and half after surgery we were headed home! We are so grateful things went so well.

 A few days later it was time to catch up on some rest. Grandpa was worn out from chasing around Koen for two days:)

 Who doesn't love on-demand open mouth baby kisses???

 HMae had Grandma and Grandpa whipped into shape before they had to drive back to Colorado. They were singing and snapping along to the purple teapot and it's silly songs. All she had to do was push a button and they would put on a show! It was hilarious! Grandma got HMae so close to walking before she left. It was like having an in-home physical therapist working with her everyday. Sure enough she was up and rearing to go a few days after they got home.

 I celebrated a birthday it was so nice. Sushi. That's all I have to say about that.

They met Santa... it went well. Haha!

 And four days later Christmas festivities began. Christmas Eve at Grauntie and Gruncles included everyone's favorite Chocolate Fondue!!! I thank my lucky stars for my Great Grandma Doris and her Christmas traditions. I hope she know how much we all appreciate the love and work that she put into our Christmas treats all those years. And now Grauntie has taken over the love of Chocolate Fondue and Cream Puff making with Great Grandma's watchful eye inspecting each cream puff for perfection. Without this it is just not Christmas. This year these two got to indulge and for some reason it made the chocolate seem ever so sweet!

 Cookies for Santa

Christmas was perfect. The Hubs had me in tears. He really outdid himself this year. I'm not sure why a new purse and matching wallet turned me into a sobbing baby. But it did.  Seeing Koen's reaction to whether or not Santa had come to visit was absolutely priceless and made all the late nights of crafting the perfect brown paper packages worth it. 

We spent the days leading up to Christmas spreading a little kindness. I promise I will compose a blog post about that soon.

Until then, 

Much love to all, 

Melissa Hughes