Talk about your classic lame-dash-o

Mom and David came to visit me after work today, which was nice because Andrew worked late tonight and sometimes it gets a little lonely with just Rachel and me, even though she's rather cute.

Rachel looking rather cute

Mom held her, and then David took her. Rachel was naked (she had a blow-outy day and after the first two outfits I decided to just keep her in a diaper), allowing them to view her in all her slender glory.

"She's so tall and skinny," said Mom.

It's true. She's 23.5 inches tall...and is about 9.5 lbs. Of course, this is me doing the measuring using my tape measure and Karen's scale so I'm not sure how exact they are. I also have no idea what percentile she's in, but she really is tall and skinny. She doesn't fit in 0-3 month clothes yet because the neck hole is much too wide, but she hardly fits in the "just born" clothes anymore because she's so tall that when her diaper gets really full the snaps come undone.

In addition to showing off her skinny little belly, Rachel was busy showing off her herculean leg power that my ribs remember oh, so very well.

David chose to comment on this, "I don't think she'll be like you, Nancy."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, I don't think she'll be coxos*...how do you say that word in English?" He paused to take a few minutes to translate.

"Oh," he said, a little too excited, "Lame! She won't be lame!"

Some brother. Sheesh.

My mom walked over and took Rachel. "I don't think you should be able to hold Rachel if you're going to be calling her mommy lame," she chided, mockingly. I don't think she was sticking up for me, I think she just wanted the baby back.

"No," he explained, "I mean, I don't think she'll have problems crawling or walking. Her legs are so strong!"

So apparently I'm just lame, not lame-o.

Rachel really does enjoy standing up though. She has great head control for her age and loves to have goof-around time with her daddy.

Upside-down time, note her big grin

She also won't sit in her bouncy chair. She prefers to stand up--with one push of her legs she almost topples the chair. Those warnings of "never leave your child unattended" really apply to our little baby since she will roll over or stand up when you least expect it. You're only 6 weeks old, Rachel, simmer down.

Sitting calmly

Almost falling out of the chair
This one was just cute

I didn't learn how to walk until I was 16 months old (October 30, 1986), which is a miracle in and of itself. I didn't crawl until I was 9 months old (March 27, 1986). But I started talking at 6 months (Dec, 31, 1985), so I suppose these things even out.

I had something wrong with one of my legs and wouldn't put any weight on it. If I had to crawl on it I was scream in pain. If I had to stand on it I would scream. If I tried walking I would scream. That is probably why my parents were really surprised when, in the middle of the night, I stood up in my crib and bit my dad's toe, which was dangling over my crib bars (April 8, 1986).

My mom had an appointment with a specialist in Calgary so that he could look at my legs to see what was wrong. This was something my family really couldn't afford at the time, but I had something wrong with me so it had to be done. Right before the appointment (I'm not how long...a few days, or a week) I started walking like everything was normal, so we canceled the appointment and I've been fine ever since. Wonder of wonder, miracles of miracles.

I don't think our little one will have the same problem.

Look, Mom, no hands!

*David was trying to think of Matt. 11:5 in order to remember the word "lame," but he could only remember it in Portuguese: Os cegos vêem, e os coxos andam; os leprosos são purificados, e os surdos ouvem; os mortos são ressuscitados, e aos pobres é anunciado o evangelho, which is why he called me coxos.

Yet another update with a boring title

Two very remarkable things happened today.

The first is that dad is now stable enough that they've moved him to recovery. So, he's been dewired and unplugged from mostly everything. He's on the fifth floor of the hospital, so Mom, Rachel and I went to go and visit. We went up the elevators we usually do, not even considering that there are two wings of the hospital. Up we go, all 5 floors, only to end up in labor & delivery.

We went back down and asked at the information desk. The lady we spoke with said, "Oh, he didn't go into labor? Too bad. That would've been worth a lot of money."

Well, he's now in a different tower, so don't go up the first set of elevators.

He looks really good and is a lot more energetic. I might even dare take a picture the next time we visit. Rachel got to snuggle with him in bed until she started to try and nurse his armpit.

Dad should be home by this weekend.

The second remarkable thing was that Rachel took her soother/pacifier/binky today without a fuss today. She took it from my mom's house to the hospital, the whole time at the hospital, and home to our house. I'm really excited because she's really been wanting to suck recently. Today, for example, we spent virtually the whole day attached to each other. She'd suck, suck, suck until all the milk was gone and then she'd keep on going for half an hour or more. The only time she'd interrupt her sucking was to do a massive blow out.

So I'm pretty glad she took her soother this evening. Maybe tomorrow I'll actually get something done.

Day 5

As of yesterday Dad was still in the ICU, which they are starting to call the "Critical Care Center" or something like that. I think that's kind of silly because all the signs still say "Intensive Care Unit" or just "ICU," plus, all the TV shows are scripted with "ICU" so changing it to "CCC" will confuse a lot of people.

Anyway, he's doing pretty good, but the nurses are having a hard time stabilizing his blood pressure and heart rate. While I was there yesterday, his systolic reading would alternate between 114-150mmHg, sometimes hitting every number on the way up (or down), and sometimes just jumping from one to the other. His heart beat would also jump from 50-90 BPM rather quickly.

He's still on the oxygen machine, the ByPAP, and will need to continue oxygen use once he gets home, and probably for the rest of his life. He has sleep apnea, which can cause some serious problems that we were never aware of. So although some of his arteries were on their way to being clogged, a major factor in his heart problems was his cessation of breathing every night. It causes high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems. People with sleep apnea have a 30% higher chance of having a heart attack than those without.

So, now we know. Too bad we found out about this in such a catastrophic way...but at least maybe now he'll use the oxygen machine that has been sitting, neglected, at his bedside for the past two years.

The nurses say he obviously has obstructive sleep apnea, although they aren't sure if his trachea is collapsing when he sleeps, or if his tongue lulls back in his mouth. They also suspect central apnea, so I suppose he's got mixed apnea.

The mask of the oxygen machine bothers his nose...I wore one for a bit while I was delivering Rachel, and they really aren't the most comfortable things in the world, but when the choice is breathe, sleep, life and a sore nose, verses apnea, no sleep, death, and an unsore nose, I think I'd choose the former. He's been doing pretty good at leaving it on though. It helps him sleep, which will help him heal, but Mom suspects that having it on my raise his blood pressure because it frustrates him so.

However, I think he'll get used to it eventually.

He is looking a lot better though. When I first saw him after his surgery I thought perhaps he just got out of the morgue. His skin was pale and icy cold. He had a breathing tube down his throat, but I wouldn't have believed he was alive if the nurse hadn't asked him to open his eyes for us. People are so obedient when they're sleeping.

Now his color is a lot pinker and he's a lot more lucid. He still is hooked up to more things than I can count, but he seems to be doing a lot better. They made him get up and go for a little walk yesterday afternoon, so that was good progress.

He had another blessing on Sunday night from the Bishop and, I think, Brother Wright. I'm sure that helped.

Mom is doing well. She, of course, is stressed and tired and emotional, but I think she is handling the situation remarkably well. Josie misses mom being home, but the ward is taking good care of them all, bringing more food over than they could possibly eat and offering to have Josie over to visit.

The rest of us are also doing ok. It's just hard on everyone, I guess, but life goes on. No matter what happens, life goes on and you just have to keep up some how. Luckily for me, Rachel has started sleeping pretty regularly again. Friday night really threw off her schedule, but she's back to going to bed around 10 pm, waking at 4 am, and then getting up between 6 and 9 am for the day. We'll perfect her schedule yet!

Lullaby In Blue

When I was little, my mom would hold me on her lap and run her fingers down my nose to try to get me to close my eyes while she would sing me a lullaby. I liked the song though, so I would purposely stay awake as long as I could, even though sleep was calling to me.

I still had that memory but forgot the song...

Then one day, I went to the Thomas' house and we watched Bachelor Mother. I thought that the movie was great, so I told my mom about it.

"Was it a musical?" she asked.

It wasn't, but she remembered the plot from a movie she saw when she was a little girl, only the movie was a musical. Later on that week, she brought home Bundle of Joy from the library.

We popped it in. The plot was identical to Bachelor Mother, but there were added songs. Considering it is a musical remake, that's understandable.

At some point in the movie, the "parents" are singing a lullaby to the baby. It was the lullaby that my mom sang to me when I was little. She had forgotten the song, and so had I, but there it was for all to hear.

I've started singing it to Rachel, only I couldn't remember any of the words except, "How I love my pretty baby, cute and precious little baby, how I love my little baby, honest to goodness I do," so I would just sing that to her over and over and over. Sometimes I would add things like, "Go to sleep my little baby..." or other things so that I didn't get bored saying the same thing.

I finally found the song, Lullaby in Blue, online. I'll have to try to get a copy of it somehow.

Rachel's Blessing

In spite of all that's been going on with dad, we decided to go ahead and bless Rachel today. We figured that dad wouldn't be able to come for a while anyway so that makes picking a different date hard and Andrew's Aunt Stacey already flew out from California. Plus, Karen made a spectacular luncheon for us and what would she have done with all the food if we hadn't had all that company?

Three little babies got blessed in our ward today. The other two were quite a bit older than Rachel and made her seem so small, which was kind of strange since yesterday we compared her to my friends' baby and she seemed so big!

The bishop said that baby blessings are a little peek at what Heavenly Father knows about our babies. He tells us just a little bit and lets us figure everything else out. Rachel is very special to us, and she's also very special to Heavenly Father, from what he told us today.

Rachel wore the dress that Diane Mora (? I think ?) made for me that I got blessed in, and which Josie was also blessed in. I think she looked pretty cute in it. She fell asleep on Josie's lap during Sacrament Meeting and she looked like a little doll from the stand.


Sacrament Meeting was pretty crazy. Andrew played the organ and I led the music. Then Andrew said the invocation. Then we went and sat in the congregation for Owen's blessing. Then Andrew blessed Rachel. Then he returned to the congregation for Isaac's blessing. Then we went back up to the stand to do the sacrament hymn and had the sacrament. The we went and sat down. Then Rachel woke up screaming and so I went out to feed her for the duration of the testimony bearing. I walked back in just as the bishop was announcing the closing song so I passed Rachel off to my mom and Andrew and I booted it back up to the stands and did the closing song. It was a pretty busy hour for us!

To top it all off, I only had enough time to feed Rachel on one side...and we all know how well I produce milk...well, while I was conducting the closing hymn my body decided Rachel was still hungry and fed her vicariously through my shirt. I didn't notice until I folded my arms for the prayer and felt rather wet. I looked down and the front of my shirt was covered with milk! It had leaked through my breast pad, even! No use crying over spilt milk, I guess, although it was rather embarrassing.

Andrew, Patrick, Rachel and I, with Rachel's blanket perched on one shoulder to cover up my little incident, stayed for the rest of the block. The Heisses headed to Andrew's parents' house to visit, the Laytons headed to the hospital to visit dad, and mom went home to have a nap.

After church we had a luncheon at Andrew's parents' house, which was really quite fun. We really enjoyed the company of our family and friends.

Now our sweet little girl is really ours. We keep saying that after she passes every mile stone: taking her home from the hospital, having her belly button fall off, getting her birth certificate, etc., etc. Well, now that she has a name and a blessing, she's ours, although I guess she's technically on loan.

In the words of my friend Rasmi, Isaac's mom, "Why would Heavenly Father trust me with such a perfect little being?"

Party Hearty

One of the first things Uncle Bruce, mathematician extraordinaire, said to me was, "Hey, Nancy, wanna do some crazy math problems, just for fun?"

"Uhhh..." let me think, "No, not really..." I answered, completely forgetting that I mentioned that as a sentence I had never heard before. Now I have to think of a new sentence I've never heard before.


And thus began our marathon party, full of emotion, drama, pizza and fruit trays (courtesy of Bruce & Sara), and, since no party is complete with out it, a dizzying number of medical terms being tossed about.

At around 2 am a nurse came in to tell us that dad was doing alright. At this news, Patrick took Josie and Rose home so they could go to bed, leaving all the "adults" waiting for a little pager to beep, informing us that dad was "ready" for visitors.

The doctor/surgeon said it would be about 45 minutes, but if they didn't page to call.

We played the "triangle game" for a while, greatly confusing everyone. Follow the link, and you'll know the secret...but don't tell. We played it a little differently, but it's still fun. In fact, ours might have been a little more fun since it kind of involved math.




After 45 minutes everyone was thoroughly befuddled and we debated calling someone but we weren't sure who to call. No one had told us.

"Just call the number on the pager," Andrew suggested.

"Oh, yeah," said Uncle Bruce, "That way the pager will beep and we'll know it's time to see him."

So, maybe calling our own pager wouldn't work so well. Mom called the operator instead and we went up to the cardiac ICU waiting room.

As we were leaving, Andrew said, "I've never seen adults get hyper before...I thought it was just us and we were immature, but everyone was getting pretty kooky."

I suppose that is what happens when you stay up 8 hours past bedtime--that's like a whole day!

Just another update

Dad is doing really well. He drifts in and out of sleep still. Sometimes he makes sense and other times he really doesn't (he made the live long and prosper sign as we were leaving...I'm not sure if he was awake or not).

He's kind of scary to sit beside because his pain medicine s making him a little more fidgety than usual and the blood pressure thing on his arm only takes an accurate reading if his arm is down, so pretty much every time he lifts it the alarm goes off. His left leg is all bandaged up because that's where they borrowed (read: took) the vein/artery (I don't remember which) from.

But most of his IVs are out now (meaning he only has like 6 tubes running in and out of him instead of like 12) and he asked to have his bed moved so he can see out the window, so his nurse feels he is doing well--for having just had open heart surgery. He also got out of bed and walked around a bit.

Mom is doing well, too. She's tired but got in a little nap today. Luckily it's a long weekend so things are a little slow for a while.

Dad should be moved out of the ICU sometime tomorrow.

I'm going to go have a nap now. We didn't get home until after 4 am yesterday...er, today...at which time Rachel felt she should wake up. She and I had a two hour nap or something before heading to the hospital again. Maybe we'll be able to sleep a little longer than two hours this time. You never know.

All the gory details

This isn't going to be very coherent, I'm sure. I'm kinda tired so excuse me.

At 2:30ish, dad came by our house to pick up Josie. Dad walked in looking ashen and sat down on the couch. He was dripping with sweat and looked terrible.

He asked to hold the baby. I said that his hands looked a little dirty and that perhaps he shouldn't. He insisted that his hands were clean, so I gave him the baby. We started chatting when he mentioned casually,

"By the way, I've been having chest pains and my left arm is totally numb."

That's kind of a problem, really, so I probed a little further. He described his pain as "someone squeezing his chest as hard as they could," and that he couldn't lift his arm to turn the steering wheel.

I couldn't remember if it was the left arm or the right arm that would go numb for a heart attack, so I looked it up quickly on the internet. It's the left arm.

It said that if the pain didn't subside within 3-5 minutes that you should go to the hospital immediately. Dad's pain started shortly after leaving his house, which is about 15 minutes away from mine. He had been sitting in my house for about 10 minutes, so that was already 25 minutes without the pain subsiding.

We called mom, who was stuck at work without a car, and set off for the clinic. Luckily Andrew had taken the day off of work since I don't drive and it really wouldn't be good for dad to drive himself. The clinic sent us to the Orem Community Hospital where we were for a few hours.

Dad was in a very good mood. He kept cracking jokes with the nurses. For example, Dad said, "I hope something is wrong because if nothing is, I'll feel really stupid."

"I hope nothing is wrong, but if nothing was, we'd have started teasing you long before now," quipped the nurse.

The doctor came in and said, "I'm glad you decided to come in and didn't just ignore the pain...or did someone," with a sideways glance and wink at me, "or did someone convince you to come in."

"A little bit of both," said Dad, "The internet said not to drive yourself in, so if they hadn't brought me in I would have had to just go home."

Well, we discussed the pain and the nurses did a whole bunch of tests involving drawing a lot of blood and taking EKGs. They gave Dad some blood thinner to help lower his blood pressure and a liquid nitrogen tablet to dissolve under his tongue.

They told me everything was normal but that they wanted to send him to UVRMC to get some more testing done. They instructed us to go ahead of the ambulance and register dad at the hospital. I was like, "Normal...ambulance...what?"

Under no circumstances would they allow us to transport him in our car...yet, everything was normal? Hmmm...

Well, we got to UVRMC and waited and waited and waited. And then mom's co-worker dropped her off at the hospital. And then Andrew's parents showed up with a car key for their van, which they were leaving for mom to use (David has her car in Las Vegas--he's doing his 5 days of school for his master's program).

Andrew and Reid gave dad a blessing and then dad went in to have a angioplasty.

While he was getting ready for this very routine procedure, Dad was quipping more jokes.

"We're going to lay you flat..." said the doctor.

"As long as I don't flat line, I'm fine." said dad.

Then the little heart-beat reader fell off his finger. "Oops, you died," said Andrew.

"No, I still have blood pressure so I'm alive," corrected dad.

They took the blood pressure thing off his arm. "Now I'm dead," said dad.

It made the nurse rather nervous to hear dad talk like that, but the doctor (and Andrew) found it rather funny.

They put the catheter in his upper thigh and weaved it through his chest and to the heart area where they injected some dye so they could watch it on the screen easier. They were just going to put some stints in and then send dad home...but then they found a rip in one of his arteries.

Immediately the situation went from bad to worse. They stopped the angioplasty and informed mom that they were going to have to do an emergency bypass surgery.

Meanwhile, I was desperately trying to get a hold of my mom to see what was going on...when I finally got a hold of her, she sounded like she was crying. She told me what was happening and we decided to leave right away, so we packed up and hurried to the hospital...so we could wait.

It was a lot of waiting and visiting and eating and laughing with many people (Bishop Bybee, my parents hometeachers, the Wrights, Uncle Bruce and Aunt Sara, Grandma and Grandpa L., Kelli and Rose, Josie, Patrick, Me, Andrew, Rachel, and of course, Mom--I may have missed a few).

Finally a nurse..or doctor stopped by...and said that he's on bypass (12:12 am).

And then saying that he's off bypass and they're stitching him up (1:38 am).

It's 2:05 am and the surgeon just stopped by to say that they finished his triple bypass and he's working better now. Uncle Bruce says the surgeon looks a little tired but he's still on his feet and looks calm.

Dad's heart is now working better than it was before, go figure.

So, now he's just still out...on oxygen...and will probably take a while before he's back to his good ol' self.

We can see him in about 45 minutes. So, everything went well. The surgeon said not to worry. We're all just tired and a little stressed (don't worry? hah!). Scary day.

As for our plans for tomorrow...well, I think we'll be spending some time at the hospital.

Family Outing

For the first time since Rachel was born Andrew has some time off school. We considered going somewhere since we had Thursday night through Monday to play with, but then we realized that we needed to be here since we're blessing Rachel this Sunday.

We consoled ourselves by having a wonderful picnic up in the South Fork Park of Provo Canyon. It was beautiful. The trees are just starting to change colors for fall. It was pleasantly cool, but warm enough that the mosquitoes weren't out yet.

I had my 6-week check-up on Thursday and was given a clean bill of health and granted permission to "return to full activity without any restrictions." Rachel screamed the whole time. I think she felt she got the bad end of the deal. After all, mom got a full examination and all she got was a t-shirt. (Trust me, Rachel, the t-shirt is the better end of the deal, trust me.)

In honor of my official healthy status we played Frisbee and I turned some cartwheels. I can now take leave of maternity leave, which means I'll actually have to work on Harman and *shudder* vacuum. The other day Andrew and I were walking and he said, "Rachel's almost 6 weeks old."

"I know," I responded, "Then I'll be done with maternity."

"Leave," said Andrew.

"What? Why?" I asked, slightly offended that he would tell me to go away. Me.

"No, you'll be done with maternity leave," he explained, "Not maternity. I hate to break it to you but you're going to be a mother for forever."

If I'm going to be a mother for forever, at least I'll have Andrew there to cheer me up when things get tough. He's like all three stooges rolled into one.

Andrew biffs it playing Frisbee

We also went into the Provo River...a little bit. It was freezing cold! There were all these little kids going in and playing around--one kid in diapers was going in up to his waist and splashing around. I couldn't believe it. I waded into my ankles before I couldn't stand it anymore. Rachel let her big toe touch the water before she recoiled. Andrew waded into the middle of the river and then ran back out as fast as he could. It was definitely really cold.

Rachel also wasn't very fond of the grass. We're going to keep trying to introduce her to new textures, but she's a pretty picky baby.

Pick me up!

All in all it was a wonderful evening. Sure, we got a few stares from the people at the family reunion, but we had fun. I wonder what we'll do tomorrow...any ideas?

For more pictures, click here.

The elusive pouty face

Rachel makes this amazing pouty face that we're hoping she'll lose by the time she's old enough to ask for a pony because her pout just melts your heart and makes you want to give her whatever she wants immediately. I don't think we can fit a pony in our apartment...

My quest today was to capture that pouty face. I failed but, don't worry, I did get a lot of other cute faces. She was in too good of a mood today, and when she was upset the pout was too short lived. I'll keep trying.

2:12: 47 PM

2:13:17 PM

2:16:37 PM

2:16:42 PM

2:27:50 PM(a little bit of Abra in this picture?)

I think that part of the problem also may have been that she doesn't often give me the pouty face. She isn't usually "fussy" for me, and the pouty face is part of her fussing. If she's with me she's either happy or telling me off for not feeding her soon enough (see pictures 3 and 4 for evidence). I think she can smell the milk and likes to let me know that she is not to be trifled with. She goes from 0-60 in 5 seconds flat. But she calms down again in just about as much time. She's a great baby.

We had some fun play time today. She's started laughing, which is a lot of fun. I'm posting some (really long) videos of Rachel. They're mostly for family that's far away, so if you live 10 minutes away from us and don't feel like watching 5 minutes of Rachel kicking around on her back, don't feel obligated.

Rachel really can roll from her back to either side without assistance. She has flipped completely over on her own (it depends on how much momentum she gets) but when she does that it usually scares her (and us). Sometimes she really looks like she has a goal, and other times she just flops around. Sometimes when I look at her she's my little baby, and other times she looks so old already...anyway, enjoy!

I accidentally turned the camera off...and we're back...