Here she is

In true Keeton favor, Ellie Brooke Keeton arrived with her very own flare. I was scheduled to be induced Monday the 23rd. I have been induced with 4 out of 5 baby Keeton's up until then and figured that I would be induced with her and all would be well. Thursday night, Adam's parents arrived (Thank God) to help us with Weston. I was having stronger and stronger contractions and thought I might go into labor on my own. Saturday, I felt even worse. I have never felt so terrible in my life. Friday night, Adam, Pam, and I went to the hospital. I wasn't really sure what was going on but I needed to see a doctor. I was dilated to 4cm and having contractions every 5-10 minutes. Great, I thought, hook me up to some pitocin and let's get this show on the road. Not so fast there pregnant lady-apparently, because of the overcrowding of Philadelphia, you can only be admitted to the hospital if you are getting ready to push or your water breaks (take your pick). My water had never broken on its own so I didn't have much hope on that one. We got home around 3am with me still having contractions and me still in pain. By about 7am, with no sleep in 2 days, and constant contractions, we went back to the hospital. Again, I was sent home. I was heartbroken and crying by this point. I kept telling Adam that something had to be wrong. I have never felt so much like I couldn't breathe and the pain just seemed neverending. It was worse than any of the epidural free labors I have had because it seemed like we weren't making any progress.

Finally, oh sweet finally, Monday arrived. I knew Ellie was arriving that day-whether she agreed with it or not. Everything was going smoothly. We came in, me my nurses who were AWESOME, met my midwife who was going to deliver who was wonderful, we were ready to have a baby. The pitocin got started and I was having some great contractions. I am not sure if I felt so great because I knew I was going to feel better soon or what but labor was going nicely. I rolled over to take a nap and my water broke. Now, I have had my water broken 5 other times and I have never, ever, ever in my life seen so much water. It was so forceful that my feet were wet and my hair was soaked. My nurses hadn't either and knew something was wrong pretty fast. My belly deflated and water was still gushing everywhere (birth is graphic). My nurse called my midwife in and my midwife immediately realized that when my water broke, the force of it flipped Ellie around and she was now stuck under my ribs. They wheeled in an ultrasound machine and you couldn't see any part of her except her butt. She was super stuck. I was going to have a c-section. As the doctor is telling me about the c-section and how I was going to have to be cut vertically, all I could think of was Kate Gosselin showing her stomach and showing her "jowls of a dog". I was afraid and poor Adam just looked in shock. There wasn't time for crying. A quick kiss and I was wheeled out of the room.

I was immediately wheeled to the operating room (I assume I was given valium or something because I was awfully calm during this whole thing). The anesthesiologist gave me a spinal. I was pretty much naked in front of a whole room full of folks I had just met because every once in awhile, more water would gush and they would change my gown. I was weird and I am glad I have never had an sponal or an epidural before because I did not like the way it made me feel.

While Adam was getting all of his fancy operation clothes on, the surgeon was talking to me about that they might have to break Ellie's arm to get her out. He said I wouldn't be getting the small incision that people think about but he was going to have to cut me vertically inside. Adam got to come in and they started trying to get her out. They kept making my incision bigger and bigger to try to get Ellie out. Adam looked over the curtain once and said the surgeon had his entire arm in my stomach trying to get Ellie unstuck. Finally, she went to kick and he grabbed her leg and was able to pull her down. She was taken to the warmer and I could only see her legs for a few minutes. She weighed 8lbs 1oz and was 21 and a half inches long. OUR BIGGEST BABY! While this was happening, my blood pressure was dropping lower and lower. They kept giving me medicine to raise it and Adam kept shaking my shoulder trying to keep me awake. He has clearly been around the hospital too much. Next time, if there is a next time, we will have to turn the monitors where he can't see them. The highest my blood pressure got was 77/43. I was in and out of it. The nurses and doctors were so nice. Our midwife loved photography so she took the camera and was busy taking pictures of Ellie and our family. It was like a big c-section party. I was sewed and glued up which took forever. The surgeon did a plastic surgery closure so it was supposed to heal better.

I went to recovery and got to nurse Ellie. My body was still pretty numb. Our nurse made sure we got the last private room (in Philly, private rooms are rare to come by). Once we got to our room, the doctors came in and told us Ellie was very bruised. We took her clothes off and her arm and leg were black and blue. The surgeon also said that because of the way I am cut inside, I will have to have a c-section if we have another baby later on. Apparently, with Ellie, I had at least twice the amount of amniotic fluid that would be normal. Because of this, it caused more direct weight on my nerves causing all of the pain I had felt the weekend before she was born.

Recovery has been good but painful. I was dehydrated from losing so much fluid so I got bags and bags of fluid. I was also anemic so they gave me iron. For the first week, I had to take my pain meds. I would try to skip them so I wasn't so drugged up when I would go see Weston at the hospital but by the end of the day, I would be about to cry from the pain. I feel a lot better this week. I am only having to take meds at night. My incision is from hip to hip horizontally but what really hurts the worst is the incision vertically inside. They said it takes a lot longer to heal so hopefully, I will feel much better in a few weeks.

Ellie is a great baby! Other than nursing every 2 hours, she is a dream! The little kids haven't got to meet her yet-except on Skype. We are hoping that maybe Ellie and I can fly home in March for them to meet her. We are also thinking the other kids and Adam will be able to come visit for Easter. He is going back to work at the end of the month. I can't wait to see all of the kids together.

It is going to be OK

I realize my sanity was a little questionable day before yesterday. Adam and I both felt like we were teetering on the edge of a breakdown. This is the stuff that no one talks about. No one ever says that it is ok to feel like jumping into the river when your entire life crumbles around you. They only say "oh it is ok", "you will get through this", or "I am praying for you". While I love prayers and have a strong faith in God, sometimes I just want someone to take on one of the problems and FIX it. Fix it right then. Let me give you a brief rundown of our past 2 weeks: Weston needs a heart and lungs NOW (his meds are no longer working as effectively), Adam has to go back to work asap so that we can keep our insurance that will only pay 80 percent of his transplant expenses, he will not get paid for the first few months of work because we will be paying back ins premiums that have built up while Adam has been gone, I am having Ellie on Monday, and we found out today that the apartment we live in that is rented through the hospital is ending their contract so we have to move by Feb 10 or pay 2600 a month in rent. Social work also did an estimate of how much we need to fundraise for out of pocket expenses and they came up with 100,000 to 200,000 dollars. AND-I am being induced Monday so Ellie will be arriving (the highlight of the week!).

After a short pity party for our situation, I posted on facebook-not really knowing what else to do. I was amazed by the support we received from our family and friends. Having a child with a critical illness is stressful enough but to add all of those other things to the mix-well, it is just overwhelming. Everyone keeps saying that "God doesn't give you more than you can handle". I would like to see some research on that because I feel like Adam and I have gotten more than our fair share here recently.

Pity party over and now looking forward. Friends are working on fundraising ideas and I am thankful that they are taking over. Weston ate mac and cheese yesterday and has had a pretty good day today. I have spent a lot of time wondering about Ellie's timing. As most everyone knows, I was pregnant before we left Tennessee. Every once in awhile, we talk with someone who can't do math and they seem to think we got pregnant while up here-you know, because critical illness is so romantic and the few times Adam and I have even slept in the same bed, making a baby was 1st on our list. Anyways, no one ever could have thought that we would be here for 8 months and probably longer. No one ever would have thought our family would be torn apart. But, the other day, it dawned on me why God sent Ellie at such a stressful time. Ellie is the one positive experience we have. Weston (and the other kids) are excited about a baby sister. Weston cannot wait to hold her, feed her, and give her a bath. God sent Ellie to us to give Weston something to look forward to and something to be happy about. Ellie is a blessing and for the first few months, I had been taking that for granted.

Fast Forward

We have been in Philadelphia 7 months and 1 day. So much has happened since we arrived and we have gone on so many wild rides. First, we were separated from the kids because we were here and Weston was so sick. We were told Weston was going to die which was horrible. Thankfully, he is a fighter and Adam and I beat the heck out of his back with this vibration thing 24 hours a day to get the pneumonia out of his lungs and he not only survived but he did better than he had. Then, we brought the kids up when things were a bit more stable. We agreed they would stay until after Christmas or until Weston's transplant-whichever came first. We were so hopeful that he would get a transplant during the holidays. Holidays are the big transplant time-but they have came and went now. I have been worried about how I would feel this week about no transplant and I am not going to lie, it is heartbreaking to know that he needs something to desperately and there is nothing that we can do but wait. The kids went back to Tennessee on New Years Eve. It was bittersweet. We knew that we were going to have to send them to minimize the germ risk during cold and flu season for Weston but we will miss them and their wild ways. The apartment has been so sad and boring since they left. I have pretty much decided that 1) I would never do well living alone and 2) I will probably not do so hot when the kids move out of the house.

Ellie is growing and can arrive anytime. Ideally, baking for another week would be great but since it feels like she is kicking my lungs, I believe she is ready to exit. My doctor said that I have to stay in the hospital for 48 hours after she is born. I feel that is excessive since I am going from 1 hospital to go sit in the CICU at CHOP where there are zillions of doctors just in case something went wrong. I will push for an early departure once I see how labor goes. The only labor that I really had a hard time recovering from was Sutton and with him, I lost so much blood that my blood pressure kept dropping and I kept passing out-even after I had been discharged. I feel so fat at the moment. Maybe it is because I can't breathe or because Weston insists on me getting up and down a bazillion times to do things for him which makes me groan and pant. I can't wait to lose the weight. I am usually never worried about dropping the pregnancy weight but I am also usually at home running after the kids and it just falls off. I love my Zumba class at home so I am hoping to get Zumba for the Wii so I can do it pretty soon after Ellie is born. I have the 30 Day Shred too that I did before I got pregnant and it is a good workout-probably not for the super athletes out there-but I liked it just fine. I just can't wait to hold sweet Ellie and bend over without thinking I might throw up.

Looking at the year ahead, everything is so up in the air. Everything depends on Weston's transplant. Our family is on hold and it is frustrating to have no control over anything. Our main friends up here are hospital staff. I told Adam we need to work on that. Being here has put things in such a different perspective. So, I keep thinking, fast forward hopefully 6 months or so, and I will be blogging about how we are going home, how great his transplant went, and how excited we are to finally get back to Blountville. I still need to post picts from Christmas. I promise to do that soon-or at least before next Christmas.

I love and hate Pinterest

I had been planning Christmas for awhile. Presents are always bought throughout the year when I see stuff on clearance and thankfully Adam's dad was nice enough to bring them up when he came near Thanksgiving. We had planned to do crafts everyday and baking everyday-since I am split between the apartment and the hospital, this would be 12ish crafts and 12 baking/cooking events. Well, well, well, Pinterest comes along and just blew that out of the water. We still did some of the crafts I had planned but goodness gracious, the ideas posted on Pinterest are SO cute! I mean, who doesn't think they need 50 snowmen made of salt dough after you see those sweet little handprints or 6 (in our case) little reindeer made of clothespins and popsicle sticks? I will try to post picts of some of the ornaments the kids have done. They really did a great job and have been so good with the holiday craziness.

Jingle Bell Breakfast

In trying to keep our traditions the same, we had our yearly Jingle Bell Breakfast where the kids Elf of the Shelf arrives. Typically, we do this on December 1 but we had some delays in getting Shelf's wife a skirt. Shelf is what the kids named their elf a few years ago. The Elf on the Shelf is such a fun little story. Your elf arrives and everynight, he/she flies home to Santa to report on how you have acted throughout the day. Then, he/she comes back and finds a new spot in the house to sit and watch. The kids love this tradition and are very serious about making sure no one touches Shelf because he will lose his magic.

For breakfast, we did breakfast banana splits (thanks Pinterest). I made homemade blueberry and strawberry sauce. We cut bananas in half, used greek yogurt as the ice cream, topped it with the sauces, extra berries, and nuts. I had bought whipped cream and cherries to top them with too but I left those at home (oopsy).

Coordinating 6 young kids to all have breakfast at the hospital takes a lot of patience and lots of planning. Weston is on 6 IV meds that run directly into a line into his heart plus his nitric that he cannot be disconnected from for more than a few seconds. He can't just leave his room. We have to bring his nurse plus a respiratory therapist with us. This gives lots of challenges for the other kids to even get near him without getting tangled in all of the cords. Avery, especially, just LOVES Weston. She squeals with delight as soon as she sees him and wants to go running right up to him. It is so sweet. I am sure she doesn't remember him before he was connected to everything because she was just a little baby when we first came here.

Because we are in 2 different places this year, Shelf had to get a wife. Shelf wrote the kids and note to let them know that he had been in Vegas getting married. The kids named his wife Snowflake. Shelf is going to stay at the hospital and watch Weston and Snowflake is going to be here at the apartment watching the other kids.

We also did all homemade ornaments this year. This is still a work in progress because we are doing one everyday but so far, the kids have loved this. The ornaments have turned out really cute too. Now, if I can just get them to understand that we don't have to take all of the ornaments off the tree constantly to rearrange them.

We decorated Weston's room last week and I will try to post some picts. Everyone always comments on how festive his room looks. My friend, Betsy, is making Weston some things for me to string up along the windows and for his name on the door.

This is going to be the best Christmas ever or I am going to die trying to make it the best. The hospital is not going to ruin it for the kids and even though it is 10 times harder to do everything with kids in 2 places and the hospital, it is going to be GREAT!

Where did November go?

My second trimester flew right by. I managed to get lots done and felt pretty good. As long as I stuck to a fairly strict diet, I tended to feel good. The 3rd trimester has hit me in the face like a ton of bricks. More accurately, it feels like I have 30 pounds sitting on my stomach crushing my lungs and kicking my bladder-which I know is impossible since I have only gained 8lbs so far. Ellie gets a weight check in a week to see how she is growing and if all goes well, she should arrive in mid to late January-hoping more like mid January. I feel like telling Adam not to worry that I won't be obese forever because, like most pregnant women feel this far along, I feel like a normal sized person trapped in a fat suit. With all that being said, it is still amazing to be pregnant and feel Ellie move. Growing a human life is a miracle even with the aches and pains. The kids are in awe of feeling her kick and squirm around. They fight over who she will look like and who gets to hold her first.

Weston is doing well. His days are very busy with many therapies. Most recently, his OT and I had a strongly worded conversation about how he needs OT twice a week and if he wasn't in the hospital, they would expect me to take him to OT twice a week so I expect them to come see him twice a week. I feel like Adam and I have done everything imaginable to make sure Weston stays with and ahead of his peers and now, they need to do their part. I know the stronger he is going into surgery, the stronger he will be afterwards. I am kind of hateful when it comes to Weston's care. I want things done correctly and I don't like crappy answers. I feel like, in some ways, we were let down for the almost 2 years that Adam and I begged for answers about why Weston would almost fall over dead 1,2, 10 times a day. Since even these amazing doctors couldn't give us answers and we managed to keep him alive, the least they can do is take good care of him now until his transplant.

The other kids are doing good. Easton usually gets to go see Weston once a week and we try to bring all of the kids up every other week. They were sick last week so they won't get to see him until maybe the weekend. The hospital gave us free tickets to Sesame Place and it is supposed to be really nice on Friday and Saturday. We have never been and know we probably won't ever get the opportunity to have all of the kids up here so we can take them.

Other than that, we are just waiting for the call for Weston. Waiting on something we have no control over is the hardest part.

Easy Cobbler (cheaters version)

I am not a baker and I don't even like making desserts that don't require baking. I am trying to figure out everything I am going to make for Thanksgiving and I thought a cobbler would be something fast that I can transport easily to the hospital. I have made one before with canned fruit and cake mix but I hate canned fruit. It doesn't really taste like the fruit it is supposed to be. So, here is my frozen fruit version. It was SO much better and the fruit all had the best flavors.

1 big bag of frozen peaches (unsweetened)
1 big bag frozen mixed berries-mine had raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and blackberries (unsweetened)
1 white cake mix
1 stick of butter
About a cup of water

Defrost fruit in bowl. Mix defrosted fruit, juice from fruit, melted
butter, and cake mix together. Add enough water to make the cake mix all wet. Pour into greased 9X13 pan and bake at 350 until the center is no longer jiggly. I don't have a set time because my oven here is SO hot that everything bakes really quickly.

After it is done, I let it sit for about 20 minutes to cool and set. The frozen fruit makes such a huge difference. I couldn't believe it.