A Healthy Tess

 

 

I've got my happy, healthy, pretty baby girl back! Prayer works!

Why there should be at least one brother in the family

 

Instructing little sister on the important Transformer heros. Baby Tess looks so interested! Homeschooling starts early in my family!

Sleepy

 

A Happy Return Visit to the NICU

 

Baby Tess with one of her nurses, Anne Marie. Anne Marie was one of 11* children from a religious family in Jamaica. On an awful day in the NICU, Anne Marie had me heaving belly laughs over her Mom's home remedies, including her Mom's famous "baby enemas" which involved a small slice of Ivory soap--and you really don't want to know the remaining gory details.

I told my gal Tess that if she didn't start pooping immediately, I was going to put Anne Marie's Mom on her "allowed anytime" visitor list. I figured if Western Medicine wasn't going to work on my baby, then there was no harm in using some tried and true Jamacian home remedies.

Baby Tess started pooping at 12 AM that night, immediately after Anne Marie ended her shift. I think Baby Tess thought Anne Marie left the NICU simply to go get her Mama and a bar of Ivory soap.

*A huge percentage of our NICU nurses were from large families with more than 4 children.

Children's Hospital Visit

 

Proof that you can never have a dull time at Children's Hospital in D.C. We ran into some Clown Doctors in the elevator.

The Amazing Dr. Q!

 

This is the doctor who saved my Bunny's life!

Our check-up visit last week with Dr. Q.

The Secret is Out

I have just figured out how to leave the house with four very young children in tow.

If you dress the majority of children in their Halloween Costumes, then suddenly your big family becomes "adorable" instead of "annoying".

My kids may be wearing their new Princess and Batman costumes well into December!

Why I Love My Husband- Part II

I listened to Jon read endless hours of "Winnie the Pooh," to a sick Baby Tess during her three week NICU stay. His voice was always calm and patient and hopeful. After a while, I felt like he was reading more for us, than for our baby.

The doctors kept coming into our baby's room and saying more scary things about our newborn girl. As soon as a blue scrubbed person left our room, I'd tell Jon, "Please keep reading." He'd pick up his place in the witty English banter and I'd try to force air back into my lungs again. As long as Jon read Winne the Pooh, and I could rock Baby Tess in a rocking chair, then our life was slightly normal and comforting again. Jon's voice made our family a home inside an alien hospital room.



Jon and Sick Tess, with our worn copy of Winnie the Pooh on his lap

Why I Love My Husband . . .

Because tonight was one of those nights when I let the water for the rice boil completely out of the pot, TWICE, because I got so distracted by the need to provide a solid police presence to some unruly minors, and when I almost started crying about the no-dinner/no-groceries situation after my tired husband walk in the door at 6 PM- He saved the day!

My husband told me to take a hot shower while he made dinner. I'm telling you ladies, the grocery delivery guy forgot half my order this week, so when I left to take a shower there was NOTHING in my fridge. Yet somehow my amazing husband whipped up an Asparagus, Meatball, Chicken Gravy and Rice Casserole in under 22 minutes and it tasted great!

For more "Why I love my husband" posts, please check out the ever lovely, ever insightful More Like Mary-More Like Me.

(Now Miss K. Why does my icon looks so goofy in Blogger? I could only find the extra huge logo).

40 Days For Life

Things are a bit nutty in the Benjamin household right now.

Poor Mr. Benjamin ate his dinner 2 hour late last night because for an entire afternoon, I didn't have a free 30 seconds to put the raw chicken legs into the oven.

Our living room is starting to look like a scene from "Hoarders". The 100 piece "marble racer set" is now permanent piece of abstract art on my coffee table. There are layers of toys, crayons, and Barbie dolls stacked across the floor.

People call me on the phone to congratulate me on the joyful return of NICU baby, but I'm not able to chat. The baby who formerly starved in the NICU needs to eat every 120 minutes and I still need two free hands to handle her awkward latch.*

It's a typical day in the life of a big American family.

Only after the long drama of the NICU, I still wake up grateful that all four of my children now reside in the same home.

Which is why, a single bullet point in my Archdiocese of Washington's Teen Education Sheet on the 2011 March For Life hit me hard in the stomach.

Over 60% of all abortions are performed on women who are already mothers.

It's true. I double checked that statistic. The Majority of Women who seek abortion services are already Moms. 61 % percent according to the Guttmacher Institute which is a licensed fact-finder for the World Health Institute.

That statistic rocked my perception that most abortions are requested by scared unmarried high school and college students.

Instead, most abortions are requested by Moms.

Moms, exactly like me, who are scared of the hard, awful times when everyone in the house needs something immediately from you and you only have two small hands to help them.

And when you get pregnant unexpectedly as a Mom with yet another baby and your faced with at least 18 more years of a family twice the size you envisioned then it's tempting to think- as Dayna, a mother of seven, eloquently explains- "I could never do that!"

But that Fear is not really the Truth.

The Truth is that God gives mothers a special grace, a grace to do impossible things.

Today, I'm offering up my "impossible day" to mothers who are considering having an abortion. Hope that some of you will do the same.

*Baby Tess gained 2 pounds in her first week home, Hurrah!

Love in the NICU, Part 4

This is Sister Kathy, a nun at Holy Cross Hospital. I had a joyful chat with Sister Kathy on the phone when I asked about getting the Eucharist delivered to my birthing suite. She stopped by my room and gave little Tess a special blessing. Little did I know that Sister would become the emergency Godmother of my baby a few days later. This is Sister welcoming home the "miracle baby" after her first surgery at Children's Hospital. (I'm sure we gave Sister a second heart attack when she stopped by to visit and found out that we left for Children's in the middle of the night because Baby Tess had an 18 inch PICC line in her heart. God knew that my baby needed her prayers when He put us together before Baby Tess' birth!)

Love in the NICU Part 3

This is one of my favorite pictures from last September. Once Tess got those scary IVs off her head, Hannah asked to hold her during a sibling visit. We called Hannah "the baby whisperer" because she's so good with Baby Tess. The night after this visit, Baby Tess finally started pooping and was cleared to start eating real food. Coincidence? No way!

NICU Love Part 2

The nurses thought her IV sites looked really ugly. So one nurse named Cassie, tied some ribbons on her IV site. Practically every single staff member at the NICU came into Tess' room to admire her new "do." If Tess ever gets married, I promised her nurses that I'd flash this shot during the rehearsal dinner.

Love in the NICU Part 1

This is my Baby Tess, last month in the NICU. She inherited her mother's dreadfully small veins and broke over 50 IV sites in three weeks. They finally started putting IVs in her head instead of using her arms or legs. We called this her "unicorn hat."

Now We Are Six

My only son, Alex, turns 6 next week.

His request for his birthday: a chemistry set and beer.

Really his drink request was for IBC rootbeer in those fun dark brown bottles, of course.

Still.

Chemistry?

Rootbeer?

I can't believe we're already past the requests for PlaySchool Pirate Cakes and Spiderman Birthday Party Hats.

Growing in Faith

I got really angry twice during my daughter's NICU stay.*

The first time, a Catholic called me on the phone at 7 AM one morning and asked me about the status of Baby Tess. I told her that nothing had changed. (My daughter was still sick 5 days after her emergency abdominal surgery and had lots of bad, bloody stuff coming out of her stomach.)

Then the Catholic told me that my baby was still sick in the NICU because I hadn't prayed hard enough or said the right prayers.

Boy, did that hit a nerve! I jumped off that phone 'right quick.'

I started talking to myself. I called my husband at work, but got a busy signal. Then I called Miss Kate T., a fellow Catholic Mama with a cute newborn son who is connected to the Children's Hospital family. I think I shocked her a bit. Sweet Miss Abigail of Abigail's Alcove was raging mad.

"If anyone else tells me that my kid is still in the NICU because I haven't prayed hard enough for her healing, I'm going to punch him in the face. I mean it, Kate-- punch him in the FACE!"

That mistaken belief was such an insult to God. My God. My Baby Teresa's God. The Author of Life. The Being with whom I was in constant conversation with all during the long, long days spent by my baby's crib in the NICU.

I'd prayed for my baby to heal. I prayed deep prayers, ones that went beyond vocal prayers. I prayed deep prayers of the heart. A mother's heart.

"God grades prayers on a huge curve for mothers in the NICU," I told Miss Kate in an effort to explain why I was so angry. "God isn't sitting back there in heaven waiting for me and Jon to say the right prayers to the right saint in the right order. God is not cruel. Baby Tess is not going to get out of the NICU whenever I start praying to Saint Whatyoumaycallit. Baby Tess is going to get out of the NICU when God says that she'll get out of the NICU. God is in charge, not me!"

"I don't understand why people don't get that 'No' or 'Not Yet' is still a valid response to a prayer petition. It's a prayer REQUEST--not a magic spell."

Kate told me "People mean well, Abby."

GRRR! Kate's charitable response didn't help me immediately calm down.

Then she told me "Maybe Baby Tess is about testing people with weak faith, just as much as it is about testing you and Jon with your strong Faith."

I started breathing air once again. (Thank you, Kate for saving me!)

A few weeks later, with Baby Tess finally at home, I'm thinking more rationally about this matter. I'm not tempted anymore to punch someone in the face over this issue. Yet, I still think this matter is a vital test of faith.

What is your response when God says "No!" or "Not Yet!" to a fervent prayer request?

Because during my time as a NICU Mom, I felt that one of the major tests of being a Catholic was how I responded to my daughter staying sick for a long time and not getting better.

We Catholics are NOT pagans. We can't believe that God is someone to be manipulated and forced to dance around to our agenda. Even when our agenda seems to be something so obviously good- like the quick healing of a sick, innocent child.

Prayer is not the same as chanting spells. You can't say certain words in a prayer to God in s specific way hoping to get a certain result.

Yes, we are friends of God. Yes, we can ask him for favors, and healings, and miracles. He's our Dad and he wants us to ask for help. Yet, we must always pray with an element of deep humility. God always has the right to say No. He's God.

One of the most important questions for me as a Catholic, is how do I react when God seems to answer a prayer with "No"?

Do I stand still in my hurt and talk to God? Do I try to make sense of his denial and ask for more grace in my life? Do I struggle to go forward in hope that a "No, Not yet" is really in my best interest? In my child's best interest? Can I trust Him? Really, really trust Him? Can I trust Him with the life and soul of my newborn child?

Or do I decide that God's "No, Not Yet" means that I simply didn't phrase my prayer request properly and then repeat my prayer with different, more official wording while wandering off into "I want, I want"-ville again?

****

Please pray for Kate's cute Baby Joey to have a successful heart surgery on October 14.

(*hopefully, I will post about God's blessing to me in this second time later on this week)

Update On My Babymoon

Baby Tess has been home for a week. I still feel like I'm in the concluding scenes of a Lifetime movie. I keep hearing the swell of an orchestra whenever I do something normal such as take the baby for a walk in her stroller or change her diaper.

Yes, I'm still excited to hear the telltale noises than mean Baby Tess has just pooped. When Tess is 35 and dropping by my house for a visit, I could very well still be the nut who exclaims "Praise God and Dr. Q!" whenever I hear her flush the toilet. Twelve days of sobbing over "no poop after serious abdominal surgery" by a baby's listless body in the NICU leaves a deep impression.

I've decided that one of the outcomes of Tess' scary heart surgery, is that I'm now a much more relaxed mother of four. Whenever all the kids start crying while dinner boils over on the stove- I keep repeating my new chill Mama mantra, "This is NOT a true emergency! No one currently has a PICC line in their heart."

Jon, has also repeated the "Is this a real emergency? Who has the PICC line in her heart?" to his super stressed colleagues at work. The chill out mantra is working for him, too.

Having a daughter who is age 7, means that I have a built in nanny. I love it!

Daughter age 3 is also super helpful and very hilarious. She loves to read books to the baby like her older sister. Her favorite book to read to the baby is her picture dictionary. "Baby Teresa, this is an alligator. Alligators have big teeth." When middle daughter got to the picture of an ant, I started laughing. "Baby Teresa, this is a bug. Bugs can get big. When they get big, they chase after people and EAT them." (Think big brother has been watching just a tad to many science fiction cartoons on Netflix during this babymoon.)

I'm currently one daughter short of a perfect scene from "Little Woman." I'm reading that book to Baby Teresa during my babymoon and it fits my mood perfectly.

More Good News

I took Baby Tess to her routine follow-up appointment with her abdominal surgeon at Children's Hospital today. Dr. Q, is the most laid-back doctor on the planet. He told us that our family is the exact mirror of his family in Pakistan. He is the only brother in a family of four, with kids spaced out exactly same as our family.

He gave us some instructions about Baby Tessie's incision care. Then he asked about the results of her chromosome test. (40% of all infants with doudenum atresia also have Down Syndrome). I told him that the results of her test hadn't come in before we left the NICU last week. Dr. Q said he'd check on the results and left the room to use another type of computer.

Dr. Q was missing for a long time.

Jon started playing charades with three restless older kids. I paced the small room with Baby Tess. I started to prepare my heart for the worse.

"This is it. Nice Dr. Q is going to come in here and tell me that my baby has Down Syndrome. Get prepared. Things will still be okay."

Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Q entered the room with an ashen face. "Your baby had a PICC line stuck in her HEART? What happened? How did they get that thing OUT?"

Turned out my baby's chromosome test was completely normal. Dr. Q couldn't stop reading in horrid fascination all that Baby Tess had undergone AFTER she stopped being his surgical patient.

Glad to know that I didn't overact over that minor heart procedure last week. That cardio team at Children's Hospital is incredible. They even amaze their own colleagues!

Stripped

One of the oddest things about depositing Baby Tess into the NICU, is that in one afternoon I was suddenly stripped of all mothering responsibilities towards this newborn. Tess was still my child. She was medically fragile and extremely needy.

Yet, I was excluded from almost all of her care.

For the first month of my daughter Tess' life, I didn't feed her. She got feed through an IV. I didn't do her laundry. Some else, picked up the soiled linens and deposited clean ones in her room. I didn't wipe the spit up from her chin. A crazy suction cup did that for her. I didn't vacuum the floor under her crib. A janitor kept the room clean.

Nurses tended to my baby's every need. Billions of doctors stopped by in rounds every day to make sure that Baby Tess had what she needed to stay alive.

My mothering job was limited to showing up next to Baby Tess' crib. Talking to her. Rocking her. Listening to a bunch of medical professionals talk about her prognosis. Kissing her head before she went into surgery. Waiting for her inside the tense surgery waiting area. Kissing her groggy cheeks when she came out of surgery.

Oh, and I pumped. Lots and lots of breast-milk that I carefully labeled and hopefully placed in a massive hospital freezer for my baby's "future use".

That was my mothering job- a soothing, calm presence and some breast milk.

At first the limited responsibility drove me crazy. I wanted my baby better. I wanted my baby home. I wanted to be the one who decided if she was hungry and whether she'd start using a pacifier at six days old.

After many, many trips to the NICU, I started to enjoy the "stripped down motherhood" phase.

There was an entire Hospital filled with doctors, nurses, pharmacists, surgeons, social workers, lactation consultants, janitors, and security guards--everyone there was intent on saving Baby Tess. Yet I was her Mom. I was the one who smelled like "home" in a scary place. I was the one who gave her the hope of returning "home" after a long, hard battle inside a hospital setting.

My role was clear and totally irreplaceable.

When my older children came home two weeks ago, it felt a little strange to go back to my old mothering routine. Suddenly, I cooked dinner instead of eating in a hospital cafeteria. I did the laundry. I cleaned the bathroom. I tried to make a walkable path on a son's bedroom floor by clearing thousands of legos.

I did all these normal mothering tasks, while keeping in mind the "stripped down" version of motherhood that I learned while chained to Tess' crib in the NICU.

Motherhood is all about being a calming presence to a child.

Providing brownies, breastmilk, and clean bedroom floors are only the nice "extras."

The Young Victoria - The MovieGoer