Thirty years ago today Bob and I became parents to Nicholas Edward and Nathaniel Joseph, our identical twin boys. Nathaniel was born alive but the doctors were unable to keep him alive and he died within his first hour. Nicholas survived at Children's Hospital in intensive care until December 1st, 1978. They had something called "
Twin Transfusion Syndrome". There were a few different web pages that described this syndrome, but I found wikipedia the easiest to understand of the ones I looked at. Our boys were born at 32 weeks and we didn't have a clue that anything would be wrong, because they just didn't have all the sophisticated ultrasounds that they have now. I was put on terbutaline to try to stop labor for I think 4 days, but when my water broke they transferred me to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis so the babies would be close to Children's Hospital for the best care. It was at Barnes that I had an ultrasound, a rare machine at the time, that showed something may not be right because one twin was larger than the other. I also had buckets of amniotic fluid coming out. The doctors and nurses could not believe how much continued to leak out. My stomach lining started to bleed from being on terbutaline, or that is what I remember. They had to stick a tube down my nose to drain off the blood in my stomach. All of this eventually caused too much stress on the babies and they decided I had better have a Cesarean section right away. I was at a teaching hospital so I had interns that I didn't know. My regular OBGYN was not in town when all this was happening. When I woke up from the delivery, my husband had to tell me that our first baby Nathaniel had died already and that Nicholas was not doing very well. I don't remember very much because I think they kept me sedated. It was a blessing that my husband had his family to turn to during this time. His Mother and Father were still alive then and living not far from the hospital I was in. He was able to grieve with them that night. He was really thoughtful in that he asked the staff to not put me in the same room with the other mothers that had babies being brought to their rooms. I was put in a room with one of the most wonderful women on earth. Her name was Miss Lee. She was in the hospital recovering from a hysterectomy. They usually had the curtain pulled between us, so at first we didn't talk much. After a couple of days she asked me if I felt like helping her wash her back, and I did, and we started talking about the boys. She had been told or overheard what had happened. I told her the doctors didn't think that Nicholas would survive and she told me they told her the same thing when she had her daughter. Her daughter was just turning 30 while she was in the hospital. I overheard her telephone conversations to her daughter, and she always called her "Doll Baby". Her daughter had cerebral palsy. I had a feeling she had raised her by herself without the father being around. I am not sure why I think that, as my memory is not real clear about a lot of things during this time. Miss Lee had the kindest voice and I look back at my memories of her as being an angel in human form. Miss Lee told me that these were not our children, but God's children, and they are just loaned to us for whatever time they are with us. Those words were such a great comfort to me at this time. When I left the hospital Miss Lee and I hugged and she some how got my home address and mailed me Daily Guideposts annually for a couple of years. I wish I had stayed in touch with her. The days and months ahead for us were really difficult ones, but the few days I was blessed to have Miss Lee in my life and her wise words helped me so much.
My Mom did get to go see Nicholas when he was at Children's. He was so small and had so many tubes all over him, but she noticed that he had my toes. Only a Mother would notice that. I have unique toes in that my second toe, the one next to the big one is crooked and long. His heart was enlarged and he had a heart attack at 9 days old. My husband and I still get sad when we remember our boys even after 30 years. We have since been blessed with two very healthy children and now a beautiful grand child. Life is good and I am thankful for everything I have.
I am going to attempt to put up one of those voting thingies on this blog, to see if I should start a new blog. Here is my dilemma. I have really fallen in love with the blog updating thing on my sidebar, where I can easily see when everyone adds a new post. It is a big time saver for me. Before I added that I was using google reader and it was okay but I like this better. My dilemma is that my blog won't update. I have tried everything I know to do to try and correct it. I am convinced that it is something that only google can correct on their end. This blog is my main blog. My other blogs update. I have tried to change the address on this one to see if that would help. It didn't. I really want it to update. The way I see it, I have a couple of choices. I can leave these alone and start anew with Wordpress. Or I can leave this one as is and just let Happy Thoughts be the way for others to see my blogs. I am still confused as to why there is no way to email google about this and just ask them to correct it!!!!!! What shall I do?!?!?!
Just wanted to journal about how things are obviously changing in the the stores I am shopping at. Today I needed to go buy my husband some T-shirts from Walmart. I have been getting him Hanes T-shirts for a few years now, and they are usually nice and thick when I first purchase them, and only get all thin after many washings. The shirts I bought today were THIN. Also, I have noticed how the food is shrinking and the prices rising. They showed on the news that peanut butter containers are now going to have a curve in the bottom to save a few tablespoons on each jar. I can live without peanut butter, so that doesn't bother me much.
