Did I mention it was a STRESSFUL Pregnancy!

By June we were given the OK by the doctor to go ahead and get pregnant. The Doctor, John and I were all pretty much shocked when we walked through his door the end of July. The Doctor's comment was "Well you don't have a problem getting pregnant." We were shocked because this was the first time that it didn't take 6 months to become pregnant. Rachel's response was "Finally Karl gets a brother!" It was a fairly easy beginning as I threw up only once and that was because I didn't get breakfast early enough in the day.

In August, my parents took Rachel and Sarah and 2 cousins the same age on a three-week vacation. They went back to Nauvoo, Kentucky to visit my Brother, and South Dakota to visit another Brother. The kids had a great time, my parents decided that as much as they love spending time with the Grandkids, having them without parents is tough!

September came with friends from Arizona and learning later that month that it was indeed a Boy. The Doctor was shocked that our little baby was determined to make sure we all knew he was a boy at 13 weeks. Being that I was a week past the time I normally start "hemorrhaging" we thought we had passed the hurdle. But on Sunday, September 17th, I started to bleed. I, of course, was told to take it easy. On Monday the 25th, my 15-year-old niece Elena Brown came to help keep me down and my household still running.

In October, the Doctor thought it was a touch of Placenta Previa and hoped that the placenta would move a bit up the wall and I would be out of danger. I didn't bleed near as much as I thought I would as I only spotted when I overdid it, which wasn't very often thanks to my niece running a tight ship at my house. Elena had her learners permit, so she drove me whenever I needed to go places. She was a great help, but her mom wanted her helper back so we planned it around one of my brother-in-law's trips to Utah and she would return home November 14th. I was getting on my feet more and more, so it was a good thing and with her Mom (my sister) having just had twin girls at the beginning of the summer, she had a great need for the help herself.

At my 20 week Doctor appointment Friday, November 10th, I was expecting the clean bill of health. It had been a couple of weeks since I spotted last but was surprised when the doctor became very serious during the Ultra-Sound. He began concentrating on his machine and I began to worry. I asked him if everything was OK with the placenta as that is where all the problems tend to be...(and I mean what else could be wrong?) The Doctor moved the mouse quickly to a different spot and told me, "No, the placenta looks great." I knew that if he wasn't looking at the placenta, he wouldn't have needed to move the mouse, which meant instantly for me that there was something wrong with the baby. John and I took one look at each other and knew the other was thinking the same thing. The Doctor finally moved the screen and proceeded to show and tell us what it was he was seeing. He showed us what looked like a "mass" of something not normal in his abdomen cavity, he was too tiny to determine anything else from there but would put us in touch with a specialist for further evaluation. We walked out of that appointment in a total daze. Neither one wanted to talk about the revelation as that would make it become real. As we got in the car, we both started talking. We were both glad that so far nothing was wrong with his mental capacity. We both knew physically handicapped children and adults and how well they got along in life. And felt that we could handle a physically handicapped child as long as he was all "there" mentally. But as we drove into my Mother's driveway to gather the kids and head home, the full force that my child was not perfect and that I have never been able to hide anything from my Mother, which meant I would have to not only tell her but talk about it hit home very hard. It took me about 10 minutes of drying my tears on John's shirt on my Mother's front patio before I could walk in the door. My Mother knew we were there as the kids had let her know the minute we drove it that we were there. John and I often will finish talking a few minutes before we go in, but she was worried about how long it was getting to be and met us at her front door. She, of course, took one look at my face and knew something was wrong. We explained just enough, for her to realize that we did not want anyone else knowing until we knew more about what we were up against. I am sure that my kids and Elena wondered, and we told them just enough that they knew we needed to pray for their baby Brother.

Elena left as planned 4 days later on November 14th. The following day we met with a Specialist at St. Marks Hospital who was on loan from California and who specialized in Vetro surgeries (or in other words, he does a c-section, surgery on the baby, put the baby back in the uterus until it's actually time to come back out). After two weeks of weekly visits, the Baby was big enough that the Specialist could see more details and we learned that the "mass" in the baby's intestines and that as the baby was growing, the "mass" was not. We still did not know what the "mass" was inside of the baby, but we were very glad that it was not growing, thus ruling out possible cancer options.

In December as I was sitting in Relief Society (a type of Sunday School class for Women by Women), I looked up to the Chalk Board as the instructor that week was writing the Title of her Lesson "Enduring our Trials." It was a beautiful lesson, but I realized that learning how to "endure my trial" was not a lesson I wanted to listen to. I was struggling with the fact, that my baby was going to be born with problems and need surgery upon birth. This was one of the last meetings I went to as it seemed to me that about every other lesson had something to do with "trials" and when a person is in the middle or on the brink of struggling, they don't need to be told to "be happy."

January brought new struggles as our little guy was eager to "get out" and the contractions started coming heavily. I was in and out of the hospital for the next couple months for overnight stays. I was transferred to a specialist at University of Utah Hospital who would subsequently deliver (or rather stitch me up after the nurse delivered) my baby. I had a very hard time with this as I had moved all the way across the country for a certain Doctor to deliver my baby and I was stuck with a doctor who treated me like a 3-year-old. When I would see her, I could expect to sit in her waiting room for 1-2 hours waiting to see her. This would result in my having contractions and admitted to the hospital to have said contractions stopped to go home the next morning. It got to be a running joke between my husband and I as he would drop me off at the front door, I would tell him I would see him in the morning. (He didn't really leave me, he would come to all appointments while he was in town...I think he only missed like 1 or 2) After getting really upset with the Doctor of the U of U Hospital, her response was "well bring an overnight bag." She finally relented and allowed me to lay down on an unused examination table, thus allowing me to go home the same day as my doctor appointments. I ended up staying the night January 17, 27, February 2, and 8th. The medications I was on was Tributaline and Procardia. They would rotate between the two medications and then each time up how much I was taking at a time. For those who don't know, Tributaline is a medication for asthma patients. It ups your heart rate, relaxes your lungs and other muscles (like your uterus...for those who have one). For me, it ups my heart rate and gave me the shakes BAD. Procardia is a High Blood Pressure Medication. It lowers (obviously) your blood pressure by relaxing your muscles (including your uterus...for those who have one). Well for me with blood pressure in the 90/50s, it made the room spine, I could hardly walk straight and in no way could I walk the stairs by myself. And of course, the more they upped my med's the worse those things got.

In the middle of this, I picked up Crocheting to give myself something to do while Laying around. I made the baby a Blanket, booties, hat and was working on a jacket when the medication got so bad I couldn't see straight enough to crochet without getting seasick.

In January we were also told that the Baby may not have a butt hole. They could see his "butt dimple" but no opening. So they put us in touch with a Doctor Downey at Primary Children's Medical Center to answer our questions concerning surgery. We were told that the Baby needed to be at least 8 lbs before he was born. I laughed out loud, I didn't deliver babies that big. My biggest baby up to that point was 6 lbs 9 oz (my smallest was 6 lbs 1 oz).

With each of my pregnancy's, I would stand against a wall next to my Dad. I would know it was almost time to deliver when my belly was as far out as his belly was. By January, I was at that point, but still had a few months to go. I was also measuring as big around as my hubby (who at the time was 270 lb). I had to go buy new "fat" clothes as my previous "fat" clothes from my other pregnancy's became too small. At 29 weeks I was measuring between 31-33 weeks. January 8th the baby weighed in at 1 1/2 lbs, and January 22nd he weighed in at 3 1/2 lbs and at 30 weeks along, February 5th he weighed in at 5 lbs 4 oz. By this time, I was thinking I may just actually make it to the 8 lb mark before 50 weeks! At my appointment February 15th I was 34 weeks along and the baby weighed in at 6 1/2 lbs. Hyrum was born at 37 1/2 weeks March 13th weighing in at 7 lbs 9 oz. I always thought he was born bigger than that, but after reviewing my other kids' stats, he was not too far off. Rachel was 6 lbs 9 oz and 20 in. long, Sarah was 6 lbs 1 oz and 18.25 in. long, and Karl was 6 lbs 6 oz an 18.5 in. long.