Unto Us a Son is Born

Neal spent three days in the hospital while they started treatment for a serious infection, caused by, get this, antibiotics. Apparently 6 months of IV antibiotics during this year were effective at killing off all the good bacteria, so the bad guys were able to flourish in his system. That made him pretty sick and now the treatment is hard on his system. I’m back to being nurse once again but hoping that someday soon he’ll be well. What would it be like to not have any medical problems to worry about?

My daughter was expecting her first-born child on January 25th. Her daughter was adopted, so this would be a whole new experience. We are thrilled and I bought plane tickets to fly there on the 27th of January and stay a week. I even have a packing list of what to wear while visiting North Dakota in January. (Heavy boots, warm clothes, thermals, and on and on)

Night before last Anne Marie’s water broke. She called her midwife but she was out of town and several hours away. Her suggestion was that since Anne still felt fine (except for the baby kicking her ribs), she should go to bed and hope that the “leak” would close. Two hours later, contractions started and at one point were two minutes apart. She and Will decided they would go to the hospital in a town 69 miles away where there was a delivery unit. At the outskirts of town with her contractions so strong and so close together, they decided to turn around and go back to the local hospital ER. They checked her and said she was only dilated to one so no big deal and did they want a map to the hospital in the other town? Uh, please. Fog, winter roads, middle of the night, a husband with hiccups who had worked all day and was a nervous wreck – sounds like the calm person in the truck would be the woman in labor. But they arrived safely, she was admitted, baby was hooked up to monitors and I received text messages about her status. Then came a text message which said she was being sent by ambulance to Grand Forks because it's so early for the baby and because their hospital had a NICU. Will headed back home to get their daughter ready for school, arrange for babysitters, feed the animals, notify his job, and then he would head to Grand Forks - still without sleep. We waited all night to hear what was happening – I’m terrible at worst case scenarios. You don’t even want to know the images flying through my head. I finally gave up on sleep and started pacing through the house. Then the phone rang and my daughter cheerfully greeted me, “Hi Mom, it’s a boy.” Amazing. About 15 minutes after arriving at the 3rd hospital and with only 12 pushes, my grandson was born. Anne was euphoric, I was overjoyed and Will was on the road to meet his son.

Dreygan William Richard Anderson weighed 5 lbs, 15 oz and was a whopping 20 1/2 inches long! Not bad for 35 1/2 weeks. They took him off oxygen last night, removed the breathing tube at 4 this morning, and he is doing well.

Here’s my situation: I am the 24/7 caregiver for my husband and I accept that. I wish we had options and I wish things were different. I want to be with my daughter, I want to take care of my little granddaughter and cook meals and help out while my only living daughter cherishes and cares for her first-born son. She has waited 12 years for this blessing and I want to be there to experience the joy of this little miracle. But it can't happen and I know that.  It's just that I am not coping with repeated questions asking “when are you going to North Dakota to hug the new baby?” I’m afraid my answer can’t be very polite. I have plane tickets and I have arranged for Neal’s sister to arrange her work schedule so she can come here the end of January. I don’t know if she can change her schedule again. I don’t know if she would – getting her to agree to stay with Neal for a week involved a lot of discussion and finally an offer on my part for her to bring along her cat so it won’t lose weight while she’s gone. That’s important to her so I’ll worry about my allergies after I return. She is the only relative who has ever consented to stay with Neal since he became a paraplegic and I am grateful she has been willing to do that on three or four occasions during the past 5 years. But the fact is that I cannot leave right now. My husband just got out of the hospital last Friday and still is not recovered. We have commitments and problems to resolve. Given a choice, I’d change my reservations and leave on the next available flight. But spontaneity has been long gone from my life.

I can’t think about that anymore. I have a grandson! He’s gorgeous! I’m thrilled! He’s safely here! Check out the cleft in that little chin.

He is our wee Christmas miracle.  Welcome, sweet Dreygan!