R a i s i n g C a n e y . c o m

SORRY THAT THIS HAS TAKEN ALMOST 7 WEEKS! Apparently having a baby, buying a new house, moving to a new city, and starting a new job are pretty time consuming. I’ll get to all that later. I’ll start at the beginning.  As a warning, this is a bit long-winded.
On Saturday, 21 March we had our final baby shower for Canaan at our church in Benton. It was wonderful. Over 40 people attended, and we got some amazing gifts for our princess (our car was LOADED down).
As most of you may know by now, Tasha has had problems with gestational diabetes and pregnancy-induced hypertension (high blood-pressure) since she got pregnant. She was hospitalized twice, she was constantly feeling very weak, and she was eventually put on strict bed rest requiring her to withdraw from classes this quarter.
We knew she had some problems, but when we went to her Dr. appointment on 23 February we did not expect to hear him tell us that he would need to induce labor the next day. It was shocking. Tasha was pretty upset at first because she wanted her Mom to be able to come to the hospital, and she wouldn’t be able to on such short notice.
Eventually though, the pending excitement and the imminent arrival of our princess took over. We had Canaan-fever!
That night we made sure we had everything we would need packed and ready to go. The next morning we went to Target and picked up some last minute things that we would need for her arrival (including an awesome stroller/car seat/car seat base travel system).
We went to the hospital at 4pm on 23 February, and they began the process of preparing Tasha for labor induction.
The labor was anything but ideal. Tasha’s epidural fell out, causing her intense pain. They put it back in, but a little while later, while dilated to a 7 Tasha started feeling excruciating pain… They called the anesthesiologist back in, but he argued with Tasha for 30 minutes, telling her she wasn’t in pain… He was telling her it was just pressure, not pain. 30 minutes into her screaming to the guy that she wasn’t lying…her sister, Stormi, pointed out that the epidural drip was EMPTY. Hrm… The epidural fell out on other time, and had to be replaced again.
Canaan decided to come out brow presentation, meaning she shoved her head back and tried to push out forehead first. This isn’t ideal, and so…Tasha got stuck dilated at an 8. After almost 24 hours into the ordeal, they decided to do an emergency C-section.
During the C-Section, I was behind a curtain, but I could see around the edge of it a bit. I could hear them drilling or cutting what sounded like bone, and it smelled like the smell of the tooth dust when a cavity is getting drilled. Tasha starts yelling that she can feel them cutting, and they tell her she can’t feel it. She tells them once again, as they used a scalpel that she can feel them cutting her right then, and so they decide to put her to sleep for the operation. I hear the doctor ask for the vacuum. I can hear the light suction… the doctor tells them to turn the suction up. The nurses tell him it is up. He starts yelling at them that it’s not working right, he can’t get suction on the baby. The idea was to make a small incision, attach the vacuum to Caney’s head, and pull her out. The vacuum malfunction complicated matters worse… He gave up the vacuum and cut her open even wider so he could reach in and grab the baby.
The baby comes out, the someone yells “10:22pm”! They try aspirating her, she isn’t crying, she isn’t screaming…she isn’t breathing. They run out of the room with her. I scream, “WHERE DO I GO?!” The doctor said to stay, the anesthesiologist told me to follow the baby. I ran after my baby. They had her in a side room with a nurse blocking the door. She wouldn’t let me in… The nurses were slapping her belly, flipping her, slapping her tummy…working frantically. No crying. I am screaming, begging the nurse to tell me what’s wrong with my baby, asking if she’s ok. She won’t tell me anything except warn me that she’d kick me out if I didn’t calm down…
Our family and friends are all gathered outside the doors, hoping to catch a glimpse, they send someone running after a respiratory specialist… As the doors open for the nurse to find the specialist, our family and friends see me crying and I just scream “PRAY! PRAY!” …and the doors swing closed.
Finally, a gasp, a whimper, and then…the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard, a cry.
Despite being without breathing for what seemed like an eternity, her oxygen level was great…she was jaundiced, but she was otherwise healthy and doing great. She almost didn’t make it…
All that I could think was…I cannot EVER go through this again…EVER… Despite Tasha and I wanting to have several kids, all that I could think was that this experience was too horrifying, too depressing, too emotional to experience again.
And then that beautiful little girl…her screaming face…so beautiful…she had a bruise on her forehead and a bloody bruise on her nose from pushing against Tasha’s cervix with her brow/nose for over 24 hours, but she was perfect.

Her first scream. Music to my ears.

So, you might think that the nightmarish experience was over.  Well, perhaps the worst of it was, but there was plenty more to come.

The next day, Tasha was supposed to be on an all liquid diet, and we had been told this.  So we were surprised when a woman in scrubs comes in with a lunch full of solids the next day.  I tell her “we were told she’s on a liquid diet, are you sure she can eat solids?!”  She said “Oh, yeah, she can have solids, this is what they ordered for her.”  So Tasha dug in…  the nurse comes in and says “Why are you eating solids?!  You’re on a liquid diet!”  Ah…terrific.  So later that day the same nurse comes in to hook up Tasha’s new saline drip.  Tasha starts feeling extreme stomache cramps.  She complains to the nurse who is at a loss as to why…  A different nurse comes in, and notices Tasha is hooked up to Pitocin, the medicine they used to induce labor.  The bag was still on the pole, and the other nurse hooked up the wrong medicine bag.  So she was having contractions/spasms because the woman gave her the wrong medicine!  So, finally, the next day, they tell Tasha she can take her first shower…the shower is broke.  They had to call in maintenance to fix it.  The room, by the way, was TINY.  It’s definitely not the recovery room they showed us when we toured the birthing center.  The experience was all so terrifying.  Finally, we got released to go home 5 days after we got there.  Nightmare over?!  Wrong…

Tasha went for her 2 week follow-up appointment with her doctor.  He asked if she was having any problems.  She told him her sutures were starting to hurt a LOT and that she thought they might be getting infected.  He asks to take a look.  He’s SHOCKED.  His jaw drops, and he asks “WHY ARE YOUR STAPLES STILL IN?!”  He continues, “Who was your nurse that discharged you?!  They had specific orders not to release you without removing your staples first!  That’s why you’re in so much discomfort!  They were in for 2 weeks longer than they should have been…”  So he removed them, but the scarring is considerably worse because of the incompetence of the hospital staff.

So, my beautiful princess made her grand arrival with plenty of drama, but everyone insisted (and still does) that she’s the prettiest baby ever.  I couldn’t agree more.  Here are the pictures from when she was born (it’s a lot!)…

Tasha with her Aunt Crystal (TeeTaw) before Caney's arrival

Tasha with her Aunt Crystal, Sister Stormi (Aunt Sissy), and her Nana

Tasha with my Momma (Gran Gran) and my Nanna

with Tyler and Copelander

The door that swung open when I screamed for my friends and family to pray...

Tyler... before they knew something was wrong...

Chris... still before they knew something was wrong.

My Dad (Paw Paw) and Ms. Cathy and Chris after Caney came out to the nursery happy and healthy

Thank God...

It's a scary world, huh, baby girl?

First picture outside the scary doors

In the nursery

Notice the blood bruise on her nose...

My perfect little girl...

She was so alert, just exploring everything and everyone

Still in the nursery...

A light-hearted moment after Caney was safely in nursery...

My princesses...

They both fought so hard. I'm so proud of them...

Me with my princess for the first time.

This is heaven...

I was soooo happy...

and a bit excited...?

Perfect.

My girls...

Nom nom nom!

So happy...

A mommy's love...

Gran Gran with Caney

Tasha's Grandpa with his first great grandchild

Still with Grandpa.

and with her Great-Grandma

Great Grandparents

Nanna, a great-grandmother for the FIFTH time!

Nanna with my Girls

Gran Gran helping

MUAH!

Yummy!

Uncle David is a huge fan!

Uncle David and Aunt Brianne, expecting a little girl named Leah in May (Caney's cousin)!

Sleeping Beauty!

Still sleeping

So perfect. So beautiful.

That’s all for this post, but I promise many many more to come!  We love you all…

-Cy

Yesterday began with Tasha and I fighting off sleep at 7am and getting ready for her to get some lab work done. Tasha couldn’t eat or drink after midnight the night before because she would be doing a blood glucose check for gestational diabetes. When she got there she had to drink a cup of some really sweet liquid and wait an hour before they drew blood. We had some spare time so while we were there we pre-registered for her to have Canaan there, and we went and scheduled her next appointment with our baby doctor for Friday.

Tasha had been complaining about swelling in her feet, but that’s fairly normal in pregnancy. The nurse who drew her blood when we got back noticed that her hand was very, very swollen too (around her wedding ring) and told us to make sure to keep an eye on her blood pressure. Tasha had also been complaining of her tummy and head hurting yesterday, and when she went to get her new drivers license yesterday, she had a hard time seeing out of her right eye (blurry vision). We went to Wal-Mart, and while we were there we checked her blood pressure. It was in prehypertension according to her chart, but it wasn’t too too high. To be safe, we called her doctor who told us to be cautious but that it was likely nothing too serious.

Well, we had our first baby shower last night with the Chi Alpha girls (thank you, ladies!) which I’ll discuss in my next post. After her shower, her feet were swelling so much that her ankles began to hurt, and her fingers were tingling…

My Mom warned us of preeclampsia this weekend. Tasha’s friend, Sally, warned us of preeclampsia this weekend. Tasha’s Mom wisely suggested we go to the hospital last night…just in case. So we went to the ER. When we went to check in they asked how many weeks pregnant she was (34), and then told us to come on to the back. They quickly took us up to the Women’s Health Clinic (same place where babies are delivered).

When we got to the Women’s Health Clinic, they tested Tasha for elevated protein levels (preeclampsia indicator), and they were negative…so that’s good. They decided to monitor her heart rate and blood pressure for a while, so they hooked her up to a machine that monitored her pulse, Canaan’s pulse, and took her blood pressure every 14 minutes. The readings went back and forth from very high to just a slight bit high over and over again. The diastolic number was the one they said they were most concerned with, and it kept going fairly high. Also, she was having minor contractions 7 minutes apart during this process (not actually in labor or anything though).

So, they aren’t sure what was causing it, but after a while, it leveled out in that same prehyperstension range we saw earlier that day. They let us come home but told us to be careful and to come back if necessary. They wrote her an excuse for school today so that she could rest and prop up her feet.

Tasha’s doctor called us today, and they told us that Tasha’s glucose test came back “abnormal.” So they need us to come in again tomorrow for more tests. They will be doing multiple glucose tests an hour apart to verify for sure whether she has gestational diabetes or not. If she does…then it will be a very strict diet for the remainder of the pregnancy.

So yesterday was very long and emotional.  It’s terrifying… Tasha was scared, and I was scared too.  I couldn’t act scared though because that would scare her even more (possibly making her blood pressure raise even more).

Things are okay, and we’re trusting that God will take care of everything.  We believe in the power of prayer, so please keep us in your prayers!

Dear readers!  I apologize in advance.  This post is not a happy one.  Rather, it’s a rant.  If you’d rather not read a rant (about medical care) then please skip this post!

So Tasha’s health care plan only has one dentist within 1 hour that is allowed to work on pregnant women.  His name is Dr. Kirt Touchstone with ArkLa Family Dentistry in Bernice, Louisiana.  His mission statement says that part of their mission is to provide care in a God-fearing environment.  Well, that was certainly a pleasant surprise to read!  So I was optimistic!  Life is never that simple though, is it?

Our first visit to Dr. Touchstone began with him insulting us for not having had regular dental appointments for the past 2 years.  Let’s see, Tasha is 20 years old, and she hasn’t had coverage since she turned 18.  I am recently separated from the military, and I haven’t had coverage since I separated.  When I explained this to him, he insulted us again, telling us that if we were smart we would have figured out a way to pay for it.  OK, so we’re stupid BECAUSE we can’t afford to pay for medical care out of pocket.  We left offended, but we wrote it off as him perhaps having a bad day…or something.

The second visit, he attempted to drill/fill a cavity without anesthetic (because she’s pregnant), and when she responded to the pain, he stopped and said, “We’ll have to do this later with anesthetic because obviously she isn’t enjoying it.” So he wasn’t able to finish that day, although this day was perhaps not his fault.  Another one written off as an unfortunate result of seeking dental care while pregnant?  Sure.

So we went back again today, and he’s write inside the door yelling at some unfortunate young lady that she needs to stop “half-a**” taking care of her teeth.  Well, I’d be insulted and embarrassed if I were her, considering her only path of exit is right through the main door, past everyone who heard the harassment.  Hrmm…interesting.  So, my wife goes back, and they give her 5 shots that are, we guess, supposed to numb the area.  Well, her mouth was not numb…at all.  There was none of the droopy, drooly cheek that normally accompanies such shots.  She told the dental hygienist who gave her the shots, and she told Dr. Touchstone.  He didn’t seem too concerned, as he came in and started drilling anyway.  My wife, feeling every turn of the drill, grimaced, and eventually said “Ow!”  Dr. Touchstone, jerked all the equipment out of her mouth and told her she would need to find a new dentist because SHE wasn’t relaxed enough to not feel the pain.

My wife comes out, crying.  Angry-Mode Cyrus begins.

I tell Tasha to wait in the car, and I ask to speak with Dr. Touchstone.  Now, I’d like to preface this by reminding that I DO agree with my campus pastor, Pamp, that “the motivation for confrontation should be reconciliation.”  He eventually calls me into his office, and I explain to him this series of events that is causing me to doubt his “God-fearing” environment that he claims to provide.  I also explain that he’s the only dentist within an hour of where we live that we can see.  He tells me that “God punishes those that he loves.”  I responded, “Sure! But you are NOT God, and you do NOT have the right to PUNISH my wife.”  He says, “Ok” and looks at me with a blank stare.  After a 30 second stare-off (that I won!  Woohoo !), he asks “Well what do you want from me?”  I said, “Well, for starters, an apology for my wife!”  He then said, “Well, I’m sorry that you feel that way.”  Hrm, he’s apologizing for the way that I feel implying that I’m the one who is at fault.  This is a passive-aggressive attempt to appease my request for an apology without actually having to apologize for his actions.  Frustrating.  It’s clear, at this point that he a)is no longer willing to provide us with any sort of quality medical care, b)is NOT going to apologize for his behavior, and thus c)reconciliation is not likely to result from this exchange.  I walked out, hopeful that I can at least warn other families against his medical practice.  Consider this my personal review of the service (that I will also rate on Google Maps).

So, we had our doctor appointment yesterday, and all was well.  It’s always comforting and exciting to hear Caney’s little 148 bpm heart thumping along.  We did that yesterday, and they started measuring from top of the pelvic bone to the top of the belly.  Tasha is currently 23 inches, and Dr. Flores said that’s right where she should be.

Source: blog.mlive.com Obama and McCain

In other (personally, less important but more data-rich) news, when Canaan is born (if God’s timing is the same as nature’s), America’s first African-American president (President-Elect Barack Obama) will be in office.  I didn’t vote for Mr. Obama.  I voted for Senator McCain.  I’ve seen many different responses.  Most of the people I know on Facebook have left comments ranging from “how stupid Americans are” to “plans to move to Canada.”  It amuses me.  I seem to recall the exact things being said by most of my more liberal friends when President Bush was re-elected.  The really funny thing is that Canada is a very socialist country, and people are threatening to move there to escape Senator Obama’s socialist-leaning presidency.  What scares me the most, though is the Congressional elections in conjunction with the Presidential election.  The Democratic party is nearly filibuster-proof.  They control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.  Also, two Supreme Court Justices will probably be retiring/replaced by liberal judges.  This means that the whole “checks and balances” thing will be very iffy this time around (if present at all).  It seems as though any liberal agenda would EASILY be pushed through the legislation process.  This concerns me because I tend to be more conservative.

BUT…

Hebrews 13:17 says:
Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.

and

Romans 13:1-2 says:
1) Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2)Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

God has a plan and has a will in whoever and however a nation is ruled.  We may not understand how or why, and it may not necessarily be what would be considered “good” for a nation.  However, the authority that exists (and will exist with the next Presidential Inauguration) does so by God’s establishment.  That having been said, as a military man, I am obligated to support my Commander-in-Chief and His policies, directives, and lawful orders.  That being said, congratulations to President-Elect Obama.  May the Lord be with you, and may your will be His.

-Cy

So, Tasha and I watched Juno last year (the title of the post is a line from one of the soundtrack songs).  We both loved the movie, and we tried to get my Dad to watch it.  He lost interest almost immediately, but Tasha and I…still love it.  Many people don’t like it or haven’t seen it, and to that I say “GO WATCH IT!”  That having been said, here’s the poster for the film:

The Juno Poster

Now, here are the costumes Tasha and I wore to the Chi Alpha ROCKtober party:

Our Juno MacGuff and Paulie Bleeker Costumes

Now, again, not everyone had seen the movie, but everyone who recognized our costumes LOVED them.  We had tons of pictures taken of us.  It was a blast.

We definitely wanted to incorporate Tasha’s baby bump into our costume, so we originally considered going as an oven with a bun in it and a chef.  There’s a costume set you can buy for it, but we could only find the chef (aka Bun Maker) half.  We could have made the oven out of a box, but we didn’t want to spend that effort.  Then we remembered the movie, Juno, and our minds were made.

Completely unrelated to our costumes, we went to Heather Castille’s surprise 22nd b-day party a few days before the ROCKtober party.  Heather is a friend from Chi Alpha, and we bought her the Apples to Apples for her birthday.

Apples to Apples Card Game

Here are a couple of pics of us at the party:

Tasha, Cyrus, and Caney at Heather Castille's surprise birthday party

Tasha and Caney at Heather's party

There you have it ladies and gentlemen.  I am still trying to track down the poem about Caney mooning us in her ultrasound, but I can’t find it at the moment.  We have an appointment with Dr. Flores tomorrow just for a check up.  I’ll be sure to report back to you all soon.  Take care, and God bless you all.

-Cy