An Even Bigger Announcement

 I posted the below picture on March 9th with our big announcement. It turns out I was wrong.

 The big announcement was Talmage's arrival on March 11 two days later at 35 weeks.

Talmage Zane 

4 lbs 8 oz

March 11 is my birthday. I had just returned from lunch with my sister and friend when I got the phone call from our caseworker telling us Talmage was born a couple of hours earlier. Right away the news wasn't good though. Talmage wasn't doing well. He was on oxygen and the doctors were worried about a few other things. It was an emotional few hours as we tried to get our heads around the situation. I am really grateful my sister and friend Sylvia were there that afternoon to help me with watching kids so that I could take all the phone calls (I swear my phone was glued to my ear that day) and of course with just the right words of encouragement. My sister had also brought a yummy treat which is always helpful when I'm down!

That night we got the news that Talmage was being life flighted to Miami Children's because he was having seizures.

After that the information stopped coming. We didn't get another true update for a week. It was a long week!

We could get information about how our birth mom was doing but we could no longer get information about Talmage until the consent to the adoption was done or our birth mom signed paperwork letting the adoption agency have rights to Talmage's medical information.  Our birth mom had her own medical issues after the delivery and was in ICU for a few days. Before she could sign the consent to the adoption at 48 hours, the doctor had to clear her medically and that didn't happen. There were many phone calls each day about why we were not getting information but really in my mind our birth mom's lawyer and our agency were not communicating well with each other. Our birthmom was willing to sign paperwork giving us access to Talmage's medical records, but it just didn't happen. She was frustrated and we were frustrated (and angry, and anxious and lots of other feelings!)

Tuesday night March 18th (Talmage was 7 days old) we got the word that our birth mom had signed the paperwork consenting to the adoption. Zane immediately booked tickets and found us a hotel room. By the next morning, my mom and dad moved into our home and we headed to Miami to meet our baby boy.

Miami Children's hospital was so welcoming and did a great job treating us like the parents (that hasn't always been the case for us.) We were at the hospital late Wednesday afternoon and immediately we had nurses calling doctors to come down and give us updates. We welcomed all the news!

 By the time we met Talmage, he was 5 pounds 5 oz. He had a feeding tube and PICC line but was off oxygen. He was also holding his own temperature.

Holding my pinky

Talmage's crib and all the wires/machines hooked to him

Thursday morning though we came in to see Talmage hooked back up to oxygen and his head wrapped up for an EGG to monitor his brain for indications for seizures. A nurse during the night was worried he was having signs of seizures again. He wasn't though so by Friday it was off.

First feed with mommy (through the tube)

My one frustration was that Talmage didn't have a picture with his name on his crib. He had gone a week without a name and I wanted everyone to know this baby did have a name and was loved. (I also wanted a picture of our family taped to his crib for when we were gone but after going to 3 different CVS pharmacies to find all their photo labs not working despite me calling ahead to find out if they were working, we gave up on that. After our short stay in Miami, we came to the conclusion that English is a second language there.) Zane finally took it upon himself to color Talmage a picture with his name on it.

He was busy coloring when all the medical students came through for their teaching/lessons. I kept telling Zane he needed to email his work to let them know that while they were slaving over numbers, he was coloring. Didn't he do a great job?!

The coloring was a representation of how we felt in the hospital. It reminded us of a Psych episode where Shawn tells the medical students to talk to him like he was five and then talk to him like he was three years old. The doctors tried to dumb down the termanology so that we could understand it, but they never succeeded. At one point with the neurologist I was just blunt and asked if he was saying my son may be mentally retarded. He just looked at me in surprise and said what he meant was it is hard to tell the future but Talmage may develop slower. We clearly hadn't been understanding each other! (This doctor has a thick accent so it was even harder to understand his terminology.) Thank goodness the nurses could explain everything and then there were lots of phone calls to my brother who is also a nurse. 

After talking to all the doctors, Zane and I were relieved to realize Talmage is doing just fine. His main focus is learning to eat. After a week of no information and imaging the worse situations, our fears calmed down and we were thrilled to just soak up so much baby time. I think Thursday night was the first time in a week and a half I didn't go to bed with a pounding head ache.

First feed with a bottle- the nurses average 15 ml with him but when I fed him he consistently took between 18 and 25 ml. He liked eating for mommy!

It was super hard to say good bye Saturday morning. Zane and I loved spending so much one on one time together with Talmage. That hasn't happened with any of our kids as babies since Dallin. In the end though Talmage is in great hands and sleeps most of the time. My other three kids need us though. Thank you to my parents for taking such great care of our kids! My mom made my job look too easy! We aren't sure when Talmage will be discharged yet but hopefully soon!