Grandma Orpha

Andy's Grandma Orpha (his mom's mom) passed away on July 21st. We got to go up to the hospital several times and see her during her last week on earth.

We also got to have lots of good conversations with Ira about life and death and Heaven. He was such a sweetheart after I got the phone call that Grandma died, he saw me crying and said, "Mom you don't need to be sad, Grandma's up in Heaven now!" Oh, to have the faith of a child.

Me, Grandma Orpha, and my mother-in-law, Marilyn years ago after my first concert as a Singing Quaker:

Some memories of Grandma Orpha:
-playing Canasta on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Grandma was notorious (or famous) for finding entire red canastas in her hand "Oh looky here!" She also had a knack for having enough jokers and deuces to make every pile on the table into a canasta. You had to be patient to play with her, but you were rarely disappointed!
-going over to her house after high school football games to watch the news and see which station covered Conway Springs the most/best.
-visiting her at the retirement home and hearing her talk about how cold they kept it (it was always a brisk 90 degrees in her room!)
-finding notes that she left for the retirement home staff about how gross/undercooked the carrots were that day
-listening to stories of her childhood growing up in Northwest Oklahoma.
These stories include:
-her mother (or grandmother?) nursing a "gypsy baby,"
-exploring caves as teenagers that were so deep and dark that you had to crawl on your belly to get through them
-swinging over crevasses in said caves with a rope "and if you dropped a rock down the crevice, you didn't hear it hit the bottom"
-going to college at NWOSU and earning a teaching certificate
-teaching in a one room schoolhouse

She lived an amazing life of 93 years and she will be missed!

Ruby's Birth Story Part deux

When Ira was 19 months old, we got pregnant again. For some reason, I just knew the baby was a girl, and I was excited to try again for a natural birth. God, in His infinite wisdom, had other plans for our precious baby. He took her home to Heaven on New Year's Eve, 2007. Her name was Caroline Rose.

We had changed OBs, but hadn't even seen our new OB for our first appointment when we miscarried. It was extremely difficult to go into his office and see all the pregnant women. He didn't act all too bothered by our miscarriage, and his nurse callously told us to wait 3-6 months before trying again. I broke down in tears at the thought of it. We did some reading in our NFP books and on the internet that said that there was really no reason to wait as long as the miscarriage completed itself naturally (without need for a D&C.) So we tried again that same month and were blessed with another pregnancy.

I felt sure that the baby was a boy. The OB's office acted miffed about the fact that we were pregnant again, but they did schedule my first appointment for 7 weeks instead of 10. When we went in for our first appointment, the office had just gotten a new sono machine that they were excited to try out on a very early pregnancy. They asked for our permission and I was excited to have my fears laid to rest with hopefully seeing a heartbeat. The heartbeat was very slow (upper 80s I believe.) And the sono showed a sub-chorionic hematoma. A pocket of blood around the yolk sac, but I wasn't having any bleeding. I was scared out of my mind and went home to wait and worry. That night, I started bleeding and miscarried again. His name was Levi James.

Our new OB still didn't seem to concerned about the miscarriages, his recommendation was just to wait another 3-6 months and try again. Andy and I weren't really thrilled at the thought of that, so we began the search for a different doctor. One who was more empathetic to our situation and who was willing to do some testing to see if there was ANY explanation for our losses. A friend who had had multiple miscarriages prior to her second son's birth recommended Doctor Ron Ferris. A catholic family practitioner a bulk of whose patients struggled with pregnancy (either getting pregnant or staying pregnant.) We had to wait almost 2 months to get in with him, during which time we also switched NFP methods (we learned the Creighton Model because it appeared to be much more clinical and objective - much easier to interpret data from.)

When we went for our first appointment, we were blown away with how patient and kind Doctor Ferris was. He spent over an hour talking with us about what testing he could do and what reasons might have caused our miscarriages. Immediately upon looking at my charts, he said, "well first off, I bet you have low thyroid levels." When the bloodwork came back, it proved his hypothesis. I started on thyroid medicine and saw definite improvement on my temperatures on my charts (not technically a part of the Creighton model, but something I continued to do on my CCL charts.) Over the course of the next few months, we also discovered I had low progesterone levels, so I also started progesterone supplements post-peak.

In September, somehow, we became pregnant again. (It was a real surprise! We're still not sure how/when we conceived... potentially 9 days pre-peak) I called Dr. Ferris' office right away and was blown away by the nurse's response... "Congratulations!!" she heartily said when I told her the news. What a switch! Dr. Ferris ordered some bloodwork and PERSONALLY called me back with the results. We talked for 45 minutes about the results (low, but not as bad as they could be.) He said numerous times during the conversation that he'd be praying for us and our baby. It moved me so much to have such a CARING doctor!! We had a sonogram around 7 weeks and again saw a slow heartbeat and a very small sub-chorionic hematoma. I put myself on bed rest and prayed like crazy! Dr. Ferris prescribed Heparin shots (in case a clot in the cord was causing the tearing), but they took awhile for the pharmacy to get in and after only one shot, we miscarried again. Her name was Hope.

After that, Andy and I began thoroughly researching causes of miscarriages. We met with Dr. Ferris several times and were so impressed at how open he was to our questions and ideas. I tried Metformin for several months, which has been shown to help with PCOS. We didn't know for sure if I had PCOS, but Dr. Ferris said that if I did, the Metformin would help it, and if I didn't, it wouldn't do any harm. My charts were crazy the months I was on Metformin, so we discontinued it in January. Then I found some information about Immature Follicle Syndrome. Essentially, the follicle (egg) is mature enough to be fertilized, but immature enough that 98% of the time, the pregnancy ends in a miscarriage. It sounded a lot like what we were experiencing, and we talked to Dr. Ferris about it. He said that it sure sounded like a possibility and told us that the treatment for it was Clomid. I started the Clomid in April of '09.

I will take a moment here to tell you that during this journey (especially after our last miscarriage), my prayer life and relationship with God improved IMMENSELY!! I had never been able to carve out the time in my day to have a regular prayer time, but I knew I couldn't make it through this trial without God's help. I read St. John of the Cross' "Dark Night of the Soul" and did some major soul-searching. I spent many mornings crying to God. A priest friend recommended taking my heavy heart to Mary, thus began a special appreciation for our blessed Mother. Overall it was a very dark time for me. I was without hope. I read the book of Job and could totally relate to him, but I was astounded by his unwavering devotion. I prayed to be like Job. I read the Psalms. Especially Psalm 69. That page in my bible will forever be a tear-stained reminder of that time in my life. I read the Catechism, especially the sections on Christian Death and Resurrection (paragraphs 1020-1029) over and over again. I came away with a firm belief that the end of the world nor death were to be feared but to be looked to with anticipation of being united wholly with God in perfect happiness. I knew that whether or not we were ever able to have another baby, I could look forward to the perfect joy of Heaven. And finally I let go. I knew that only God could help us get and stay pregnant (despite all the medical interventions, I knew that it all really was up to God.)

We tried for several months to get pregnant. That was hard too. As if waiting to try hadn't been hard enough, now we weren't getting pregnant despite trying. My faith wavered and I was worried we would never get pregnant. We prayed for God to be a part of our acts of love and we waited... Finally on July 6th, 2009, we found out we were pregnant again! The prayers became even MORE earnest at that point. I was thankful for the Heparin shots (which I did at 5 am and 5 pm) because it got me out of bed and gave me an opportunity to pray and talk to God EVERY morning.

To be continued...