Walk America

Well, we are doing Walk America this year. I've wanting to do it since the boys were born, but every time the walk would come up it would conflict with something else. Either Robert would be deployed or we were planning our vacation or what not. Well this year we finally have the opportunity! For those that might not know, I have three preemies. Here are their stories...

Michael and Patrick are fraternal twins born at 31 weeks. They were born early due to a placental abruption. On May 13th, I was feeling well that evening. I was up most of the night with pain in my back and major cramping. By 6am things started to get better so I thought it was just nothing and decided to get some sleep. I went to bed and slept until 12pm and decided I was hungry and got up to get some lunch. Around 2pm, I decided to go lay back down and get another nap, as I still didn't feel quite right. Around 4pm, I got up and was walking to the bathroom, when all of the sudden, I felt a gush and was soaked from the waist down. My water broke, and I was only 31 weeks pregnant. I got to the bathroom and screamed for my little sister to bring me the phone. She was mad as she came down the stairs until so saw what was going on. She ran to find the numbers we needed. What freaked her out the most, wasn't the fact that my water had broke, but it was full of blood and she knew that wasn't normal.

As we called everyone we needed to I began to have contractions. My first call was to my Mom to get her to come home and take me to the hospital. In hind sight, I should have had my sister drive me, but I wasn't thinking clearly. At 4:15pm, my Mom arrived home to take us to the hospital. At 4:30pm, I was in the ER and being wheeled up to Labor and Delivery. I was told I would need an emergency c-section and they didn't know if my OB would make it in time. Just as they were wheeling me into the OR my OB arrived and scrubbed in for an emergency delivery. At 5:40pm Michael was welcomed into the world and blue followed by Patrick at 5:41pm. Michael weighed 3 lbs 13 oz and was 16 3/4 inches and Patrick was 3 lbs 11 oz and 17 inches. I was told later that Michael was a very lucky little boy to be alive. He is documented in the operative report as an unsurvivable infant. The next 25 days were a roller coaster of emotions. It was one step forward two steps back for a long time, but now the are almost 4!! And you wouldn't know they were preemies unless you know their story.

Kaitlyn is a whole different story. I had problems with her pregnancy from about 20 weeks. I was having contractions and while they didn't seem to be doing much they were constant. I was put on procardia around 24 weeks and we waited. In March, I ended up in the hospital for a few hours with constant contractions that weren't stopping. They did finally get them to stop with three doses of terbutaline, fluids, and my normal dose of procardia. After that my procardia was increased and I was seeing my OB weekly, plus getting a biophysical profile every week and non stress tests twice a week. Two days before Mother's Day the OB didn't like the results of my non stress test. I was told to come in on Sunday and have another, if the results were good, Kaitlyn could stay put, but if not they would deliver her. Well the results came back great. On May 14th, at 36 weeks exactly I was taken off procardia and told if I went into labor they would deliver her. I was still scheduled for a c-section on May 25th, if I made it that far.

The evening of May 15th, I could feel the contractions starting. I was hoping they would just stay like they had been, but they were intense at times. Around 5am May 16th, I woke Robert up and told him I didn't think he would be going to work. He asked if my water had broke and I told him no, but the contractions were getting stronger and didn't seem to be stopping at all. I told him to go back to sleep and I was going to go in the living room and find something to do. At 7am I woke him and told him he needed to get up and get the kids some breakfast we needed to go to the hospital. Around 8am, we were heading to the hospital and the contractions were getting harder and harder on the way there. We arrived at the hospital around 8:45am, and told the desk I was having contractions. I was put into a room and placed on a monitor. They couldn't find any contractions on the monitor, but my OB happened to be there so they paged her and she came to check me out.

She went to check me and as she did a contraction registered on the monitor. They figured out if they wanted to get contractions, they couldn't keep Kaitlyn's heart beat on the monitor and vise versa. So my OB looked at me and said, I think we are having a baby today. She gave me some terb to try and make me comfortable while I waited for my time to have a c-section. The nice thing this time around was it wasn't an emergency. I was awake during the surgery and was able to hear Kaitlyn's first cry and see her following her birth. Kaitlyn entered this world screaming at 1:02pm weighing 5 lbs 12 oz and 17 inches long. She was assessed by neonataolgist and found be still be needing some assistance so she was taken to the NICU. I was able to see her later that day in the NICU.

While her stay in the NICU wasn't near as long as the boys it was still a roller coaster ride. Kaitlyn spent 7 days in the NICU before joining us at home. Now she is a healthy, wonderful toddler who will soon celebrate her 2nd birthday.

These are our 3 reasons for supporting the March of Dimes. While not all of us are touched by prematurity, all of us can find a way to support those who are. One of those ways is giving to the March of Dimes at this time. We are doing the walk to remember how fortunate we are this year and all the time, without the research about preemies our children might not be here. Please think about this when considering a donation to the Baker Bunch team. If you are moved by this story, please consider donating here, http://www.walkamerica.org/threepreemies. You never know how your donation might help save the life of someones child.

The worst year!

Okay, it hasn't all been this year, but since October, this has been the worst year. My Grandmother passed away in October, my Grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent surgery (we almost lost him during the surgery), in December my family was fighting with each other and that lasted until January and is still being dealt with to this day, in February we lost my cousin in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, and to bring us up to date, my Father had a heart attack and underwent cardiac bypass surgery this last week. I'm hoping this is the end of our "emergencies" because I don't know how many more I can take. I think I've spent more time of the road than at home recently.

My little sister was here for her spring break and all was going well. We took the boys to school on Thursday March 15th like nothing was going on. We decided to go out to Burger King and get some breakfast to kill some time before going to buy our zoo passes. As we are leaving Burger King my sister's cell phone rings. It's my Mom, she really upset and tells me sister that my Dad has been admitted to the hospital and they think he's had a heart attack. Well, after the year we've had so far we are ready to pack up , get the kids from school, and hit the road back to Kansas City. My mom tells us not to pull the kids form school yet since we don't know what is going on, but just keep the cell phone ready so as we get information she can call us.

Well, but noon, we are really beginning to wonder since we haven't heard form Mom. About the time we were ready to call her, she finally calls. Dad will have bypass surgery, but we aren't sure when. So we decide to wait and see if she know more later that night. We spend the rest of the day worried and debating what we should do. Around 6pm, we hear from Mom again. The surgeon is full for Friday and since he is stable and they are planning on waiting for Monday for the surgery. After talking with Mom we decided that we will stay here and go on with our weekend plans for two reasons, one I don't think the stress of having the kids in the hospital room all that time will be good on them or Dad and two, Dad says he doesn't want us to mess with our plans when we've already told the kids. So we decided to leave Sunday morning.

Our weekend plans went well. We went to the zoo and the Omniplex, and had a great time, but I have to admit, I felt really bad. Thinking about my Dad laying in a hospital bed while we were out enjoying stuff just put a small damper on the days. He was glad we went, but I still felt like I shouldn't be enjoying myself.

Anyway, fast forward to Sunday...we leave and make it to Kansas City, with only one casualty. Patrick's red Clifford Doggie, went MIA. I think we know where he got lost, but needless to say he didn't make it to my parent's house with us. We arrived in plenty of time to see my Dad and go to dinner with everyone.

We get up around 5:00am Monday morning to make it to the hospital to see Dad before surgery. We were told a nurse would be in contact with us during the surgery to let us know how things progress. We were told he is having 3 bypasses and surgery should be over around 1:00pm. Well, about 1-1 1/2 hours into the surgery the nurse comes out and talks to us. She says, Did you say he was having 3 bypasses done? We told her yes, she proceeded to tell us that has changed...it's going to be 5 possibly 6! We were shocked! Needless to say that added time to the surgery. He finally go out of surgery at around 2pm. We were able to see him around 3pm for a few minutes and then not again until visiting hours in the ICU.

All in all he came through surgery fine. He is now at home as of March 24th and seems to be doing well. Hopefully this will continue. This has been a wake up call for my family, and we know some things are going to change.

Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers during this time.

Home again...finally

I feel like we've been gone for a while, but I know it really hasn't been that long. My sister is in town now too so I don't know how often updates will be for the next week either. Let's see...we took our trip to Washington DC for my cousin's funeral and stayed an extra day for sight seeing. We stayed at my parent's house for one day and then back home. Really it was a fast trip, but I'm glad we did it. I felt like saying good bye and thank you for giving his life for our country was an honor. While the kids don't understand...it will be something to tell them when they are older. May he rest in peace and know that his job on Earth was done, and we will all see him again someday.

We stayed an extra day in DC and did some sight seeing. We were able to go see pretty much everything we wanted. I think the boys favorite was either the Lincoln Memorial or as they put it, "The Big Pencil". For the most part they all did really well in the car. I will post some pictures soon.

Other than that, life is getting back to normal. The boys went back to school on Thursday for the one day and then will get back into things this week. They seem to be happier with school again.

Since I have time...here are some pictures...

This is in front of the Washington Monument.


At the World War II Memorial.


I think this is the only picture I have of Kaitlyn alone this trip.


Me and the kids at Arlington National Cemetery.


Okay, that's all I have online right now. I'll have to get some others loaded, but I will post those later.