Introducing....Cambrie Alice

Wow. Once again, we are pathetic and have let the updates to the blog slide. I had good intentions of catching up on every event that has happened since I last wrote, but the thought of that is too overwhelming. I think it is best to just start now and try to do better (although doing this really bothers the perfectionist portion of me!).

As most of you know, we welcomed a new addition to our family in September. On September 16th, Cambrie Alice was born. She weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. She has blue eyes and out-of control hair that sticks straight up - just like the rest of our kids! (The crazy hair must be a gene from Mike because I was bald the first two years of my life!) She came by planned c-section. I was nervous to have a 4th c-section. I have had complications - infections, hematomas - with all the previous surgeries and so was thinking this one would be just as bad. I had talked about my concerns with my doctor and so this time he said he would start me on an antibiotic immediately following the surgery. I am so glad we did this. I think it made all of the difference. This has been my best recovery EVER! I didn't get infected at all. I felt great shortly after the surgery. It was such a stark contrast to all of my previous experiences. I have been elated to have had this type of recovery with the 4th. I never would have thought the 4th c-section would be the best!

Since we never found out what we were having during the pregnancy, we were very excited to finally learn we had another girl. It was a good thing it was a girl because we couldn't decide on a boy's name! :) The kids were also very excited. Amazingly, we stuck to the boy/girl order so Gavin's obsession with patterns and order was satisfied. :) His life continues to make sense :)

Cambrie has been a great baby. She nursed for me right away and I think she was my fastest baby to catch on. We have had some struggles. The day we were being discharged from the hospital, a nurse detected a heart murmur. Several people listened and some could detect it and others could not. The nurse that was discharging me called the pediatrician and the pediatrician said she hadn't heard anything when she had listened. She suggested we just go home and have the doctor listen to her at the next weight check (our pediatrician was having her hip replaced soon, so she would be unavailable for some time). At the weight check, the nurse thought she heard something, but the family doctor said he heard nothing. She kept losing weight the first two weeks of life so Mike had to constantly take her to the doctor's office for daily weight checks. At times it was annoying because they would make issues out of weight losses as small as half of an ounce! I had to just remind myself that it was best to be cautious. I also was glad to have them listen to her heart and see if anyone could detect the murmur anymore. At one point they also drew blood (which Mike said was an awful experience because they just couldn't get enough blood and poked her repeatedly) to see if she was septic. Thankfully the blood test came back normal. I wasn't too concerned about the weight loss. I know all babies lose weight. I also know that my babies are extra sleepy for the first while because they also feel the effects of the pain medication I am on during my recovery. After almost 2 weeks, I gave up my pain medication cold turkey. I was determined to try to keep both Cambrie and myself awake more so I could monitor her feedings better (instead of falling asleep as soon as I started nursing). I figured at least this way, I could know she was receiving adequate nutrition and would hopefully gain weight. I also made myself sit up on the couch and feed her - and stay out of my comfortable recliner - so there was little chance I could fall asleep during feedings. Whatever I did seemed to work and she started gaining weight - FINALLY! Also, they hadn't mentioned any more about the heart murmur, so we felt things were great.

I thought we were in the clear, but at her 1 month checkup, we got bad news. Actually, we were going to cancel the 1 month appointment. The nurse automatically set it up once when Mike was there for a weight check. I had never done a 1 month well baby check before - just the standard 2 week and 2 month. When the office called to remind me of the appointment, I asked them why they were starting to have 1 month checkups and the nurse said that there are new recommendations to start administering one of the shots at 1 month. Mike and I decided to just go ahead and have the appointment since it was already scheduled. As Mike was taking Cambrie to the appointment, the garage door broke. That should have been the first sign that the day was going to be a bad one. I stayed home with the other kids. Mike seemed to be taking a long time so I started to worry. When he came home he told me he didn't have good news. During the appointment, Mike asked the doctor to listen to Cambrie and see if he could detect a heart murmur. We weren't expecting him to say that he could hear one and that it was louder than it should be. Since the doctor was concerned, he ordered a chest x-ray for Cambrie. He then had the nurse set up an appointment for the next day to have an echocardiogram at the hospital. I was devastated when Mike told me the news.

The echo took almost an hour. The technicians were great, but they couldn't tell us anything and could only vaguely answer any questions we had. I knew they weren't allowed to say anything because the doctor had to review it, but it still just bothered me as I wondered what they were seeing. At one point, the technician told us, "if it makes you feel any better, I already located what is causing the murmur." Of course that didn't make me feel better....I wanted to hear that things were ok and there really wasn't anything there - afterall, the murmur hadn't been detected every time a healthcare worker listened to her! I still wonder if it would have been detected at all if Mike hadn't asked the doctor to specifically check for it at the appointment the day before. After the echo, we waited for days to learn the results. It was frustrating to hear from the pediatrician's office that they hadn't received anything yet from the pediatric cardiologist. We were calling every day. Thankfully, the nurses were understanding and they were equally frustrated.

After nearly a week, we found out that Cambrie has a VSD - a Ventricular Septal Defect. She has a hole in the wall between the right and left ventricles of the heart. Mike talked to the doctor while he was at work and got the results. I am glad it was him that called and got the news. It was bad enough to have him call and tell me. I just sobbed and sobbed. The doctor told Mike she has a small to moderate sized hole. He said it is the kind that could still close on its own (in the muscular region) but would have to be monitored. He told us we would need to see a pediatric cardiologist and we could decide if we wanted to see the one in our area or go to Salt Lake to Primary Children's. He said had the hole been a large one, he would have sent us straight to Primary Children's, but with it being the size it was, he was comfortable with us staying local first. That is what we have decided to do. She will have her first cardiologist appointment on Dec 3rd. The doctor told Mike we just need to watch for signs of congestive heart failure. He also said another later concern could be pulmonary hypertension. These are not comforting words to me. I am such a chronic worrier and have such anxiety issues that I could make a mountain out of a mole hill. Telling me to watch for signs of heart failure in my baby put me over the edge. We later learned she also had an "insignificant" (according to the doctor) hole in her upper chambers. We obtained a copy of the report and her ASD is 4 mm and her VSD is 5 mm. After a few days of crying - and learning that I needed to stop researching too much on the internet because I read too many horror stories and it freaked me out - I calmed down. There are so many types of VSD's and everyone's is different. I am scared to meet with the cardiologist - I don't want bad news - but it will be nice to know exactly what we are dealing with. Cambrie will have her 2 month checkup with the pediatrician next week. We will then probably have another chest x-ray, an echocardiogram, and possibly an EKG so the cardiologist will have updated tests results to compare against the earlier ones at our appointment in December. I purchased a baby scale so I could monitor her weight gain. Poor weight gain is associated with a heart defect so being able to monitor her weight at home has brought me peace of mind. She seems healthy to me; however, we are always wondering if she is turning blue or if other small things could be indications of heart problems. For now, we are trying to have faith and praying that her hole will heal on its own and that she will be healthy. The other kids are so sweet. They pray for her at every meal - and even sporadically during the day. Alyssa always prays that "baby Cambrie's holes will heal and her heart will be clean and healthy." I hope I can have as much faith as my children.