That’s what this whole series of events surrounding Rachel’s birth has grown into.  I don’t know how in the world I manage to have the health wreck of the century twice in 5 years (the last time was in ‘08 with pancreatitis).  It’s not a status I recommend achieving, that’s for sure.

The saga so far has been that I developed the grand-daddy of all colds about a week before Rachel was born.  It was about at it’s peak of severity when she was born.   A few days after that, before she was a week old, I developed a roaring case of mastitis that had advanced to alarming proportions in just a few hours.  I went to the hospital, supposing to get some IV antibiotics and be back home in 23 hours or less.  That turned into several days of being in the hospital and the doctors were so afraid the infection would get to my blood stream.  By the grace of God, it did not.  I was discharged on a Thursday evening with a PICC line and home IV’s of antibiotics (vancomycin).  It was so good to be home, even if I did have to fiddle with IV’s every 8 hours and care for the PICC line.

On the Monday following that discharge, I noticed that my infection just didn’t seem to be getting any better, and I felt worse in general.  That night, I started running a fever.  I called my doctor, and he seemed baffled and a bit alarmed and told me to go the the ER.  I felt so badly, I didn’t want to go anywhere.  I drug myself around and we headed in there in the middle of the night.  At the doctor’s suggestion, we left Rachel at home.  We had roused my mom in the middle of the night to come over and take care of everyone.

I was so discouraged, going back in there, and I was scared I was going to die from some untreatable infection.  After spending the rest of the night in the ER, I felt encouraged since the two doctors taking over my case seemed confident I would get better.  However, all day and all night for what seemed like endless days and nights, I just ran cycle after cycle of fevers, despite more and different antibiotics.  And of course the doctors test and scan and MRI and all that whether you have a fever or not.  And I couldn’t sleep when I was shaking to death with fevers, nor when I was pouring sweat when it finally let up hours later.  And, when I felt like I didn’t have a fever, it was almost always still 101 or 102.  That fever business was nearly unparalleled misery, at least in my experience.  Finally, on Friday morning, after a night of severe fevers, my doctor noticed a rash.  He seemed so relieved, and stated it was an allergy to the vancomycin.  He stopped giving that to me right away.  I had one more fever after that, but he also started scheduled Tylenol every 4 hours to keep the fevers down.

During this time, Andrew would bring Rachel into the hospital in the evenings and largely take care of her through the night there for me while I was miserable.  Sometimes when I wasn’t shaking to death with a fever, and had not yet fallen asleep before the next one started, he put her up beside me on the bed so we could be close to each other.  Whenever I felt up to it, if she was hungry, I nursed her.  Other times, if I felt like I could sit up for a little, I would pump, and then Andrew would feed her pumped milk when she got hungry.

I finally realized Rachel was growing up without any pictures of her!  I decided to snap a few of her in the hospital.

Andrew took her to her 2-week checkup on Friday morning.  She weighed in at 7 lbs. 5 oz., and the doctor was very pleased since the goal is for them to reach their birthweight by 2 weeks.  (She was 6 lbs. 13 oz. when she was born.)  So, even though she’s not at the top of the heap for size, she’s doing great.  That made me feel good.

Sunday morning, which was Mother’s Day, Andrew brought the kids in to eat breakfast with me.  Of course, my breakfast was over, but I enjoyed having them there and eating their bananas, cheese, and mini doughnuts in my room.  They also brought a lovely bouquet of irises from our yard, complete with cards they had made.  I loved it all, but the cards were the best.

Soon before they got there, the doctor came in and said I could go home that day. So, we got everything packed and loaded up, and traveled home as a family. (It was the first time since Rachel’s birth that we all rode together somewhere!)

I was plum worn out before we even left the hospital, but it was so good to be back home again, with everyone under the same roof.

My mom has been here every weekday from first thing in the morning until mid to late afternoon (and later when necessary).  We try to figure out ways for her not to come on the weekends so she can do things at her home and have a break from the high-energy child atmosphere.

My misery didn’t end upon coming home, unfortunately.  Part of the allergic response to vancomycin is joint pain and muscle pain.  Those two things just increased and increased the longer I was home, every single joint and every single muscle hurting despite using Tylenol.  At times, it was #8 or 9 pain just to get up from a sitting position, or get out of bed, or pick up Rachel.  I loathed moving.  On Tuesday morning I noticed my lips were swollen and my throat was swollen.  As much as I did not want to, I did call my doctor.  He started me taking 30 mg of prednisone twice a day (60 mg total in a day).  I can’t tell you how much I didn’t want to do that.  I’m doing it anyway.  It has eliminated the throat swelling, and all the joint and muscle pain.  I feel a lot better now.  It has not alleviated any of the rash or itching, but at least I don’t have every part of this going on right now.

Feeling more mobile and less painful last evening, I took the kids on a short walk to splash in mud puddles (we’ve been having good rains here).

Whatever free time Paul missed while we were thick into homeschool this past winter, he has more than recovered in the last several weeks.

Hannah and Marie love being little mommies to Rachel more than anything else.  They always want to hold her, and they do a good job of it.

Paul drew a picture of a race helicopter.

I am enjoying being home, and really enjoying having no pain.  However, this itchy rash has not stopped getting worse.  The doctor says it will last 2 weeks from the time I stopped taking the vancomycin.  I’m trying not to count the days but just take it one day at a time and try to distract myself from the itchiness of it.  For those of you who have had this kind of drug reaction, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  For those of you who, praise the Lord, have not experienced this, there is no way you can imagine the itchiness.  And it covers the entire body.

My scalp, my face, my back, my stomach, the palms of my hands and bottoms of my feet, and even my lips and mouth.  My lips are just sore, and I can’t tell it’s in my mouth, but the doctor looked last evening and said it was.  I have found that being cool does bring some relief.  A cool breeze is even better.  So, I’m seeking to be cool these days, even though I would never have guessed that having just frozen my way through so many fevers.

I’m happy to be living, and I anticipate being well at some point.  I hope we’re about done with this round of “health wreck” and I hope never, ever to live through this one again.  I know God has been so merciful to me in many ways through this, but I’m still ready for it to be entirely over.

On a side note, none of this has caused my lupus to flare.  It has remained calm throughout it all, which is wonderful.  It is highly doubtful I’d have any of this trouble if I had not had that miserable cold at the time I delivered.  The doctor’s theory is that the cold, plus the delivery at the same time, maxed out my immune system, and then this mastitis just took over so quickly.  It has been a situation that’s been out of my control from the start.

I’m going to end this progress report and catch some sleep until Rachel needs to eat again.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and the meals and help and all you have done.  I can’t tell you how much it has helped me.

I think most of you know from my FB status reports that we weren’t home very many days after Rachel’s birth when I developed a bad case of mastitis.  After a Monday night of severe suffering here at home, we went to the doctor’s office, and then the hospital, where I got IV antibiotics to get this infection under control.  Now, I am back home again (I came home late Thurs. evening), and even though I’m still taking IV antibiotics, I am thoroughly enjoying being at home.  I’m also getting better, my pain is getting less, nursing is getting easier (and less painful), and of course, I’m loving seeing all my children and having our whole family together once again.

We’re still trying to figure out what “normal” is now, and what kind of routines we’ll settle into.  At the moment, it’s one day at a time, and my highest priority is taking naps whenever I can.  I run out of energy fairly quickly and with little exertion.

My mom has been a huge help through all this, stepping in at a moment’s notice to take care of the older kids and then helping out here at our house pretty much every single day that I’m home.  She has made a lot of sacrifices to make things work out as well as possible for me.

Andrew’s mom came down from NOVA for the weekend and has been a big help to us.  The kids have also enjoyed visiting with their Grandma Vogan.  She even sang some “cowboy songs” for Paul, who was pretending to be a cowboy when she was here.

Andrew has already installed Rachel’s newborn picture (the hospital one) in our line-up on the wall.  It makes my heart glad to see all four of our children’s pictures on the wall in a row.  It also makes my heart sad to see only 4 children’s pictures in our line-up on the wall.

Somehow, at this point in my life, I can’t imagine life without a little baby, and I don’t want to imagine it that way.  I’m loving little Rachel so much!  The last 5 1/2 years have zipped by in a wink.  I can’t believe I’ve  had children for only slightly longer than I was in college.  I mean, surely this stage of life doesn’t go by that fast, does it?

Rachel Anne Vogan was born April 25, 2012 at 4:03 p.m.

I was 38 weeks and 4 days along in the pregnancy, which is the longest I have ever carried a baby.  Rachel weighed in at 6 lbs. 13 oz. and was 19 3/4 inches long.

Very soon after Rachel was born, the nurse said she looked like Andrew.

Rachel is the first one of our children who was bigger than her John-Bear when she was born.  Here is Rachel with John-Bear IV, a legendary gift from her Aunt Wendy and Uncle Joe.

Andrew brought all the rest of our children in to meet Rachel on Thursday morning.  They were so happy to see her!

Marie wanted to hold her all the time.  She even wanted to hold Rachel instead of eat a candy bar (Andrew had some on hand to pass out to visitors) or open her Big Sister present.

I even tried to hold Marie on my lap for a little bit, but she wanted to get off and hold Rachel instead.  Every time Rachel cried a little, Marie said, in the sweetest little voice, “Don’t cry, New Baby”.

Diana, Tess, and Pastor Dale all came to see and hold Rachel at some point on Friday (Diana was so in love with Rachel she even came twice!).

Rachel has blue eyes.  Above her right eye she has a birthmark (I thought it was a bruise, but the pediatrician told us it was a birthmark that might go away about the time she turns 2).  Now, a few days after her birth, it’s less obvious than it was when she was born.

Rachel has a lot of dark hair, like all of our little babies have had.

Here is Rachel and her Aunt Katie.

This picture of Rachel Anne with her Aunt Rachel shows off the dark hair on the back of her head.

Some of Andrew’s family came to visit too.

This is us at the moment of leaving to bring Rachel home.  I think most people know I had (and still have) about the worst cold imaginable and pink eye in both eyes when Rachel was born.  Unfortunately, I didn’t feel any better than I look in these pictures, but it was not from giving birth.  It was from the viruses.

My mom has given up pretty much the entire last week of her life to take care of Paul, Hannah, and Marie.  She took care of them on Tuesday because I was feeling so bad.  Then, she came back again and got them on Wednesday morning when we were going to the hospital.  She got to meet Rachel when we came home on Friday.

The pediatrician told us to have Rachel in a sunny window to help bring down her bilirubin level.  For part of the afternoon, it was warm enough in the sun we could have her down to a diaper.

Not only is our life with Rachel continuing to unfold, our life with these viruses is also.  Poor Paul started in on a raging case of pinkeye Friday evening.  I’m taking his temperature here, just to make sure he doesn’t have a fever (he didn’t).

This morning, Hannah and Marie set up spectator seats to watch Rachel eat her breakfast.

I know this is a post of just about all pictures.  I hope to tell more of our “story” in future posts, but because some of our close family is so far away, and some don’t access FB, I wanted to get some pictures up for them to see our new Rachel and at least meet her through the blog.  Right  now, however, my main focus is meeting Rachel’s needs and getting as much rest as possible to get through this cold soon (hopefully).  So, my blogging and my updates on FB might be sparse for a little bit.

Can you believe I’m coming to the very end of the first day of my 38th week and I’m still at home, baby on the inside?  This is the longest I’ve ever been pregnant at one stretch.  I did not expect to still be carrying our baby right now, but I am.  I know God has a good reason for her still being on the inside.

The bummest thing of the moment is that I came down with a rotten cold on Thursday.  I have been nothing short of miserable a lot of the time.  It seems to be mostly a head cold with a severe sore throat to go with it.  I’m enduring, trying to patiently endure it, and am really thankful that Andrew and the kids put up with me.  I’m trying to drink extra water and get extra naps to hasten this virus through its course.

As far as our baby goes, she is doing fine.  She passed her non-stress test on Friday with flying colors.

With our baby staying inside longer this time, I’ve experienced a few things for the first time.  At some point in the last week, I believe she “dropped”.  I don’t get out of breath as quickly, and it doesn’t feel like she’s stabbing my liver every time I lean forward.  It does mean that my bladder has the capacity of about two tablespoons, and that frequently she is rubbing and rolling around on the nerves that go down my legs.  Quite often I feel electrical shock-type feelings going down one or both legs.  Most of the time she is just passing over the nerve and it goes away quickly.  Once in a while she stops there, and then, if I’m standing up, I need to grab the counter and lean forward to get her moved so my legs don’t collapse.

The other new thing is I had a brief episode of labor a couple days ago.  I have never had anything like that before.  I had been mildly uncomfortable and my abdomen just felt tight all morning (and I wasn’t doing anything unusual, just our school routines).  I paid no attention to it.  Closer to noon time, I noticed it felt better if I was up and moving around.  That was no problem, because I am usually up and moving around.  Then, I started fixing the sandwiches for lunch.  I soon thought, “Man, this really hurts!”  I just tried to keep working on the lunch and keep moving.  I was sure it was going nowhere, because I almost never have productive labor without Pitocin.  I started frying a grilled cheese sandwich, and I felt like I was going to pass out.  I figured I had better go lie down on the couch, so I turned off the burner and did just that.  It was a horrific amount of pain, and a couple times I felt like I wanted to throw up.  I thought if this is false labor, how in the world would I ever live through the real thing (without an epidural)?  Anyway, after about an hour and a half or so of that severe pain, it all just suddenly went away.

When I told my doctor about it on Friday, she thought I’d had a short period of labor that just quit.  The thing that confused me is that I thought labor should be contractions that come and go (and that’s how it’s been with my others, almost always augmented with Pitocin).  This was pretty constant, only occasionally letting up for about 10-15 seconds, and then right back to it.  Anyway, I am more thankful than ever for epidurals.  I give a standing ovation to every woman who gives birth without one.

Really, though, I do have my own very firm beliefs about pain (of any kind, including the pain of childbirth).  I believe pain is different for different people.  I think people have different levels of endorphins (natural pain relievers produced by the body) and different numbers of pain receptors in their bodies.  Some thing that would knock one person over with pain may not seem like such a big deal to another person. And it is not because one person is a “strong” person and the other person is a “weak” person.  It’s just how God made people.  Even though I want to be one of those high-pain-tolerance people, the truth of the matter is that I am not. And, wanting to be someone with high pain tolerance doesn’t make you one!

So, here I am, starting down the stretch of week 38, and wondering what my timetable looks like.  The doctor is very confident that our baby will be born before the 39th week (just because that’s how my body has done it in the past).  I, however, am not that confident.  Since this little girl has stayed put this long, I believe she likes it where she’s at and sees no need to change things any sooner than she has to.  Along with this thought, I’ve wondered if she’s going to be a super-relaxed (ahem, non-motivated!) child.  That thought can scare me!  So far, all my kids are motivated and largely self-starters and have determination (maybe not each of them in every area, but by and large).  If I had a kid who seriously lacked motivation…………Oh Boy!  Well, now that is really getting ahead of the game.  I won’t spend time worrying about that until I need to.

Hannah is one of our action girls.  She loves to do things.  While she does really good at sitting still and being quiet when it’s time to, it seems like she prefers active involvement (using more than just her brain) to passive absorption when it comes to doing her schoolwork.

I recognized that a long time ago.  While I continue to have a period of her school session where she does have to sit still and learn, I couple it with a period of time where she is doing something educational too.

Initially, I would write a bunch of words on the white board, and as she read each one, I let her erase it off.  She loved that!  It gave her a chance to do something besides sit still.

Then, I started noticing that she could write quite a few letters really well, and she seemed to have no trouble doing it.  So, I cranked up the involvement sessions.  I started calling out words for her to write on the white board.  She had to figure out, from sounding them out, how to spell each one.  She did a super job!

Then, yesterday, she came up with this, all on her own, during free time!  She drew and colored a picture of a cake with candles, and then, all by herself, she labeled the picture “cace”.  (We have been learning both sounds for the letter “c”, and she’s still working on learning when to use each one.)

That was a tremendous breakthrough!  I feel like it’s a big step forward when each one of them have started spelling words, actual words, as they sound them out, on their own initiative.

Hannah (and Marie) gets a treat after
finishing her schoolwork each day.
She almost always chooses a lollipop.

Today, at the beginning of her school time, I had Hannah get a paper and a pencil, and I called out words for her to spell.  Once more, even though not every word was perfect, she did a great job spelling them.

Hannah requested two French braids
for her hair this morning.

Along with her advancements in spelling words (it almost seems like she can spell words better than she can read), I think that even in the short time we’ve been doing the spelling, her reading has made slow, small (but noticeable) improvements.  That is thrilling to both of us.

I couldn’t resist taking pictures of her
lovely braids!

Everything I’ve read about teaching reading says that kids can read a lot sooner than they can write.  While that was definitely true with Paul, I think writing might be one of the key steps to Hannah learning to read.

I discovered that stories that interest her are also help her want to read.  I’ve been making up a story about Bob and Pete who found mice in their rice.  Each day I write about four more sentences on the board, and she reads them to find out what happens next in the story.  I don’t have many creative juices, but I’m giving it my best shot and am trying to make it interesting and suspenseful.

One of the things I’m experiencing all the time is that homeschooling is very much not a one-size-fits-all operation.  I will continue to look for clues from Hannah for what will help unlock the world of reading to her.  (And I wonder, in sheer amazement, how in the world someone can teach reading–one time through, one method–to a whole classroom full of kids.  The fact that any of them learn to read is really amazing.)

She lives here.  I always knew that, and today I was reassured.  That’s Marie.  (Hannah is the loveliest big girl in the world, just for the record.)

She got her first pigtails this evening when she woke up from her nap.

They were easier to put in than I anticipated.  She ate a little snack of fish crackers while I did it.

Everybody was impressed with her new hairdo!

Marie felt her pigtails, but she didn’t pull them out.

All the kids went outside and the pigtails were put to the test.  You can see them in active duty here!

Her hair did some shagging, but the pigtails held.

At the end of the day, the kids were still romping outside, and Marie’s pigtails were still holding her hair out of her face.  Yay!

Or course, they were sagging a bit (well, one of them a lot!),

but Marie was still happy and didn’t have to be constantly rubbing her hair out of her face!

What would little girls be without pigtails?

(Davene, you have so much to look forward to!)

Last weekend Hannah and I took a ladies’ trip to town (unplanned, but due to her case of pink-eye, we went to the pediatrician and got some antibiotic eye drops) and we made a long-overdue stop at K-mart for socks, underwear, and some undershirts for her and Paul (not everyone needed everything, but between them both, we needed some of each).

Andrew likes our kids to have socks that aren’t thick and puffy, don’t bunch up in the shoe, and so on and so forth.  Believe it or not, about 80% of the socks in the store are thick and puffy.  After combing the racks of socks a couple times, we finally found non-puffy socks in the right size for Paul and Hannah.

Paul has been so excited about his new socks ever since.  (When I saw how excited they were over these things after we got home, I regretted not keeping them a secret and putting them in their Easter baskets for the next day!)  One of his pairs of socks has stripes on.  Soon, he determined to count the stripes on them.  He then announced to me that they had 68 stripes.  I now call them his “Sixty-eight stripe socks”.  Later, he showed Andrew his sixty-eight stripe socks, and he and Andrew both counted to verify that they did indeed have 68 stripes.

After that, he wondered how many diamonds were on the pair with the diamond pattern.  If he has counted the diamonds on those socks, he hasn’t told me how many there are yet.

(Boy, am I ever glad we repainted his bedroom before moving him into it.  It used to have blue, pink, and yellow dots all over the walls (dots about the size of a nickel).  I’m afraid he might have taken on the task of counting the paint dots!)

Saturday was the start of a couple days of really nice, warm weather.  I was wracking my brain to figure out how to do something special with Grandma that day that included our kids.  I wanted to bring her out to our house for lunch, but Andrew came down with a terrible cold during the week, so we didn’t want to bring her around bad germs.

I thought of taking her to the park, so I called and asked her about it, and offered her indoor options (eating lunch at Dairy Queen, etc.).  She was quick to latch onto the park idea.

Do you know that my grandmother, at 91 years of age, will choose pizza over almost every other meal option if she has the choice?  I gave her several possibilities for our picnic lunch, and her top pick was (as I could have guessed) pizza.  (She also loves cheese puffs, by the way!)

I ordered the pizza ahead and scheduled the pick up time.  Then, the kids and I went and got Grandma, we picked up the pizza, and went to the park.

The park was overflowing with people (it seemed like there were a couple little league games going on), and nothing was easier than I thought it would be.  But, I had counted on this being an exercise both physically and of my patience, and everything worked out just fine.

We all enjoyed the pizza.  The kids were so excited about playing on the playground that they didn’t eat very much.  But, that was o.k.  Leftovers of pizza are always welcome!

I just love these pictures of Marie and Grandma!

All the kids had a great time on the playground.  I went back and forth from checking on the kids to checking up on Grandma on the bench.

Marie soon figured out how to go down this slide again and again all by herself.  She enjoyed that the most, I think.

Like I mentioned, the kids didn’t eat that much for lunch, so when it was about time to leave, they were asking for more pizza.  I served some on the park bench, and then I served more in the van for them to eat on the way home.

I thought it was time well spent.  We had some time with Grandma, and the kid got to romp on the playground.  They have already asked to go back.

Saturday will be the 36 week mark for this pregnancy.  Somehow, everything looks different now than it did at 16 weeks, or even 26 weeks.  Right now, I am so excited, just about in the I-can’t-wait stage, and really looking forward to having our new baby with us on the outside.  At other intervals, I was at the “I-can’t-wait” stage because I was so tired all the time, because I didn’t like having to deal with the gestational diabetes, the pain from bad leg veins, etc.  But now, I’m excited and can hardly wait because I want to have our little baby with us!

Another reason I can feel excited about it is I have a great load of stress and pressure taken off me.  I had been really struggling to figure out how to fit in getting everything ready for our new baby–getting the room ready, the baby clothes ready, the suitcase up and packed, and so on.  It just took all my time and energy to do all the day-to-day tasks, and it seemed (and still does) like so much time was taken up going to doctor appointments, and I just wasn’t getting it done.  Then, praise the Lord, my sister Gail called me up and said she wanted to keep my kids for a day and overnight!  Is God looking out for my every need or what!

While they were up at her house from one evening until the next evening, I got so much done it was unreal.  I got baby clothes washed and hung on the line, dried and put away; the closet in the baby’s room cleaned out, vacuumed, and restocked with newborn stuff; the diaper bags cleaned out, washed, dried, and reloaded; the suitcase packed; and probably even a few other things that I’m not remembering.  Oh, yes, the crib sheets, Pack ‘n’ Play sheets, blankets, baby towels and washcloths all up and in place ready for use.  I also wrapped up the gifts we’re going to give each of our kids when our new baby comes.  I felt like I made a couple weeks’ worth of progress in one 24-hour period.

It did more than put me ahead.  It made me feel like I have not lost my ability to get things done.  So much of the time it feels like I am spinning my wheels over here, that I’ve entirely lost any efficiency skills my mom taught me, that I can never get anything done, etc.  This was an eye-opener to me that yes, I can still get in gear and get things done.  It really boosted my confidence.

Since that time, over two evenings I got our kids’ schedule and routines,  tips and hints typed up for my mom (not that she needs to follow it while we’re in the hospital, but for if she needs it).  Then this evening, I did the last pre-hospital trip thing: typed up a list of the things to put in the suitcase at the last minute (toothbrushes, hair comb, things like that) so when our heads aren’t working in the middle of the night, we can refer to the list.

So, now I really can breathe normally and enjoy waiting for our little girl’s birthday.

I feel like I can spend the remaining time enjoying our 3 “big” children–pushing them on the swing, reading books, or taking walks with them.  Well, that is, after we get our school and chores done.  I also feel like I can take naps in the afternoon without thinking I need to skip them in order to get ready for our new baby.

There is still a whole lot that I could do before our baby is born (and if she waits long enough, I will get some of it done), but at least the must-do things are done.

I’m feeling prepared.  Now, if you ask Andrew if he’s feeling prepared, well….