Dec. 1 - Elliot Klein

I've been too busy soaking up quality time with Jonathan and Elliot to write much of a post, but I wanted to at least get the basic information and pictures up.

Elliot Gerald Klein was born on December 1 at 7:57 a.m., weighing 8 pounds and measuring 21 inches. He's been a very mellow baby, and so far the transition to a household of four has been going well. Jonathan doesn't seem to mind him too much, although he has asked me to put Elliot in the crib a few times. But he's also brought a blanket over for Elliot when he's heard him crying, saying "That will help him to feel better."

I hope to get some more pictures up soon (they change so quickly at this age), but for now here are some from the first few days.

   

Nov. 12 - Would Be Garrett's First Birthday

One year ago today, we welcomed our precious Garrett Michael Klein into the world. Who could have known then that he'd only be with us for four short weeks?

The day was a little more difficult than I was expecting. I think I figured the birthday wouldn't be so bad, since that had been such a happy occasion. I imagine Dec. 11, the one year anniversary of when Garrett passed away, will be worse. So I didn't think too much about the birthday beforehand, but once it was here, it was hard not to remember everything from that day.

When I arrived at work, I thought about how this time one year ago, Garrett wasn't even an hour old. My lower half was still numb from the scheduled C-section, but soon enough Chris and I were adoring our little boy -- inspecting his tiny fingers, observing how he had my hair and nose, and marveling at how easily he took to nursing. What a little wonder. We called relatives to announce Garrett's arrival and eagerly waited for visitors to come share in our joy.

As I thought about how excited we were, how perfect Garrett seemed, how complete life felt, the dramatic contrast of what we experienced on that day and what we have been through since was a bit overwhelming. I wasn't a complete wreck, but I had my share of moments throughout the day and went through quite a few tissues.

I didn't take the day off of work, and I think having that distraction helped -- although my head was kind of a mess. I forgot how exhausting it is to get through a day with such a heavy heart.

Rain and snow fell steadily in Rochester, and was continuing in Lake City by the time we got home. It seems somewhat appropriate and poetic for it to be so dreary outside today.

Remembering, loving and missing you, Garrett, today and every day.

July 15 - Ultrasound

Eventually, I'll get caught up with these blog posts. (At least, I keep telling myself that ...)

So we had the big ultrasound on July 15, when I was a touch over 19 weeks. We came to Rochester to have the high-level ultrasound done and also to meet with a genetic counselor.

I will say that it was a little weird going back to Mayo in Rochester as a patient. I mean, I work at Mayo, but I have my routine of taking the bus in, going to my office (which isn't in a patient care building), working on the computer and going to meetings, and then heading home again on the bus. When we drove into the Damon parking ramp, I noticed the license plates from varying states, from Florida to California. And as we looked for a good spot, I sized up how far away the door to the elevators was and noted that there wasn't ice on the ramp leading to it like there had been last time.

It wasn't until then that I realized the last time we had been in the ramp was for Garrett's appointments on Dec. 10, the day before he died. Ugh. And now we were here to hopefully get good news about the health of the new baby we were expecting. Kind of an odd mix of emotions.

It was also kind of odd having the genetic counselor, nurses and doctor give their condolences and apologize for having to ask about Garrett. In this context, I had no problem being matter-of-fact about what happened, though. We were there to get some assurances that this baby was healthy, and I understood that our history was important for them to know what to look for. It seemed like they expected us to have a difficult time with it, though, and it was strange having to explain that we were happy to be there for this baby and focusing on him or her right now. (Right now at these appointments, that is. Believe me, I still think about Garrett plenty.) I suppose it's better for them to err on the side of being more sympathetic, though, rather than risk being insensitive to a mom who might be having a tough time with the circumstances.

Anyway, the genetic counselor took our family history and asked a bunch of questions and told us what we had expected to hear -- that what happened with Garrett was a rare, fluke thing and there's no reason to be concerned about some hereditary condition affecting this baby.

The ultrasound also went well. Interestingly, they seemed to look at everything they looked at with Jonathan. I had started out in Rochester with Jonathan, and then switched to Wabasha around 18 weeks because I wanted to have a water birth and that's the only place in SE Minnesota that does those. He ended up being delivered via C-section, but I like my midwife enough that I wanted to keep going there with future pregnancies.

Now I can't help but wonder whether the ultrasound I had with Jonathan and this baby were standard for Rochester, in which case they probably would have discovered Garrett's condition early on if I had been seen there, or if the doctor I had with Jonathan felt compelled to order a high-level ultrasound for him and just didn't tell me. I know when I gave her my family history, I mentioned that my grandma had a stillborn daughter with spina bifida. The doctor thought that was far enough removed that it probably wouldn't be a risk for me, but still told me to take some extra folic acid to be on the safe side, so perhaps she would have wanted to be more thorough with the ultrasound as well. Who knows.

We told the ultrasound tech right off the bat that we wanted to know whether we were having a boy or girl. I was hoping she would tell us right away, but I suppose she wanted to get the critical shots out of the way first. We saw the baby yawn and wave a hand, watched red and blue color splotches flowing through the skull and breathed a sigh of relief in hearing it looked perfectly normal.

Finally at the end, she asked again, "So, you want to know what it is?" We nodded and she showed us that it's a boy! At least she says it's a boy. She did it so fast, and I couldn't see what was what with my own eyes, so I'll have to take her word for it. With Garrett, the ultrasound tech took a little more time and I could see the male anatomy clear as day. This time, the printout still looks like a mysterious assortment of shapes to me.

When I heard it was a boy, I grinned and thought, "Oh, that'll be nice that Jonathan can still have a younger brother to do 'boy things' with." But the visions that then fluttered through my head of Jonathan and his younger sibling building forts and climbing trees were bittersweet, because those daydreams originally involved Jonathan and Garrett.

After the ultrasound tech left, the doctor came in and looked at the baby's head again to see the blood flow. He explained how we would see a large mass if the baby had a vein of Galen malformation, as Garrett had. He also explained that the heart is under added stress even in utero with that condition (which I hadn't heard before in any of the research we had done), so there could also be fluid buildup around the heart and lungs, and he didn't see any of that with this little guy. From everything we had heard before, we really didn't think this baby would have any issues, but it was still good to get that reassurance.

Losing a baby takes a lot of the magic out of pregnancy, though. A woman on an infant loss support site I visit summed it up well in that we have "lost our pregnancy innocence." All the facts and reasons why things should work out well can't make us forget the reality that it's ultimately a gamble. Nothing is guaranteed. I try not to dwell on that notion, but it's always there to some degree -- posing challenges in trying to pick a name, talk to Jonathan about the new baby (will this one stick around?), or thinking about getting the house ready.

But I guess I feel a little more confident the more I feel the baby move. For the first few weeks, it would feel just like a gentle rolling every now and then. More recently, I've been getting full-blown kicks and punches. One was so forceful, it actually made me yelp! Sometimes this munchkin keeps me awake with all his dancing about, but I appreciate those reminders that he's healthy and active.

July 5 - Fourth of July Weekend

Still catching up ...

We took advantage of the long Fourth of July weekend to make a trip out to visit my Grandma Rossing in Ellendale. It's about a two-hour drive, and Jonathan handled it fairly well. The only downside was that he didn't fall asleep for the one nap he takes during the day until we were about twenty minutes from Grandma's. I thought he'd sleep through us bringing him inside, but nope. He woke up and was not interested in resting anymore.

We visited for a little while before Chris and my uncle Mike (who was Jonathan's new buddy for the day) took Jonathan up the street to the park so that Grandma and I could do some work pulling together the family history and scanning stacks and stacks of photos. Grandma will be 88 this October, and she has so many precious stories from the Rossing, Anderson and Jacobson sides of the family that I don't want to be lost when her time on earth is over.

Thankfully, she had already put together comprehensive family trees years ago, and we saved a lot of time by just making copies of those. But it took hours to scan photos and document who was in each one, and I still wound up taking a couple armloads of albums home to continue scanning. At least now I can identify who the people are.

Chris, Mike and my honorary aunt Renita did a wonderful job of keeping Jonathan occupied after his trip to the park so he'd stay out of our temporary work area. Jonathan's John Deere Tractor movie helped for a while as well. And I guess he did eventually take a better nap, too.

There aren't enough hours in a day to complete a task like that, though, and I feel like I've only explored the tip of the iceberg. In addition to being able to recognize some ancestors, I also managed to capture a few memorable family facts and events, but I know Grandma has thousands of stories of her childhood, her parents, and my grandpa's parents, so I'll probably need some more trips and/or phone calls to feel like I've got a good grasp of them.

Grandma Rossing, Uncle Mike, Jonathan and Mindi

Grandma Rossing, Mindi, Jonathan and Chris

Although we could have made it back home the same night, I knew there was a Holiday Inn with an indoor water park in Owatonna, and I thought that would be a fun experience for Jonathan. We haven't stayed over at a hotel with him before, but I have a couple of friends with kids who are about the same age, and they've said their kids think it's such a treat to stay over somewhere. With that, I had kind of high expectations.

I was surprised that Jonathan did not want to stay in the room. As soon as we entered, he kept trying to escape back out the door. We had brought his pack'n'play, but since the room had a king-size bed, we ended up just letting him sleep between us instead of hauling the pack'n'play in and messing around with putting that together. We don't have a king-size bed at home, so I have to say those things are huge! While telling Chris goodnight, I felt like I was calling out to someone in a different zip code.

The next morning, Jonathan still just wanted to leave. We had breakfast in the restaurant attached to the Holiday Inn (which had the best pancakes I've ever tasted, and I still cannot believe Jonathan wouldn't eat them), and then finally got Jonathan to settle down with the promise of going to the water park. I hadn't mentioned the water park to him yet, because I knew he'd be antsy to go there, and he was restless enough as it was.

Well the water park redeemed the experience for him. I was a little surprised that he didn't want to go into the deep end of the pool with us, where we could toss him in the air and let him splash as we caught him again. Any time we strayed away from a depth where he could touch, he'd say, "No! I walk!"

It was the first time trying out the new swimsuit I bought him, which has flotation strips sewn into the top, so he had a little more freedom to move about on his own without us "saving him" all the time. We still had to stay near him and keep him generally upright when he tried to swim, but he could at least jump around to his heart's content without mom and dad ruining his fun.

"No. I walk!"

On our way home, we stopped in Kasson to visit with Chris' sister, Dawn, and her kids. Jonathan enjoyed seeing his cousins, Brandon and Brianna, and got a kick out of playing with Brandon's tent in particular.

You would think a little guy would be worn out after all of that, but he was still full of energy when Chris decided to get a bon fire going. Chris treated him to a few rides in the wheelbarrow and let him haul a couple of small logs (or big sticks, depending on how you look at it) over from the wood pile.

Jonathan spent the remaining daylight running around the yard and squealing with all the delight and enthusiasm you could ever hope to hear from a toddler -- mostly while Chris chased him and occasionally tossed him in the air. When the sun finally set, we sat around the fire and ate some popcorn while we waited for the fireworks to start appearing.

By the time we began hearing the fireworks (we couldn't necessarily see all of them, since they were being set off from down in the valley in Lake City), Jonathan was so wiped out, he was actually asking to go inside and go to bed. That's a first! In all honesty, the only ones we could see very well from our place were the biggest ones that made it above the bluff, but once those started popping up, Jonathan was willing to fight to keep his eyes open, and he kept asking for more. He eventually fell asleep on Chris' shoulder, though. What a night.

Now for the barrage of photos ... Maybe I'm posting too many, but I get the mother's kick of endorphins when I see that unabashed smile and the unrestrained joy in his eyes. So call it self indulgent.