Bennett's Heart Procedure

Bennett Anderson Hale, our second son, was born on December 13, 2011.

I found this in my den during a lazy day

As soon as he was born, the nurses informed us that I had a two vessel chord. Most have a three vessel chord but for some reason, my body decided it wanted to use only two vessels to send life-sustaining goodness to Bennett. During the development and growth of a baby, several miracles occur. By several I mean millions. And at the same time that my body chose a two vessel chord, it also formed Bennett's heart and kidneys.

I grew a heart and kidneys.

I grew a heart and kidneys.

I grew a heart and kidneys.

No matter where the emphasis, it's pretty miraculous, huh??

A.D.D.

I'm back!

Long story short: During this period, Bennett's kidneys were perfectly formed. His heart, on the other hand, was formed with a flaw: a pulmonary valve stenosis.

According to the American Heart Association this means:

 A thickened or fused heart valve that does not fully open. The pulmonary valve allows blood to flow out of the heart, into the pulmonary artery and then to the lungs.

A pediatrician heard a heart murmur in Bennett the morning after he was born. Immediately, Dr. Dane Douglas, a pediatric cardiologist, was called in and he found the pulmonary valve stenosis causing the murmur. The walls of his valve are thick, and therefore, the blood has a more difficult time flowing through into the pulmonary artery.

As he has gotten older, Bennett's heart has gotten worse. Therefore, this Thursday, Bennett will have minor surgery to repair his heart. It is called a valvuloplasty and here are the details from PubMed Health:

Percutaneous balloon pulmonary dilation (valvuloplasty) may be used when no other heart defects are present. This surgery is done through an artery in the groin. The doctor sends a flexible tube (catheter) with a balloon attached to the end up to the heart. The balloon stretches the opening of the valve.

Jed and I are confident in the abilities of the doctors that we have been referred to and have seen God's hand moving since the beginning. Some cool things:

-After we were assigned a "random" cardiologist (Dr. Douglas), we found out that he was our pediatrician's first choice for who he'd have us see. Our pediatrician is Dr. Harry Phillips who we utterly love and adore. He has known Dr. Douglas for several years and loves him.
-After we were set to visit said "random" cardiologist, I found out that it is the very doctor that my good friend, Lillian, works for. Lillian had a heart transplant several years ago and respects and loves this cardiologist and his wife. Good reference if you'd asked me!
-Our visits to the cardiologist's office were amazing. Mary, Dr. Douglas' wife, performed two of the echocardiograms, and we fell in love with her as well.
 -We have been referred to a surgeon, Dr. Rush Waller, who we have heard amazing things about from a close friend of mine and who has also performed caths for Lillian. Lill knows the Memphis cardiologist world pretty well, and I trust her opinion greatly.

Praise God for calming our fears with much of the above.

Sunday Bennett was baptized and it was such a sweet time with our family and friends.

My daddy baptized Bennett on Sunday.

Remember the pictures on this same couch 19 months ago? Yeah...the little boys have grown up quite a bit.

Braden truly adores his little brother.

Braden kissing on Bennett. This is a regular occurrence in our house.

Picture fails are probably my favorite part of parenting. I don't think I need to explain what was going on here.

We'll never have a great family shot again.

So many friends have surrounded us during this time with Bennett. We are so grateful for our church community, our small group, our family, our close friends, and the NICS community. Here are the Youngs with our little man.

Please pray for us as we prepare for Thursday with Bennett:
-Pray that the surgery would be successful and that the surgeon's hands would be steady.
-Pray for the emotional wreck of a person that I might be that morning. :)
-Pray for Jed and me as we see Bennett through the recovery hour. Specifically--please pray that Bennett would come out of anesthesia well and with no complications.
-Pray that the Holy Spirit would move on Thursday. Jed and I long to see Christ in everything, and we long to give Him glory for that.
-Pray that God would draw our family together through this. Jed and I have had some major stress on our marriage these last few months (personal issues, discipline issues with Braden, the chaos of two children, figuring out my work situation, etc.), but God has used it to draw us together in a really new way. We have been given opportunities to know each other in new ways, and our friendship has grown through that. Pray that this would continue and that we would feel and know the Holy Spirit is responsible and at work!

Thank you in advance for praying with us! We have been so humbled at the amount of people who have loved us well through this. God has truly blessed us beyond anything we deserve.

iPhone Dump

A week in March--in no particular order because I truly am not a perfectionist and do not feel like putting them in order. Get used to it. It's like a state of the union address. Whitney=scattered.

Nate, Ashley's fiance, plays the pedal steel for a band called Unkle Daddy. I'm not exactly the biggest country music fan, but this group could turn me into one. For real, ya'll.

They packed out the bar Saturday night and we had an awesome night.Braden and his friend, Ju-Ju rockin' the swings at the park. I'm not sure what Braden is more obsessed with--Ju-ju or swinging.
Only picture this month of me and hubs. A girl at church told me that when I don't have my kids, I act "fancy and free." This was our night out watching Unkle Daddy.

I like to think this is my fancy and free look.
Just to prove that this is what our house is like 70% of the time.
Our oldest B man loves to ride anything with wheels. When he's at his Grandpa's, he's begging to ride the Gator, and when he's with his Bapa, he's begging to ride the golf cart. Here is a depiction of my brain from 4-7 p.m. I made some delicious Beef Stroganoff in the crockpot and proceeded to make broccoli to go with it in the microwave. The next morning I opened the microwave to find this still in it. Brain=fried. Thank you, children.
My mamma smocks my boys stuff. I love it.
Bennett man. He's such a stud. And he's got me wrapped around his finger!
These boys rock my world. In the best way possible. They make me need Jesus. And boy do I need Jesus!

I Joined the Crazies!

This part is really hard for me to write about for some reason. I feel so incredibly weak and pitiful admitting some of this. I despise appearing that way, and I really despise being that way. This is not a moment where I need someone to tell me how wonderful I am. How I really am stronger because of all of this. Because simply--that is not true.

I really am broken. I really am shattered. And I have absolutely no hope in myself. I am so broken that all of this pitiful depression is just the very tip of the iceberg. It is worse than you think it is, and it is worse than I think it is.

But I know one thing: Because of Jesus’ finished work on the cross, God really does love me. He not only forgives me and overlooks my brokenness, he accepts Christ’s righteousness as mine.

I am preaching now because I need to be preached to. It is the only thing that keeps me from falling apart some days.

So here’s what it felt like at this point in the story:

I really struggled with the medicine thing. I have always thought that if people struggled with depression or anxiety, they could will themselves out of it. I thought that there was some way to pull myself up by my bootstraps, pray enough, or just be happy. I was wrong. I tried so hard. Those of you who have struggled with depression or anxiety or both know what I’m talking about--you know it’s ridiculous, you know that you shouldn’t be wallowing, you know that there’s more to life, but it doesn’t feel like it anymore. You suddenly have no control over your feelings and you suddenly cannot will yourself into contentment anymore. It is scary. I had nightmares every night that were dark and disturbing. I had mornings where the only reason I got out of bed was because I knew Braden would be in bad shape without me. I felt alone even though I had friends and family around.

So with the support of friends and family, I asked my doctor for medication. I told him about the nightmares and the anxiety and it did not take much before he gave me a little smile and confirmed that I was struggling with post-partum depression.

Woot.

I joined the crazies! I did. I left with a prescription for some anti-anxiety/anti-depression medication, and I took that stuff. And I was better for it. I slowly became myself again. I could give of myself to those around me again. I actually wanted to be with people again. And Jed and I—we started doing much better. I was pleasantly surprised that I did not feel extremely happy or different. I just felt normal. I could handle a difficult conversation or argument, and I didn’t have to hide after 10 minutes of being around people.

Tired of talking about it for now, so I’ll be writing a few light hearted blogs before I get back into the very serious and depressing stories.

The Baby Blues

Thanks to Brooke Ledbetter Photography, here's my favorite pic of my two boys. When I look at it, I feel like they might be perfect. But then I see Braden punch Bennett in the face. *Sigh*

Those of you who know her know that I am incredibly blessed with a mom who rocks. She really does. She was preggers at 18, had me at 19, and the rest is history. Because of her experiences—she pours herself into encouraging me and my sisters. She has always told me I have the ability to work hard enough to do whatever I wanted. She never put a stipulation on what occupation I chose—she wanted me happy more than she wanted for me to make millions or even a large number of thousands to buy her a ski boat. Although, I’m pretty sure she’d still like a ski boat. And if I can’t do that, she’d probably settle for a tennis court. She loves tennis almost as much as she loves Dad—what was I talking about?

I have ADD.

My mom also encouraged me to not have children young (I had already done what she’d said not to and gotten married at 19). Let me define “encouraged.” She threatened me. As in, “If you don’t finish college first and have a baby instead, I’ll kill you.” You don’t wanna make my mamma mad. Trust me. You see, my mamma knew something. She knew I was going to have a hard time. Because she had a hard time. She knew I’d look at that little boy straight in the eyes every time he woke me crying for a feeding, and she knew I’d fall in love to an extent I never fathomed. She knew I’d then be confused when at 11:30 in the morning, I’d want to run out the door and feel accomplished at a job or make some money and I’d feel sad so I’d want my first beer of the day. She knew that then I’d feel guilty for feeling like that and I’d beat myself up. She knew that then I’d look at that little boy again and cry because then I’d be happy again, and I’d never want to leave his side, and I’d want to kiss his little face, his soft hands, his perfect little feet—I’m gushing. And then I’d clean the house and get mad because Jed wasn’t helping me clean the stupid house and instead he was working and he got the fun job and got to keep his sexy body and run all the time while I got stretch marks and an extra 20 pounds I had to starve myself to lose. I didn’t really starve myself. But to me, eating healthy and dieting feels like starving. I like dessert. And bread. And wine. And dessert. And pizza. And dessert.

You with me still?

I am not trying to communicate that I was miserable. I am also not trying to communicate that I am not grateful for my son. Lastly, I am not blogging as an outlet for me to whine. Well, maybe sometimes, But that’s beside the point.

I am communicating that I was hormonal, happy, tearful, joyful, resentful, laughing, bitter, and content all rolled up in one ball. “Not possible,” you may say! Let’s have lunch.

So back to my rockin’ mom. All this time, she was saying that maybe I needed to consider that I might be struggling with some anxiety and some post-partum depression. Psh! Not me! I don’t do that. There is nothing wrong with me.

You see, my entire family knows that my life mantra is, “I do it myself!” You are stuck on the incomplete grammar part. Stop it. I was two when I adopted it as my own. My parents would attempt to sing along with a song I was singing, and I would explain to them my personal belief by desperately screaming, “I do it myself!” At the ripe old age of 26, I was still crying out, “I do it myself!” when my mom would suggest that I might need some help.

But I did eventually give in. When Braden was six months old, I had reached some sort of desperation. So I invited a friend over who was wise and who could speak into the subject. She’s a counselor, and she spent 5 minutes listening to me before she said. “You need some medicine, girl!”

And now--I'm going to get the entire pile of our belongings from behind our front door because I think Jed might want to walk in it to come home at some point. Poor thang. And sorry for the abrupt ending. I'll write more later.

The Anxiety Begins

After Braden was born (May of 2010), Jed began a normal adjustment period—exhaustion, frustration with our new life, joy in our son, getting used to my being a mom and wife, happy moments, rough moments, etc. And I began to be anxious.

I entered some very dark times. I worried constantly about what would happen to Braden. I worried about how I would get to him (literally 30 feet from my bed) in the middle of the night if someone broke in. I worried about whether or not he’d stop breathing in the middle of the night. I worried about what would happen to him if someone broke in, murdered Jed and me, and left him there helpless and alone. I worried I’d be raped. I had incredibly invasive thoughts in the middle of the day which would stop me in my tracks and literally cause me to weep in fear. I could not sleep at night for fear of missing something that happened to Braden. I cried on a very consistent basis—as in, every day at least once. My fears dangerously mingled with my emotions, and I was not myself.

During this time, I tried so many fixes to make it better. I knew that my fears were absurd, and I’d tell myself that even in the midst of an invasive thought, but it didn’t help. I’d quote Scripture, preach God’s promises to myself, and pray. These would work momentarily, but then my brain would wander and I’d begin a horrible scenario all over again. I’d feel guilty because I felt like I was not experiencing Braden the way that I was created to experience him. I felt ungrateful, sinful, and dirty for having these thoughts because I knew in my head that I had a healthy baby, a supportive husband, an incredibly loving family, etc. Who in their right mind would feel sad? Who in their right mind would have thoughts about things that had never threatened them before?

Don’t get me wrong. I also had moments of joy. Believe it or not, I fell more in love with Jed during this time period. He was so strong, so supportive, and so gentle with me. I also so enjoyed getting to know Braden and witnessing new life. I snuggled him and prayed for him and loved him. But I felt so fragile.

This entry is so depressing. Ha! Promise that it gets better....ish. :) But now I have to go watch Bennett grin. He's in a good mood, and I'm not about to miss his infant babble!

Bubye.

Your Maker is your Husband!

I saw this passage on a friend's blog today...

Fear not, for you will not be ashamed;
be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced;
for you will forget the shame of your youth,
and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
For your Maker is your husband,
the LORD of hosts is his name;
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the whole earth he is called.
For the LORD has called you
like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit,
like a wife of youth when she is cast off,
says your God.
For a brief moment I deserted you,
but with great compassion I will gather you.
In overflowing anger for a moment
I hid my face from you,
but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,”
says the LORD, your Redeemer.
Isaiah 54:4-8