Last But Not Least
A funny story I have to share for this one. During the life ordeal with our sixth child, my husband was scheduled to have a vasectomy. Let's just say, we decided to have one more night of fun the night before the surgery. We now have Obadiah, our seventh and last son. My pregnancy with Obadiah was difficult. I was very sick and even had to spend three days in the hospital for pneumonia. I also gained more weight than with any pregnancy, had gestational diabetes, and many other health issues. I was due in January and we had snow on the ground in Virginia Beach. Everything stops when it snows here. I had to travel about forty minutes from our home to get to a military hospital for delivery. I knew with this being child number seven, my labor would go quickly. Sure enough, I went into labor in the morning hours. My husband took his time getting out the door. I was about to strangle him! I knew I would need pain control and was scared that I would no make it to the hospital in time. I did make it to the hospital in time, however, things went down hill from there. I had the most horrible experience of my life here, and I could have died. A student attempted to give me an epidural. She failed, and hit a nerve instead and shot pain down my right let. It was so bad, that it made me jerk. The attending had to step in and had to put in a spinal instead. Due to my medical conditions, narcotics have no effect on me for pain control. However, most doctors do not believe me when I tell them this. The only thing they would give me for pain management was a narcotic in the spinal. I did nothing for me. I felt every part of the labor and delivery. After giving birth, the nurse seemed a little concerned. As time went on, it became apparent that something was wrong with me. Obadiah was great, healthy, and a handsome little boy. I, on the other hand, was hemorrhaging. At first doctors thought just had a week uterus, but they soon discovered that the placenta had grown into the uteran wall. Without any pain management, the doctors did blind sweeps of my uterus. This is essentially the same thing as a D&C, but done without instruments. It was the most painful thing I have experienced in my life. Each time, they swept for five minutes. They did this at least six times. Praise God, they were successful and the bleeding slowed. I ended up losing almost 25% of my blood volume. After being moved to the Postpartum ward, I began to have a severe headache. Somehow during the whole process, the spinal had been pulled out and I had leaked spinal fluid all over the bed. The sheet behind me was soaking wet. It was a very painful experience. If this had been my first child, I would have never had another child.
It took some time to heal and overcome the trauma of everything. I just chose to focus on the amazing little boy we had. He was so perfect. He was quiet, he ate great, slept well, and was so comforting to hold and cuddle. When he was two months old, I noticed that he wasn't holding his head up as well as he should. I mentioned it to the doctor. At six months, it was apparent that something was wrong. He was diagnosed with what we call floppy baby syndrome. He had very loose muscle tone and hyper-mobile joints. He clearly has EDS like I do, but to a more severe degree. We began physical therapy to help strengthen his muscles. Obadiah did not let this stop him one bit. He was strong and continued to progress to crawling and sitting up and standing. I know having six brothers have been a huge motivator for him. His brothers have learned to be careful with him and I love watching how they love on him. Obadiah is now a year old. Due to the extreme weakness and flexibility of his ankles, he will be getting AFOs to help support him so that he hopefully will walk soon. I can see that nothing is going to stop this little man. I'm going to enjoy every minute of him, as I know he is my last child, and they grow so quickly!