The Tale of Two Preemies: Sentimental Value

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Sentimental Value

I had a garage sale last weekend. Of course, that meant going through tons of baby clothes and deciding what to sell and what to keep. It's not an easy task. One of the things I came across was a pair of socks. I set them aside and when Cole came home from school, he asked why I wasn't selling this particular pair of socks. I told him these socks had sentimental value. He wanted to know why. These are the socks I'm talking about:

This was Cole the day of his surgery to close his PDA (a small duct above the heart that normally closes after birth, technically it wasn't surgery, but they had to knock him out and do procedures and stuff). If you met Cole his first year of life, you wouldn't have noticed anything wrong with him, but he was small, he slept a lot, and his feet were always cold. I just chalked the latter up to a family trait. He always had socks on. He was the first one in that morning for his procedure, then he had to remain completely flat for 6 hours following, to make sure the site where they went in closed properly. We lost one of his socks at some point and while I was searching for it, Pat told me to touch his sockless foot. It was warm. For the first time in 14 months our baby's feet were warm!

I gave Cole the shortened version of that story and about teared up holding those socks. We had wondered whether this procedure was really necessary since he never seemed to have any ill effects of that duct, but we did what the doctors recommended. I guess warm feet were our sign that this was the right decision.

On a side note, one of the socks has gone missing again...

1 comment:

Kristi said...: Oh, that's a good story.

Don't bronze his socks, though, like people do with their baby's first shoes. I could never understand why people do that.; 10/21/2012 12:50 PM

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Cole's Story

Cole was born at 30 weeks 3 days, much to our surprise, in 2006. I went in to the hospital because I wasn't feeling well and was afraid I'd get dehydrated. I ended up being air lifted to a larger hospital where Cole was born 24 hours later. He weighed in at 4 lbs. 2 oz. and was 17" long. He had some developmental delays, mostly due to acid reflux. He also had positional plagiocephaly and was in a remolding helmet for 6 weeks. At 14 months he underwent a cardiac catheter procedure to close his PDA. At 25 months he tripped getting out of his kiddie pool and broke his femur. He was in a cast from his hips to his toes for 4 long weeks. He also broke his shoulder at age 5 1/2. His latest medical drama has been a cyst in his left ear. He's had his adenoids removed and another surgery to remove the cyst. He'll have a second surgery in August. He's been through the ringer, but you'd never know it. He just rolls with the punches. He's 100% farm boy. He wants to know how everything works and why. He loves the farm. Farming is definitely in his blood.

Tate's Story

Tate was born at 34 weeks 2 days in 2008. Since I had a previous premature delivery, I was on high alert for another one. It didn't help. We had ultrasound after ultrasound and everything looked great. Tate, however, was not patient. I was admitted to the hospital with preterm labor. He held off for a couple of days, but was still born early. He weighed 5 and a half pounds and was 19" long. Fortunately he had no problems and was released from the hospital 3 days after he was born. He was born the middle child. He desperately wants to do what his big brother does, but has his own interests and wants Cole do to those with him. He's my trouble-maker, fit-thrower, and snuggle bug.