Our little son, 4 lbs 10 oz

In memory of Sebastien Lafrance

August 14, 2010

I just wanted to update you about what happened with our baby. Last Tuesday I went to Rush in Chicago because I started having mild contractions. I stayed overnight, ending at 4 cm. They said I could be induced or go home and wait to see what happens and I decided to go home.

On Saturday, August 14, I woke up at 1 in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. At 3 A.M. my contractions started to get worse. I tried to wait until Olivia woke up and by 8 A.M. we were on the road. By the time I arrived at the hospital, I was 8 cm and yelling for an epidural. Sebastien (Stéphane wanted to name him the French spelling) was coming out just as they had put the epidural in, hands first.

I heard the doctor mention that he may need to do a C-section. We knew the baby was breech but we didn’t know the hands would be out first. He did an ultra sound to see where the baby was positioned and actually took the hands out, then he went inside and grabbed the feet and then I pushed the head out. The baby was 4 lbs 10 ounces and had soft bones because of the lack of amniotic fluid so the doctor was able to get him out without any tearing which was a miracle in itself.

The baby looked a lot like Olivia with her lips, chin and chubby cheeks. He had light brown hair. He had some deformities because he didn’t have any amniotic fluid to shelter him but he still looked like a little cute baby. He didn’t wake up but he was alive (with a heartbeat) for 3 ½ hours so he was pink and rosy and we got to hold him which was a blessing. He passed away at 3 P.M.

We believe he made a frown when Stéphane touched his stomach (Stéphane is very ticklish also) but we aren’t sure if it really happened or it was that his head may have been moved to where he appeared to made a frown. At one point while he was laying down, his hand was up by his mouth like he was trying to suck his thumb and the nurse said she hadn't positioned it that way. So again, we weren't sure if he did that or not. It would have been nice if he had been alert or awake so we could see his character but on the other side, he may have been in a lot of pain if he was awake because of his physical issues. We aren’t sure. Olivia was there and she was a great big sister, stroking his arm and kissing his head, telling him how cute he was.

So those are the facts but of course, it was very heartbreaking. Despite the outcome, we couldn’t have asked for it to have gone any better except for him to be alive. The nurses were amazing, it was pretty much a miracle how the delivery went and that I arrived on time (Can you imagine Stéphane having to deliver a breech baby in the car?), Olivia was able to get to see him, we were able to hold him, we don’t think he was in pain and based on his physical problems which were evident when he was born there wasn’t any doubt that he couldn’t have lived with them so there wasn’t any second guessing or should we have done something differently. It was a nice day outside and it seemed very peaceful.

The hardest part was leaving the hospital without him. We went outside with fast traffic in Chicago, the day bright and sunny, people going about their daily lives and he was never even able to leave the hospital. There is something very wrong when a baby is left behind and never gets to go out into the sunlight.

Hopefully, he will get a shot at life some other time.

For the first night I kept dreaming I was giving birth over and over and the babies were passing away. It was pretty horrible. However, in the dream one baby came out talking which was strange and one baby was delivered by Dr. Oz from television. Even in the worst of circumstances it seems I still have a crazy imagination.

I thought it would be easier after the hard part of the birth was over. But the hardest part started after he was born. During the eight months, I always had that 1% hope that a miracle would happen. After your child passes away, all hope is gone. He is gone and nothing is going to bring him back. We see what might have been with his little chubby hands, his tiny fingers and his body which even though it's frail is still the baby we wanted. We can have other children but they will never be the one that we lost.

We will be okay. We dont' have any other choice. It’s hard but there is nothing we can do but get through it. Our story is one that many parents have gone through and yet it's very individual because the child you cry for the most is always your own. As you know, our cat Ghost died a month ago. I told Sebastien while he was still alive that a fluffy gray cat was waiting for him in heaven so he won't be alone. It’s sort of nice to think they will have each other until we can see them again.

I hope God exists or else we are all in this cruel joke called life together.

A Disconcerting Year

In January, I found out I was pregnant.

In April, I left my job because I wanted to be there for our two young children.
In my office at home, I wrote down, "2010 The Best Year Yet."
I was going to start writing more, I was going to take care of the baby and be there for our daughter, I finally had enough courage to leave my job without feeling guilty. I was ready and excited for a change.

In May, we found out the baby's bladder was blocked. The urine somehow helps produce the amniotic fluid so with his bladder blocked, I didn't have any amniotic fluid for the baby's lungs to develop. I remember the last words the doctor said that day as we were leaving, "I wouldn't have much hope."

We started having a bunch of tests and we were sent to a specialist in Chicago. We were ushered to a room with a conference table as a team of people filed in: a social worker, a doctor, a nurse and a chaplain. We were told there wasn't any chance. Our baby was going to die. I was 5 months so we could either have a late stage abortion in another state or the baby would end up stillborn or die after a day. Those were the choices. There wasn't a reason why, just a fluke of nature.


Ghost, his last month
Around that same time, another one of our cats started losing weight, Ghost. This time it wasn't as simple as a thyroid problem like with our other cat. For several months we did every test the vet could think of. After about six vet visits, $1000 dollars and many months of worrying, Ghost died on July 8th. He waited until I came home from a trip, I brushed him for a hour (his favorite thing) and I held him as the light went out of his eyes. We were never able to find out what was wrong with him which was the hardest part. A cat that sat on my computer desk for 10 years while I did my writing, a cat that looked at me like I was everything was suddenly gone without any explanation.

In June, a stray cat came up to our front porch when my daughter was watering the plants and he stayed on our porch for three weeks. He wouldn't leave and if he walked off the porch he would run back as soon as he could as if he found his home and that was it, he wasn't budging.

My daughter named him Cutie Pie. We didn't want more pets, we had enough. But by the third week of him trying to get in the front door and his health going downhill from being outside, I finally gave in. When nobody will do anything it is when somebody has to step up and do the right thing. We took him to the vet and they told us he has FIV, Feline Aids. People and other animals can't catch this, it's a species specific disease. Other than that, he was quite healthy. Cats can get this who roam outside. It's from a cat biting another cat, usually males protecting their territory. Cats with FIV shouldn't really be with other cats which meant I wouldn't be able to keep him. More bad news because now I was attached.

The vet told us we should probably put him down given the circumstance. It's hard to adopt out an FIV positive cat. For a moment I thought about putting him down. I was tired of everything bad happening and I couldn't take anymore. How would we find a home for this cat and I didn't know much about FIV. But clarity came back and I told him no, my baby was dying, my cat died and this cat deserves to be saved because he can be.

So my 2010 Best Year Yet on my dry erase board is still there in my office. But I can tell you, this will not be the best year yet, this will be the worst year. Life has a way of showing you that you are not in charge of it, it is in charge of you. The only thing you can control is your response to the events that happen. So I am waiting. Waiting for the last bad thing to happen in September, when the baby dies and hopefully, we can hold him for a few hours and tell him goodbye. That we held out and let God take him rather than deciding his fate early on. I wasn't going to be the one to end my child's life.

We all have bad years. Someone said we see people everyday, pushing carts in grocery stores, walking past us at work, but we never know the tragedies they've had to deal with in life or the ones they are dealing with at the moment. The best thing and the only thing to do is to wait it out and put one foot forward because the one thing that gets you through it all is time.



Cutie Pie, the saved cat

Back in Black

January 1st is the one day most of the world feels hope. Hope that we can wipe the slate clean and through our own individual resolutions conquer whatever problems plagued us last year. Hope that this year will be the one that changes everything. Hope that people will be kinder, our jobs will be easier, the economy stronger and the world a happier place-we all believe that on this day, change for the better is possible.


I have neglected my blog for a while now. A child, housework, the job, after preschool activities like swimming and ballet have started for my daughter. Everything has to be done and nothing seems to progress except daily living-one day at a time. Looking back a few things have happened that have been good. I now write a column for a small newspaper which reaches about 110,000 people. My husband lost his long time job only to find a better one six months later. My beautiful 13 year-old cat, which is smart enough to hit me with his paw when he wants to be pet (and unfortunately, it comes about when I am already sleeping in bed) was losing weight drastically. I was worried it was kidney or liver failure and it turned out to be a thyroid condition where he just has to take a pill everyday. God was with me on that one. And of course, the best, my daughter is healthy and happy. We take children's health for granted because they are young, but at any moment life has a way of changing. Ask those who have experienced it.

So what are my resolutions? On our way to Canada to see my husband's parents, I wrote in my notebook my resolutions. I separated mine into categories: health, house, financial and of course writing. With each category, I had about five to ten resolutions underneath them. My husband, well, my husband ended up with one and a half. Actually, he made up the half one since I told him one of his resolutions should be not to forget things all the time. He said he's going to check out a book on memory techniques someday from the library. Um, right.

How long will they last? I don't know, but with resolutions we try and we hope and that's all we can do. If we ever stop trying, then we should consider ourselves perfect and frankly, I don't believe that exists in anyone.

So here's to 2010. Where it will lead us, we don't know yet. But just like last year, I will hope that we will all be better by the end of it.

A LIttle Girl in Pigtails

This past weekend we went to the Gap Casting Call, a contest which is across the country for babies and kids. You can enter at home or go to the sessions at the store where a professional photographer will take your child's picture and you can download it at home and then enter. They pick twenty finalists and then people vote on the website for the winner. There were so many adorable looking children at the mall that I can't imagine having to pick twenty among hundreds if not, thousands of children.

We arrived at the mall at 10 A.M. and they gave us a ticket to come back at 4:00 P.M. The exact time she happens to take her nap. When we came back at 3:30 P.M. they were running early so we had to immediately wake her up to take the picture. Poor girl. But I think it turned out quite well considering she was still tired.

Let's Celebrate. You've Gone Potty!

We are training our two year-old daughter to go on the potty chair. If you are a parent, you remember those days of potty dances, treats and the like just for the great achievement of either aiming in a precise spot or sitting on the potty "like the big girls/boys do."

A few weeks ago, our daughter wanted to celebrate and cheer on another person who has reached the achievement of going to the bathroom by herself: a Sam's Club worker. I took her to the public bathroom in the store where she listened intently to someone going to the bathroom in the stall next to us. After the toilet was flushed, she opened up her eyes wide and sent a barrage of cheering and clapping to the woman next to us. Consequently, doing the "potty dance" in an extremely small bathroom stall and then throwing a cheer to the woman next to us: "You've gone potty! Yeah!"

To Find Prince Charming You Must Kiss a Frog, or Two, or Twenty

My track record with doctors has been all but deplorable these past years. Here is an outtake from the X-Files.

My first jaunt into the unknown came several years ago when I needed to go to an urologist. I pick out a doctor on my insurance list that sounded like he has a nice name and his office was close to my house. The first warning should have been that his office was in an outlet mall and that he drove an old banged-up black Buick which he parks in the parking space directly next to his front door. I believe one of his windows was broken out.

I end up having my doctor’s appointment not in a room but at the receptionist’s desk because he only has two rooms and both are occupied. Apparently, these two rooms are separated only by an array of carefully stacked filing cabinets, with no ceiling in site. How do you like that for patient confidentiality!

On another visit, I noticed that he had all of his equipment, patient files and machines in the patient rooms. Yellow spots of God knows what and dirt were usually on them. I gave him the benefit of the doubt because he had newspaper articles written about how great he was and they were framed poignantly on the walls in his office. At another visit, a patient tells me, “And why do you come here if you don’t have to?” Apparently, the doctor is the Mecca for patients with no or low-cost insurance plans, which luckily, I’m not part of. She said, “If I were you, I would run, not walk out of this office.” After that visit, I left for good. And it didn’t finish there. He starts leaving messages at my house at 8:00 P.M. at night telling me I have to come back for more appointments. “We’re not finished yet!”
I think I met the ultra-ego of Dr. Frankenstein in that man.

Second incident, The Dentist X-File: I pick a dentist out of my provider list. I start to have doubts when I go to my appointment and it is in the back of a low-cost clinic and he has no receptionist, no nurse, nothing. As I walk in, he has one dentist chair which is consequently right in the middle of his one-room office, with a light streaming down above onto the middle of the chair. It looked very close to one of those sci-fi movies where the aliens strap abductees in a chair with mental equipment all over and then stand around and experiment on them. He tries to sell me a toothbrush for $5.00 that he picked up from Walgreens for a dollar (I saw the tag) and keeps asking me in broken English, “Are you sure none of your teeth hurt?”

Then I go to a new dentist, who again I pick out from the insurance list. After that visit, my tooth that she fixed starts to hurt. I call the office. She apparently sold her office to a new dentist who didn’t have the decency to tell me this important fact until I’m sitting in his dentist chair about to get serviced and that my chart has been lost, so we’ll have to start all over. By the end of the visit, he wants to refill all of the cavities and dental work I had done five months ago by the other dentist. I file a complaint against the second dentist. The insurance company calls me and says they have to drop the complaint because the second dentist has disappeared.

Yesterday, I went to see another medical specialist for the first time, again picking his name out because it sounded professional. As I park in the parking lot, I see a somewhat dilapidated old building. I walk by a window and notice what appears to be duck tape holding a crack together on a window. I go in the office and notice a patch of dirt on the wall, the kind which seems prevalent in the bathrooms of fast food Chinese restaurants. My instincts tell me it’s a foreshadowing of what’s to come. I say to myself, “Oh God.”

I’m in the waiting room. Out from the door pops this 80 year-old man in a lab coat asking for Mrs. Collier. I’m the only one there so I assume it’s me. I follow behind him as he shuffles through a security door like you would find in the ER and into a room which again, has a little dirt on the wall and some paper clips loose on the floor. He didn’t introduce himself and I’m thinking, “Is this some elderly 80 year-old nurse or is he the doctor?”
He immediately says in a perturbed voice, “So what’s wrong with you?”

It just got worse from there. I think he had a previous stroke or an onset of dementia because he kept asking me the same questions, then looking at an old coffee stained doctors manual he kept in his pocket and then only looked up when it came to thinking about what he had to say, never at me.

I told him I get migraines before my period. And here it is. At the end of the visit, when he is telling the receptionist what to do for my follow-up he says, “Here is a prescription for your migraines. This should help you when you get your surprise.” Surprise? I never thought I would here an 80 year-old male doctor refer to a period as "the surprise"???

I do have several good doctors in my repertoire now. Some I’m still working on. So my advice: don’t pick a dentist or other type of doctor from your insurance website just because the name sounds good or you’ll end up with a lot of frogs. So if the doctor's name is something like Dr. Arnold Finklestink, based on his name, he just might be your prince charming of a doctor in disguise.