Trouble-maker, Mess-maker, FUN-maker

How my middle child is defying expectations

Trigger warning: this post discusses pregnancy loss and infant death

I did not intend to write about Henry today, but he is on my mind because he is home sick from preschool with a fever and boogery nose. This seems to be the norm in this age group; with such young immune systems exposed to outside biomes for the first time, it seems that every other week they bring back something. Henry, more than my eldest, has given us the most run for our money when it has come to sickness. He is the only one to have had croup; he has enlarged adenoids that are candidates for surgical removal; he could probably benefit from a tube in at least one ear; he is my only one to have ever actually needed antibiotics to get over an acute illness.

Those are just the mild examples

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Just in the past 6 months he has choked on food at least twice, one of those times requiring the Heimlich maneuver. If you have ever had to perform that technique, doing it for your child is about as horrifying as you can imagine. Besides that, he passed out while vomiting and had to be rushed to the emergency room. He has had to undergo testing for a possible cardiomyopathy.

Henry is “that kid” in the family. I, however, will always know him as my Rainbow Baby.

For those of you who do not know, a Rainbow Baby is one who is born after the loss of a previous child. In Henry's case, he was born a year after we lost our daughter. I prayed so hard when we were trying to conceive him; I prayed for another child to come and fill the void that was left by our Evie. Years later, I now know that the void of a deceased child is never truly filled, and in Henry's case, he has made a place for himself in our family that is all his own, loud and proud!

I was in my last year of residency when I was expecting Henry. I was absolutely determined to do everything in my power to have a healthy pregnancy. By that time, I had already been a type 2 diabetic for two years and was taking metformin. I had struggled through two pregnancies complicated by high blood sugars. I had not returned to my pre-pregnancy weight after Evelynn when I finally did conceive Henry, so any weight I gained during this third pregnancy was excessive.

I had the opportunity to do an outpatient elective rotation with a family doctor who ran a weight loss clinic. I learned the in's and out's of managing weight loss medications and the associated diseases of obesity. The recommended reading for the rotation was Jason Fung's The Obesity Code. The impact this book had on my life was tremendous to say the least, and I discuss other details of it in an older post that you can read here: https://cassandratamayo.substack.com/p/2-fast

The long and short of it is that it not only saved my life, but probably Henry's, too.

The following is NOT GOOD MEDICAL ADVICE, so do not take it as such, but the fact is that I started fasting at least 16 hours daily during the second half of my pregnancy with Henry. The result was that as my baby (and gravid belly) continued to grow, my jeans hung looser around my thighs and butt. My long-sleeved shirts became baggy. I was requiring less insulin than anticipated. Henry was still considered large for gestational age, but I think it probably would have been far, far worse had I not radically changed my lifestyle right then and there.

Henry was induced at 35 weeks and one day gestational age for low fetal movement and a borderline fetal heart tracing. With my history of stillbirth my doctors did not want to chance it again. Henry was a whopping 7 pounds almost on the dot. For perspective, the average baby at 40 weeks gestational age is about 6 pounds if they are healthy. Henry’s delivery was prolonged because he was head-down but face-up when born, and he required continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) for several hours after birth. He was hypoglycemic as he withdrew from my blood supply, and he had periods of apnea (he stopped breathing temporarily) and bradycardia (slow heart rate) requiring treatment with caffeine which bought him an extra week in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). It was a stressful twelve days in the NICU, but he made it, and he is thriving. He is a little miracle, as all children are.

Little did I know that the best was yet to come.

Henry has proven himself to be a rainbow in more than one way. Rainbow Babies are called such because the rainbow is God's sign of hope and promise for better days to come. That was absolutely the case with Henry. He is very different from his older brother - more temperamental, less patient, hungrier, more energetic. The most beautiful thing to watch was how his relationship with Wes blossomed. When we lost Evie, Wesley understood that something bad had happened, and the little sister he would talk to in my tummy, whose little feet he would push on through my skin, he would never meet. When I was pregnant with Henry, he enthusiastically talked to him, said his name, listened to his heartbeat through my doppler I bought for the home, and felt for his feet when he kicked me. When we brought Henry home for the first time, he heard Wesley’s voice and looked directly at him as knowingly as he looked at me. They had (and have) the most amazing bond that brothers can have. For Henry, it is obvious that he admires his older brother; for Wesley, he adores his younger sibling all the more because of a subliminal appreciation for the siblinghood he almost did not have.

As an individual, Henry is without a doubt mischievous. Even his preschool teacher tells us that he never stops moving, and she reassures us that this is a good and normal thing for little boys. Henry loves being outside, and he particularly loves the sunshine. He makes a point to admire the beauty of the sunlight glistening on the river, or the sunrise peeking just above the open plains of farmland that surround our home. When it is overcast, he is genuinely sad, dare I say even depressed sometimes. He seems particularly susceptible to lethargy and fatigue when it is cloudy or rainy, and this worries me at times, but we try to stay reassuring and upbeat, reminding him that the sun is still there, just snuggled up under a cloudy blanket. That seems to comfort him. Only time will tell how that emotional development will all play out.

Henry is our rainbow because he was our gift after the worst rainstorm of our lives. As much as the pain of losing Evelynn still hurts like it was yesterday, we might not have Henry if it was not for our loss. He is so full of life - boisterous, messy, passionate in anger and affection - that he cannot help but leave an impression wherever he goes. And that is exactly what he has done. He has not filled the void of his sister, but rather made his own mark on our hearts like a tattoo. And like the stereotype of a tattoo, traditionally rebellious, adventurous, and carefree, I pray that by being genuinely Henry, he will make as wonderful a mark on the world someday

Above: Henry meeting his baby brother for the first time