Excerpt

Chapter One
In the Beginning

The birth of our youngest daughter on August 31, 2003 changed the life of each member of our family in ways none of us could possibly have imagined.

Lora was so purple and wrinkled when she first came out. When she cried she hit high notes that sounded like a teapot going crazy.

While she lay on the weigh scale, she flailed her arms and legs all around, sometimes in quick jerking motions. She had been in her cocoon for nine months and she didn’t know what to do with all of the extra room she had now. It reminded me of the motions we sometimes make when we lean back in a chair a little too far, and start to fall backwards. Then, at the last possible second, the chair rights itself and the front legs hit the floor. She must have been experiencing that disconcerting, off balance feeling big time.

The first time I held her, she felt so tiny and light in my arms. It is truly amazing to realize that every one of us started out so small and fragile.

I stayed with my wife, Michelle, and Lora for the entire three days that they were kept at the hospital. We finally headed home with our precious gift. We picked up our two older daughters, Heather and Kacie, along the way. They had been staying at a relative’s house while we were at the hospital.

For the first little while we kept her in our bedroom. She wasn’t adapted yet to sleeping through the night and Michelle and I got to share the experience with her. We spent many days carrying tired faces and bleary eyes.

During this period, Lora started pooping – a lot! She got really good at it. She became a lean, mean, pooping machine. It wasn’t long before I became a master at changing diapers.

At some point in November, Michelle became aware that she could not express milk from her right breast. In addition, she said she could feel a very large, hard area just above the nipple. She asked me to check it out. There was an area about three inches around that was very solid to the touch.

We waited a few days so we could monitor the area for any apparent changes. When we found no improvement, Michelle made an appointment at the local clinic to have the breast looked at

The practitioner examined the area and said that it was probably blocked milk ducts. That is usually what causes that type of hardness in the breasts of new mothers. Blocked milk ducts, it seems, are not all that uncommon.

As a starting point some medication was prescribed and a follow-up appointment made. Michelle took the medications as instructed, but after a couple of weeks there was absolutely no change in the hardness or size of the target area.

Since the pills didn’t work, the practitioner recommended that Michelle should have a mammogram performed at a nearby hospital. A date and time were set and on the appointed day we drove to the hospital.

I sat in the waiting room while she had her mammogram. In about forty-five she was back and we left for home. We couldn’t have the official results until a qualified doctor looked at the pictures.

The next day a representative from the hospital and told Michelle that no real determination could be made, because there was too much breast tissue to get a clear view. This is a fairly common problem regarding young women, and at twenty-nine, Michelle certainly fit into that category.