thekurths.com

Before and After

Another cute thing I keep forgetting to post...


39 weeks	43 weeks

A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. --Carl Sandburg

This is pretty overdue, but for those who made a guess in the baby pool, here are the results: Link. We decided to name the baby after whoever won, so thanks to all the guys who guessed wrong! You saved our little girl years of heartache.

Kaeta's Favorite Song

Kaeta's favorite song (so far -- she's only heard a few) is apparently the Bob Marley classic "No Woman, No Cry." I found this out because she was crying inconsolably, and that was the song that popped into my head to sing to her (for obvious reasons), and she immediately stopped crying and became happy again!

That was a couple of days ago, and I've used it several times since then with great success!

But today it didn't work. I started to dispair, but then I remembered that I have an mp3 of "No Woman, No Cry" that I bought from iTunes (it's the cover version by The Fugees). I started playing it, and she instantly stopped crying and got this very focussed look, like she was trying to figure out how music works. Very, very cool.

Music we've played for her includes Handel, Mozart, Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, and The Fugees. Her favorite so far is The Fugees. Well, whatever! :-)

Savvy Marketting

For Kaeta's baptism, she received this picture frame:

It's very nice of course, but note the sticker on the glass:

Now, exactly what sliver of the picture frame market doesn't know that you can personalize the frame with your own photo?? This frame manufacturer spent money having that sticker designed, printed, and applied to its frames because it thought there would be some return on that investment. Someone out there must be comparing two frames and saying to themselves, "Well, this one lets me personalize it with my favorite picture, but with this one I'm stuck with a stock photo. I'll go with Option A!"

Weird.

Baptism, the "visible Gospel"

This Sunday, November 13, Kaeta will be baptized. This has gotten me thinking about baptism, what it means, should she really be baptized as an infant when she won't really understand what's happening, etc.

In the Lutheran church, baptism is considered a sacrament -- a sacred act, instituted by God, "in which there are certain visible means connected to His word." In a sacrament, "God offers, gives, and seals unto us the forgiveness of sins which Christ has earned for us." (I'm quoting from Luther's small catechism.)

Does baptism meet this definition? It has visible means (water) connected to God's word (because God commands baptism in Matthew 28, and baptism is made in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost). We know that God forgives sins in baptism, because Peter says in Acts 2:38, "repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins." So baptism is definitely a sacred act in which God forgives sins.

Is it magic, then? Could we drive a fire truck around spraying everyone we see with the hose and blaring "in the name of the Father, ..." over the P.A.?

Nope. In Mark 16:16, the Lord says "He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned." Unbelievers are condemned regardless of baptism, so it's not magic. From this verse, it looks like baptism is not absolutely necessary, since lack of baptism isn't what condemns. But, baptism is intimately tied to belief, so all believers should be baptized.

What about Kaeta? Is she a believer? Does that even make sense? I mean, she's not even a month old!

People (including Luther) often quote, "Go make disciples of all nations, baptising them..." (from Matthew 28:19) and interpret "nations" to mean "everyone" (including infants). Also, proponents of infant baptism site events like an entire household being baptized (an in Acts 16:33, for example). The whole household may have included infants -- the Bible certainly doesn't explicitly rule them out anywhere, so why shouldn't we baptize infants?

To be honest, I don't find those arguments that compelling. I mean, they sort of fit, but it's not 100% clear from those passages that the apostles baptized infants. And it does seem like baptism might be more of a rite of passage for people who believe (like the Ethiopian eunuch who gets baptized in Acts 8:38, right after coming to faith). But writings from early church fathers make it pretty clear that they practiced infant baptism. For example, 66 bishops at the Council of Carthage in 254 said: "We ought not hinder any person from Baptism and the grace of God..... especially infants. . . those newly born." Earlier than that, Origen (185-254) wrote in his Commentary on Romans 5:9: "For this also it was that the church had from the Apostles a tradition to give baptism even to infants. For they to whom the divine mysteries were committed knew that there is in all persons a natural pollution of sin which must be done away by water and the Spirit." I pulled those examples from this article, which is short and pretty good.

But still, how in the world can baptism make any sense for Kaeta? She won't have the slightest idea what's going on.

I recently read a short book about baptism ("Welcome to the Family!", by Richard A. Melheim), and it had some interesting thoughts about this. Basically, you have to ask yourself, who is doing the work in baptism? Is being baptized something you do for God (out of obedience, etc.), or something God does for you? I think it's God's gift to you, since you are baptized "for the remission of sins" (Acts 2:38 again). Also, 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, "For by one Spirit we were all baptized..." The Holy Spirit is at work in baptism, washing away our sins, giving us new life, and making us part of His family. To quote from Melheim's book,

God is the initiator of life, of love, and of faith. To assume that God cannot accept a child unless the child first accept God is to place the responsibility for faith in the wrong court. God is the lover. "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

Having said that, I wasn't baptized as an infant. Even after I became a Christian, I wasn't baptized for over 2 years -- I didn't really understand baptism or that it was important. I still have a lot to learn about it 11 years later.

Our pastor in Pittsburgh told us something like this: In baptism, the Old Adam (aka, sinful nature) is drowned, and we are raised to new life in Christ. We are given a new name, the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. When you were growing up and you misbehaved, did your parents ever say something like, "You are a Kurth! Kurths don't behave that way?" Your family name defines you are in some sense, and no less the name you receive in baptism -- it defines who you are, and to whom you belong. And it is never too late to return to Him, to repent and receive again the benefits of baptism. Luther said we should remember our baptism daily. When we make the sign of the cross in prayer or in worship, we remember our baptism, and the family to which we now belong. This Sunday, Kaeta will join that family, too!

"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried there with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father we too might walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:3-4)

Our ~~year~~ (okay, week) in the hospital

Before I begin the saga of how Kaeta spent her first week out of the womb in the hospital's Neonatal ICU, I'd better give an update:

Kaeta is acting healthy, eating well, and gaining weight. However, while she was in the NICU after being born, the doctors took an x-ray and noticed a growth near one of her ovaries. This is not uncommon in newborn girls, and it typically goes away on its own. So, yesterday we went in for a follow-up ultrasound to determine if it was in fact shrinking or gone already. Today we met with Dr. Josephs (a pediatric surgeon) to interpret the ultrasound.

Well, it turns out that this thing actually grew. It is most likely, according to Dr. Josephs, either an ovarian cyst or a growth on the intestine. Neither is terribly good -- an ovarian cyst could grow, cause the ovary to twist, and end up killing it. If it's a growth on the intestine, it could end up causing the intestine to rupture.

So, most likely it will need to be removed. At the doctor's suggestion, we're going to wait a month and check it again -- there's still some chance that it will go away in that time. If it's the same size or larger, we'll have it removed. The surgery is a pretty routine laparoscopy. To give some idea of what we're talking about, this growth is nearly 4cm long and about 2-3cm across.

Now, here's the NICU saga, the way we found out about this growth in the first place. Here's the sequence of events, as accurately as I can remember them:

- Sunday, Oct. 16, 12:33AM: Kaeta is born.

- Same day, early afternoon: Her temperature is a little low (96.5), so she's put on a warming table in the nursery for a little while, then brought back to our room.

- Same day, mid-afternoon: Her temperature is low again. Worried that she may have some kind of infection, nurses take her to the NICU for observation. She was at risk of an infection because Karianne was Group B Strep positive (not normally a big deal, it just meant she got an antibiotic in her IV during labor) and ran a fever during labor.

- Sometime in there, nurses notice that Kaeta's stomach is a little bit distended. This may indicate fluid in the abdomen, which could be a sign of some pretty bad things (e.g., liver failure, ruptured intestine).

- Monday: An X-ray indicates that there is indeed some fluid in her abdomen. Blood tests are ordered.

- Tuesday: The blood tests show that her liver is fine. In fact, everything appears more or less fine. We are still waiting for her first bowel movement, so that's a concern. (Years from now, I'm sure Kaeta will be very appreciative that I blogged to the whole universe about her incontinence.)

- Wednesday: We'd better figure out what this fluid is, so arrangements are made for a radiologist (Dr. Banks) to remove some of the fluid from her belly with a needle, using ultrasound to guide him. This is scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Kaeta gets her first bowel movement, to thunderous applause from her parents. Seriously, we almost saved it for the scrapbook.

- Thursday: An emergency comes up and Dr. Banks has to reschedule for Friday. This was a long day.

- Friday: From the ultrasound, Dr. Banks determines that the fluid is gone! Apparently it wasn't serious, and it was absorbed by Kaeta's body. However, there is still something solid there, and we should check up on that in about 2 weeks. It is fairly late in the day, so the NICU nurses tell us that Kaeta will most likely be released the next day. That night, she gets to stay in the hospital room with us.

- Saturday: A day of utter disappointment, or rather, of hopes dashed. Kaeta will not be released, because she has not gained any weight yet. So far she has lost less weight on each successive day, so it looks like that will turn around soon, but they want another data point before they will discharge her. Of course, that extra data point is extra grueling for her Mom and Dad.

- Sunday: She lost even less weight this day (still not gaining). We're told she will be discharged and that we should go put our things in the car and get ready to take her home. All she needs is a final assessment by a nurse practitioner.

- Around noon, we're told that her final assessment had a snag: Kaeta was extremely jittery the whole time, which might be a sign of low blood sugar. They want to take her blood sugar level once more before releasing her. This has to be done when she is really hungry, so we'll have to wait two hours. If her blood sugar is too low, they will have to keep her longer.

- The longest two hours in history later, they take some blood.

- The longest 10 minutes in history (this 10 minutes was actually longer than the preceding 2 hours) later, her blood count is fine and we can go home. Here we are, about to leave the NICU:

So, there you have it. I've left out many details -- during this whole week, we went up to the NICU about every 3-4 hours to feed Kaeta... Somewhere in there we spent two nights at a Catholic charity hotel (nice place!)... Karianne was in a wheelchair most of the week... Yada yada yada.

Now, let me sum up with a weird side effect this has had for me.

During most of that week in the NICU, I did not feel like Kaeta needed to be there. I'm not medically trained in the least, but like most people, I get gut feelings about things, and I just felt like (1) Kaeta didn't have an infection (which she did not), (2) the fluid was going to go away on its own (which it did), (3) she was going to gain weight fine without any special intervention (which she is), and (4) her blood sugar was fine (which it is). As far as the jittering goes, heck, I'm kind of jittery, maybe she just gets it from me!

I submitted to the authority of the doctors, but somewhat reluctantly. I really just wanted them to let Kaeta go so we could start our new life as a family at home. It was an incredibly frustrating time.

But I had one thought that especially bothered me. I wanted there to be a reason we were going through all of that frustration. In some sense, I wanted there to be something wrong -- something we wouldn't have known about without being in the NICU all week -- so that they could fix it, and I wouldn't feel like we had wasted the whole week there.

I wonder if this is a common thought -- it strikes me as pretty awful, actually. I mean, would I rather have Kaeta sick but have my week of aggravation be worth something, or have her be well but feel like that week was a waste? Obviously the latter. Please pray with us for the growth to go away this month.

Baby Cam

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