Zachary Hugh Vance

Zachary Hugh Vance was born on Nov. 1, 2023. He weighed 8 lbs. 14 oz. Crista looked great going in for the induction, and she looked great right after Zack's birth, but she didn't have any easy time of it. Somehow, when the doctor was giving her the epidural, something went wrong and Crista leaked some spinal fluid. She experienced excruciating pain in her legs, telling me that she has never felt so much pain in her life. Matt told me how difficult it was to watch her face as she dealt with this for a miserable half hour. Finally, after another attempt, the epidural began to work and she was able to continue without pain--for the time being. After the delivery, the anesthesiologist told her that she had leaked some spinal fluid because of the mistakes that were made with the epidural and that it was very possible that she would have a spinal headache because of it. She did end up with a spinal headache, but since the cure was another epidural, which she was understandably fearful of, she chose to deal with the headache for about twenty-four hours until it became unbearable with the headache accompanied by nausea and dizziness. At that point she scheduled the "blood patch" or 2nd epidural to take care of the headache. Finally, she was a little more comfortable.

Little Zack is beautiful even with his cleft lip. It was a hard day as the doctors did test after test and every bit of news they bought to Crista seemed to be bad. Besides the cleft lip, Zack has a cleft palate, and some other mid-line defects such as a club foot. His heart is also irregularly shaped, so that was a concern, but it was determined that it is functioning properly so that there is no need even to follow up with heart concerns. Crista won't be able to bring Zack home until he is eating (or until they decide to train her on tube feeding). He didn't like to eat at all at first, but each day he's done a little better with the special bottles. The baby has been fussy, but it was very tender watching him settle down when held by his mama. They told Matt and Crista that Zack may be fussy because he might have a headache similar to the one Crista had experienced because of some fluid on the brain (which they are monitoring). Crista is comforted by a blessing she received during her pregnancy. She wasn't promised that everything would be all right, but she was told that Zack would be born with a sound mind. We have faith in this promise.

Roy and I had driven up to Logan on Halloween evening to be with the Vances since she was leaving early the next morning for the hospital. I offered to bring dinner, but Crista insisted she was fine to cook for us. We had some delicious enchiladas and a nice evening visiting with her and Matt. They were both gone when the children woke up in the morning, so it was good we were already there. We had a great time entertaining the Vance children, and thanks to Grandpa, the Vance children had a great time with us. Roy always wants to make things special for his grandchildren when we are in charge. They enjoyed a trip to the dollar store and a few other fun activities. Bridget and Todd weren't in school all day, so they got the most attention.

A trip to Smiths: The manager is friends with the Vances so they got a lot of leftover Halloween balloons for free! Bridget and Todd playing with the truck and track from the dollar store (Todd treasured the cheap little orange truck).

We went to the park and had a good time, even though it was fairly cold. Then we took Bridget and Todd to Hermes. Bridget had the Micky Mouse pancake, and Todd had french fries (he didn't eat the macaroni and cheese).

Todd was happy to spend a little cuddle time with grandpa

I mentioned last week that Bruce Oblad's sister passed away from early onset Alzheimers. I listened to her funeral on Zoom on Friday. She has 5 children and each of them spoke, but they kept the funeral to one hour. One of them quoted their mother as saying, "Life can be hard, so embrace the beautiful moments like pearls strung on the continuum of life."

On Saturday I went to the funeral of my first cousin, Mary Gammell Winkler. Both she and Jean Oblad Calder were only 5 years older than I am. Her funeral was also kept to an hour with both of her children speaking; and it was very Christ-centered. The final speaker spoke about true faith. He relayed the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These young men were loved by the king, until the king was convinced to put their loyalty to the test. If they would not worship the king's gods, they would be thrown into the fiery furnace. They responded that they would not worship any but the one true God, and they told the king:

"If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king."

Then they continued with even stronger faith:

"But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."

We are given many difficult trials in this life. It is easy to have faith when things are going well, but do we have enough faith to say, "but if not..."

Mary fought to live, but her health was poor. She wasn't healthy enough to even be on a transplant list for a much needed liver. She has been the main caregiver for her brother who was brain damaged at birth for the past 18 years since her parents died. Now her husband and daughter cheerfully take over the responsibility.

Following the funeral, Dave, Christine and Steve and Nan and Bruce and I went out to lunch. We visited for quite a while. I love being with my siblings. Phil and Char were at the funeral but they are leaving for their mission on Monday and Phil had a date with some of his kids to go hiking.

We saw a lot of our grandchildren's costumes prior to Halloween, but we were gone on the big night. I'm sharing a few below:

Bats: Yuna, Foster, Doyeon

All of the Green kids dressed up as ball players, except Ollie. I guess for Ollie it's not enough of a costume since he wears uniforms all the time (Ollie is Squints from the movie Sandlot).