November 15, 2010

Give Thanks

In Honor of Thanksgiving next week here are 15 things I am thankful for this year!!


1) My Jesus, who came to earth, died for me, and washed away my horrible sins so I can live forever in his kingdom! Praise him!

2) My amazing Hubby who is a blessing to me. He works hard and almost never complains, so that I can stay home and raise our daughter. It warms my heart when he says things like "man if she was in daycare "this and this" would happen". Makes my heart happy that he gets it and knows how important it is to me to be home with her!

3) My amazing Hubby's job, that MORE then provides for our family. After looking for a job for 3 months, we KNOW we are blessed and Hubby is 10 times happier currently then he was at old company. Praise GOD!

4) So so so so soooooooo thankful for my amazing loving Toddler. She is a gift and I know to never take advantage of her or our time together. When I get annoyed by finding pancakes in my shoes, or her whining, it's better then silence or her not being here!

5) My wonderful amazing families. I love my parents and siblings more then they know, we ALWAYS laugh until we cry together, always have a funny story to share, or fun memories to reflect on. Steve's family has quickly become my own and I love spending time with them, and love how they love my daughter! Also I am blessed by my Hubby's extended family in Michigan. I have become so close with them and consider them MY family and some of my best friends!

6) My friends. They rock. Although I don't get to see them as often as I did BH (before Hailey), every time we get together it's like no time has passed and we always laugh and have such a fun time together. Girlfriends make the world go 'round!

7) My house. It keeps me warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and is so lovely and big and PERFECT for our family. I am blessed!

8) my brand spankin new-to-me car! So great that I know I can get where I need to go safely and it will start every time. I know not all people can say this and I feel spoiled rotten!

9) having a stocked fridge/pantry. It's so stupid and sooo so so selfish but sometimes I get mad that our pantry or fridge is TOO full and I can't get to stuff easily, or I can't fit something somewhere. Seriously who does that?? I know there are so many homeless, starving people and I do NOT deserve all that I have been given!

10) my MOPS group! I joined for the 1st time this year and I know this is something I will continue to do until Hailey (and maybe siblings) are in school. I want to give back and volunteer if there is a place for me, and I have already made some good friends! Really, if you have the time and $ to join DO IT. You will not be sorry I promise you!! If you can't join a mops then I highly suggest finding a sunday school or small group. The relationships and time off of children are WELL worth it!

11) My most favorite radio station EVER K-LOVE. They play all the greatest Christian music ever, and all the DJ's are my favorite. I love them! It keeps me focused on God, which in the world we live in it's very very easy to get distracted and not keep him in your daily life! I love that Hailey dances to the songs and gets excited when I turn the radio on! It's pretty much on in my house 24/7. I'm trying to get better about turning the TV off and the radio on!

12) Not everyone will understand but I LOVE Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo. It's one of the best Zoo's in the country and I LOVE to get outside and walk around and get some exercise! Stay tuned I am working on a picture filled post of our Zoo adventures from this summer! It's super fun and it's such a blessing to have grown up in a city where they treat animals with such love and respect and I hope it crosses over to Hailey!

13) Blogging! I love reading other blogs (um I have far to many in my reader), being inspired by other Momma's and their love for their Children, Hubby's, and Jesus! It really makes my day and I love being allowed in their lives on a daily basis. It inspires me to get out and do things with Hailey, fun crafty stuff we can do at home, and even decorating tips! I honestly don't know how my Mom did it, raising children without the internet!

14) Our Health! This should be way higher on the list! I pray every night before bed and thank God and am amazed by his blessings over us! Our families are extremely healthy, and when I hear about friends who have loved ones in the hospital and with illness it makes me so so so extremely happy to say that we are healthy! Hailey has never once been to the dr unless it's just a well check, we just have a few sniffles here and there, and slowly Hubby is getting better and growing his immune system!

15) a good sleeping Baby! This has blessed me in more ways then you could ever imagine! Ha. Hailey goes to bed every night around 9:30 (sometimes it's 9:15, sometimes 9:45). I have to WAKE her up at 8:50 in the morning! Then usually at 11:30 she will go down for a nap and sleep anywhere from 1-2 1/2 hours. So that means she can sleep from 11-1:30 some days! THEN at 3:30 she will sleep for ANOTHER hour and a half! I love it! I am going to keep her on her 2 naps a day schedule for as long as I can!!

Hope this inspires you to think about all that YOU have to be thankful for! Some days are hard and I know how easy it is to sit and think "woe is me" but if you sit down and list all the amazing blessings in your life it will brighten your day!

November 3, 2010

The Road To Get Here........

2 posts in one week, WHAT?!?! Ha. Don't expect it from me often, but lately I feel like I have a lot to say. This will be another heavy VERY EXTREMELY TMI, but sometime in the next couple days I will do a fun post to offset all of these serious/gross ones. Ha.

So I never fully explained or documented our challenge to get pregnant. It wasn't that I was embarrassed, or un-willing to talk about it, almost all of my close friends knew was what was going (and honestly probably knew much more then they wanted too! Ha) on, but we never told our families or anything. I just didn't want to take heat, or hear those dreaded words "Oh if you stop trying then you'll get pregnant" or "you worry to much" NOT what people trying to get pregnant and month after month of getting disappointed want to hear. Trust me.

It all started in May of 2007. Well, technically it started when I was 13 and got my first period. I will never ever forget my first period. In my family we weren't open about that kind of stuff. My Mom never talked to us about that stuff. I learned the birds and the bees from my best friend. So I never talked to my Mom about my totally heavy horrible periods. I'm sure she knew, as all Mother's do, but we never openly talked about it. It was horrible. Clotting for days. Then no period for 2 or 3 months. It was bad. Some months I would have 2 or 3 HEAVY clotting bleeding periods and then nothing for a month. It was bad. So I finally broke down and went to a dr and told her I was loosing so much blood I could barely walk up the 3 flights of stairs in our house. I was so anemic. I bruised extremely easily, it was bad. So she put me on pills. I H A T E D them. I had every single bad side effect that was on the warning label. Depression, weight gain, tired, everything. So I went back and told her I threw them away. So she moved me onto Depo-provera. I have a love/hate relationship with depo. It made my periods completely disappear. Who doesn't love that?? No more bleeding or anemia or anything! YAY! It can also completely ruin your chance at getting pregnant for many years. I was on Depo for 6 years people. I so wish a Dr had gotten a hold of me and told me the long term effects from it, but I don't think there have been many studies done and honestly I am one who has probably been on it the longest. So skip ahead to May of 2007 I switch OB's and meet with my new dr. I tell him I am getting married in Sept and would like to get pregnant asap after the wedding. He puts me on pills (YAZ. Best.pills.EVER), to regulate my cycle, and tells me to start prenatals after the wedding to help me be more fertile. I did not have high hopes. I have known since I was young I would have trouble getting pregnant. Call it a sick sense or what have you, but I have read SOOOO many blogs about people and their journey through IF and they all say it to. It's weird. So I take my yaz and get my period the first month! And it comes on time every single month after that! I was so happy my body was doing what it was supposed to be doing! But only with synthetic hormones. Not good. So we get married, go on honeymoon, everything is great. I stop taking my pills as of the first week in October 2007. The following months are as follows;

-October 2007-May 2008- Have a regular period every month. Cycles last about 28-30 days. Am totally and completely happy and think we will be prego right away. Yeah not so much. Charting and taking my BBT every month and see no change what-so-ever. Figure out I am not ovulating and start looking online and for blogs for help.

May 2008- go back to OB for yearly exam. Tell him about my issues or what have you, and show him my BBT charts. He agrees I am not Oing either but I should be. (now this is where we disagree. He told me that since I haven't been on the deop shot for a year my body has completely rid it self of those hormones and should be fine and ready for baby by now. After 6 years I really think it will take longer but what do I know) So he tells me we will do 3 months of fert. pills and if I'm not pregnant in 3 months he will move on to testing and possibly seeing an RE.
Now as I have said in many many of my blogs I LOVE LOVE LOVE my OB. I know I needed his help to get pregnant and he is the expert and I know nothing about any of this stuff. But he was never good at explaining anything to me. I had no idea about what I would be taking, what he expected, nothing. I was very very frustrated. I didn't even know what questions to ask. Oh how my world has changed. I know everything about IF now, but knew nothing then. All my knowledge has come from reading online. So it was extremely frustrating to go into all of this so blindly.
So at that appointment Dr Reed write me a prescription for Clomid and sends me on my way. I have never in my life heard of this drug or know anything about it. Before I filled it I checked my friend WebMD and read up about it. Well, I read those magic little worlds "multipules" and about had a heart attack. Me and Hubby defer on selective reduction in pregnancy so we fought for a couple days before I even filled the prescription. We decided to go ahead and try it and if I ended up prego with 7 babies God would show us what to do from there.
So in May I took 50 mg of Clomid for 5 days after my period started. Charted and saw no difference in BBT at all. Went in for blood work and got a call the next day that I did NOT O. :( Sad.


June 2008- took 100 mg of Clomid for 5 days after period started. Charted and saw no difference in BBT at all. Went in for blood work and got a call the next day that I did NOT O. :( Sad.

July 2008- Took 100 mg of Clomid for 5 days after period started. My Dr added a lovely little friend called Metformin to my clomid. OMG Met SUCKED. One of the side effects of it is that it empties your stomach. Glory. I did not throw up at all, so you figure out how everything emptied. It S U C K E D major. After taking it for 8 of the 12 days or something I decided to throw it away and stop taking it. It made me way to sick and the side effects were not worth it to us at that time. I went in for blood work and got a call the next day that yet again my blood work shows no change and I did not ovulate. :( Sad.
I should also add that July 24th 2008 we sold our house and moved in with the in-laws. I did not want to be pregnant while living with them, and then moving in January. And I wasn't comfortable actively trying to get pregnant in their house. Something about it just irked me the wrong way. Did I really want to tell my child "you were conceived in your Grandparents house" um nothankyou.

I started my period July 2nd and waited in August for it to start. Nothing. I had been like clock work the previous months so I was confused. I took a test a couple days after it was supposed to start and it was negative. So whatever I went on my merry way, then my Birthday comes (the 13th) and I think I tested again that week. I had been drinking and going out with friends for my Birthday and wanted to be safe. Again negative. So I called my Dr office to see if we could talk about what to do from here, and to basically tell them I wasn't charting anymore and we would talk next May at my next yearly exam. Lisa my BFF at the front desk told me he was booked SOLID for 3 weeks but I could see his partner Barb who was a N.P. I knew Barb and loved her so I was comfortable seeing her and not Dr. Reed. I made an appointment to see Barb on Thursday the 21st. So I forget about it and wait for my period to come. The night of the 20th I decide to take another pregnancy test (well, mainly because I had 3 sitting in the drawer) to make SURE I wasn't because I knew that would be her first question. Low and behold the awesome words PREGNANT came up!!
You can read my blog here you'll see I called and got in after 2 positives and 3 negatives. So my Dr decides to do a ultrasound and told me I was less then 2 weeks pregnant. WHAT? I was completely off all pills, and didn't have a period. Can you ovulate when not having a period?? Every time during my pregnancy the baby would be further along then the last scan, moving forward my due date. So who knows. We never went off a conception date, only according to what the U/S said. So who knows! I honestly do not know when or how I got pregnant. I am guessing it was during the time I was on the clomind/metformin combo but if that is true then Hailey's due date was off by over 2 weeks, and since she was only 6 pounds and showed a lot of signs of being born before 39 weeks I believe she was. But honestly it drives me nuts to not know. I know it doesn't matter, the ending was perfect, I got the ultimate prize, and she is perfect and happy and healthy now. It's just so weird.

Now for those of you who are judging me and telling me I should have gone a more "natural" route or found a midwife instead of going to my OB. I agree with you to an extent. But I was sooooooooo naive and didn't know anything about what was going on! Now I would do more research and try herbs and things. From what I could find online there are 2 midwife offices in Omaha. I called one and never got an answer or machine. The other I called and talked to the most horrible woman in the world. I told her I was having trouble getting pregnant and my dr was trying to put me on pills that I didn't know anything about and wanted some help and guidance and was wondering if I could meet with somebody. She RUDELY told me that they don't see people unless they are pregnant and to call back when I was pregnant and HUNG UP ON ME. I think I sat at my desk for 10 minutes crying. I was sooooooo upset. Now of course I know 3 people in Omaha who have midwives and I could ask them for references but then I didn't know that. So so so frustrating!
So there is my story. An amazing outcome. I don't feel any differently about my dr, I still love him but I wish I could have done somethings differently.

**Edited to add**
Please don't think I am ungrateful or anything of that nature. To be praying for a Baby my whole life, trying for 10 months, 3 months "assisted" and then end up Pregnant on "accident" I know how blessed I am/was. It was truly a gift from God and if you were brought to my blog looking for answers and are going through something similar, I am praying for you. I don't know your name or story, but God does and he will give you what you want in HIS timing just like He did me!

November 1, 2010

Truth..........

FYI *** this will be graphic. If your shy, embarrass easily, don't have children you might not want to read. Lots of TMI's included***


So I opened Google to go to my blog and write this about 8 times before actually going through with it, for a couple of reasons. 1) This will be embarrassing for all parties (myself and readers) but I must write these things down for I am already forgetting them and I need and want to remember them. 2) There are people who I didn't want to read such intimate details of my being, still don't want them to but what can you do. Maybe this will help some poor girl who googles something and finds me for answers. Welcome!! ha 3) Being away from my blog for so long sucks. I wasn't one of those good Mommy's like the ones I read who write milestones down monthly and do a cute monthly post for their Babies (but in my defense Hailey's baby book is completely current as of last Thursday) , and I feel like I need to blog to catch up on the last 18 months of my life. But alas I can not so I'll just start somewhere. So this will be long and windy and crazy all over the place but here we go.

The TRUTH about having a child and surviving........

I wish before I had my child somebody checked out my boobs before hand and told me breast feeding would be IMPOSSIBLE. I have inverted nipples. Making it almost impossible to b/f. After working with one of the lactation cons. at the hospital for 2 days, one finally gave me one of these and I was FINALLY able to feed my child. But it was horrible. I couldn't feed her in discreet because I was fumbling with a piece of plastic and it would leak and come off and it was just a mess. I used it with every.single.feeding (every 1 1/2 hours remember?) for 6 months. I will NEVER forget one night in the first week of being home it took me from about 8 until 11:30 to get Hailey so sleep and to stop screaming at the top of her lungs and I laid her down and made sure I had my shield handy for our next night feeding and I couldn't find it. I was hysterical. I woke Steve up and made him come help me find it (with a flash light so we didn't wake up psycho Baby). I think it ended up being next to Hay in the pack-n-play but I was dying. I could NOT feed my Baby without this thing and if I lost it then what?? I went to Target the next day and bought 2 more. Ha. After 6 months I finally gave up and pumped exclusively, it was a hard decision but we were going to b/f class with the L/C from the hospital and she agreed it was probably best also so I felt better. People have told me that they know so many people who have so many feeding problems with the first Baby and never use the shield with the 2nd. Sure hope I would be one of those people..................

Internal Hemorrhoids S U C K. After pushing for over 2 1/2 hours I should have known I wouldn't get away with 0 hemorrhoids. I was in pain every single time I had to go #2 for like 11 months. Honestly I don't know or remember how long it was. My body was SOOOO messed up for so long. For all I know it could still be not "normal" and hurt but I am just so used to it and this is my "new normal". Ugh. Horrible. I used every kind of treatment out there and nothing worked. My Dr basically said since they are internal and not external there was nothing anybody could do and they would just heal on their own and go away. Blah. I am pretty much better and healed I think, but man going through that again scares the bejewels out of me.

So since my child's head was stuck on my tail bone for 2 hours of pushing and the traumatic way she finally came out I had a fairly large tear that required stitches. After the initial horrible part of actually getting the stitches everything was fine. For about 4 months. Then I remember going to the restroom and it burning sooooo horribly bad down there from the urine. I finally found a way to position myself when going that it wouldn't hit it and hurt. Yes I am stupid and didn't think anything was THAT wrong it would just go away on it's own right?? RIGHT?? My 2nd sign was using my scented suave body wash irritated the crap out of it to. OHMYGOSH did it burn in the shower to wash my "area". So finally one day I listened to my ever wise Husband and called my OB for a check up to see how everything was down there. SO NOT what I wanted to do. So he takes a look and told me that my scar tissue from my tear decided to RE-OPEN!! People!!!! Seriously?? I can't make this stuff up. How much can 1 person go through?? Holy jeesh! So my lovely Dr decides to cauterize it. So yeah he grabs like a 3 foot (OK maybe it was like 4-5 inches long) match looking thing and lights it on fire and puts it DOWN THERE on me. I almost died. Worst pain of my life. I was supposed to stop and pick up dinner for us right after my appointment, but I was in so much pain sitting to drive home I called Hubby in tears and to figure out plan B for dinner. I sat on the Boppy pillow for like 2 days after that. Ha. It healed up fine and I haven't had a problem with it since. But jeepers did that KILL. It was bad. Of course it probably wouldn't have been half that bad had I had it taken care of earlier. I don't know how long I let it go on for, maybe 2 months?? I am so stupid I never want to go to the DR or admit something is wrong with me, I just think if I ignore it it will go away. Smart huh?

Before child I was a social butterfly. At least 2 times a week (even after we were married) I would go out with a girlfriend(s) and do dinner, shopping, movies, pedicures, it was heaven. I mourned those dates after Hailey and still do sometimes. I had so many "bestfriends" (I use the term to loosely probably), we were always together. One friend in particular comes to mind. We were super close, hung out all the time. After Hailey was born I saw her when Hailey was 5 days old, then Hailey's 1st Birthday and haven't seen her since. 6 months it's been since I got to see her. :( I miss her! I understand she has a super busy career, a house, kitty, Husband, family, etc but it still sucks that I don't fit into that anymore. I don't blame her AT ALL I was probably the same way before Hailey, thinking people with kids are to busy and you don't want to bug them and take them away from their family to hang out and stuff, but no PLEASE call your friends, HANG out! Save them! Ha. I guess it's just hard. I have a hard time reaching out all the time and getting turned down or no answer. It sucks. I miss my friendships and those fun times...........

If this makes me a bad person/parent do NOT comment and let me know. I already have my thoughts and feelings of guilt, but it is what it is and I am being honest and putting myself out there so that means I'll dump everything out in this blog. Sometimes (a LOT especially right after Hailey was born) I would cry and sit and miss my old life before Hailey (BH). Me and Hubby had the best marriage and life BH. We had this cute little house, I had loads of time with girlfriends, we have 2 incomes so extra $ to go shopping with, see movies, and spend on stupid things (oh if I only knew then what I know now I would have been SO much better about saving!). We never traveled much but we would go to Kansas City for the weekends and just do fun things! I haven't been away from Hailey for 1 night of her entire 18 1/2 months. We can't just sit down and watch a movie/tv show with out being interrupted. We were only married for 11 months when I found out I was pregnant. We finally both admitted last weekend that we wish we had waited until now to have gotten pregnant. 3 years together alone sounds sooo amazing. Like I said I feel horrible and guilty saying this. All I EVER wanted in my life was a baby and to be pregnant and be a SAHM. Seriously, since I was like 4. And then I had that and I didn't want it! What?!?! I remember when we were living at Steve's parents (which is probably part of the problem and where it started) I would drive by our old house we had just sold and cry and sob. I mourned for those fun carefree times we had! I would never wish my daughter away. I love her more then life itself. I would die for her. I guess I just wish I had enjoyed those times more, cherished them more, taken more vacations and pictures, and done things later in life, but it is what it is and I deal with the hand I was dealt. It's just so hard. You want to just be lovey dovey with your spouse instead of being dirty from throw up and poop, and not wash dishes and just honestly be DEAD tired to the world and want to sleep. But such is life as a parent! We knew going in life would change. But I think I thought she would fit more into OUR life instead of us having to do a COMPLETE 180 and fitting into HER life. We are readjusting and just now are in an amazing place! We always joke and say that if babies were born at like 10 months we would have 6 kids!

Sooooooooo all of this to say...........life has been hard. Not at ALL what I expected. And I just now fully and totally happy and healthy so I have BABY FEVER. lol. Am I crazy? Stupid?? Naive?? This is why God blocks things from our memory. I thought I wouldn't survive those first couple sleepless nights with Hay nursing every 2 hours. Hours upon hours of nursing. Feeling so secluded and trapped in the house. But I did it! I survived! We go to MOPS now, we love to run errands and just drive around.We shop several times a week and have fun play dates. We went to the Zoo every week this summer and it was a awesome summer! Trick or treating last night was probably hands down the funnest thing I have done as a mother with my child. She LOVED it and had so much joy. It made my heart so happy! So I survived, and I can survive again with 2 kids, right?? I don't remember the pain of labor or pushing her out, I don't remember the frustration of breastfeeding, it was all a blur. We'll see what happens and what God has in store for our little family. But Hailey needs a sibling I know that for sure! :)