"I Told You Not to Have Any Children"

Many years ago my Aunt Denise, my mom's older sister, showed me this newspaper clipping.  It is an article about food samples in the marketplace.  Along with the article was this picture of my mom with three of us kids crammed into the seat portion of a grocery cart.  Did they make the seats bigger back then?  I don't think so.  My mom is smiling, but this has desperation written all over it!

Anyways, I had completely forgotten about it.  Until recently when my Aunt sent it to my mom, and she shared it with my sisters and I.  We got a kick out of it!  My sister Brooke is next to me, with pig tails, and our brother Isaac is crammed in the front, most likely with his legs dangling through the leg holes.  

I feel so much emotion when I look at this.  My mom and I are super close.  She is one of my best friends.  We talk almost every day.  Many of our conversations revolve around the joys, stresses, happiness and misery surrounding motherhood.  She understands me, my job, my stresses, my sense of duty and my desires to be the best mom. 

We are in completely different phases of motherhood right now.  She is the mother to seven adults.  I am a mother of 2 teenagers, 1 adolescent and 3 wild little boys.  It is very comforting to know that she did this before me.  I actually remember a lot of her experiences, from the perspective of child.  

About the same time period of the newspaper article.  We would rather climb on mom than play on the beach with dad.

Sharing this motherhood gig with someone like her helps me get through the day to day.  She can match or top each and every story/experience I share with her.  For example, I tell her a story about how awful my son was during church, and then she retells one of my stories about the time when one of my brothers stood up on the pew, in the middle of the meeting, and started pretend shooting my dad....LOUDLY!

Or I call her crying and upset because I left my sons hand slammed shut in a door for about 10 minutes because I thought he was just throwing a tantrum.  She then tells me about the time she did the same thing with my brother in the car door.  She thought he was just throwing a fit on the way to the store, and she did her best to just block him out.  She realized it when they got to the store.  I felt a little better about my horrible misjudgment.  

One of my favorites is when I call her on a rough day, and she says, "Well, I told you not to have any children."  It always makes me laugh.

One thing is for sure.  Thank heavens for carts big enough to have a two seats in the front!

Here are some Pinterest finds that I love.  These are just perfect for my life right now.

Time Flies By

Over the last 2-3 months I have felt like time is flying by.  Yes, even towards the end of my pregnancy I felt that way.  In direct regards to feeling like I was going to be pregnant forever, time was barely creeping by, but in every other aspect of my life it was and is flying at a very uncomfortable speed.

After Theo was born, time has only sped up.  I am constantly trying to slow it down, and to enjoy every little moment.  I am moving on with life, but feel melancholy about the fact that my kids will never be these ages again.  They are growing up way too fast.

This week Jason and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary.  (I use the term celebrate lightly.  He was gone from 4:30am-11pm, and I had the worse evening ever with the older boys.)  

This picture hangs in our room.

 I look at it and think, "My goodness!  We were babies!"

I am so grateful to be able to say that the last 14 years have flown by, and time flies when you're having fun.

We have had a lot of fun.

Even more than that, we have grown together, and have learned so much.

People keep asking me how I feel about having 6 kids.  I feel that it is just weird.  I can't believe that I have six kids.  I can't believe we have been married for 14 years.  I look at that picture of us on our wedding day, and I feel like I am the same person, but really I'm not at all.

I am wiser.  I am happier.  I have more joy.

Every year when our anniversary rolls around I can't help but look back at where we've been, and look forward to where we are going.

We were married in an LDS temple.  It is traditional, as part of the ceremony, for the man marrying the young couple to give advice to them before the performing the sealing ordinance.  I should have written every thing down that he said as soon as we left, but come on, let's be real.  We did not write his advice down.  And yet all these years later, I still remember a lot of what he said to us.  One thing he advised us to was to kneel down together that night, on our wedding night, and pray together.  He promised us that if we prayed daily as a couple and thanked our Father in Heaven for each other, out loud so the other could hear, that our marriage would benefit.

We haven't always been faithful in doing this, but we have tried.  We always go back to this advice, and pick it up when we are slacking.  I'm not saying that our marriage is only successful because we pray together, but it has definitely helped.

So this year, in lieu of celebration, let me just say that I am so grateful for the man that I chose to marry.  And that I am grateful for.

The Itchy and Scratchy Show

Over the last few weeks I have had the theme song from "The Itchy and Scratchy Show" from the Simpsons running through my head.  Let me tell you why - 

After getting home with Theo the real work began.  I was so blessed to have both my mom and Jason here to help me.  

In the hospital a rash had started on my incision.  Within a few days of getting home my whole entire body broke out in hives.  They got worse and worse every day.  By the third day home the hives were on the bottoms of my feet, and on the palms of my hands, and EVERY where.  It was the most miserable experience to itch like that 24/7, on top of the C-Section recovery, dealing with a newborn and nursing.  I have never been so out of commission, or for this long, after a baby.  

Jason was so on top of things for me.  He is an excellent nurse, I can tell you, as I have been his number one patient for the last four weeks now.  He was often calling my doctor, requesting different drugs, requesting a dermatologist etc.  He took me to all my visits and spoke to all the Dr.'s.  I was SO out of it.  I am grateful that he was there to be my advocate throughout this whole ordeal.  

While the Doctors were trying to figure out what was happening with me, Jason took control of.  He called my Dr. and asked for a different pain killer.  He had me go off the Percoset and got me some Vicadin.  He diagnosed me himself as having a drug reaction to Percoset which caused the hives.  When I finally got in to a dermatologist, they did a biopsy.  It came back as being an allergic reaction to drugs.  By this point I was on steroids, and allergy meds - all because of Jason.  I was doing so much better.  

After Jason took steps to change the things he thought were causing the problems, I slowly got better every day.  I am so very blessed to have that man in my life.  He is really good at taking care of his family.

Soon after getting home from the hospital.  In my bed with Theo and my mom.

I was so happy to have my friend Tracey stop by after I got home from the hospital.  She wasn't able to come see us in the hospital.  She is a great friend.  Her two boys are Glenn's age, and a little younger than Lily.  Adam, her second son, came with her to meet Theo.  I adore Adam.  I have known him since he was about 4 or 5.  He always has loved my babies.  He was really attached to Harrison as a newborn, and when Bennett was born he asked me all the time if he could babysit.  One day Tracey called and said that Adam would not leave her alone about babysitting baby Bennett.  Her and Adam babysat Bennett for us so we could take the older kids to a movie.

Adam and Theo

One morning, after having hives for several days, I woke up and found that I had HUGE lips.  I was laughing SO hard.  The next morning after that they were even bigger.  I wasn't laughing anymore because the skin on and around my lips was cracked and oozing.  It was just too much.

HIVES

Looking back at these pictures I am even more grateful that this part is over!  

I am now off the steroids, but this week my lips have started to puff back up.  I can feel the itch coming back on the backs of my legs.  I am bruised from scratching so much.  I am hoping and praying the hives stay away forever!

Visitors and Coming Home

There are two sorts of women - those who like staying in the hospital post baby, and those who don't.

I am the first sort. 

I love the break I get while staying in the hospital.

I love to have a few, not too many, visitors to help me pass the time while I rest in the hospital.  

I am a pretty social person, and I can get kind of bored and stir crazy with a 3-4 day stay in the hospital.  It's nice to have one or two friends visit each day.

My friend watched the two youngest boys for us on the day of the birth.  She came later that evening to meet Theodore.  She also came the next day with her daughter Christiana.  I am SO grateful for Carrie in my life.  You can tell by this picture how much my children love her.  She also teaches our older children piano.

My children came and visited at least once every day.  I really looked forward to having them around, as did they.  By the end of the second day, when my mom turned onto the street of the hospital, Bennett started saying, "Baby Baby Baby Baby..." from the back seat.  So SWEET!

Harrison, and all the kids really liked my cool hospital bed.

Boys will be boys.  Bennett and Maxwell having a wrestling moment.  This is not out of the ordinary.

Carrie's daughter - Christiana with Theo.

My dear friend Alyssa came and visited.  I was so grateful because I LOVE to visit with her.  And because I stayed an extra day her and her husband Kevin came to hang out with Jason and I on our last night.  They brought yummy cookies from a bakery, and hung out with us.  If you read my blog often, you will know that these two are often hanging out with us.

Alyssa hanging out bedside with me.

On my 'supposed to be' last day, my good friend Emily came to meet Theo.  She is my bishop's wife, so you could say she came out of duty, but I don't think that's why she came.  She is a wonderful friend, and I love her so much.  We just click, and I always welcome good conversations with her.  Plus, HELLO!  She wanted to hold Theo!  Emily has 4 sons and 1 daughter.  Our kids are all pretty well matched up age wise.

Theodore's feet in Daddy's hands. -In the hospital.

On our last night there Kevin and Alyssa came to hang out.  This was perfect as they are such wonderful friends, and we were both getting kind of bored.

Time to go home.  Going home with a new baby is always a little exciting, and a little nerve racking.

First car ride.

The Rest of the Story - for those who care.

Having a baby is hard to do. 

Yeah, I know I do not labor or birth the baby, but it's still hard work!

I already wrote about Theodore's birthday HERE, but I wanted to put down. for my record, the story of that day in more detail before I forget.  Theo will be 4 weeks old tomorrow! 

With this last one, every thing seemed harder and more magnified. About 2 days before the C-Section and birth I kinda went crazy.  It's a good thing my mom was here.  I was so ridden with anxiety and emotion.  I was so terrified for the surgery, and so upset about this being my last one.  I was just very conflicted.  One second I was laughing and happy and excited to be almost done.  Then ten minutes later I was balling my eyes out, and giving Jason and mom my instructions on what to do if I died during surgery.  At least I knew I was being crazy.  I had that going for me.  I was doing my best to play it cool, but I was fooling no one!  I caught my mom and Jason laughing at me behind my back several times.  

The morning of surgery - 

I was just a heap of emotion.  I really did NOT want to go through with it, but at this point what other choice did I have?  

To start off with the two nurses checking me in both tried twice each to get my IV started.  I have very small, strange veins and they always have a hard time getting my IV started.  It had never been that bad before.  At one point, as I was trying to control the tears, I almost asked them to please let Jason do it.  He totally could have.  I could tell he was going just as crazy as I was, having to watch them try.  They finally called an IV nurse.  She got it in the first try and I felt NOTHING!  I loved her.

The next hurdle - meeting the CRNA, nurse anesthetist.  I have always had really really great ones.  The last couple have been great with Jason, and even let him in to watch the anesthesia.  This is normally not done, but because Jason is an RN and going to do a Master's in anesthesia they have let him in for it.  This guy was just a jerk.  I got bad vibes from him. He said, "I just do not feel comfortable with having him (Jason) in there.  That really bothered me, and made me nervous.  He had to attempt the anesthesia twice!  This had NEVER happened before in any of my 5 previous C-Sections.  It was so bad!  I was a mess in the O.R.  The anesthetist got frustrated with me and even raised his voice.  He said, "Your anxiety level is way too high.  You need to calm down."  Well, DUH!  I was trying!  

All the docs and nurses were sitting around and waiting.  My OB, who I just love, came over and put his arm around me and helped me through it.  He is an amazing and compassionate doctor.  

I had told the anesthetist beforehand that my blood pressure tends to plummet after anesthesia is administered and I will throw up.  The last few anesthetists were on top of that and fixed the problem immediately.  This time, not so much.  I was extremely nauseous through most of the surgery.  He kept trying to get it under control, but it would not stay away. 

Just before Theo was born, as I was feeling SO miserable, I looked at Jason with tears in my eyes and asked him to please enjoy this for the both of us.  I wanted so badly to be in the moment and experience this, but I just couldn't because of how awful I felt. 

 I am so grateful that a huge blessing occurred.  Right after I said that to Jason my head cleared, and I felt much better.  I was able to really be present in mind and body as Theodore was born.  

 After my first 5 C-Sections things got much better after the surgery was complete.  This time, not so much.  I was in bad shape the whole day.  I've never had the IV or catheter in this long before.  I could not keep any drugs down at all, and so the only pain killer they could administer was morphine into my IV. Usually I am keeping a liquid diet down by the afternoon and on to solids the next day.  This time I was throwing everything up.

This looks like he's crying, but it is an adorable yawn. 

 Throughout my first day, every time I would talk on the phone to anyone, I would throw up.  The first time I was on the phone with the secretary at my kids elementary school.  Another time I was on the phone with Jason.  My mom and Jason got really good at knowing the look on my face, and when to get me a basin QUICK!  

The first time, when I was on the phone with the school, I just started snapping at Jason.  He looked at me and ran a basin to me.  I finished the conversation and hung up just as I started throwing up in the basin that he had barely placed under my chin. I was really impressed with Jason.  My mom was sitting even closer, and she had no idea what I needed.  Jason is amazing.  I guess this means we have a good connection. 

  

Two days after surgery a rash started to develop on my incision.  Jason thought it was due to the steri-strips.  He took the strips off.  (Yes, you can be thinking it.  He was my number one nurse.  It was kinda nice to have my own personal nurse 24/7.  In the past he has annoyed me at times with his constant nursing, but not this time.  I really needed him.)  The next day the rash was still bad.  I was supposed to go home from the hospital, but I was not feeling up to that emotionally or physically.  

My OB came in to talk to us, and Jason totally took over, as I was in bed trying to not cry... again.  Jason basically told him that I needed to be there another night, and the doctor said, "Uh, OK."  Then Jason asked the doctor to tell the nurses to lay off of us.  All of my babies loose more than the appropriate amount of weight while in the hospital.  The nurses tend to go a little crazy.  It's really annoying to me.  The Doctor laughed and said, "OK"  He did, and not another word was said to us about that!  FYI - Little baby Theo is thriving and gaining weight just fine, as all my babies did after coming home.

It was just what I needed.  The next day, after an extra 24 hours, I was doing so much better, and ready to go home.

Dr. Sargent, my OB and Theo

This what we call a 'milk coma'.