One piece of advice....

Tonight my good friend Rachel came over for dinner. She has been with me through some ups and downs to say the least, and as I looked at her, my heart ached (maybe ached isn't the right word, but dropped, or had an odd sensation at the sight of her.) I haven't seen her in a couple of months, and she is currently "baking" Miles' new friend, baby Jay, in her tummy....and for those of your who have ever seen a pregnant lady, you know a couple of months makes a big difference. She looked beautiful, and I am obviously aware of her pregnancy, and yet the sight of her caused a reaction in the pit of my stomach.

Thinking about it later (as is evidenced by the fact that I have been tired since 8, but unable to shut my mind down for the night and it is currently almost 11) I think I can provide some reason to this reaction. Right now, two years ago I was in the process of losing our first baby. It is hard to believe that two years has passed since that awful, ugly time in my life, but a time that I now realize needed to happen for some personal growth and other reasons which need not be detailed in a single blog post at nearly midnight, but I digress.....

Following our miscarriage seeing a pregnant person, hearing the word "pregnant", for a time even leaving the house at the risk of seeing a woman in a shirt that made her look fat was enough to cause me to become nearly a home-bound insomniac. Nine months passed, and shortly before our first baby would have been born I found myself pregnant again. This time, things were different. The bliss and excitement I experienced in the first four weeks of knowing a baby was on the way were stolen from me and replaced by fear, anxiety, and nine months of nervousness. Things looked okay with Miles pregnancy, but every twinge, every ache, every single thing made me fear the worst. I can't say I enjoyed the pregnancy, it was a fearful time for me. And then August 31st rolled around and in the wee morning hours my life changed.

Our son entered the world and I was given everything. Sometimes the miscarriage seems a distant memory, a bad dream, and yet as my heart dropped in the kitchen seeing Rachel, I suppose it was a reminder that some memories and hurt will always be there from that experience.

As a historian, I know that events of our past shape both our present and our future, but sometimes in the day-to-day grind you forget about hurts of the past, move on, pretend they didn't happen. And then a momentary reminder is delivered, and you remember. I will be sure to hold Miles a little bit tighter tonight, hug him a little bit extra, and tell him how much I love him and how lucky I am to be his mommy.

I should be sleeping.....

and yet, on a night like tonight, it just won't happen. For unknown reasons, my mind is not quiet tonight. I have had great intentions with this blog since Miles was born, but you will see that great intentions don't add up to much. For 9 months, all I wanted was to be pregnant. And then it happened, and I think the end sight was a baby in my arms. A tiny baby. The reality has exceeded my expectations and blown my mind in more ways than I ever could have imagined in my entire life, or perhaps even beyond. That tiny baby came home from the hospital. There were many nights of "my nineteen books aren't telling me what to do right now." and "Does the hospital let every parent as stupid as me take their baby home?!" So much adjustment has to happen, so many changes that I could not fill a library and have it all written down. The amount of love I have for this little boy is unexplainable. The way I feel about my husband having made this amazing child with him and having the privilege and honor to rear this child - also unexplainable.

And yet, most days I feel overwhelmed, spread thin, burned out, and at the same time filled with joy and accomplishment. The post-partum issues took 4 months to come to a head and I would say another three months to feel back to myself (and yes, that really has only been in the last month.) That, coupled with many elements of my personality that have needed to shift to accommodate a child have left me with barely enough energy and time to brush my teeth, let alone blog. And yet, for some reason, tonight I felt somewhat driven, even getting out of bed to come across the house to the computer.

As I near my first Mother's Day I am struck with the fact that I AM A MOM. I am someone's mom. Wow, hold the phones, does that mean I am an adult now? I have had the privilege of befriending an entire family down here. I met the mom in my Moms n' More group. Then I have gotten to know the kids. Especially as I speak with the teenage daughter, I sometimes feel like it was only a little bit ago that I was pumped up for my 16th birthday, I was so antsy to get my license. And now, to her I am like a responsible adult. The idea, when I let it sink in is funny to me.

More babies have entered the world in the last 8 months with more to come. Miles has a few new friends currently "baking" - this is odd to me. I think somewhere in my head I always thought Miles would be the little baby and I would always be the new mom. I recently found myself in the aisle of my favorite baby store advising two new moms on some products that I found especially helpful. Wait, do you mean that somewhere along the way I became an experienced mom? Yes, I think so.

I know what his cries mean, he comes to me, I am his mom......and what a blessing this little boy is. This little boy who now crawls, pulls up, stands on things, gets in to things, and has his very own distinct personality.

I know, I know

I am fully aware that my performance on this blog has been nothing less than unacceptable, but I am not going to do anything about it right this minute.

For now, I am just going to post the link to our "YouTube" channel for Mr. M.

Typhoid Mommy and other crazy tales........

Where to even begin? Truth be told......there is simply too much to catch up on. And so, after days of fretting (wow, I fret a LOT, way, way too often about way, way too many things........) I have decided that I am simply not going to try to fill in the "holes" of everything that is going on right now.

Simply put, life is awesome, but being a mommy can be hard work. Every day I think to myself of situations where I have thought "It's a baby, how hard can it be?" towards friends and acquaintances that have children. Truth be told, it is hard. It is the most awesome kind of "hard" on the face of the earth, but much tougher than I ever imagined. Life is not so carefree and spontaneous. Kids have crap-loads of gear. Before having a baby, I could just grab the car keys and run out. While out on my errands, I could stop at 7 places and run in just for a moment. Now, even the thought of the "best order" wastes an hour and by the time I would go out, it doesn't even seem worth it anymore. Holy cow, I NEVER realized that I overthink absolutely everything. I spend more time worrying about the most efficient way to do things, only to waste all the time and not get anything done. This, my friends, is the new story of my life. The "problem" lies in the fact that Miles has no schedule. I don't know how to establish a schedule and I don't handle him crying well.

Here's the deal: He sleeps well at night, really, really well. But then, he is a WILD CARD during the day. 100% unpredictable. Most days, the only thing he wants to do is be held. He does not nap unless I am holding him. If I try to lie him down, he wakes up and we have to start all over again. This leaves me in quite a state. I can't really do anything during the day because I have to hold him. If I put him down, he screams.

I think the doctor accidently left the instruction manual in my uterus. Dear Doctor, I NEED THAT THING. I am learning. Every day, I learn more and more. I love him so much it actually pains me. I don't want to leave him with anyone other than Nate because I don't trust them or feel like I can't ask. Honestly, it is harder than I anticipated not having family here. Yes, we have friends, they all have their own things going on, I don't want to ask them. I feel like I would be taking advantage of or burdening our church friends. And so, that leaves me. Nate is busy at school and I have one million things to do and not enough hours in the day to do them. Every day I wake up and think of all the things I could do when Miles goes down for a nap. Problem 1.) He doesn't nap, or if he does, it is for like 5 minutes and I can't get anything done in that amount of time. Problem 2.) IF he gives me 10 minutes, I end up spending that 10 minutes planning my "attack plan" for my list. And then he wakes up.

We have had dairy issues, I had to cut dairy and that was hard. Daddy got the flu - I had to take Miles to one of my girlfriend's for two days and two nights. We came home and I got a cold. Miles also got the cold as did Nate. We are still recovering from that.

And now, I have spent all this time blogging and no time cleaning. You all know I love Harry Potter and you have NO IDEA how much I would love my very own house elf right now. If only QP, our imaginary house elf were real......that would be amazing. But until that time, the mess will still be there for me tomorrow....and perhaps the next day, too. Oh well, clean is overrated.

I love these boys!

"Holy moly! That baby is really, really loud!"

"What can I do to help this loud little guy?"

"Wait!! I saw that loud lady try and give him something!"

"Yes....I saw her give him this.....maybe this will make him quiet down!"


On Monday Miles and I went for a visit at my dear friend Jenifer's house! Jenifer has a very dear, sweet little boy names Niko who is almost a year to the day older than Miles. They have been lifesavers for us. They have loaned us tons of baby products that have saved our lives! As we were getting ready to leave, Mr. M was being very, VERY crabby......Niko came in to action to try to "help" and it was about the cutest thing I have ever seen. Someday Niko will be an awesome big brother, and until then, he can practice all he wants on Miles!

We love Catherine Klimes!

The "Full Story"

Truth be told, this post is probably more for me than for anyone else....but it doesn't matter too much, because in blogging it, I will be sure to have it in one location while it is still somewhat fresh in my mind.

At around 10:30pm on Monday, August 30th, Nate and I were getting ready for bed. Nate has been doing some eye drops that need to be kept in the fridge, so I had put those in his eyes and walked out to the kitchen to put them away. As I opened the fridge, I had the smallest cramp/pain and fluid gushed.......I yelped and said something along the lines of "that's not normal!" Thank goodness we had our bags packed. Nate began throwing a few things in the bag that were "last minute items" and I made two calls 1.) to the doctor on call and 2.) to our friends Brad and Krista who were going to be watching Hans. The doctor told us to come to the hospital and Nate and I made arrangements to take Hans to Brad and Krista's. Literally within 20 minutes I was in ACTIVE labor. By the time we were pulling out of the driveway I told Nate we did not have time to take Hans to Stilgers - I told Nate to take him to our lovely neighbors/church friends. We had made no arrangements for this, but sometimes in a pinch, you do what you need to.

We were at the hospital by 11:25. We did not call family due to the fact that it was late and there wasn't anything we thought they would do that night. We decided that we would be lucky to have baby Miles here by dinner time on Monday, so we thought we would call them at around 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning and if anyone wanted to come, they would probably be in time.

When we got to the hospital, I was dilated to a three and in a lot of pain. The contractions were not very long, but very intense and close together. They asked me if I wanted an epidural, and I said yes, they said it would likely be half an hour to an hour anyway. They continued the check-in process, and when the nurse came back in she said that the anesthesiologist had to go in for an emergency c-section - she gave me some nubain for the pain, and it certainly helped. Around 2:30am she came in and began the process for the epidural. It wasn't bad at all. Nate had to leave the room and was gone for a little bit. They rotated me back up on the bed and I began to feel some relief. About 2:45 the doctor came in to check my progress (please note, Nate was not back in the room yet) and when he checked, the look on his face was not good. He looked up at me and said "has anyone told you this baby was breech?!" As a matter of fact, three doctors had missed this fact in the last 4 weeks of my pregnancy! He did a quick ultrasound to confirm and yes, he was breech. They were prepping the OR, Nate was getting dressed in his scrubs - and I was in the OR by 3:27. Miles was born at 3:47am. The whole process was amazing and I remember looking and seeing his shock of black hair, the sound of his crazy crying, and then not too much. I asked Nate if he was healthy and he assured me he was. At this point I told the doctor I was going to puke, and then I did.....I suppose the meds made me feel very sick. When they got us back to our room I couldn't even hold Miles - I was just shaking too bad, but I knew he was ok and so was I. They took him to the nursery and I got taken down to recovery. By the time I got him back around 8:00 or 9:00am it was much better.

The road to get to him was a long one, but it was worth every minute.

Writing this blog post, we are nearly two weeks out from him birthday. 2 weeks ago today I was sitting in this chair, completely unaware of what the evening would bring. The first week was both the most awesome and most awful of my whole life. Meeting the little guy was amazing, loving him more than life itself, doubly amazing....recovering from major surgery, hormone levels all over the place, and sleep deprivation - not so awesome.

The second week has pretty much just been awesome. Wow, I love this little boy more than life itself. This is the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. Watching my husband hold, care for, and cuddle our son has been nothing short of miraculous.

This is why I am here on this earth......and it feels amazing. I am enjoying every minute, even the tears, the dirty diapers, and the yelling. Although those moments are not as sweet as some others, I know this whole process is going to go so fast, and I don't want to miss a moment.