Brody is one!

I can't believe how fast the last year has gone by. My baby boy is ONE! The last year has been one of the greatest of my life. I was so scared when I was pregnant with Brody that I wasn't going to love him the way I love Kalyn. How could I ever love someone as much as I do her? She was my first born and I love her more than anything in the world! Everyone kept telling me it would be okay, it just happens. They were right. Dear Brody boy, Today on your first birthday I wanted to take a couple minutes to tell you what the past year has been like. As an infant you loved to nurse and hated your paci. I tried and tried to get you to take one, but you wanted nothing to do with it. A year later, you still love to nurse and never took a paci. You took a bottle up until about 10 months old. One day you just decided you wouldn't take one anymore, so you were done. You learned to drink from a regular cup before you mastered a sippy cup. Now you can drink from both. As an infant you loved to be held while you slept and I happily obliged. You still sleep with us and have never spent more than hour in your crib. I love having you next to me at night, daddy, not so much. He says he always wakes up with feet in his back. You never really cared for your swing or bouncy seat. You spent some time in your jumperoo, but never learned to jump in it. You just played with the toys. Tummy time was okay, but you quickly learned to roll to your back so you could get off your tummy. I thought you were never going to crawl, you showed no interest at all. At 8 1/2 months you proved me wrong and started crawling. As soon as you figured out how to move, you started pulling up and standing. At 9 1/2 months you started walking. By 10 months you were running. And now... at 1 year, you're climbing EVERYTHING! You mastered the step stool weeks ago and use it to look out the window. You love watching the trucks (snow plows) go by. The cat tree is your jungle gym. Just a couple days ago you figured out how to use the foot stool to climb into the chair, the next day you figured how to do it without the stool. You love to climb under Kalyn's draw board and often get stuck. I have found you in kitchen cupboards more than once. You're all boy! We skipped baby food and went right for the real stuff. Your first food was avocado. It took some time, but by one you can eat pretty much anything we eat (even though you only have 4 teeth) You're kind of a picky eater. You LOVE all fruit. Strawberries, grapes, kiwi, oranges, blueberries, mango, melon, bananas, I haven't found a fruit that you won't eat. You like some veggies. Green beans, carrots, peas, avocado, sometimes broccoli. I've been trying to introduce you to more veggies in hopes that you'll like them, but most of them get spit out. You have a little bit of a temper if you dont get your way. Pointing and "yelling" if Kalyn has a toy and you want it. Pointing and "yelling" if you want food and someone isn't moving fast enough. Crying for me to pick you up as soon as I walk in the door. Or if you're tired. Or hurt. Or hungry. Or just want a tata. Were trying to work on getting you to use your words. You've mastered: Mama, dada, ball, kitty, a version of sissy and grandpa and bye bye. Of course you do lots of babbling too. You are so smart. Pushing cars around the floor and making an engine noise, using pens and markers to draw. Putting hats on your head, putting objects into holes and putting the phone to your ear. If I tell you bring me something you do, if I tell you to take it to daddy/sissy/grandpa, you do. You can clap, wave bye by and point to what you want. Every single day is an absolute joy with you. You are so loving and give the best slobbery kisses and big hugs. Your little personality is coming out more each day. You are head strong, funny, smart, sweet, loud, messy and oh so cute! You are loved more than you will ever know! Happy birthday boy boy... I look forward to watching you grow and learn for years to come. I love you more than all the flowers, trees and grass in the world! -Mom

Brodys birth

I realize that I didn't blog at all about my pregnancy, but I don't want to forget anything so I'll break it down. When we found out we were pregnant we didn't tell many people. Curtis even waited almost 8 weeks to tell his mom. The fear of another miscarriage was enough to keep us quiet until we had an ultrasound. Once we saw and heard that little heart beat, we were shouting it loud! This pregnancy was a lot like Kalyn's... no morning sickness, just a little tired. I felt good! We found out we were having a boy in October. Although I was secretly hoping for a girl (cause I already had girl stuff) the idea of a boy was exciting! The rest of the pregnancy was rather uneventful. I ate what i wanted, didnt gain any weight. Never got sick or felt nauseas. Had good energy and was enjoying my pregnancy, until 37 weeks... I started itching all over my body. Not bad at first, I noticed it, but it didn't bother me too bad. Within 3 days it got to the point where my WHOLE body was itching and I couldn't stop scratching. When i say my whole body... i mean my whole body. Head, feet, fingers, in between my fingers, EVERYWHERE! I moved that weeks appt up 2 days so I could ask the doctor about it. I had done some googling and thought I knew what was going on, but I needed to get the doctors opinion. Without me even bringing it up, the doc mentioned Chloestasis... (that's what I thought it was) and said we needed to get my blood drawn to be 100% sure. I did so, only to find out that the labs had to be sent to Mayo and could take up to 4 weeks, at this point I was almost 38 weeks and it didn't make much sense to do it. (Its also a $1000 test) I went to the doctor 2 more times that week to have the baby monitored and to have an ultrasound. There was a small chance that the Chloestasis could affect the baby negatively, so the plan was to keep a close eye on him and me. Friday the 21st they decided to schedule an induction for the next Tuesday. I was MISERABLE and the only was to make the itching stop and not put the baby at risk was to deliver... so that was the plan. Sunday the 23rd Kalyn and I went to church and then Curtis met us so we could go get some maternity pictures done. While we were there I started having contractions. Nothing serious, maybe 2 mild ones in 30 minutes. We finished up and headed home. By the time we got home I was having them every 5 minutes, but they were still fairly mild. Not wanting to risk delivery at home (Kalyn came fast) I decided to call the doc. She said to wait an hour and see if they got stronger. I took a bath and laid down and they slowed way down. Sometimes every 5 minutes, sometimes 15 minutes. Around 9 pm we decided to go to bed. Once I laid down they started coming every 15 minutes consistently and we're getting more intense. I got up, washed the dishes, watched TV and tried to relax. At midnight I decided to lay down again. At 1 am I woke curtis up and told him it was time to go. Contractions were coming every 5 minutes and they were pretty painful. We loaded Kalyn up and dropped her off to my dad. We got to hospital and got checked in by 2 am. As soon as we got to our room I asked for pain medication, I didn't want an epidural but I knew I needed something to take the edge off. She put me on the monitor and got it ordered. It took over an hour for me to get it. By 3:45 I was asking of an epidural, the pain meds didn't even touch the pain and my contractions were coming fast and hard. I didn't even have to time to relax after one and I'd feel the next coming. She wanted me on the monitor so I couldn't even stand and try to walk them out. With Kalyn in was in bed for about 15 minutes my entire labor. They let me shower and walk to get through and only put me on the monitor a couple times to keep track of her. This time was so different. The anesthesiologist came in around 4:15 and I got my epidural. Ahh... instant relief! I finally caught my breath and was feeling darn good.... and then it happened. Curtis took his grandma to get some food and my mom went to the waiting room. I just started to doze off around 6 am when I felt a contraction. Nothing too bad, just a little uncomfortable. Then I felt the next one a little stronger than the last... within 10 minutes it was like I had never even gotten the epidural. They gave me more around 6:30, nothing. They tried giving me more at around 7:15, still nothing. The midwife came in around 7:30, checked me and broke my water. As soon as she did I started feeling the urge to push. She left, they called her back 5 minutes later and it was go time. I started pushing at around 7:45 and Brody was born at 8:01. They put him on my chest for just a minute while they clamped and cut his cord, I was warned that they had noticed some meconium when they broke my water so the NICU team was there to check him over as soon as he was born. I held him for just a minute before they passed him off to be checked. He passed all the tests with flying colors and was breathing well! A beautiful healthy baby boy. 7 lbs 9 oz (exactly the same as him sister) 21" inches long! I can't believe I'm going to say this, but in the end I'm glad the epidural wore off. I was able to feel the contractions and knew when i needed to push and when I could back off and take a breath. I felt every inch of him come into the world. It was a totally different experience from Kalyn's birth, but it was a good one. They say that typically deliveries are faster with each pregnancy, "they" are wrong. I'm calling his an 8 hour labor and Kalyn came in 6 hours... so they are big fat liars. He's already stubborn like his momma and big sister, he came when he wanted... not when the doctors said! He sleeps all day and barely eats, at night he wants to stay up to eat and party all night long. It's made for a rough first three nights, but it's worth it... We're all in love! Curtis started talking about the next one just hours after Brody was born... let me promise you this, if we do have another one, it will NOT be anytime soon. I think I would be happy as a clam to just keep the 2 we have, they are perfect!

Infertility

I don't really like sharing things like this... but I realized after my miscarriage that it was very therapeutic to put my thoughts on "paper." I also realized that I wasn't alone, when I starting talking about my miscarriage I had so many people tell me their experiences with miscarriages, so many people that I know have had one, or two or even twelve and I never knew. It is so great to be able to talk to people about it and know that they know how hard it was and sometimes still is. So here we go again... this time down a different road, a road of infertility.
Shortly after Curtis and I got married, we decided to start a family. 2 months later I found out I was pregnant. It happened so fast so I assumed that when I was ready again it would happen just as quickly as the first time around. That didn't happen, almost 2 years ago we stopped all forms of birth control in hopes of having another baby. A couple months passed... not pregnant, a couple more... still not pregnant, a few more after that... not pregnant. I started getting a little concerned so I started tracking my ovulation and went another couple months with no pregnancy. After about 10 months I was getting extremely frustrated. Our family and friends kept asking when we were going to have another one, little did they know that we had been trying for almost a year. I bought a home ovulation test kit to better track  my ovulation, but every morning that I peed on that little stick, it showed no sign of ovulation. At the end of that month I found out I was pregnant. FINALLY!! 10 weeks later I miscarried. We waited 6 weeks and then started trying again. Curtis and I started thinking that maybe something was wrong, but I wasn't willing to accept that. We just kept trying and every month I was let down. In February when I started my period I lost it. I cried and cried, I wasn't pregnant and it felt like everyone around me was. Then came March, March would have been the month that we welcomed a new baby into our family, I thought for sure that I would get pregnant, again it was a month of disappointment. I called the doctor.
April 4th I went in to talk to him about options... where to go next.
There was an intern there that day. He came into the room and asked me what I was there for. I explained the situation to him, told him we'd been trying for almost 2 years, had 1 miscarriage in that time and wanted to know what we could do. He made me feel like a crazy person, told me 2 years isn't that long, told me there wasn't anything wrong, I had after all gotten pregnant twice before, and asked me if I had sought counseling for the miscarriage. I was getting angry and crying listening to him to tell me these things. He's not a doctor, he's an intern. How dare he ask me if I'd sought counseling, he seriously made me feel stupid for even being there. Dr McKay came in... my knight in shining armor here to save me from the intern, we got him up to date and he told me we could schedule an ultrasound during the time that I should be ovulating. He then told me my options, we could look into flushing my ovaries or start me on Clomid depending on what the ultrasound showed.
I went in April 15th and got some not so good news. I have poly cystic ovaries (little cysts on both my ovaries) and I showed no sign of ovulating this month. When I start my next cycle I will start on Clomid, a drug that helps stimulate ovulation in hopes of releasing an egg to fertilize. There is always a chance of multiples when on fertility drugs, but Curtis and I are okay with that. We'll try this first and keep our fingers crossed. If it doesn't work we will move on to flushing my ovaries, if that doesn't work, I'm done. I'm not willing to try in-vitro or any other options that might be out there. So whoever might read this, please say a little prayer that this does work. I know that there is a plan in place for me and maybe I'm only meant to have one, but prayer never hurts!



March

I feel like I've been dreading this month for so long... it's here now, I cant change it I just have to put my big girl panties on and get through it.

For most people March means spring is near... for me it's a month of sadness.

March 7th will mark 1 year since we had to put down my kitty Princess. I cant even wrap my head around the fact that shes been gone for a year. She was a member of our family for 8 years and I think about her almost daily. I am so grateful to still have my Buster Boy to love, but even after a year, our home feels so empty to me.

March is also the month that I should be holding a new baby in my arms. Before the miscarriage my calculating put my due date as March 11th. We have been trying for another, but for some reason it's just not happening. I am so happy with my life, with my amazing husband and my beautiful daughter... they fill my life with so much love and happiness, but for as long as I can remember I've always wanted to have 2 or 3. I know that my Heavenly Father has a plan for us... I just wish that his plan was the same as mine.

For now I will take it one day at a time. I will have some really bad days this month, days that I just just want to stay in bed, and days that I will cry way too much, but I will do my best to to remember all the good things I have in my life. My husband and amazing daughter, my family and friends who I love so much, a beautiful home that is filled with everything we need, a job that I love with coworkers that drive me crazy and love me no matter what and all the little things that make my life wonderful!! I will count my blessings daily and patiently wait for April :)

Kalyns Birthday Party

We celebrated Kalyns birthday at our house on September 29th with about 40 of our friends and family. The weather was perfect, the food was good and there was lots of fun to be had! Kalyn chose The Lion King as her theme and it was a whole lot harder to put together than I thought it would be. Apparently older movies aren't very popular. I was able to find some cute ideas and supplies online thank goodness. A good time was had by all.

"Kalyn is Three" Simba kiss stickers

                                                     The bounce house was a HUGE hit!

                 The little birthday princess and one of her favorite friends Lennon in the background

                                                      Lennon playing pin the tail on Simba!

 I searched high and low for a Lion King cake, with no success... I finally bought the characters online and took them to Olesons... the baker lady did a fantastic job putting the cake together!

                                                            Lion paw print cookies!

                                           Kalyn getting ready to take a swing at the pinata

                                                                        The loot!

                                                                    Our little family!

Kalyn got a ton fantastic gifts!

Kalyn and daddy in the bounce house after everyone left!

All in all it was an amazing day for an amazing little girl! We love you so much Kalyn Jo and hope you know what a great little lady you are!



Kalyn Turns 3

I cant even believe my little love is 3 already! Time really does fly.

September 26th started out with me waking her up. I had to work at 9:30, so when 9:00 rolled around  and she was still sleeping, I decided that I should wake her up so I could see her for a couple minutes before I left. I let her open one gift since it was her birthday - She got the Little Mermaid Disney figurines and loved them!! 

I went to work and Kalyn stayed home with grandpa. When Curtis and I got home we had dinner together and had birthday cupcakes! Kalyn got to open one more gift after dinner... she got a new Doc McStuffins toy and of course loved that too! We decided to go outside since it was such a beautiful day and let Kalyn ride in her jeep. She rode around the yard a little and then we decided to take a stroll around the block.

Kalyn was shocked when I told her she could drive it on the rode (she knows that shes not allowed to drive in the rode) I made sure she knew the rule was that if I told her to stop or she saw a car that meant STOP! And stop she did every time she was supposed to!

The next morning was her 3 year check-up. They wanted a urine sample so she had to pee in a bowl, I was a little worried that she wouldn't do it for me, but she did! She wanted to carry it to the car (which I said no to) She wanted to hold it in the car (which I again said no to) She wanted to carry it inside the office (again it was a no) and finally when the nurse was ready to take it, she wanted to go with her to test it (this time the nurse was the one to say no) Basically my kid is very protective of her pee :) 

They pricked her thumb and drew some blood and she didn't even flinch. They asked all the required questions, did a physical exam and when they were done, Doc said she's doing very well.

Weight: 29.1 lbs (30th percentile)

Height: 36 1/8" (30th percentile)

Overall shes perfect and we wouldn't change her for the world!

.

I never thought these words would be mine... but they are. I had a miscarriage.
Tuesday night I went to the ER a little after 11:00 pm. When I went to the bathroom there was some blood, so I immediately got in the car. I told Curtis to stay home with Kalyn and keep his phone near, that I would call him with an update. I also told my mom and Tim to stay home, but they didn't listen.
They drew some blood, took a urine sample and made me wait forever. They finally took me for an ultrasound around 1:00 am. I knew what I was looking for... all I wanted to see was that little heartbeat, but I didn't. I didn't see movement... I didn't even see a baby.
They sent me back to my room without saying much and again I waited to hear the results (which I already knew) I knew that I was miscarrying, but I couldn't wrap my head around that fact that I didn't see a baby in that ultrasound. Around 2 am thay came in and confirmed that I was having a miscarriage. I had an appt scheduled the next morning for our first ultrasound with the OB, so they called my doc and he said he still wanted to see me.
I slept for a couple hours and got up yesterday to go to the doctor. He told us that he has seen the ultrasound and explained to Curtis and I what had happened. He said that there were some chromosone issues, my eggs and Curtis' sperm didn't mesh well together so a fetus never even formed. The sac that holds the fetus was there and had grown, but nothing else did. He said this is VERY common and with most miscarriages there is never a fetus. In cases like this when a fetus does form and is carried full term, you end up with downs syndrome. It's not anything I did, or didn't do, it's just plain bad luck.
As strange as it seems I was actually happy to hear that there was never a fetus. I fetus to me means life and spirit, I was so sad to know that a spirit had chosen our family and was never given the opportunity to be with us on earth. So that fact that there wasn't relieved me. 
I am feeling very blessed today. There are so many women who go through this over and over again and never get the child they yearn for... Curtis and I however have been blessed with a happy, healthy, beautifully perfect little girl and she is all we really need. I know that my heavenly father has a plan for our family and if it includes another little life to love I would be over the moon... if not that's okay too. For now, this little ham will get to keep us all to herself...