Wednesday, July 14, 2010

From no job to wonderful baby fog!

I have always dreamed of being a stay at home mom. I never thought it would actually happen. I used to day dream about all of the cool and great things I would do with my kids and how I would have a clean house all the time. Well...I am about a month and a half into my new career as domestic engineer and I can tell you it is not what I thought it would be.
Not that it is bad, just different.
Three weeks ago I had the blessing of giving birth to our baby boy Kendall. He is so sweet and tiny (I don't care he was 9lbs. and people say that is not tiny...to me he is tiny). Our house is clean and I have a lot of ideas on how to be creative, but I didn't realize how much time a newborn takes.
Every second is totally worth it, but it is just a lot sometimes. When he cries, we go through the list of things that could be wrong. Wet, hungry, uncomfortable, hot, cold, gas? We can tell sometimes by the way he cries. But not always.
When I look at him, I think of how this is challenging to us and how it must be so much more for him. He has to learn everything! How to breath, eat, sleep on his own, everything!
The first time I went to the bathroom without him, I cried! For nine months he was with me constantly. All of a sudden I have to share him and trust others to be careful and take care of him. I think God knew I couldn't handle being away from him, so he allowed my job to go away.
I had all of these wonderful dreams and expectations about bringing him home. I was living in a fantasy world. Our whole experience could be in a movie. It really was nothing like I had imagined.

Here is the story:
My original due date was July 9, 2010. It got pushed back to July 8th about midway through the pregnancy. I was told that he was weighing in at 6lbs. I, however, knew he was out of room and felt he was bigger. So on June 21, 2010 I went to bed around 10:30pm. Around 11:50pm I was awakened to a warm puddle that I could not stop. I knew John would freak out! So, I gently tapped him on the shoulder several times and calmly said, "Honey, don't freak out, but my water broke." Of course he freaked out. He was running around the house asking where this and that were. I kept repeating, "In the bag honey." We arrived at the hospital a little after midnight. The doctor checked to make sure it was my water that had broken and it was. We were sent to labor and delivery where we spent the next fifteen or so hours. I had contractions but only dialated to 6 and this was after cervadal and potosin (sp). So around 10:00pm Dr. Troutman came in and said due to failure to progress he wanted to do a c-section. At 10:46pm on 6-22-10 our sweet boy Kendall Alan Mason was born. Weighing in at 9lbs and 21.5 in long. I knew he was out of room!! I was so happy but also so drugged that I just wanted to go to sleep. I didn't though. And I guess I really have not had a lot of sleep since. It is all worth it!!
John has been the very best daddy...as I knew he would be. I did not change a diaper until we got home. And now if John is home, he will help with the care of the boys. He is a great helper and dad!
Jackson still doesn't really know what to do with Kendall. He is still too little. But he will soon enough.

I had all of these dreams of how wonderful and peaceful birth would be and how I would have the cutest pictures taken of him in the hospital and how bringing him home would be this huge wonderful ordeal. HA! Our last night in the hospital was awful. We got no sleep at all. Kendall was eating like crazy (cluster feeding) and John and I were at each other's throats (lack of sleep will do that to us...we both have to have our sleep or we are no good!). John had witnessed a baby in the nursery getting a circumcision and we were debating on whether or not to get Kendall done or not. It was a different pediatrician and after speaking to ours, we decided to have his procedure done in the office later. The picture lady was nice but wanted us to have all of these props for the pictures and we were not feeling any of that. We just wanted to get home. So...the morning of our departure we got the news that our boy was jaundiced and we had to keep him on a bili light that would be delivered to our home later that afternoon. We had an appointment with the pediatrician the next morning to see what his progress was. Because Kendall came early we did not have his car seat installed. It had been riding in the back of our Cherokee for a few weeks. We did have Kyra's car seat installed. Poor John had to uninstall Kyra's seat and install Kendall's. I had a transporter take me and all of our stuff from our room down to the entrance to meet John. When we got downstairs, Ribbit, the mascot for the Greenville Drive was standing out there with the Fox news crew, camera rolling and all. And there I sit in a wheel chair holding my jaundiced newborn wearing no shoes because my feet were soooooo swollen that I couldn't fit into any of my shoes. John came around with the car and I wobbled over (oh yeah did I mention that I was in soooooo much pain that I could barely stand?) to the car and hopped in. A lot faster than I probably should have. The car seat was installed, but our poor little baby was not fitting in the seat the correct way. We pulled over in the parking lot of the hospital and tried to figure it out. We couldn't. So we just headed home. We were greeted at home by my mom and step dad and a wonderfully clean house. So it was not all bad. Just A LOT different than what I had imagined.

I am falling in love more and more with this sweet boy! I am so happy I don't have to worry about waking early for a job that sucked the life out of me. Now I wake early so a sweet life can get nourishment.

And the journey continues....it is a sweet life God has granted me with!

Monday, May 24, 2010

Here I gooooooo....Another Journey!

Well, on 6-27-05 I made a 4.5 year stop on my journey. WIA/Onestop has been just that. One Stop on my life's journey.
May 5, 2010 God pushed me out of my comfort zone and is preparing me for another stop (hopefully a much longer one!) on my journey.

MOTHERHOOD x 2!

I have my wonderful baby (well he is 10...but still my baby!) Jackson. We are 33 weeks and four days pregnant with our sweet baby Kendall Alan Mason.

Even though this huge change has turned my world upside down and shaken out my confidence and security, it has reminded me that God is in control! NOT man! I was having nightmares about who was going to keep my sweet bundle and wondering if I could truly go to work everyday and feel comfortable with someone else raising my baby.

A long time ago, God placed a dream in my heart to be a mom. A little later He placed a dream in my heart to become a Mary Kay Director in order to be a mom and still make money.

Everything in God's timing!!! I just needed a push!

I am so thankful to start this journey!!!