Friends, family, and celebrations

This has been a very busy, but very great week! We were able to celebrate Masons first birthday with him. This special little boy belongs to one of my dear friends, Brooke. I have had four of the same very dear friends for eight years now. When I first moved to Kansas City at 22, my lifelong friend Cathy introduced me to Alecia and Brooke. We became instant friends. We were just a group of single girls...

Then we started getting married and having babies....

Here we are eight years later with all of our kids (minus Bryce)....BOY, have things changed!!

Emma had a lot of fun with all of her friends. She likes to party :)

Then, on Sunday, she got to party again at my nephews birthday. My little Danny dear turned nine. I can't believe how fast time flies. We were taking pictures in front of T-Rex and Danny took a picture of Brett having his head eaten by the dino. He always has us laughing!!

Emma's 4 month check up was on Monday. She is now a whole 12 lbs 8 oz (35th%) and 25 inches long (67th%). Dr. Rogers is very pleased with her growth! She is feeling so much better with her last med increase and is full of smiles. So are her mommy and daddy :) I never imagined I would love life so much...until I had my little family!

Farewell Facebook...well for now

I've been on Facebook for a couple of years now.  It's been great.  I can send instant messages to whoever else can't sleep at night.  I can find out where my "friends" are checked in at any moment of the day.  I can watch my friends families grow.  However, there has been something missing that is so very important to me.  I have been missing true connections.  I have missed hearing what's really going on in my friends and families lives, and I've missed my friends really knowing what's going on in our lives.  Facebook has been great surface fun, but are we really, really keeping up with each other?  We are all guilty of getting caught up in the business of life, and avenues like facebook make it really easy to catch a quick glimpse of people we use to know.  But really, I don't remember the last time I spoke to some of my dearest friends on the phone. My hopes in ending my relationship with facebook, is that my connections with loved ones will be strengthened.  I don't know that disappearing from facebook will be a permanent decision, but it is certainly important that I vacate the premises of FB world for a few months at least to get back to reality.  I need to focus on my family and all of our new changes.  We have had such a big year and I am so in love with my life I could burst.  I hope that I can still share all of my joys with you all...just more on a personal note. So friends, you can expect alot more calls from me, because I'm still going to want to chat, and know where you are, and watch and hear about your families grow...I'm just going to want to really be present for it all! 

Here We Go...

First of all,  I'm not really sure why I have chosen to blog, except that I'm tired of Facebook and thought this may be a better way for our close friends and family to keep up with us.  I don't have an overly exciting life, but it is perfect in every way to me...

Brett and I have been married for three years now.  I am so fortunate to have such a loving husband who supports me in every thing and every decision.

I have been a nurse since 2006.  This is something I have always wanted to do, and that I thoroughly enjoy.  Upon completion of my schooling, I left with every intention of saving the world.  To be super nurse.  I started my career as an RN in Houston on a Med/Surg Tele where I eventually became charge nurse 3 days a week.  Because of my love of the elderly, my director of nursing offered me the position of charging on the new ACE unit (Acute Care of the Elderly) when it opened.  I loved this work, and I quickly decided that I wanted to be a nurse practitioner specializing in Gerontology.

We ended up back in Missouri, and I ended up back in Med/Surg.  After getting settled in our home, we decided to start a family.  I never would have expected this to be so difficult.  After 8 months and still no baby, I decided to switch jobs with more regular hours to see if this helped.  It did!  Shortly after going to work for a group of Gastroenterologists, I was pregnant!  So very excited, we started picking out names, and deciding what to do with the nursery...

We went to our first doctors appointment.  Because I had a miscarriage very early in pregnancy while in Houston, my doctor decided to do an ultrasound to make sure that the baby had implanted in the right place. Hand in hand we waited to see the little heartbeat.  There was a heartbeat.  A very very slow and faint heartbeat. The US technician gathered the doctor.  Neither were confident.  My heart broke.  I was losing my second child.  After two follow-up ultrasounds and a faint turned non-existent heartbeat, I was scheduled for a D&C.   I knew that it was common for women to experience one, and I had made my peace with that.  But, now there were two miscarriages.  Was I being punished? Was I ever going to be a mother?

After many prayers, we joined a great church.  We found hope and faith.  We were born again Christians.  With our marriage stronger than it had ever been, We became pregnant again just 6 months later.  We were careful not to get too excited and were under careful observation of our OB/GYN.  It had been found that I had a gene mutation MTHFR that could have been the reason for my miscarriages, so I took extra Folic Acid and a baby aspirin everyday to ensure that there would be no clotting off of blood and nutrients to this fetus.  We had such a great team working with us!

I had not given up on my dream of working with geriatrics.  I continued to pursue my NP.  Towards the end of my pregnancy, as my finals approached, my OB/GYN agreed that it would be safe to induce labor as I became increasingly uncomfortable.  After 13 hours of labor, and 2 hours of pushing, the baby's heartbeat started to decelerate more frequently.  I saw the seriousness in the doctors eyes as she advised to stop pushing and pursue a C-section.  My hips were less than desirable in shape for vaginal childbirth and was putting baby at risk. Thirty minutes later...there was my little miracle.  After everything, Emma Kaitlin came and changed our lives forever!

Two days after arriving home, we realized that Emma cried ALOT!  She was in  extreme discomfort.  Her weight had dropped and was not coming back up.  Everything she got down came right back up.  Emma had reflux.  Now, working with adults with reflux, I forget that with babies, this can be much more of an issue.  The first 6 weeks were hard.  I finally had to give up on breastfeeding, as this seemed to aggrevate her reflux.  We tried numerous formulas, medications and dosages.  Being in school at the same time was becoming too much.  I started to notice how mean other moms can be.  Here I was, desperately trying to take care of my child, no sleep, clueless along with all the doctors and specialists on how to make her feel better, and I had moms criticizing me...for inducing labor, for having a c-section and "giving up" too easily, for not continuing to breastfeed even though it was making my child sick.  I felt defeated, judged, and most of all lonely.  You see, when you have a colicky baby... who get very few visitors. It was just me and Brett, a crying baby, and a lot of homework.

We found incredible support in our church, small group friends, a few close friends and parents. We did alot of praying.  We changed meds again.  Finally, we decided it was time to put school on hold.  I'm now working only two days a week.  I love being home with Emma and only concentrating on her, and she loves going to daycare two days a week and playing with the others.  Being a mommy is awesome.  She is finally starting to get better, and so am I.  I've learned, having plans is ok.  It's something to fall back on when you are not caught up in blessings.  So, maybe someday I will continue to pursue school, but for now, I'm going to be a part-time nurse and Full-time mommy and wife...because that is what matters most!