I Hate The Feeling

The past week has been a little interesting for me, to say the least.  I had a minor surgery done last Tuesday that required general anesthesia and pain meds.  I spent all of Monday cleaning the house so my husband wouldn't be overwhelmed with laundry and chores along with the task of keeping up with our 1.5 year old and taking care of me if I needed it.  So Monday was rushed.  Tuesday came and we dropped our son off with his grandparents early and headed to the hospital.  We waited for what seemed like forever for them to get me prepped for surgery and then waited even longer in a holding pre-op room for them to administer the anesthesia and do the actual surgery.  I woke up feeling no pain and feeling relatively normal immediately.  They wheeled me in a post-op room where we sat for another two hours waiting on my pain meds prescription to be filled.  Last surgery I had done there was at the surgery center, not the actual hospital and I liked the surgery center much better!! I was in and out and home in no time there, but at the hospital there were a lot of delays and the nurses were much crabbier there.  Josh finally got my script filled and I was medicated for the ride home.  We pick up Sawyer and by the time we made it to the house it was late and time to get Sawyer ready for bed.  I was a little sad about that, I am not used to spending that much time away from Sawyer.  Oh not to mention, I freak out every time I have to be put under with general anesthesia.  Yes, I know these people manage airways for a living and they are good at saving lives if something went south BUT I hate, hate, hate the feeling you get knowing that your life is literally in the hands of someone that you don't even know. So I was a little emotional before the surgery.  The surgery itself was non life threatening, however having to be intubated and the risk of overdose, etc. just is too much for me to think about.  I about bawled when we dropped Sawyer off that morning and I cried in the pre-op room before surgery and made Josh pray out loud for me.  Then he kissed me and said, "Nothing will happen to you, but just in case....I love you."   Lol....not something you want to hear everyday.

Anyways,  Wednesday and Thursday I was on pain meds so the days are kinda fuzzy to me.  Thursday night I decided that I was going to wean myself off of the pain medication.  Well from then on until yesterday night (a total of 3 days) I paid for that.  I am not sure why, but my body is extremely sensitive to pain medicine.  I was having some crazy withdrawal symptoms.   Insomnia, depression, nausea, rapid pulse, shortness of breath, dizziness, a few other similar things.  I was miserable.  Last night I almost passed out at church and my heart was beating crazy fast.  This morning I woke up and I felt normal and I have stayed that way all day but I have literally spent so much time not being myself that today I almost don't remember who I am.  It sounds a little dramatic, but it's the truth.  I just feel like it's going to take awhile for me to remember what life was like before those almost 7 days of being sick or totally wiped out from pain meds.  So ya, that pretty much sums it up.  Not that great.  

On a side note, I am extremely thrilled because my little brother Matt now has the ability to Skype!  I haven't mentioned him yet.  He is in the Marine Corp and this year he graduated from Quantico, VA MSG training school and is now going to be a US Embassy guard for the next 3 years.  Every year he will be given a new location, and this July he arrived at his first location which was in Madagascar!! So crazy and awesome for him.  So now he lives on the compound there and I think that he is really enjoying it but he just now got internet access to his laptop so he can talk to us.  For the past few months we have only been able to communicate via FB messenger so I was so happy to see him!  :)  I love my brothers, all of them in totally different ways but I love them all very much!  We all spent so much time together growing up, so it's hard for me to be away from them.  I need to be better at seeing the ones that are here more often.  I am really bad about not knowing the value of what I have until it's taken away.  So if this blog or myself ever crosses your mind, please say a prayer for him.  For his safety, emotional and spirtitual state.  I pray for him every night, specifically for those 3 aspects.  I worry for him especially since he isn't somewhere that he can be spiritually fed well.  I pray that the Lord will live in his heart and shine through him no matter where he is or what he is doing.  I am sure that being isolated on a small foreign island can be rough at times.  So I will end this entry with this, pray for all the troops.  I can't even begin to imagine how hard and discouraging it is for those away from home. God bless them and their families!

Baby Fever

I am glad that my husband doesn't pay that much attention to my blog because he would have a stroke if he read this. So, I remember that before we decided to have Sawyer I had baby fever....bad.  At first it started out with me looking at pictures of babies on facebook and seeing them at Walmart and getting all excited for the time that Josh and I would have one of our own.  Then that slowly turned in a slight feeling of jealousy anytime a fb friend would post that they were pregnant or I would see a picture of a baby.  Then that turned into me googling pregnancy and baby names and then my sister in law had a baby and I seen Josh holding him in the hospital room and my baby fever was full on!  Okay, quick note to husbands - if you don't want your wife to have baby fever or if you don't want her baby fever to become worse, DO NOT HOLD A BABY!  Big mistake!!! So I couldn't take it after that, I had to have one.  I mean, I couldn't live without being pregnant any longer.  People always asked us about babies and we always played it cool too.  "Hey, when are you guys going to have a baby?" Us - "Oh, not for a long time....we are just enjoying being married right now."  While really all we could think about was having a child of our own.  I mean that's normal right?  You want people to be surprised when you announce your big news. So anyways, we were pregnant not long after and my baby fever disappeared quick, fast and in a hurry.  I remember being 8 weeks pregnant and I had done nothing but puke or feel like I was on the verge of puking.  I remember laying on the couch panicking over the thought that I just might die from all the puking and that I didn't even remember what normal felt like anymore and I wasn't sure if I would ever feel normal again.  Ya, sounds dramatic....but you actually think those things.  I mean, I think that when I have a 24 hour stomach bug so 2 weeks of it had me begging God for mercy.  Well, lucky me had morning sickness for the whole 9 months...yay!  I had a super rough delivery that scared the living daylights out of us and if circumstances had been different it could have actually killed Sawyer and then to top it off Sawyer was not the definition of an easy baby.  He screamed non stop for months.  At that point, I didn't think I would ever, ever, ever, ever have baby fever again. 

Where am I now?  The beginning stages of baby fever.  God is smart.  He somehow programmed women to be gluttons of punishment. Your life is turned upside down, your body goes through changes that is just not even imaginable or describable, you experience pain and fear like you have never known before (hopefully you have never experienced before) but then less than 2 years later all of the details become extremely fuzzy and somehow us women remember the experience as pleasant, wonderful, and totally manageable.  Some women even do this sooner.  Okay, there is an exception: some women (lucky ducks) have extremely wonderful pregnancies and the labor goes smooth and their babies are very mild mannered.  I can totally understand why they would want to do it all over again.  I envy them, however for a lot of women this is not the case.  And that my friends, is why God made women the way we are.  I know if you put a man through that, the kid would be an only child.

So as I was saying, Sawyer is so much fun these days!!  He is still a little difficult to keep up with and he is still a ball of energy, oh also he has hit the terrible 2s a little early.  Tantrums and the word no are a regular thing around here.  However, I see that everyday he learns soo much and that everyday he becomes easier to enjoy and he makes me laugh and smile so much.  My heart is entirely full of love for him and we are so proud of what an awesome being he has become in less than 2 years. So even though I am not ready just yet to put myself through that torture, I am ready to get ready...make sense?  I have a vacation that we have already booked to Florida next June, and I don't want to be pregnant or have a newborn for that so I am thinking anytime after that maybe.  We will see how we feel then, but Sawyer will be over 2 years old by next summer and that would make him 3 or older before we have another and I think that is a good amount of time to have between 2 children.  Hopefully, Sawyer will be potty trained and sleeping a big boy bed and talking well by then and that would make life so much easier.  Not to mention maybe he could be more of a helper by then.  I think he would immensely enjoy a sibling, maybe not a first but when they were a little older he would have a blast.  So yes, I am definitely excited about our future but as for right now I am just soaking in each and every day with my handsome boys and just being us 3.  I don't want to rush through these precious years and time with Sawyer.  He is still my baby and I don't want to evict him from that status just yet. So here's to me overcoming a fear of mine...something I thought I would never want to do again!  I am so thankful that God is preparing my mommy heart and soul.  I think Josh's daddy heart will be ready by then too! Thank goodness that God gave us momma's baby fever huh? 

The Good Life

I had a good day....today, yesterday, the day before and well pretty much all week. I am not sure if my attitude has changed or if it has just been that smooth of a week. I am leaning more towards attitude because I still had a few less than great moments this week.

I was thinking that this week, on the 27th, I will be a quarter of a century old and I don't want to waste my "good" years fretting over the small details in life and things that don't go exactly my way....because things not going my way will be a forever factor in my life. So, I have decided to roll with the punches and love my boys like crazy and enjoy them in the process instead of worry all of the time. And I am liking this new me. I don't think I have been this laid back since I was 21.

Anyways, so that pretty much sums up my week...good. Sawyer had his first dentist appointment and was a champ. I was so proud of him. He also turned 19 months old this week. (Sniffle, sniffle) Josh worked what seemed like a ton of hours this week. Sunday and Monday he worked a 48, Tuesday he came home and ran errands all morning and he came home just in time to go to ICU clinicals until nearly midnight. Wednesday we went grocery shopping and to the dentist and got that done just in time for Josh to head off to class all evening. Thursday he worked a 24 hr shift and when he got off work on Friday morning he walked across the street to the hospital and did clinicals until 1. He came home and we finally got to spend time with him for a little. We went to the County Superbowl for a date night and that was fun. Saturday we both woke up early and I went and worked at Cattlemen's and he did more ER clinicals until nearly 5pm. Whew!!! I miss my husband!! I am so ready for school to be over with....can you see why? I am so proud of him though because he juggles all of this like a pro. Even though it was a hectic week I am going to bed happy and with an extremely full and thankful heart. I have a healthy, beautiful son that is loads of fun and makes me feel so loved and worthwhile and gives me so much joy AND a handsome, very smart and good, God fearing man that loves me and provides a very blessed life for me. What more do I need? God is good! I am definitely looking forward to a new week full of God's goodness and I hope the same for everyone else.

Becoming Who My Father Designed Me To Be

I literally just got done having a "Come to Jesus moment" with myself. I bet you are wondering how that went down...well it wasn't pretty.

For the past 9 or more months we have been attending a couples class at church. I love it and I always look forward to the next one. I really soak in all we learn and go home on Sunday night feeling empowered and renewed in the spiritual aspect of our marriage and my role as a Godly wife. Then it hits us, something stupid happens....so stupid I often forget why we even started bickering and then I get my feelings hurt. By the way, not very many people can hurt my feeling....but the more I love ya, the better shot you have at it.  This is where the big problem comes in, when I get my feelings hurt and I feel unloved or underappreciated I turn into the ugly version of myself. Instead of handling it with grace and meekness I tear Josh down with even more hurtful words or actions. My thought is, you hurt me and I hurt you worse. Unfortunately my husband is good at playing this game so an argument of something extremely petty turns into a pretty nasty competition of who can hurt each other the most. It doesn't sound that bad except for over time this game has calloused our hearts to some degree. We just don't care anymore and the words we have said have damaged our marriage. We look back and wonder where that sweet, loving couple went to. Pretty depressing. Don't get me wrong, I love my husband so so very much and I don't know how I would function without him but we have got to get back on track ASAP because I don't want to let this evil game go on anymore. 

For months every time we would attend a couples class session I would leave thinking he would have gotten something out of it and he would put our newly found skills into action....and he did and I did temporarily until things got hard again. I was talking to my sweet friend and sister in Christ about my dilemma and she recommended I read this book entitled, "Created To Be His Helpmeet." By Debi Pearl and I must say this book has convicted me strongly. It breaks me down into tears every time I crack it open because I feel God's word seeping into my soul and laying a burden on me to straighten up and accept my Godly role as Josh's wife. This book explains that my role as a wife (every woman's role) is to submit and be a meek spirit amond a ton of other things. This is not me at all!!! I am not quiet or meek or submissive ahhhhh!!! I am going to have to re arrange everything I have ever thought or felt to fit this role and that thought hurts. I want to be me, but I am going to have to figure out how to be me but in a more refined way...it seems tricky to me. So as I started reading this book, I realized it wasn't going to be easy. My first thought was to hide the book because I didn't want Josh to know I am reading this and actually expect me to change. So I did, ha ha....I sorta hid it from him and every night he was at work I would open it up and read it and usually end up putting it down after one chapter exhausted and overwhelmed. The principle of this book is to put your husband's needs and wants before yours, serve him, love him unconditionally and no matter what don't lose your temper or mistreat him even if he deserves it because this is what God has called wives to be. In doing this, Josh will become the best version of himself because he loves God and has a faithful loving wife to support him and never tear him down no matter what. Behind every good man stands a great woman....right? This book has hundreds of scriptures backing up every single thought and piece of advice. I have a respectful fear for my Lord and Savior and if He commands me to do something, I dare not set it aside. So here it is, the Lord has been speaking to me and revealing my erroneous ways and providing me with the answer to escape this "rut" we are in and it has been heavy on my heart because I just don't want to. Change hurts. So finally tonight, I caved. I started crying because it was just too heavy on my heart, I couldn't push God away any longer. I called Josh and told him I needed him to pray for me and I ended up spilling the beans. It was a relief, I feel accountable now. But tonight I felt like I was battling my own flesh. I don't want to be molded into this but my heart and soul was fighting with my flesh and it was sooooooo hard for me to succumb. But Satan lost, and I feel victorious. But I need prayer like no other. I know Satan will be working extremely hard on me because he doesn't want me to be the wife God wants me to be because then that means Josh becomes the man of God that Satan definitely doesn't want. You see, my husband is a great man. He has a ton of potential for God...I believe that 100% and if Satan can keep us bickering he can keep Josh from assuming this role. I have the power to make or break this man, and I choose to support him and help him grow into whatever God wants him to be. I adore him and the person he is and has potential to be and I have always known God has something great in store for him and I know it's time I stop hindering and start helping.

So here it goes, please pray for me. I always have wanted to be a Proverbs 31 woman but never thought I would actually have to try this hard. Growing and change hurts, but I know it is a good change and I will be better for it and so will my husband and children. I highly suggest this book for any other wives out there who are looking for answers. It's definitely not something easy to read, but it is so rich in truth. Anyone else wanna join me in this journey....I need an accountability partner?

Motherhood - Dealing With a Media's Myth

Ahhh, sweet motherhood.....such a beautiful and perfect gift. You awake to the sight of a sweet baby grinning and cooing at you after a night of perfect sleep because your 3 month old now sleeps through the night. You get up feeling awesomely refreshed, cook your husband breakfast and send him out the door to work after you give him a goodbye kiss with a happy, clean smiling baby on your hip. Then you play all day with your sweet little one, occasionally change a diaper and give them a bottle, you know all that fun stuff. Then your husband returns home after work and you have a hot dinner on the table and you are all dressed up for him like June Cleaver. He adoringly plays with the innocent babe you two created together then the baby goes to bed and you two enjoy one another's company from 7-10pm. The perfect life!!!!

Not! I hate to burst your bubble - but it has to be done. The media has young women totally buying into this lie and I was one of them. I have always been one to buy into a fairytale though, but anyways....I know several women see it this way. I wish I had someone to prepare me on what to really expect. All you hear during the pregnancy is how wonderful it will be etc, etc etc.   Don't get me wrong....motherhood is beautiful, awesome, and a gift from God but be prepared for all the other things that accompany the blessing as well so it's not a total shock. 

I was beyond excited when I found out I was expecting. I thought to myself, "This is it Heather, your life will be perfect now!" That feeling stuck for about 2 weeks until the morning sickness hit at 6 weeks. Oh and guess what, all morning sickness isn't in the morning and it doesn't all go away at 12 weeks either. I am a worry wort as well, so here I am panicking until I reach the "safe-zone" at 12 weeks. I make it to 11 weeks, we go in for an ultrasound and the Dr. tells us the baby looks perfect, praise the Lord! He thinks it will be just fine and we have nothing to worry about. The Sunday after that appointment, my mom takes me out to dinner at Western Sizzlin after church and while eating a severe pain takes over my abdomen. She notices and tells me she hopes I am not having a miscarriage, I assure her it's not one because the Dr told us the baby was perfect just a few days before. She takes me back to Green Forest where Josh is working at the EMS station. I go in and sit down to spend the afternoon with him like I usually do, I mention the pain but we both decide it's probably normal tummy troubles and go along with our day. Within just a few minutes, Josh gets toned out for a medical call. I head out to the car and my brother, Matt, calls me. As I am on the phone, I feel blood start to gush out of me. With every beat of my heart, a squirt of blood shoots out. I quickly end the conversation with my brother telling him that I am bleeding (poor Matt, I am sure that freaked him out) then I called Josh. I explain to him I am bleeding heavily and he told me he was with a patient and to go to the ER and that if I felt faint to pull over and call 911. I sped all the way to ER bawling and crying out to God, I was pleading with him to save my baby. I walk in the ER and beat on the admissions window, the lady behind the glass starts to give me an ugly look for beating on the glass until she notices the blood running down my leg and she immediately gets me back into a room.  I get an ultrasound done and I am terrified of what I will see on that monitor but to my surprise there is a bouncing baby in there wiggling around and it looked like it was waving at me. I go back in the ER to find Josh waiting for me, he grabs my hand and we wait for the Dr. He comes in and explains I will most likely miscarriage soon and that this is the early signs. Josh and I are both visibly upset, family and his EMS partners are in there apologizing. We go home and try accept it. The next day I make an appointment to see my OB Dr. He takes me back for an ultrasound and we are expecting him to say the same but to our surprise he says our baby is fine. He explained that I had a sub-chorionic hemorrhage which is a bleed in between the uterus and the amniotic sac. They are not that dangerous unless the bleed becomes large and then it can separate the placenta from the wall of the uterus, which would kill my growing baby. So he tells us that my bleed isn't a small one and that it will either get worse or resolve on it's own by 20 weeks. So here we are, relieved but yet we have a whole new mountain of worry and challenges ahead. So we were scared, very scared when we left that office and not sure if the baby growing in me would survive. I bled off and on for weeks and we would panic a little every time, praise the Lord none of the bleeds were as bad as the first though. Finally, around 18-19 weeks we get the all clear and er have found out that we have a little boy on the way. One the best feelings ever!! So we finally started planning a room for him, now that we knew he would most likely be sticking around. Time went by and sure enough, delivery time came knocking on our doorstep. I get an induction scheduled for February 20th, 2012. We are beyond excited and ready to meet our little Sawyer. We get there that morning around 8am and everything goes perfectly. They break my water around 1, I get an epidural around 2 something, I visit and smile nearly the entire time. 10 o' clock comes and it's time to push. So I started pushing and it was lasting forever. Almost an hour and a half later he still wasn't here and then suddenly my Dr hits a panic button, they start yelling at me to push hard because Sawyer was stuck. I start freaking out because I am obviously doing everything I can. Finally a nurse jumps up on the bed and pushes on my belly and the Dr is vacuuming him out at the same time. He finally comes out and he was pale and limp. He was alive, but he wasn't acting quite like a healthy newborn should so instead of getting my first moments with baby he is rushed away and the nurses start examining him. 45 minutes later they hand me my 8lb 13oz Sawyer and I must admit I was shocked when I seen him. He looked miserable. He was a solid bruise from the nipple line up and it was obvious he didn't feel good. He moaned and whined the whole time I held him. Thankfully, he improved every hour...and by 3 days old he looked perfect and quite adorable!! We take him home after 3.5 days in the hospital in time to receive a phone call later that afternoon that he has jaundice from the terrible bruising and he needs photo light therapy to help him because his bilirubin levels were getting dangerously high. So we end up getting our little pumpkin hooked up to the wall 24/7 with this light on him....that makes having a newborn 10xs harder and diaper changes take 10x longer. Fast forward a week, he gets past the jaundice and then the screaming starts. Every.waking.hour. That swore this already frazzled me down fast. So we take him to the Dr and she more or less tells us that's normal and we are just naive. 2 months later we finally switch Dr's and find out he has severe acid reflux! He was put on meds and ever since he has been much more agreeable. A few months ago, we finally got him off of the acid medicine which is a huge answered prayer.

Anyways, so I literally spent every minute of my pregnancy and his first six months of life stressed to some degree or another. Not what the media had planted in my head at all and because of this I was depressed, I felt like I was a terrible mother and doing something wrong because my experience didn't mirror a fairy tales. Sound familiar? I'll admit, I think my pregnancy and delivery was rough...was it any reason to waste the first 6 months of my child's life being depressed....NO. It deeply saddens me when I think about all the precious time I wasted with Sawyer because I was too busy not trusting God and leaving it in his hands. Why did I experience this? Because I bought into Hollywood's "idea" of motherhood. Don't make the same mistake, realize that motherhood will be challenging, scary and just downright ugly at times....but also realize that this little person is just little once. And they don't stay little long at all!! By the way, one thing Hollywood won't prepare you for is the feeling you feel when your baby smiles at you for the first time and tears stream down your face because you realize at that very moment that you are holding the most precious miracle ever that adores you to pieces. And it won't prepare you for the way you catch your breath the first time you hear them say mama or they kiss you and reach their little arms around your neck and squeeze you as hard they can before you lay them in their crib at night. The list goes on and on. I can remember having a terrible day once, Satan was attacking me with everything he had and I was just bawling and down in a low valley. Sawyer was about 6 or 7 months old and he turned and stared into my eyes and laid his chubby little hand on my mouth and laid his head on my chest. I swear I seen God in his eyes, soothing me. I honestly don't know how I ever mattered before him. Being a momma makes my life so important and I cherish that and I get teary eyed every time I think about how close he came to never making it here.  So don't get down momma's....don't compare yourself to Hollywood, or social media, or any other altered view of the journey. You will be so disappointed because it is so much more than that. Way more difficult but 100000x better than you could ever imagine. It's something that will never be sufficiently portrayed. Real life is so much better, always.  I go to bed now every night with a grateful heart, I rock Sawyer a lot and love it, I miss him while he is sleeping, and we play all the time. There will be no more regrets here, I am taking all these precious moments in. Don't let Satan steal your joy!!

My First Blog

So here I am, blogging.  It's definitely something I thought I would never take part in....regardless, I am in need of an outlet - something to help me get my ideas organized and see myself think and grow.  I have read several other blogs and I have gotten so much out of reading how other people are just like me.  They have the same problems, experiences, fights....just a different view point on life.  I need that.  So maybe I can be sort of the same for people, a fresh or different look on life and situations - an encouragement. So here goes nothing...

Since this is my first blog I will start off with an introduction of myself.  As of now, I am mainly a stay at home mom to my almost 18 month old son, Sawyer. We live on a peaceful piece of land out in the country in a small but not too small house that me and my husband built about 4 years ago right before we tied the knot.  I have a few small side jobs but nothing worth really mentioning at this point.  My husband, Josh, is a full time paramedic and is also attending nursing school which = I am pretty much a single mom for the time being.  He works 48 hour shifts usually. He comes home and then goes to school and then comes home from school/clinicals in time to sleep and will go back to work for another 24 or 48 hours.  He usually has one good day off a week, rarely two days.  So as you can imagine I am alone with my thoughts quite often.  But the good news is, we can see the light....the craziness is almost to an end, or so we hope.  Josh graduates from nursing school in December and already has a job lined out at as an ER nurse...praise the Lord!!! I am beyond excited about this because I miss my husband and nursing hours are much better than medic hours!  He is a great man, husband, father - just an awesome person all around. We have a pretty great love story too but I will save that for another time. We are both God-fearing Christians and we have just joined a church that we love.  We feel God's presence there so strong. Every Sunday we leave service asking ourselves what we can do better to serve the Lord and deepen our relationship with Him.  I have such a long way to go to be what the Lord wants for me to be, but I can feel myself growing and it's a great feeling to know that everyday I wake up I am closer to my Lord than I was the day before. My life purpose at this point is to be a rock and help meet for Josh and to raise a Godly son and other future children we may have.  My motivation and happiness comes from their happiness.  If they are happy, I am thrilled...it means I am doing my job right!  There is really so much more i could go on about, but I am sure my blog will shed light on all the details of my life.  Stick with me while I figure this out, I have so many experiences and thoughts that I think people can relate to and grow from.  I know this is a typical first blog but I am usually not the typical person, you will find that out...but I find delight in that fact.  Being typical these days isn't such a flattering quality to have.  I'll be back, I'm glad I got that first blog out of the way!