All I Want For Christmas

Can't be put under a tree.  For the past probably 9 months or so Mr. Man and I have been working on making Little Man a big brother.  We have had no success.  I know it takes some families a long time to get pregnant, but after how fast it was to have baby #1 I thought it would be just as easy to have baby #2.  Was I ever so wrong.  9 months and nothing.  Each month it's like Christmas morning almost....am I going to get what I really want?  Each month it's total and complete frustration.  People have told me that if we stopped trying it would happen, but I don't understand why it's taking this long.  Telling me to stop trying isn't helping me not feel like there is something wrong with me.  All I want is to see my family grow.  Because of some of the tests results we got when I was pregnant with the Little Man I have decided that after 36 I'm not going to have anymore children.  So each month I'm a step closer to that and I see my dreams of a big family slip further and further away from me. 

Have you been dealing with any infertility issues?  What have you done?

Oh, and here's a family picture for you!

It's Finally Fall!

While technically fall started a few weeks ago, it still felt like summer around here.  Today we woke up and it was so nice out.  I was even able to dress Ethan in jeans!  He looked so cute.  See here's a picture.  


Fall is my favorite time of year.  I'm a big football person, especially college ball.  It's funny because my husband could care less about sports.  He's a car guy.  I guess my little man wins big because he's going to have me and his Pop to teach him how to play sports and his daddy to teach him how to work on cars.  I think it's good that he's going to have the opportunity to do both.  


Cooking in the fall is also wonderful.  Apples are one of my favorite things and they are actually "in season"  So far I've made applesauce, with no sugar of course and Ethan loves it.  I think though the next time I make it I'm going to use a little less vanilla.  My mom was up in the mountains recently and brought me home a big bag of different types of apples.  We're going up to the mountains in a few weeks and I'm hoping that we'll still be able to pick apples.  I think it would be lots of fun for Ethan.  


The creative bug is finally starting to bite again and I'm getting all geared up for Ethan's first birthday party.  It's going to be big by default because we have lots of local family.  As per family tradition (that would be my side of the family) he's going to have carrot cake for his birthday cake.  What's your favorite type of birthday cake?  I'm also finally starting to work on his scrapbook.  While I love scrapbooking I think that Facebook has really taken away from the art of it.  It's so much easier to post the pictures on Facebook by month and be done with it.  Have you found yourself doing this?


What is your favorite part of fall?

Being Okay with a Cesarean

I have several friends that had birth center or home births.  That is something that I really wanted.  But, that was not an option for me.  Very early in my pregnancy I was diagnosed with a placenta previa.  That automatically meant that the birth center would not let me deliver there, since there are so many risks.  Yes, it did resolve itself but by the time that happened I was put on bed rest for pre-eclampsia.  I was still wanting to transfer my care to the local birth center but, my husband who was so worried about me just didn't feel comfortable about it.  So, we stayed with the OB that we had and he was wonderful.  I did end up in the hospital on bed rest, but was able to bargain my way out of it.  Part of the deal was bi-weekly visits.  One to check me, one to check Ethan.  At this point it was a waiting game to see when we would have him.  The day my blood pressure hit 170/120 the doc's decided that I was going to have an emergency cesarean, but they also knew how important it was for me to have him naturally that they decided to try and bring my blood pressure down and induce labor.  At this point I knew that there were already things that I had compromised on that I originally said I wouldn't compromise on, but I also knew that there were some major consequences if I didn't give in (I knew a family who lost their baby right after I had Ethan because they wanted a home birth and let mom's blood pressure get so high she was seizing).  All the doctors and all the nurses didn't push a cesarean, but some of my family did.  Told me to just give in and have the baby that that was the wanted outcome a healthy happy baby.  Because of my blood pressure I wasn't able to walk around like I would have liked, but my husband was there the whole time cheering me on.  Finally after 4 days of induced labor I gave in.  I knew that I had given it my all, and that a cesarean was what was in the cards for me.   This is Ethan and I shortly after his cesarean birth.

Having said all that, it is still a painful subject for me and I need to learn not to read other blogs about why a home birth or a birth center birth is so much better than a hospital birth.  I have to know that I did what I could to have as peaceful of a birth as I could, and that my doctor gave me everything I could have asked for in the situation.  It still pains me to read those blogs and sometimes it even angers me because the people writing them don't express that a hospital birth is sometimes necessary and that it's okay if you have one, but to do the research on your hospital and see what their policies are.  Our hospital for example has a labor tub in each L&D room you can't birth in the water but you can labor.  The other thing I am learning is that you can't always have the birth of your dreams.  Sometimes God has something different for you planned.

Can't Sleep

I have never been the person who couldn't sleep. Ever, until I got pregnant that is. That is when I started having problems. Now here I am about once a week or so I find I either can't fall asleep or can't stay asleep. I have no idea why but it's very frustrating. Anyone else have this problem? Any suggestions on ways to help get some sleep?

Where has time gone?

Today, Ethan is 10 months old.  Where has all the time gone?  It seems like just yesterday that he was born.  I don't think I was aware of how fast time really moves.  He's got 2 teeth coming in, he's working on standing all by himself (well really it's only happened about twice when he's been standing holding on to something then let go for a second or two) eating more and more foods.  It just boggles my mind.  I guess it's time to start planning his 1st birthday.  Any suggestions for 1st birthday ideas?  I would love them!

Oh, and here's a little picture love.  Ethan had his 9 month photos recently and here's a preview of them.  It was a disaster of a day.  He cried 90% of the time we were taking pictures.  I felt so bad, not just for him but also for the photographer Christie Meresse.  She's wonderful!  I have been so happy with all the pictures we've gotten from her.

Hamburger Helper, But NOT from a Box

So, this post is a little late.  Sorry.  Little man has his first two teeth coming in, and well has been taking lots of time.  This is one of my husband's favorite meals of all time.  It's not very expensive and very easy to make.  I wish I had the cost break down, but I don't.   Anyway, here it is.  


Hamburger Helper


In a hot skillet brown 3/4 pound of ground beef, salt, pepper, onion and celery.   You'll notice in mine there is none of that.  I just use garlic powder because well, there are some picky eaters in my family.  Yes, I know the only people eating this right now are the adults.  Don't tease.

 

Cook one box of "crinkly noodles".  That translates to tri-colored rotini.  I didn't make up the name.  I swear.  It's what my wonderful mother in law wrote down in the recipe.  Oh, yeah.  This is one of her's by the way.  I love her cooking. I do add garlic salt to the water whenever I'm making pasta.  Yes, we eat lots of garlic in this family!

After the meat has been drained of all grease add 1/4 cup of frozen peas, 2/3 a cup of diced tomatoes and cooked pasta (once you drain them) to meat mixture

 

Top with 3/4 cup of shredded cheese.  Of course I tend to use more than that...way more.  Then just cover with a lid and let simmer till you're ready to eat!

 

There you go, quick easy and yummy hamburger helper!

 

A New Experiment

I recently had a Doctor's appointment and the outcome wasn't so good.  I am having major problems loosing baby weight from having Ethan and have found that what I'm doing isn't helping.  So, knowing that I need to eat more healthy I've decided that I'm going to venture into green smoothies.  I'll admit I'm not a big fan of vegetables, but I love fruit, so this might be a good thing for me to try.  Today is going to be my first experiment.  I'm going to try a combination of spinach, blueberries and apples.  As I get more into this I'll keep trying to change things up!  Here goes nothing!

Trying to Be More Concious

Of everything we use.  I know we can't just make all the changes we need to in one fell swoop but we can start to try.  I'm not sure the first thing we are going to change.  I am already making baby food at home, so that's one place where not only am I able to be more aware of what I'm feeding my son but I can give him a variety of good healthy foods without any additives.  The next change I see us trying to make is in where we purchase our produce.  There are so many farmer's markets around our area I don't see why this would be so hard.  This will also give me a chance to broaden the vegetables that I fix for my family and that I will eat.  I don't want my son to be as picky of an eater as I am.  I want him to enjoy a large range of foods.  I'm hoping that shopping at the farmer's market will be cheaper than at the grocery because we are on a very strict food budget.

My next goal after we are making better choices with our food, is to move on to our cleaning products.  You might think I'm crazy, and I might be a little but can all the chemicals really be that good for us?  So I don't know if I'm going to make our cleaning products or if we are going to use one from the store that are better for our health and the health of our world.

Maybe it's because I'm a new mom, maybe it's because I see the world and want to make it better I have no idea why I've started being this way.  You can call me a hippie, or crunchy or whatever you want but I would disagree with you.  I was told the other day that I've turned my husband more and more preppy since we've been married but I don't understand why we need these labels.  I just want what is best for my family.

I'll update you as we go along on this adventure!

If It Occurs In 10% Of Pregnant Women

Than it's going to happen to me.  That became my mantra throughout my pregnancy and apparently it's still true.  


Don't get me wrong, I loved being pregnant. Every single minute of it.  Including my 10 weeks of bed rest.  Yes, you read that correct.  10 weeks.  You might call this my birth story.
 
So, let's start at the beginning shall we?  My husband and I got married in November of 2009.  Because we were both considered older (He was 29 and I was 28) we thought it would be best to start trying to start our family within the next year.  We had been together for many years before getting married so it wasn't as though there were lots of things to get used to.  I went off birth control at the end of January and thought it would take some time to get pregnant.  Were we ever wrong!  By the middle of February we were pregnant.  Everything was great.  I didn't get much in the way of severe morning sickness, my husband got that!  I was just nauseous all the time.  Preggie Pops became my best friend.

Well we had our first visit with the OB and they offered to let us have a more in depth ultra sound with the doctors at the Maternal Fetal health clinic.  Since I was adopted and we have no family history of my biological family that seemed like a good idea.  Everything was going fine so we didn't see much in the need to worry.  Sometime in the my second trimester the doctor told me that I had a partial placenta previa.  If you're pregnant and reading this DO NOT look up what that is.  It's super scary.  Or it was for me because a good friend of mine had a full previa and due to hemorrhage at 28 weeks had to have an emergency caesarean.  So at this point they put me on light lifting only.  Try spending much of any time lifting nothing more than a gallon of milk.  Laundry really became a problem because at that time our washer and dryer were in the pump house outside.  My previa eventually "fixed" itself so we cleared that hurdle.

A few more weeks pass and we go in for another appointment.  My blood pressure is up so the doctors had them test my blood pressure again while I was in the office.  It hadn't gone down.  So over to the Women's Pavilion I was sent to go to triage and have an NST (non stress test) and some blood work done.  I had developed preeclampsia.   At that point they put me on bed rest and asked me to do a 24 hour urine collection.  In the middle of Summer, in Florida none the less.  So we go through a day of that.  Long story short, it was bed rest for the duration.  They weren't going to let me get out of it.  So here I was going to my OB once a week and having NST's done once a week.  Soon after I was put on bed rest my parents went on a boat trip through the Greek Isles.  It was great for them.  I got to chat some and they were always wondering how I was doing and what was the latest.  At about 28 weeks the OB decided it might be a good idea for me to go ahead and have steroid injections to help Ethan's lungs develop some because he wasn't sure how long I was going to be able to stay pregnant.  Well the day I had my first steroid injection was the day that they thought I was going to have a baby!  My blood pressure started to creep and creep and creep to the point that they were pushing me into a labor and delivery room and getting ready for an emergency cesarean.  After the nurses put me on magnesium sulfate and I was able to calm down some my blood pressure came down to 140s/90s which was still high, but not at the point that I needed to have the baby.  Magnesium sulfate is no fun.  It's like being put in a brick oven and baked from the inside out.  After this episode I was put on bed rest in the hospital.  


Bed rest in the hospital sucks.  Majorly.  I couldn't go outside and get fresh air.  Nothing.  My parents came home and my mom came and visited me every day.  My blood pressure seemed to have evened out to staying in the 140s/90s, and I was able to talk my way out of the hospital with my doctor.  The deal I struck was that I would stay with my parents where my mom could take care of me.  So, more bed rest.  And lots more doctor appointments.  At one of my doctor's appointments when I was 37 weeks pregnant the doctor looked at me and said you're not leaving the hospital without a baby.  So back to the Women's Pavilion we go.  The rest is how my son came to join our family...

It's a Thursday.  October 28th.  My dad had left that morning to drive to North Carolina for a football/golf weekend.  He got up there okay.  But just as he and his friends are getting ready to go to the FSU-NC State game my mom calls him panicking.  My blood pressure had reached 172/120 and the nurses told her that they were getting an OR ready for an emergency caesarean (I try hard not to used the term c-section, I wasn't sectioned off, I gave birth).  They are pushing me down the hall, I'm texting she's freaking out, and the nurses are talking a mile a minute.  Well back on the Mag I go and my pressure comes down.  By this time my dad had already rented a car and started driving back to Florida (he was on the road for about 20 hours total) The OB on call comes in and says, we can cancel the caesarean and try and have this baby naturally, with some help.  So on to inducing we go.  He starts me on Cervidil to see if that will push me into labor.   Nothing for 12 hours.  So he puts me on another dose of it.  Nothing for 12 more hours.  Now we're into Friday.  So we decide to try something different.  It's decided to try Cytotec orally.  So we do that for 12 hours.  I start having a few contractions, but nothing major.  So we trying another dose of Cytotec.  I still haven't dilated more than 1 cm and my water hasn't broken.  Thursday has come and gone, and so has Friday.  Saturday morning and the OB on call comes in and says that we're going to try Pictocin to see if that gets us anywhere and if nothing happens with the first dose than she's going to have me scheduled for a caesarean that evening.  Later in the day the doctor comes in to see how I'm doing and asks me how far I'm willing to go to have the baby naturally.  Well in all my infinite wisdom, I say as long as you'll let me!  So she says okay.  She decided to let me go on another dose of Pictocin because I'm having regular contractions but still haven't dialted any.  Before she puts me on the second dose I beg for them to let me take a shower.  They hadn't been letting me out of the bed for anything really.  Keep in mind this whole time I'm still on the mag which means all liquids that goes in has to be recorded and all liquids that goes out has to be recorded.  My husband was wonderful with this.  He took care of all of it.  My parents come to visit me and we tell them that I've decided to try a little longer and they tell me my dad has a major conference in Orlando which is 4 hours away he's leading on Monday and Tuesday and he can't miss it.  Well at least he can't miss Monday morning.  Sunday morning comes around and the OB that admitted me on Thursday is back on call.  He comes in my room and tells me I'm the last person he expected to still be pregnant!  He checks me and I'm still 1 cm.  So he puts me back on the Cervidil.  Another day of it.  By that evening I've decided that I'm pretty much done.  Done with the whole thing.  Monday morning comes, my OB comes in to see how I'm doing and I tell him I was done.  He was very nice to make sure that I was sure I was done because he didn't want me to feel like I was giving anything up.  I think it took 4 days of inducing to decided that I was done.  So he schedules me for my caesarean for that afternoon.  He took lots of work, but we had a beautiful healthy 6 pound 4 ounce little boy.  Yes, he was 22 days early, but everything was perfect.  Here's our first family picture. 



Fast forward 4 months.  I have this red spot on my thumb and finally get the doctor to look at it.  It's getting bigger and will sometimes start to bleed.  So, she puts me on an antibiotic since she's not sure what it is.  I'm on the antibiotic and nothings getting better, so off to the dermatologist I go.  Come to find out it's a pyogenic granuloma.  I'm given two ointments to try and use and that's not really helping.  I have another appointment soon and we'll see what he does.


So yes, if it occurs in 10% of pregnant women, it's likely to happen to me!

Moving and Shaking!

So the little man has been really starting to move all over the place.  He can't crawl yet, but he sure can scoot around.  It's the cutest thing in the world!  He's also gotten to the point that he's starting to pick things up and shake them.  It's hard to think that he's already gotten so big.  Next weekend we will be participating in the March of Dimes for a team that one of my good friends is the captain of.  Her son was born premature and though little man was considered preterm and not as serious as Baby James, the whole time I was on bedrest (almost 10 weeks) this friend was very supportive.  She brought me things in the hospital when I was put on hospitalized bedrest, she brought me things to my house and was just always there for me.  I know I could have made it without her, but she made my life so much better.  For her, we are as a family, participating in March of Dimes. 

Shepard's Pie

Tonight I decided to make Shepard's Pie for dinner.  When I was at Earth Fair I didn't have a recipe with me, so I just kinda winged the whole thing.  

 I started with 3 large white potatoes cubed and boiled.  I also added some garlic salt to them.

 

While the potatoes were boiling in a large skillet I started to brown a little over 1 pound of ground turkey.  I added a little bit of sage and ginger to it for a bit of flavor and stirred it to keep it from sticking to the bottom.

 

After the potatoes were done I drained the water off of them returned them to the pot and added about 3 tablespoons of butter and some milk and then blended them to be nice and creamy.  I also added some shredded cheddar cheese.

 

Now that the potatoes are ready, I needed to finish up browning the meat.  I added a little bit of chicken broth after I drained what little fat there was. 

 

Now that everything is ready, it's time to put it together.  I used one of my Corning dishes to bake it in.  The first layer is the ground turkey, then I added a bag of froze mixed veggies.

 

The next layer is the potatoes.  I forgot to take a picture of it before I put it in the oven, so here it is in the oven!

 

 

After cooking for 30 minuets at 375 degrees this is what we have!

 

I don't know if I'll just wing it again next time or not.  My husband liked it pretty much, as in there is only a little bit left over!

3 large white potatoes

1 bag of frozen veggies

1 1/2 pounds ground turkey

1 cup of shreeded cheddar cheese

seasonings to tastes

1.  peel and cube 3 large potatoes, add to large pot and cover with salted water.  Bring water to a boil and continue to boil until potatoes get soft

2. while potatoes are boiling begin to brown ground turkey meat

3.  once potates are nice and soft drain them and bring back to the pot.  Add in butter and a little bit of milk and mash until nice and creamy.

4.  drain the turkey and put in dish

5.  add veggies to top of turkey

6. layer the potatoes on nice and thick

7.  bake for 30 mins at 375.

 

 

 

 

  

  

 

To Start Food or Not To Start Food Part 2

After posting the question to my Facebook friends and getting lots of different answers, we have decided to see if Ethan has the tongue thrust reflex or not this weekend.  We got some rice cereal and a few different veggies and fruits to start us out.  This weekend we will probably go and get a steamer and a few other appliances so that we can start making our own baby food.  Here he is showing us how well he can sit up in his Bumbo!

To Start Food or Not To Start Food

So the little man is 4 months and 2 weeks.  At his 4 month check up his doctor gave the green light to start him on food when we felt his was ready.  Well how do you know when he's ready?  I know for the past week or so he's been waking up in the middle of the night wanting to eat.  I know my supply has gone down and we have gone from just breastmilk to almost all formula.  If we are going to start him on food what do we start with?  It is so confusing!  I've read so many different opinions.  Rice cereal, right to bananas (which I have to say I find personally disgusting!) or avocado or sweet potatoes.  I know that I want to make our own baby food but I just have no idea where to start!

A Date Night!

So Saturday night was the first time we've had a date since baby was born.  I call it a date, but we didn't go anywhere.  After the little one went to bed we sat on the couch and watched a movie.  It was some of the best time we've spent together recently.  It was nice to just sit and relax and not think about anything important just to be in the moment with each other.  When was the first time you had a date without your little one?

Well Here Goes Nothing

After seeing so many people I know start to blog about their daily life I decided it was time to give it a try.  So, I guess I should tell you a bit about the people you will met regularly on the blog.  There's me, the Mom .  I'm 30 and a first time mom to my wonderful little monkey man, Ethan.  He joined our family on November 1st 2010.  One week before my one year anniversary to my wonderful husband.  You'll also hear about Nana (that's what we're calling my mom) and Pop (that would be my dad).  We can't forget about Memaw and Papa either (my husband's mom and step-dad).  We live a pretty normal life, the three of us and are very lucky to have our lives filled with family close to us.