Super Mom or BUST!

Wow that was a long day! One of those days when you leave your house soon after breakfast and you get back sometime after dinner, and with three kids under the age of five in tow that makes for a very very long day! On the agenda was play group, lunch, dentist appointments, grocery shopping, acting class, dinner and home by bed time. Going into it, I knew the day was going to be challenging but I had faith in myself and my children that we could get through it with smiles on our faces. Well....somewhere between dentist appointments and dinner I got a little to sure of myself and my parenting capabilities. The dentist appointments went off without a hitch. My children were well behaved, so brave and even managed to charm the office staff. I left there feeling so proud of my kids and how well adjusted they were to face even scary situations with such grace and ease (yea...see how cocky I am getting) The kids dentist is about a 45 min drive home but all the way down the hill my kids were singing and laughing and I was thanking God for giving me such amazing children. We got through grocery shopping and acting class still smiling and I had the brilliant idea of rewarding my well behaved children by taking them out to dinner. One of our favorite places to go is "Fresh Choice," I think it may be a Northern California thing but think "Soup Plantation" although not nearly as good. My husband actually hates this restaurant and often says "Fresh choice is not that fresh," and I would have to agree with him that the food is not that great, but I get a salad and the kids get mediocre pizza and we are all happy. We usually go there when Brandon is not around and since Brandon was gone at youth group it was the perfect plan. The only problem was that I had never braved "Fresh Choice" by myself with three kids, but in my self righteous state I thought I could handle it....NOT! Peyton and Amber are pretty good at going through the line and filling their plates by themselves and they have these cool rolling high chairs that the babies car seat can fit into and you can push them along the line with you, so I placed sleeping Eden in her car seat on the highchair and began rolling her down the line of the salad bar. We all got about half way through when all the sudden Amber decided to check on the baby and went behind the highchair and pulled it down to try to peek in on Eden and the whole thing, baby and all, fell over on top of her! It was one of those slow motion moments when you can hear the gasp of the crowd and you feel all eyes on you even though you are working at lightening speed to asses the situation. I lift the car seat up and peak in to see Eden is still asleep (how do babies do it) so I sit the car seat back onto the highchair and grab Amber off the floor as she is screaming at the top of her lungs and clutching her leg. I feel her leg and for a split moment I think it might be broken because I felt a huge lump. I look up and see that we are holding up the line, big time, I look over my shoulder and see Peyton way in front of us happily still filling her plate oblivious to what just happened (typical). I remember thinking geez how am I going to get out of this situation and why is no one helping me??? Literally the entire line of 10 people or so were staring at us with their jaws open wondering why this crazy lady was even attempting to take three little kids through a salad bar line! Finally another mom from the line jumped out and offered to help at least get our plates and my kids to a table. I was so grateful. I cradled screaming Amber in one arm and pushed the rolling highchair along with the other all while directing Peyton to stop filling her plate and follow me. She began crying saying "No mom I am not finished yet" But mom voice kicked in and all I had to do was say "NOW" and she tearfully followed. We made it to the end of the line and with a shaky hand I threw some money at the cashier and finally got everyone safely to a booth. Once there I checked out Amber's leg and decided it was not as bad as I had thought, she was going to have a large bruise but she was already calming down and happy about eating her pizza and jello. We continued on with dinner peacefully although I was still shaking, maybe from trauma of seeing my baby upside down in her car seat or maybe from sheer embarrassment, I was not sure. I rushed the kids through dinner because the baby was starting to wake up and was quickly getting fussy, we left the restaurant with Peyton still eating a piece of pizza, I got everyone strapped in the car and realized Amber had taken off her shoes inside the restaurant but at that moment all I wanted to do was be home so I decided to leave them there. The baby was crying for a bottle and I realized it was almost an hour past her feeding time. So I handed Amber her bottle and instructed her to hold it in Edens mouth and we drove off. A few miles down the road I started to giggle at myself and the irony of the fact that just a few hours earlier I felt like super mom and now I was driving home with my tail between my legs, still shaking, embarrassed and having my three year old feed my infant in the back seat. I caught a glimpse of myself in the rear view mirror and realized I didn't know when the last time was that I had showered, I had spit up all over my sweat shirt and I was positive that I did not brush my teeth that morning but all in all I couldn't help but to continue to giggle at my reflection...now that is one blessed lady right there...I thought, and I realize that I had succeeded at ending a very very long day with a smile! The worse part of the day is that I am not sure how long it will be before I can show my face at "Fresh Choice" again.

Flowers for Mamma!

Well it has been a month and three days now since I have been a mother of three!!! For the most part the transition of this little one to our family has been nothing but a blessing. The older girls absolutely love her! So much so that she has already had two colds in her short little life because the girls (who are always sick) will not stop kissing and hugging her. Poor baby...I am hoping that she is building up good immunities, but it is so sad to see a newborn struggle. :( On top of being sick the baby has been very gassy...like high pitched screaming, face turning red, fussy for hours, gassy! I am in the process of trying to figure out what to do about it. (If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.)
This weekend she was really bad. If I was not holding her she was screaming, which does not work very well when you have two other children and a household to run. I am pretty good at doing things one handed but there are just some things you simply can't do while holding a baby...like cleaning up rabbit pee from the kitchen floor...for example. :) Between a demanding newborn and the constant pleas of "Mom can you get me this", "Mom I need that", "Mom help me with this", "Mom where is that" it's enough to make anyone go crazy, not to mention a sleep deprived women running on one cup of decaf coffee. By the end of the day I was so worn out and trying so desperately to keep it together that I did what any other well intentioned worn out mother would do. I Sent the kids outside to play! (Amber could not decide what pants to put on so she ran out in a tank top and her underwear, and at that moment I could care less, as long as they were out of my way.) As I began trying to cook dinner with one hand, while still cradling a sad little baby in the other, I began to question my ability as a parent. Was I spending enough time with Amber? "She is the middle child now, how am I going to parent her so she does not grow up resenting her childhood" and peyton, I am pretty sure I spent most of the day ignoring her ramblings about her imaginary worlds, and all that she is learning about bugs and amphibians, "I really should pay more attention to her, what if she thinks I don't care?" As I turn towards the oven to put in dinner I hear two little girls behind me saying "Mamma, close your eyes!" "Ok, they are closed" I say, still turned towards the oven. I hear the girls opening cabinets while, whispering and giggling to one another and soon they shout "Ok mom turn around!" I turn around and they yell "Surprise!" They had picked "flowers" (weeds) and put them in a vase for me. My heart melted and I said "thank you so much, they are beautiful" Peyton said "We wanted to pick them for you mamma, because we love you so much!" Of course at that moment I was a puddle on the floor, how did they know that is just what I needed that day...reassurance.

Traditions... TRADITIONS!

I have no business taking time out of my busy head elf schedule to be writing a blog right now but my heart is so full at the moment that I feel it important to document this feeling, even if only for my kids to one day read and recall the memories. This morning I made Christmas sugar cookies with my girls. A tradition that I remember doing with my Mom for as long as I can remember. We use this recipe that is called Sue's Sugar cookies. Now, I have no idea who Sue is but thank God for her cookies. They are the best sugar cookies I have ever had. I will not even eat any others. I think the secret is there is sour cream and nutmeg in the dough which makes them super soft and smell amazing. Just the aroma of those cookies flooding my kitchen brings back so many warm and fuzzy memories of Christmas' past. This morning my girls helped roll out the dough and cut the shapes and then frost them. Peyton was actually a big help this year and she decorated them really cute (like I can actually give them away to people and not be embarrased) Amber...well she is only two...I think she spent all morning decorating one cookie but managed to put every frosting color and sprinkle that we had on top making a large mond that made it unable to even see what the cookie on the bottom was in the first place. but she was so proud of her cookie it didn't matter. Once the cookies are all baked and decorated we will pass them out to our neighbors, a tradition that I remember doing with my family as a kid and we have now done each year with our own kids. Peyton blessed me so much a few weeks ago when I was getting out some of her old clothes that she grew out of for Amber to start wearing. We came across a pair of princess sneakers that light up when you walk. Peyton's faced lit up and she excitedly explained "Amber! These are the shoes I wore one Christmas when we were passing out christmas cookies to our neighbors."  How on earth did she connect those two, I will never know but the important thing is that it stuck with her and we made a memory from an old tradition. In case you haven't guessed it I am a huge advicate for traditions, for several reasons, but the most important one is that I believe they bind a family together in such away that is unique and special to only your family. Not only that, traditions benefit kids in so many ways, making them feel like they belong and are apart of something bigger then themselves. I believe that it imprints a marker on their hearts of a memory that hopefully they will cherish forever, even if it is just a pair of princess light up shoes that carried cookies to the nieghbors. :) What are some of your favorite family traditions???

I miss NANA!

After a long couple weeks of go go go fun fun fun with my mom being here while Brandon is away. I was really looking forward to my bed. I put the girls to bed and fell right to sleep the moment my head met the pillow. Around 3am I was awaken to the sound of a small wimper that quickly continued to get louder until it turned into a full blown cry. I rushed into the girls room and flew open the door to find Peyton sitting up in her bunk bed sobbing. I noticed Amber was awake too. My first few thoughts were... she had a bad dream... she is feeling sick... she is scared...I ran over to her and asked "Peyton, what is wrong?" with a sniff sniff she burst into tears again and cried "I MISS NANA!"
 After a trip to the bathroom, a cup of water, a few hugs and reassurance that we would see Nana again soon she went back to bed. As I headed back to my own bed, slightly annoyed at being woken up at 3 am and upset that Amber was now awake, I could not help but smile and send up a quick prayer thanking God for the special relationship Peyton has with my mom and for the fact that she has the ability to love so deeply and completly.

Baby girl names...Help!

Brandon and I finally had a chance to sit down and talk about baby names tonight. I have to say having to name three girls is HARD! We have some wonderful boy names picked out, but alas, here we are once again having to come up with a girl name. We have narrowed our choices down to three and litterally can not choose between them. We asked both Peyton and Amber today which one they liked best and everytime we asked them they had a different answer, so they were not much help. So I decided to go ahead and take a poll here on my blog. Not that the winning name will necessarly be the one we choose but maybe it will give us some perspective. I also like the idea of waiting until we meet her to give her a name so most likely that is what we will do, but in the mean time we would like your input! :) So here are the three choices!
PAIGE
HOLLY
EDEN
What do you think?

Girl #3 - My poor husband

We just found out yesterday that baby girl #3 is on her way. We took the kids to the ultra sound appointment which was really fun. Their little faces lit up when they saw the image of the baby on the screen for the first time. They sat there in awe of the whole thing. Amber kept her little hand on my arm and every once in awhile she would whisper "I love you, mommy." Truly a family moment I will never forget. When it came to the part of investigating wither we were looking at a baby girl or a baby boy the nurse finally declared "Its another girl!" and Peyton slapped her forehead and said "Oh No!" We left the appointment, Amber holding the new pictures of our baby girl and shouting down the hall "That's my baby!" to everyone we passed, as we all giggled at her cuteness, I could not help but notice the disappointment written all over my husbands face. We both knew this was our last shot at a boy. There will be no more babies for us and I know he was really hoping for a son. I spent the rest of the day trying to talk about it with him trying to say all the right things like, "God knows what He is doing", "Maybe we wouldn't be good at raising a boy?", "Your girls can still play sports and watch football with you" But he mostly just remained quiet and I could see he just needed some time to process, So I left him alone.
Early this morning, we woke up to the sound of little girls giggling and chatting, much like we do every morning. Neither one of us wanted to get out of bed, so we laid their waiting to see which one would get up first. Finally my husband broke the silence between us by saying:
 "I guess I should get up with them before they get into something they shouldn't"
 and then the moment came...the one I had been waiting for all day the day before...my husband began to vent:
 "Its rough getting up with them because I know the moment I get out there they are going to want a drink, and then they are going to fight over who gets the princess cup, and then they are going to want breakfast and they are going to fight over who gets the pink plate and now we are Going TO Have Another Girl and We are Going to have to Buy more PINK STUFF!!!"
 I thought he was finished and I was about to interject my thoughts about maybe this time buying purple or yellow when he continued:
 "And they just talk so much....they never stop talking...I noticed that when Micah comes over (a friends son that we watch one day a week) He just makes sounds for everything but he doesn't talk very much, and its not That He Can't Talk Its Just that he Doesn't HAVE TOO!!!! "
I figured he was finished this time because he threw the covers over his head as if to hide from all the progesterone in his home. I couldn't help but smile at his sudden outburst.
We talked for a little while longer and decided that more then likely this new little baby was going to be completely different then the two we've got, and who knows maybe she won't even like pink. If there is anything about parenting that we both have learned in the last five years it's that you never know what you are going to get and we need to be prepared to face a whole new set of enjoyment and challenges with this new child. I think the thought of meeting this new little one got us very excited and so my husband bravely hopped out of bed to get the girls breakfast.
The rest of the morning went on as usual until I heard some strange conversations between Brandon and the girls in their bedroom as they were getting dress. I walked in to see if he needed any help picking out outfits and doing hair, like I do every morning, but to my surprise I walked into the girls dressed in the cutest outfits and Brandon brushing Peyton's hair and Amber's hair was already in two little pig tails with pink bows to match. My husband has never (and I mean never) attempted to do the girls hair and I have to say he did a pretty good job. I can't tell you how much this blessed me. Not unlike my husband, I could tell that he had contemplated his circumstances and decided to go ahead and dive right in and be the best he could be. I just love him so much!
So here's to a house full of happy, giggly, chatty and most of all loved little girls, and my promise that one day we will get a boy dog for my husband to confide in! :)

Hyperemesis Gravidarum

Hypermesis Gravidarum (HG) is a fancy medical term for "pregnant lady can not stop throwing up!" Apparently it is a pretty rare condition, only 2% of pregnant women experience it so I guess I am one of the lucky ones. Ha Ha. I understand this blog is going to be mostly boring to the outside world but I figured I could at least document my experience for my children to read someday since research shows that HG can be hereditary. So read at your own risk. :)


Not much is know about HG in fact most doctors don't understand it and or even dismiss it as common morning sickness but it is anything but common morning sickness. If you have had morning sickness that other people can relate to and give you tips on how to manage than you don't have HG because if you have HG you will know that eating a few crackers or small frequent meals does not help at all and can even make the problem worse. I am at the point now that if one more person tells me to eat a few crackers before I get out of bed in the morning I can no longer give you a smile and thank you for your advice because you obviously don't understand my condition. I can not even take a sip of water without throwing it up so why would a few crackers do the trick? I have been researching this diseases over the last few days and have found a few articles of women who have either taken their own lives or chosen to have an abortion just to stop the torment. I know this sounds extreme but having been there myself understand their pain. Its a horrible, helpless feeling that has left me fearing death myself and of my unborn child and worse part is that nobody understands what you are going through or how to help.


I first found out that I had Hypermesis Gravidarum when I got pregnant with my first child (Peyton) I found out I was pregnant because I started throwing up and I thought it was the stomach flu but after a week of no relief I finally took a pregnancy test and found out that I was indeed pregnant. Now this pregnancy was not planned (as you will soon find out that this is the case with all of our pregnancies) So we were not prepared and had no medical insurance. Little did we know what was in store for us in the months ahead. After weeks of throwing up 5 to 6 times a day, loosing about 10 pounds and my pee turning black (sorry to be so graphic) I finally had no choice but to go to the ER for IVs. That trip cost us $1000.00 but they prescribed a nausea medication for me called Compazine that we were hopeful would give me some relief. After a few days on the medication I started experiencing a very strange feeling in my throat. At first I just thought I needed to throw up but as the hours passed I realized that I was having trouble catching my breath and soon after that it got so bad that I could barely talk or breath but I motioned to Brandon that we needed to go to the ER. I was in fact having an allergic reaction to the medication and that was one of the scariest nights of our lives. I have never seen my husband look so scared and helpless and I saw my life flash before my eyes. After a few shots of benadryl in the ER I was stable and we left that night with another $1000.00 bill but one that possibly saved my life. After months or tortures paper work we finally qualified for medi-cal that helped with the rest of the pregnancy bills and by 4 months pregnant I was starting to feel human again. And on Feb. 8th 2007 a healthy, beautiful, perfect baby girl was born.


Much like woman forget labor pains soon after birth well I forgot what HG was like and a year and half after Peyton was born we began talking about having another baby, which just talking about having a baby between my husband and I apparently means that in a few weeks we are pregnant. We were excited to have another little one on the way and I actually felt good for the first month. I was hopeful maybe HG wouldn't happen to me again but as soon as I got comfortable it hit! One morning I will never forget after spending the night with my girlfriends and planning on spending a nice summer day laying by the pool. A very familiar feeling hit me and I began relentlessly throwing up. This time was different because I had a toddler to take care of that I could not even get out of bed for. I remember having to stay at my moms house so she could take care of us and crying to her that I wished I would have never gotten pregnant again because at that moment I would rather have died than to have gone through HG again. A few trips to the ER later I finally got a doctor who knew what to do with me and prescribed me a medication called Zofran (used primarily for cancer patients going through cemo) The medication helped control the vomiting although I still felt horrible, my amazing family and friends came together and made sure someone was always with me to take care of Peyton and I until I felt better and by the third or fourth month I was able to function again like a normal pregnant person, and on January 13th, 2009 another beautiful healthy baby girl was born (Amber).

On Father's Day of this year we happily yet reluctantly told our families that we were expecting again. I say reluctantly because although we really want this child to complete our family we knew what was instore for our family in the months ahead. I have to say, yet again this pregnancy was a surprise. Without getting to specific, lets just say that some form of protection was being used, but God had other plans. It was hard to be overly excited about the news because all I could think of was what my family was about to go through. All our summer plans that we were so looking forward to flashed before my eyes as I realized it was very likely that I would not be able to attend them. I was sad for my young children who wouldn't understand why their mommy was so sick and for my poor husband who I have seen go through this twice before, I know how hard it is on him having to work full time and come home to a sick wife and have to take care of the kids and all the household responsibilities. Sure enough about a week after announcing our pregnancy I began to get very sick. I knew to call in for Zofran first thing and they were able to get it to me quickly and that seemed to help for a few weeks. But, last weekend everything turned from bad to worse. The Zofran stopped working and I went over 36 hours without being able to keep down any food our water. I began feeling numbness in my arms and legs and painful, splitting headaches. After two trips to the ER in two days the hospital decided to admit me to see if they could get my HG under control. I remember saying a quick prayer that God would give the doctors wisdom and somebody would know something new to try. The afternoon of my first day in the hospital I met the doctor on call and loved her immediately. She told me that during her residency in San Fransico she had been put on a case study for Hyperemesis Gravidarum and using steroids to control the nausea. She told me they had great success with the trial and often found that within three days the women were feeling much better. There was never any harm to the babies reported. I know steroids in a pregnant lady sounds scary but when you are as sick as I am you fear for your baby anyway so I felt like I had no other option but to try it and who knows maybe this was the answer to my prayer. I have been home from the hospital now for three days and I have to say I feel much better. I am hopeful that this is working. I still find it hard to do much more then lay around and I have to take everything really slow so not to stir up the nausea but the vomiting seems to be under control. YAY!

So that is my Hypermesis Gravidarum story thus far. To my children I want to say you are beyond worth it. I would not take back a second of this sickness if it meant you could not be in this world. I know you were each meant to be here for very specific purposes and I am so proud to be your mom. Always remember during hardships that you might face that you, in Christ, have the strength to overcome! Our God is a God of wisdom and compassion and nothing gives Him greater joy than to overcome. And lastly, take the help! Through all of this I have become ever grateful for my supportive family and friends who have gone out of their way to help. You will find blessings in their love so remember in return to be a blessing.
I love you all dearly. Love always. Mom.