2008 Overview

Addelynn was wide-eyed and smiling as we rung in the New Year. It was just too cute!





My Little Claus

Was my baby really this small just 3 months ago?

This past year has definitely been full of blessings for Josh and I. Addelynn was conceived in January and came into this world on September 22nd. It is a bit bittersweet in the sense that I love that she is learning and growing everyday, but am also sad that I can't slow down the hands of time. I was sad to see 2008 end because it was such a momentous time for me and my little family.

Here's what stick in my head this year:

January- Just getting over my 4th miscarriage emotionally and physically. Was going to an acupuncturist to help with the lining of my uterus and getting my hormones back to normal. Had no idea that I had actually gotten pregnant again. Gotta love the late night romance!

February- Found out I was pregnant, went on bedrest the day before Valentine's Day because I was bleeding.

March- Bedrest. Had to have a sub teach my 5th graders. Numerous Dr. appts sometimes twice a week to make sure I was still carrying our baby.

April- After 7 weeks of bedrest I was able to go back to work. At our 12 week appt. ultrasound tech said if she had to say...it was a girl! Threatened incompetent cervix...pregnancy became high risk. Changed to high risk Dr.'s didn't have to get a cerclage and was able to keep teaching. If I had to get a cerclage it would have been bedrest for the rest of my pregnancy.

May- Finished up teaching. Was sad to pack up my classroom, but excited to start motherhood. Found out at 15wks that it was definitely a girl!

June- Enjoyed being pregnant and feeling the baby move. Celebrated Mom's 50th Birthday.

July- Took a trip to Vegas for my cousin's wedding. Loved seeing my belly expand! Was a little sad as the school year started that I wasn't going back to work.

August- Baby Showers, more Dr. appt's, friends giving birth.

September- Celebrated my 25th Birthday, contractions, limited sleep, stredeveloped preeclampsia and gave birth to my darling little girl after 21 hours of labor by c-section. Five day hospital stay.

October- Recovering from emergency c-section, possible mastitis, possible fungal infection, tons of crazy medications, Baby's First Halloween! Possible colic baby.

November- A diagnosis...staph infection! Surgery to remove abscess....another 5 day hospital stay. The beginning of pumping and packing. Being away from my baby for the first long stretch of time and missing her like crazy. Baby's First Thanksgiving! Blessing our princess at church.

December- Baby's first roadtrip and Christmas and New Year's Eve. Finally feeling normal after childbirth. Thankful that I was on no meds and not in any pain.

I still can't believe that Addelynn is here and three months old. I look at my friends' new babies and can hardly believe I had one that small...and just three months ago! She's already 13 pounds and growing and amazing me each day. She smiles and laughs. She has learned to put her pacifier back in her mouth when it falls out. She's in 3-6 month clothing! I just want to hold her and love her and never let go. I am petrified of this world I will someday be unleashing her into. I pray every night that I will teach her right, that I will be a good example to her, and that I will always be worth in Heavenly Father's eyes to be her Mother. He saved such an amazing, tender spirit for Josh and I and I don't want to ever let Him down.

I can't help but think of our Savior as Christmas came and went. I think of what might have been going through Heavenly Father's head as he sent his only Son to come to Earth, to be persecuted by the very people he came to save, and to die, not a peaceful death, but one of agony, pain, and total isolation. I can't even begin to fathom how Heavenly Father felt...He knew. He knew he was sending His Son to go through all these heartaches and He sent Him for me, for us, for our babies and future babies. I don't know if I could be that selfless and sacrifice my little girl. She is my life and my heart and I am so very, very protective of her. I think of my friends who have lost their babies and wonder if it might compare to how Heavenly Father felt? How can we ever be mad at a Father who knows such pain? I think that is one of the main reassurances I had through my four miscarriages...He knows me and my heart, both whole and breaking, and he is forever faithful as long as we believe.

2008 did bring some big trials for me...threatened miscarriage, two surgeries, 2 scars, illnesses, etc, but I will always look back on this year and my heart will sing. I didn't need anything for Christmas because my heart was full enough. Money can't buy family or friendships, or memories, and it definitely can't buy my testimony which has grown even more firm this year.

What sticks out in your head this year? What experiences helped shape 2008 for you? I would love to hear my friends' perspectives.

We just had our Annual Girls Christmas party. It's always a wonderful experience to share a night with some of your most favorite people. We do a gift exchange and this year we did it white elephant style, but with nice gifts, and it was oh so much fun! We also did a yummy dinner and just shared memories and stories from the past. Life is crazy sometimes, but your friends keep you sane and grounded. Love you girls!

New Do

I took the plunge and cut off 9 inches today! I know, my friend pointed out that I should have done 10 inches and donated it, but hey 9 was drastic enough! I'm still getting used to it. I have had long hair for the majority of my life, so this is very strange. Hopefully I can style it cute. Thanks Kristi for the fun new do! How do you guys like it...be honest. Do you like me with short or long hair? Different huh, for those of you who've only known me with long hair?

Healing

It's been a little over a month since my surgery and I am healing pretty well. I went for another post op appointment with my surgeon today and she said we will probably only have to pack (shoving gauze and silvasorb into a bottomless wound, then covering with more gauze, and taping up to cover completely) for another two weeks. Josh and I don't consider it "packing" anymore because the inside of my wound is pretty much healed, it's just the top that needs to close. If you saw it a month or even a few weeks ago it would be "packing". Maybe "patting" with gauze would be a better term for the job.

My surgeon said that I have to wait until my wound is completely healed before I can breastfed off that side again. This could possible be another month because just because we're not "patting" and covering with gauze after two weeks, doesn't necessarily mean that it is completely healed. This is kind of a bummer because pumping is getting really old. I feel like I'm doing double duty. I was also told by Mrs. Doc that after I'm done breastfeeding that we will need to do a mammogram because abscess' can lead to breast cancer. I guess because an abscess is a puss pocket and once it's removed it leaves a space kind of?!? Who knows! She said I was healthy and young though, so the odds are very, very low. Whew!

On a lighter note, we took Addelynn to get pictures with Santa today. The old school I taught at does pictures(the district custodian dresses up and looks like Santa to a "T" ; it's really cute!). She did so well, didn't smile, but looked adorable all the same. Considering the 3 year old before her was crying, I was happy that she just sat content as can be on his lap! We bought her a little Claus dress with a fun little hat and put cute white tights on her. Stay tuned for pictures once they're developed!

Oh, and I am also getting my hair chopped tomorrow. I am SO nervous! I seriously haven't had short or even shoulder length hair in probably 13 some odd years! It's so scary for me....I know I'm a huge baby, but my hair grows so slow. Anything is better than me throwing it up in a bun all the time, so says the hub. I have to agree that it is up 99% of the time because it gets in the way, so to have it shorter and more easily cute ponytail and not long and annoying ponytail material, will be nice! Stay tuned for those pics, as well!

Okay, so I need a change. I am going to get my hair done on Tues or Wed next week and I need your guys' help to see what I should do. If you look at my last post with Josh and I holding Addey on her blessing day, you can see that my hair is dull and lifeless. I am thinking I will cut it shoulder length (so I can still throw it up in a ponytail if needed) but I don't know if I want layers, bob, or an a-line. I am holding a vote. Please let me know which hairstyle you think would look best on me because let's face it...if I don't like it, it will take ten years for my hair to grow out again...so it's gotta be good! Thanks for your help!

Hairstyle #1

Hairstyle #2

Hairstyle #3

Hairstyle #4

Hairstyle #5

Cast your vote or if you have a style you like, send me a pic!

Addelynn's Blessing

Addelynn was blessed at church on Thanksgiving weekend. It was such a wonderful experience having my family attend church and get to see our sweet little girl get blessed. We had a luncheon at our house afterwards with friend and family which was a ton of fun. Addelynn looked so darling in her pretty dress that her Great Aunt Florene made. The blessing itself was beautiful. I had Josh use his voice recorder from work, so I could type it up and put it in her baby book. I think it will be neat for her to look back on it as she grows.

Speaking of growing, my little pumpkin will be 12 weeks tomorrow! Seriously, where does the time go? Josh says to me the other night "wouldn't it be cute if she stayed this small forever?" Yes, yes, it would, but then again I guess she wouldn't be progessing as she should in this life.

We are going to family Christmas in California next weekend and I'm so excited for both her first roadtrip and the opportunity for my extended family to meet Addey. I know they will love her and I'm sure she'll be spoiled while she's up there since she's the newest baby. The youngest cousin besides her is five, I think. It should be a lot of fun.

I hope everyone is doing well and getting ready for Christmas. I still have so much to do and need to get my bum in gear!

Sometimes Life Keeps Throwing Curve Balls

I would like to say that I haven't posted in a while because I have been so amazingly busy with my beautiful little girl and loving every second of motherhood. Although, I am busy 99% of the time, my life as a Mother has thrown a few more curve balls. I am just warning that this is long but you have to know the background to understand the story.

It all started a few weeks after Addelynn was born and I noticed breastfeeding wasn't going as great as I had hoped. I was constantly in pain and when my milk came in it literally felt like it was boiling underneath my skin. After I would feed, I would be in pain for up to an hour afterwards and sometimes it would even keep me up at night. I kept asking my friends who had breastfed if this is normal and some were baffled and others said I must just have a powerful letdown. I let it go another week and then my aunt came down from California to visit. She breastfed both of her daughters (my mom didn't breastfeed for long) and I asked her the same questions and she said that definitely didn't sound right. Then, one morning I went to take a shower and my boobs looked like they had been burned, with bright red, hot to the touch splotches all over. I showed my mom and aunt who immediately agreed something wasn't right. We all figured mastitis and since it was a Saturday I called my Doc in hopes that they would just write me a prescription. Yeah, right...so I had to go to urgent care (who the doctor btw was someone from my old ward, yay...awkward!) and he diagnosed me with mastitis in both breasts and gave me a prescription. He said that I should feel relief in a few days but keep on the meds and follow up with my doctor in a week.

Lo and behold three days go by and I'm still in pain, so I call my doctors and end up going in to see them. At PPA (phoenix Perinatal Associates) you see random high risk doctors, well so he doesn't even check my boobs and tells me its either the start or end of mastitis. What!?! Well, which one is it? I've now been on meds for days and so he writes me another med that will definitely kill off the bacteria if this one doesn't work, but he's sure the meds I'm on will do the trick. So I finish up the ten day prescription and start the new one because of course I'm still in pain. I take the new miracle meds for another week and end up calling the doctors again because gosh darnit I'm still in freaking pain. I go back to the same doctor who is completely baffled that his miracle cure for bacteria infections didn't work and figures that it must be a fungal infection. This is now the third medication I am on.

I take these meds and in the meantime go to a lactation consultant to help me get Addey to latch better. What a blessing those ladies are! A few days after the last med I notice a tiny lump in my left breast. I call the lactation consultant who tells me it must be a clogged duct and gives me instructions on what to do for it. I do those things for a few days and the lump gets a little bigger. Well, Addey had to have an ultrasound on her hip so I decided to stop by Banner Deserts' lactation center and have one of the girls take a look at it. Yep, looks like a clogged duct and gives me more ways to loosen it up.

I do this for a few days and realize that it's just getting bigger. How in the world after all these things that I'm doing (btw try doing all these things while keeping your baby happy). For instance hot compressions 10 min before feeding, feed, then immediately after pump that breast. Yeah right, huh!?! I end up calling PPA back and telling them that I need to come back in. I go in and they tell me that since I'm already 6 weeks post pardom that I'm no longer with them (they only deal with pregnancies and then your post pardom checkup). Well, I don't have a regular obgyn because I pretty much severed ties with that lunatic. I am pretty much crying to my friends mom Dalia (sp?) and telling her that I am in so much pain, my baby is upset and fussy because of it all, and I just need someone to look at it. Afterall, they were the ones dealing with the infections from the get go and giving me all these meds, shouldn't then follow-up? Dalia calls my insurance and of course they comply because my insurance rocks. The doctor (who's husband is a surgeon) takes one look at my breast and says I'm 99% sure it's an abscess and the worst one I've seen yet in my career. You need to go straight to the ER. Okay, let's back up. Josh is on his way to work, my mom is in the lobby with my baby, ER????....what?!? I ask her if it can wait because by this point I'm a little overwhelmed and she says her husband could operate in the morning but she didn't want me to wait that long because it was really bad.

The doctor as I'm drying my tears, goes out and tells my mom the diagnosis. We would out a plan of how we would drive our cars to the hospital and have Josh meet us there. The doctor said there was no way she wanted Addelynn in the ER. I told mom I would call her and Dad that night after they drain or do surgery or whatever. Well, eight hours later I finally see a doctor (did I mention I hate ERs???) and haven't eaten since the morning because everyone kept saying they didn't know when surgery would be and I couldn't eat until they did. I'm crying to a nurse because I have to eat or I can lose my milk supply and she so rudely tells me that I probably won't be able to breastfeed again after the abscess to why bother...I wanted to hit her! Come to find out surgery would be 8am the next morning and I could have freaking ate something during my long ER wait! Anyway, they check me in...I call my parents who keep Addey for the night. Josh and his Dad give me a blessing and I hope for the best.

I see the surgeon the next morning and beg her just to jab a needle in my boob and drain the abscess (my friend had that done to hers). She informs me that it is too big of an abscess and it would most likely come back and I would have to be put down for surgery. Great! I love surgery! I start crying again because they are not sure if I will be able to breastfeed or not and my baby is only 7 weeks old. Finally her and Josh convince me regardless that this is the best and only way to ensure that the infection is gone.

I wake up from surgery with a huge open wound, not understanding why they couldn't stitch me up. I guess wounds heal from the inside out as I'm learning. All I can say is that I was not prepared for what I saw when they uncovered the bandages to change the packing. The surgeon said I had a golf ball size abscess. They did a test on the abscess to see what it was infected with and the results would come back two days later. I was prepared to go home that day when a nurse came in and told me that the wound came back positive for MRSA which is a drug resistance bacteria, a form of staph. All I remember is hearing on the news how schools were quarantined and closed for cleaning for this bacteria. I start crying again as I thought of my baby. Does she have it....is it in the breast milk? Hours later the nurse comes back and clarifies more. She said that it was only in the wound and not my blood. They still quarantined my room and put me on heavy IV meds. Looks like I would be staying a few more days.

Turns out that when I was breastfeeding Addelynn in the hospital when she was born, she cracked my nipple and I caught staph. I never had mastitis, or a fungal infection. I had a staph infection for 7 weeks until it got so bad I developed an abscess that had to be surgically removed. The doctor informed me that with my symptoms any doctor would have thought mastitis, but after the first couple meds I should have gotten an ultrasound for further detection. The MRSA came from all the meds killing the good bacteria and turning into the drug resistant MRSA bacteria. Let me tell you...boy has it been an ordeal!

It's been 3 weeks or so and I'm still healing. Josh packs my wound everyday and the surgeon says about two more weeks or so of packing and I should be good. I have to pump and dump because of the heavy meds and switched to formula. I can just now start introducing my breast milk back to Addey. I can't feed her from the left side until the wound is no longer open. I have just now been able to look at my wound. Josh says it looks ten times better than it first did which makes me happy.

I am so grateful that I stuck to my instincts and kept going to the doctor because I could have lost alot of breast tissue from the infection. Through these trails my faith continues to strengthen as I realize I have a loving Heavenly Father looking over me. I never imagined spending a day away from my baby and I ended up spending 5 nights away from her. It has been very humbling and I'm still learning that I don't have control over alot of things. Sometimes the world happens and we have to roll with it. I can only pray that I heal to my liking and that my baby stays healthy and happy through this all.

This is not normal I've been told...go figure! I did want to post it though in case sometime down the road someone has the same symptoms. I am healing though and am feeling better every day. I am just looking forward to feeling myself because Addelynn is now 10 weeks old and since she's been born I've been on some sort of medication for the bacteria or pain. I took my last pill Saturday and hope that it's smooth sailing from this point on. Knock on wood!