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It never ceases to amaze how time seems to fly by while watching your kids grow. I remember the princess being born and savoring every second of her her drooly grins and belly laughs and now in two short weeks my little one will be going to kindergarten. I am currently living in denial that she will be going to school. I sent her to preschool but that didn’t prepare me. There is something about not being able walk her to and from her class that makes tears well up in my eyes. I am not ready for her to grow up. Normally, I would be on the ball with her first day outfit picked out and and her backpack all packed up and arranged but I am pretending that she isn’t going. Someone is going to have to come and hold me.
It was just over a year ago when my infertility had taken over me. I was no longer just upset but I had moved on to feeling hopeless and devastated. I remember taking the princess to her first day of preschool last year and getting back into the car crying, thinking how sad the next year would be taking her kindergarten and coming home to emptiness. Well, as irony would have it a few days after that day I found out that I wouldn’t have to experience that because I was finally expecting a new baby.
So, in 2 weeks I send my oldest to school and will come home to anything but emptiness, as my sweet little prince who we have longed for to complete our family will be with me. God is so good. But the time could slow down for just a minute so I can enjoy them as they only stay this little once.
After a years of waiting for a little one to add to our family and 9 long months of pregnancy, Samuel Nolan entered the world on May 20 at 4:26 pm weighing in at a whopping 8 lbs 10 oz and 20 inches long. With my gestational diabetes, I was induced at 39 weeks and went in at 6 am that morning and they started the pitocin at 7:40 am. Within the hour my contractions were consistent and getting increasingly more painful! At 10:10 am they broke my water and I as still only at 2 cm and now 80% effaced. After my water broke, it took about an hour before back labor started. I had this with the princess and it was pretty darn unbearable. At 12:15 pm, I gave into my wimpiness and got the epidural. I instantly started feeling great, but Sam wasn’t so happy. He started having trouble tolerating the contractions and his heart rate kept dropping. Then my blood pressure plummeted and I thought for sure we were headed for a c section. The nurse didn’t leave my side for 45 and I was given constant oxygen and after sure enough after the scariest hour of not knowing what was going on, his heart rate returned back to normal as did my blood pressure. At this point I was at 6 cm and the rest of the labor went really fast. My epidural literally took away all pain. I kept falling asleep and started to wake up when I started feeling the urge to push. The nurse came to check me and I was at a 9. I was at 10 cm within a half hour after that and then the contractions stopped. I labored down for almost an hour at 10 cm and finally the doctor came in and I had one contraction and that was it. I ended up pushing Sam out in about 15 minutes without any contractions. Many people were praying for the kingdom for me and for me to have a pain free delivery and God showed up. The delivery really was painless. No ring of fire and no tearing. Sam came out crying and was just perfect. He scored a 9,9 on his apgar and the biggest surprise was all of his hair! I think he is proof that the heartburn old wives tale is true!
Alaina is in love with him! She just beamed with pride from the first time she laid eyes on him. She has been the best big sister. I couldn’t have asked for it to go any smoother.
Aww, pure baby love.
I have struggled with writing the blog recently. I started blogging because it was a nice way to keep my thoughts in order and to journal my life as a mom and a crafter. Then people started visiting. It was actually kind of fascinating to see that anyone would ever care what this almost 3o mom of 1 would do or create. Then I was woo’d by the bloggy love of links and comments and the lovely relationships that I built with other bloggers. Then came this pregnancy and I took months off without posting and the blog didn’t seem as important. Feeling better I have tried to keep up with it better. I have crafted, created and posted…yet it feels different this time around. Like I have lost the connection to the blog world. People still visit, but don’t comment. Real life friends say oh…I saw that on your blog and I see incoming links to my tutorials where once upon a time other bloggers used to comment and tell me that they featured or used one of my tutorials. So, now my blog just feels like it is open for voyours. I have to say that where it never bothered me before, all of a sudden it bothers me that hundreds of people visit every week and see pictures of my daughter. When it felt like a relationship with the bloggy world it felt natural and now I am feeling quite vulnerable. I have actually done a lot of sewing in the past few weeks for both kids (wow, did that feel weird to type out…kids plural!) but haven’t taken pictures or felt that pang of must blog this. Truth is that I think part of the lure of posting it all was because it got a positive reaction that kept me wanting to craft, get better and try new things and if this is now just a blip on someones bloglines then maybe this whole blog thing isn’t what I thought it was cracked up to be.
Feel free to ignore the wallowing. Something about sciatic pain has a way of making me grumpy.
Have you read the childrens book Walter the Farting Dog? It is a favorite around here. We are notorius in our family for our love of bathroom humor. It is a sickness really. It grosses many people out but it is the running joke when we get together with my side of the family how long we can go without some type of bodily humor joke. We don’t usually make it very long. (I am so sorry family for disclosing this but if you know is in person this is no big surprise) Well, this brings me to Buckeye. He is the family dog. Well, it is my parents dog and we had the privledge of dogsitting this weekend and we were anxious to get him home last night and so after we had carefully packed him up in his crate and started on our trek to my parents house and that is where it happened. I am no stranger to a little gas and sure, I may be pushing 30, but it still brings out the giggles in me. Well, there was no giggling this time. I could barely breathe. It came with such a violent force and spread throughout the car quickly. We scrambled to unroll the windows like dogs ourself trying to crank our necks out the window. But, alas my window was stuck. The gag reflex in my pregnant body was taking over, my eyes were watering and now I am literally choking and doing my best not to vomit. (Are you all just so glad that I am sharing this disgusting story with you all?) Then the irony of this just starts to hit me and I start to giggle. If you have been pregnant and find yourself in a compromising position in which you get the giggles then you know what is coming next….I am darn near about to pee my pants. I am now making a ridiculous scene in the car. The princess is repulsed and yelling loudly about the horrible smell, the husband is still gagging and trying to figure the best place for him to pull over on the highway for me to either pee or get sick. So not pretty. Well, this was obviously way to much for my pregnant brain to comprehend which only left one reaction for me to have. I start bawling my eyes out. Relax, I was not really upset but my brain completely misfired and now not only are we drowning in what is the most foul smell ever (lovingly referred by my dad as fishitties), princess now upset that mommy is crying and hubby doing his best to drive amongst the chaos.
After a few minutes the smell dissipates and I regain control of my emotions and thankfully my bladder. Laughter ensued after all of this and while we love Buckeye, I don’t think we will be volunteering our dog sitting services until this pregnancy is over.
To say that this pregnancy has gone fast would be an understatement. Each day I wake up with this ever growing belly and wonder how in the world I got so lucky. For those who have known me or followed my blog know that I have suffered from secondary infertility for the past 3.5 years and had gone through all sorts of tests and meds and nothing ever worked. Back in September I had hit the bottom in my sadness and aching for another child. I was sitting in a staff meeting at work and began to weep. Not the pretty tears, I tell you. Someone walked up to me after our meeting and asked to pray for me. I silently shook my head to let her know that I would appreciate that. After praying for awhile she put her hand on my belly and said she felt God telling her that he was putting something in my belly. Another person prayed for me later and said that they felt God telling them that I was his treasure and he was giving me a gift.
A little over a week later with no symptoms at all I decided to take a pregnancy test. I just couldn’t shake what was prayed over me. Sure enough there was two lines and 15 pregnancy tests later I started to believe that it was really true. At 9 weeks I got my first ultrasound in which the pregnancy dated back to the day I recieved prayer and the day I was healed.
Now at 20 weeks I am halfway there and looking forward to May when I can hold my son! Yep, we found out last week that we have been blessed with a baby boy! Alaina is excited to have a baby brother and we are excited to have some blue in the mix around here!
In 20 weeks or less, Samuel Nolan will grace us with his presence! God is so amazing!
We are still making the princess pants so she can’t get to her poison ivy and yet is cool enough so that she doesn’t get to hot. So, back the stash I went today and found these 2 handkerchiefs last year at Hobby Lobby and thought they were so sweet. I bought a few of them with no particular use in mind until today. They were the perfect size to make these lightweight patchwork pants!
And as you can see I think she likes them too!
A little picture of why I had been so busy!
This is just a portion of the kids that came for our Power Lab VBS. 251 kids, over 100 volunteers, months of prep, set building, crew training, registration and every minute is worth to get to the last day and see 92 kids accept Christ for the first time.
It was a delightful summer day. A warm breeze filled the air as four adults watched their little ones frolick around this in inflatable gift from the grandparents. The princess zoomed past her cousins on the slide and enjoyed the thrills while the boys took a more cautious approach. Aunt Stephanie desperately wanted her nephews to enjoy this inflatable beast to it’s fullest and decided to test the waters and see if the Little Tykes monstrosity would hold her weight. A test run was successful and so I grabbed the littlest dude and up we went. All the way up the side we went and started to get situated to slide down. Suddenly, the princess was filled with excitement and shimmied up the side and jumped on top. All 31 pounds of the princess was enough to shift too much weight to the top. A certain stubborn princess refused to move which caused a near capsize. Little dude now crying as we feel the air sinking down and Aunt Stephanie no longer laughing but seriously panicking. His daddy came to the rescue, the princess was able to get down. However, in the princess’ escape her dumb brave mama sunk into the net and was causing the monstrosity to further go down. Laughter and screaming ensued (all on my part) as I had one foot nearing the slide and the rest of my body sinking closer and closer to the ground. Thankfully, someone pulls my foot and I contort myself to go down what is left of the slide. Safe! Inflatable fun for the kiddies continues. I on the other hand slink over to my towel and admit defeat to my hubby who smirked and said I told you so.
Moral of the story. It is made by Little Tykes, I don’t belong on it.
Blogging to a backseat to our new Wii this week. It has been fun, sad and hysterical all at the same time. Who knew that we could be so sore from faux bowling?! Work has also been crazy stressful this month because we are in the two week wait until Vacation Bible School which means my creative talents and time have gone to carving out foam beakers and building giant microscopes. Pictures to come soon but the theme is Power Lab and is going to be fun!
A little over a year ago I was mourning the bloom of my beloved magnolia tree and I was so pleased to go outside yesterday that despite the storms that nearly trampled on all of my freshly planted impatients I found this beautiful bloom. After our crazy weather this spring I didn’t expect it to flower this year. I hope this is the first of many wonderful surprises as our summer begins.
