Presley's Birth

Now that my little lady just turned 4 months old yesterday, I am finally getting around to writing her birth story. Thats me, always on top of things! ;) I finally put it at the top of my to do list because I don't want to wait to long and the details get fuzzy. So here is the story of how my precious Presley came into the world...

As I have mentioned before, I was having some issues with blood pressure my last trimester. So the Thursday before she was born I had my appt at the doctor. At that appointment my blood pressure was 150 / 100. Gulp! That is crazy high! (I usually run in the 120's / 70's). After a lot of thought and deliberatoin with the doctor, we decided to go ahead and set for me to be induced the next Monday (which was the day before my due date) at 7:00am. The doctor sent me to the hospital to be monitored since it was so high. This was the third time I had been sent to the hospital for observation of my blood pressure. She explained that if it didn't go down, they would just keep me and induce me right then. However, if it was normal we would just wait till Monday. So once again, I got to the hospital and my BP was completely normal. This happened every single time I went....crazy high at the office and completely normal at the hospital. We all laughed about it and they decided that I must have White Coat Syndrome.


I remember being both relieved and disappointed that they weren't going to keep me. I was very anxious over my BP and just praying the baby was ok and not affected. I thought it would just be so nice to have her out and all that over with, but I was relieved because I wasn't logistically quite ready and my nesting was taking over and I wanted everything to be all set with the kids and the nursery, etc.


It was kinda nice to know when the date would be. This was a first for me. I have always just gone into labor naturally not knowing when they would come. However, I was not thrilled at the idea of having to be induced and messing with nature's timing. I have had pitocin with Kobe and Kensi after being in labor so long without moving past a certain point, so I knew what was coming!


We got everything set for the kids. My dear mama came to stay with us on Saturday and was planning to stay an entire week to take care of the kids and the house. (she seriously is the best Mom there is!). I had asked my friends and family to just pray that the baby would come over the weekend on its own and I wouldn't have to be induced. I had a conversation with one of my friends updating them on the latest and I told her that my ideal situation would be to go to the hospital and for them to say I was 5-6 cent already and just let me go on my own.


On Sunday, Aaron and the kids went to church and my mom and me stayed here. I remember it was raining and we just had such a nice morning together eating turkey wraps and watching HGTV. Its the little things that make me happy. It was such a nice relaxing day. I got everything packed and ready for the next morning, took a shower, did my hair (had to be lookin good for her arrival!). The perks of having a c-section, without actually having it. ;)I just kept hoping and praying all day that I would start on my own.


As the evening wore on my contractions were getting stronger and closer together. I still wasn't convinced it was the real thing, because for 2 weeks I would start and stop, start and stop. By 7:00 I was pretty sure that this was it, but I didn't want to go to the hospital just yet. My mom and Aaron kept saying, maybe we should go now, but I just wanted to stay home and do as much at home as I could. It was such a funny labor looking back. I was having some intense pain and here I was watching America's Funniest Homevideos with all the kids and my cousin was here fixing our computer. It was great having all those distractions. ;)


Around 9:00 I decided to go up and lay down and get some sleep. Sleep didn't happen because my contractions were getting to the 'crazy point' as I like to call it. ;) By about 12:45am I told Aaron I thought we should go. I love watching him when its time to go. He jumps up and into action and does everything double speed. We left for the hospital at 12:54. I remember the exact time because I looked at the clock as soon as we got in the car to time my contractions. Aaron drove like a crazy man. I kept telling him to slow down or we were going to get pulled over. He didn't seem to worried about that. :)


We got to the hospital at 1:00 am and things were so intense I felt like I was losing my mind. I could hardly speak I was in so much pain, so I was a bit irritated that these people who were checking me in kept asking questions. Finally, some sweet woman who also worked there stepped in and said, we just need to take her up and we can check her in later. God bless that woman!


We got up to the labor and delivery floor about 1:10am and got in a room and they called Dr. Visger to come. Aaron had called a few of the people who wanted to know when we went in no matter what time of day. The nurse checked me right away and said , "your fully thinned out and 5-6 cm." I was blown away! What we had prayed for was happening! She once again started trying to 'check me in' and after about 10 min I couldn't handle it anymore so she said let me check you again. When she checked, she said I was fully dialated and ready to push! It. Was. Crazy.


Things were moving at lightning speed. My nurse got another nurse and told her to call Dr. Visger and tell her to hurry. Bless their hearts, they were moving so fast to get things ready for the delivery. They had also been concerned about my BP during labor because sometimes when your in pain that can send your BP way up, in which case they would give me meds thru an IV to bring it down. Their was a whole room full of nurses, but no doctor....ack! Once they saw that this was it and I was pushing this baby out NOW, a nurse ran and got Dr. Nelson who is a doctor at another office in town and he came in to deliver.


At 1:28am on January 18 our sweet girl was born weighing in at 6lb 12 oz and 21.5" long. She was absolutely perfect. I remember I just kept saying, " I can't believe this is happening." Mentally I had prepared for a long night and possibly day, but here she was already born after only being at the hospital 28 minutes. I was in such shock that she was actually out that I totally didn't even hear the doctor say it was a girl. After a minute I remembered and said, " What is it?!?!" Hahaha. That makes me laugh. This is the only baby we waited to find out the sex of and thats not exactly how I pictured it going, but it was still such a fun moment finding out that it was a little girl who would complete our family.

***Check out that bruised little face! Ouchie!***

When they put her in my arms I was instantly in love. She was so small and beautiful and perfect. Its hard to put into words the feelings that went on inside of me when they placed her in my arms. Complete and total awe that this baby was the one who had been growing in there all these months, instantaneous love, an immediate feeling of wanting to protect her and keep her safe, deep joyand contentment....so many intense emotions all at once.
It was like a collective sigh of relief when she was born from everyone in the room. We were all looking at each other like, "did that really just happen?" The nurses were all so wonderful and incredibly supporative. They were all cheering me on while I was pushing. We had to laugh because Dr. Visger finally got there about 15 minutes after she was born. Which I thought was hilarious because that exact same thing happened when Kensington was born. Dr. Visger was on call and came and checked me at 8:30pm and I was 5cm. She said it would be after midnight sometime before she came so she was going to go do a C-section and then come back and check on me. Kensi was born at 8:56pm and the exact same doctor, Dr. Nelson, happened to be there and came in to help the nurses deliver. How ironic is that?! I told them both that and they thought that was so funny.

I called my mom about 1:50 and told her she was born. She thought we were kidding because we had only left the house an hour before! It was pretty funny. She said she had just been praying for us since we left and asking the Lord that it would go fast and the baby would arrive quickly and healthy. He certainly answered that prayer!

I remember just living in the sweetness of the moment and taking it all in knowing that this would be the last one we ever experienced. I loved those first moments of getting to look in her eyes, checking all her fingers and toes, being completely blown away by how much thick, black hair she had. I just held her and nursed her. It was simply beautiful.



They took her to clean her up around 3:00am, and then moved us to our post partum room. Poor Aaron had been up for almost 24 hours so he was exhausted. After he made sure I was ok , he crashed on the couch! I had asked for them to bring her back to me when she was done being bathed. I had so much adrenaline pumping through me, I just couldn't sleep. So I spent two hours with her. Just us, in the stillness of the night, checking each other out. It was such a precious time for me.

The next morning we were flooded with friends, family, flowers and balloons. We had such a lovely time introducing everyone to her and just visiting. I geniunely love, LOVE being in the hospital. Well, let me rephrase. I love being in the hospital to have a baby. :) Whats not to love? You get to lay around in a bed all day spending time with just ONE child, somebody else cooks for you and then cleans it up, friends and family visit and you have no responsibilities of hosting. Its simply a delightful time! And this time proved to be no different. I like to think of it as my little vacation.

I also loved the evenings, when all was quiet and it was just Aaron, Presley and I. Just the three of us snuggled up in the bed, Aaron and I just holding her close. There is just something so special about that time in the hospital. Its a little bubble from reality. Every time I have a baby I am also surprised when I leave the hospital and life is still going on as normal. Its as though I think because our whole world has just changed, that everyone else's has paused too. :) But, life just continues as normal all around us.




I feel as though Presley's birth was a gift to me. A loving gift from my Father, who heard my prayers many months before and walked me thru this journey. Because I have had two miscarriages, I had a hard time connecting with the fact that I was going to actually have a baby. I always had that nagging fear in the back of my mind not to get too attached, this one may not actually be born. I know those thoughts were not from God and I would beg and plead with the Lord to let everything be ok with this baby. And every time I had an intense pleading with Him, deep in my spirit I heard Him say to me, "this baby WILL be born. Its a gift to you." Every time those thoughts would come back, I would just remind myself of that word and speak it to my spirit over and over.



Even with all the health issues I had going on with my thyroid and blood pressure, the labor was so smooth and uneventful. I know that is because God was in every detail . Even down to the fact that she was born 6 hours before I was scheduled to be induced. He knew my hearts desire to go naturally and heard our prayers. Not only to go naturally, but to be 5-6 cm when I arrived. I specifically prayed for that, and that is exactly what happened. During my labor my blood pressure was fine and never went scary high. I write all this just to have record of it so I can look back and remind myself of the goodness of the Lord in my life. He loves me and is into the details of my life. He has given us four perfect, healthy kids. Yes our life is busy and wild, but what unbelievable gifts He has trusted us with.

*Other random things to remember...

~ When she was born, the cord was wrapped around her neck and shoulder. The doctor and nurse hollered for me to stop pushing so it wouldn't strangle her. I felt so panicked because I didn't want her to be hurt, but also its like my body had just taken over and was pushing on its own. A sweet, older nurse just took my face in her hands and said, "just focus on me and blow." And thats exactly what I did. The next day she stopped by to see me and talk about the birth and I told her how much that helped me that she did that. She said she always tells women that because that is something they can do as opposed to when someone says ' stop pushing' and it feels like thats something you just can't do. Such a wise lady! I was so glad to have had her there.

~ Because of how fast she was born, her poor face was bruised very badly, just like Kensi's was. Poor girls had a black and blue face with burst blood vessels for the first week. That first night, the night nurse came in and panicked because she saw her blue face and thought she wasn't breathing. I told her what happened and she was so relieved and said thats kind of an important piece of information for the labor nurses to pass along. hahaha. :)

~I remember thinking as the nurse handed me the newspaper for her scrapbook as she was wheeling me to my post-partum room about how I had seen on the news earlier a woman in Haiti who had just given birth on a concrete sidewalk due to the earthquake devastation. I was just thinking about how unbelievably blessed I was to have my baby in such comfort and just praying for that lady.

~This was the first time I have ever had a baby in the middle of the night. Usually my whole family and Aaron's whole family are in the waiting room for most of the labor. It was fun calling my family and waking them up with the news. ;) Aaron had called my dear friend Leanne (because she had asked to be called no matter what time of day or night) to let her know and she drove right over to the hospital and was the first person to meet Presley. We were still in the delivery room when she got there. It was special to have her there. We both found out we were pregnant within two weeks of each other and were so excited to be "pregnant buddies'. At 17 weeks she lost her baby. Her baby would have been born two weeks before Presley. So for her to be there and share in this moment with us was really special. We couldn't have planned that if we tried. Normally my family would have been there, she would have had her 3 kids, etc, etc, but since she was born in the night all those details were taken care of.

She later told me, as Aaron and I were just gushing over her and on cloud nine, she was worried sick because of how gray she was and thought something was wrong with her breathing. We forgot to tell her about the bruising. She said she kept thinking, surely one of the nurses will look over and see somethings wrong, she just didn't want to be the one to burst our bubble. Hahahaha....that still makes me laugh. Sweet Leanne.

~Presley was born during the prime time of the H1N1 flu, so the hospital was not allowing any children at all to be there unless they were patients. I was so bummed about this because part of the reason we were so excited to not find out the sex was so the kids could come back and we could just show them their new brother or sister. Needless to say, that didn't happen. So we came up with another plan. We didn't tell the kids what sex it was until we brought her home! It was difficult to keep the secret, but we did it and were able to be there when they found out. More on that in another post.

Next up : Bringing her home and the first few weeks....

Hey there, its me!

I'm back! ;) Finally got my computer back after not having it for 4 months. FOUR MONTHS!!!! Ack! That was definitely a long four months. Sorry about how sporatic my blogging is. I always have the best of intentions for this blog-o-mine, but it just doesn't always work out. Life gets in the way, and I am ok with that. But, I am gonna try and keep up a little better now that I have settled into this new life of being a mama to four. ;) I love the idea of documenting the ins and outs of our life right now in this sweet stage of babies and young children. Even though the days are crazy busy and I feel like I don't have a lot of time, I want to make this a priority because I know as time marches on, the details will become blurry.

So here's an update on what we've been up to...

As I mentioned in my last post, our little Presley Grace joined us here on the outside world in January. My pregnancy was a bit rough at the end but her birth was amazing. I will write her birth story soon. We took our time settling back into life. Aaron was able to take a month off with us. I can't say enough how wonderful and precious that time was for us. Our little family just stayed tucked away in our little bubble loving on this amazing little girl. Even as I type, I can't help but smile as I remember that time. Such a sweet time for us all. But, then we were forced to join the real world again, and let me tell ya things have gotten busy!

The transition for us has been so smooth. No major bumps. I guess it also helps that we were again blessed with an extremely calm baby. She is such a 'go with the flow' kinda girl. Just happy as a clam. I simply cannot get enough of this girl. I am overwhelmed and lost for words when I think about what I feel for her. She has such a sweet, gentle spirit. I am so thankful that God always knows best and knew our family needed this little lady. She has certainly been loved on every minute by the 5 of us since she arrived!

The kids all have so much going on in their lives too. Kobe just finished up basketball in March. He loved it! Aaron was able to help coach his team and they both enjoyed that time together so much. He is now in baseball. And holy moly is that ever a commitment. I guess I forgot how intense it can be. He has practice or a game 3 times a week. He has improved so much and again is just loving playing ball! He also has been involved with the Mini Society Club at school every Tues after school. Its an economics club where they create their own society. From the government, to the currency, to what business they want to start. Its been so good for him and he is learning so much about how the real world works. He had a 'market' last Tuesday where they all set up and the kids could come and buy from each business with their 'currency' they created. He and his business partner decided to have a kool-aid business. It was fun to see him having to think through all the aspects of what he needed to do, the different supplies he needed and make sure everything was prepared. Its so fun to see him growing and learning and trying all these new things. He is just growing up right before my eyes. And I'm not quite sure how its possible he is going to be in middle school next year. Ack! Ok enough talk like that ... on to Maddie.

Maddie has loved having a baby around. She is so much the 'second mother' around here. She is always helping me so much. Lately I have been catching her helping the little girls with different things, making sure everything is in its place. Its so sweet. She seems like she is defintily getting so much older. She is so cute with Presley. The first few weeks she would say to me, 'I just can't quit kissing her she's so cute.' It was funny to see her so overwhelmed with emotion for her. She is loving the second grade. She has been blessed again with an amazing teacher who is creative and who loves the Lord with all her heart. (and much to Maddie's delight has recently started coming to our church! ). Maddie has just finished up a term in the puppet club at her school and is now in the baton club. She is actually fantastic at twirling that thing. Who knew?! I can't do even half the stuff she does. I love watching her try all these new things. Her latest is she wants to play soccer which we are thrilled about! We think it will be the perfect thing for this, uh, girly girl of ours. :)

And the Kenser has been busier than all of us combined.;) That little lady is miss independant and always into something. She seriously might be the funniest kid we have had. Oh to get into that little mind of hers. I wondered how she would adjust to Presley. I thought we may have some jealousy issues. But amazingly enough, she was just the opposite....completely obsessed with her. Always wants to hold her and talk to her. She actually was a bit to possessive in the beginning and get mad if somebody else would want to hold her. :)And the biggest news of all on her is thanks to her dad she was potty trained in December! And that gets a big WOO HOO from this mama!

And I am doing so well now. My health has been a bit, um, dodgy all year. After I had Presley my blood pressure shot up and stayed up. I ended having to go on medicine and am still on it, however things seem to be evening out for me. I am also finally having my thyroidectomy surgery in July at UVA. So the end is in sight! What an ordeal that has been. But this I know, God is good all the time. He has walked with me thru every step this year. I have felt Him so close. And He has gently reminded me that He ALWAYS is there.

Truely life is great right now. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about how unbelievably blessed I am. My days are busy. my house is messy. I don't always know what were having for dinner. I have laundry coming outta my ears. I get frustrated. My kids fight. My kids make me laugh. Sometimes I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread. And I wouldn't change a thing. This crazy life of ours is one amazing journey.

So thats us in a nutshell right now! I really do plan to be more frequent on here. Just don't hold your breath... ;)

Introducing......

Presley Grace Johnson

Born Jan 18 @ 1:28am

6lbs 12 oz, 19.5" long

and

Simply perfect!

Life is great! We have been blessed with another perfect gift! I'm crazy about her. She is one special girl. Aaron has been off with us for about a month and will go back to work next week. So we have just been soaking in all this precious time together.

Life has been a bit unusual the past few months. I had some complications with my blood pressure at the end of my pregnancy and was on bed rest for a month. Also, I haven't had my laptop since mid-November because it has been in the shop. Anyway, all that just to let you know why I haven't been posting! I hope to have it back within the next 2 weeks and then I will be back. I got so much updating and documenting to do! Be back soon...

Memories of '09...Part I

I wanted to catch up on some special memories and pictures from this year that I don't want to forget. Since this is our famly scrapbook I thought I better do it before it gets even busier around here. So while I am having this burst of energy and am actually blogging, I thought I would get it done.

Our Family on Easter morning...




Grandma (Aaron's mom) always does a pretty awesome Easter egg hunt for the grand kids. The kids look forward to it every year. She is so creative and fills the eggs with special gifts for each one. Including a golden egg with $10 and a silver one with $5! The race is always on to see who can find the golden egg. I wish I could play. :) I am sure the kids will have sweet memories of this fun tradition for years.

At the end of April, Maddie had her very first dance recital. She L.O.V.E.D. it! She did such a great job and it was so fun to see our sweet girl up there dancing away!

Pretty wild outfit! But of course my girlie girl loved it!

Maddie and her buddy Kimberly before the show.
Maddie's cheering section!

Maddie is on the far right.

Maddie, Jaiden and Kya

What a beautiful ballerina!

She loved her dance class and enjoyed the recital so much. But it made me laugh when
we were on our way to the car after the recital she let me know that next year she was going to play soccer. :)

In July, Aaron and I took Kobe and Maddie to Kings Dominion. We all had a blast. Maddie wasn't really into the rides. At all. :) She rode the carousel and that was it for the main park. But we had fun doing other things in the park and spent a lot of time in the water park. Aaron and Kobe went off to ride roller coasters for a while...so it worked out perfectly.

Here is the ONLY other ride Maddie would ride. It was in the "Kiddie Zone." I love the look on Kobe's face....thrilling. :) He was a good sport and rode with her.

Over July 4th weekend, we all went to Lake Anna with some friends. It was such a fun, relaxing weekend on the water. We stayed in this cute little cabin...

Look how nice and clean the water is....Mmmmm! :)

We split our time playing on the beach and going out on the boat. Aaron was the only one of us that went tubing. I figured since I was preg it probably wansn't a good idea :) , poor Kobe couldn't because of his ear and Maddi just plain scared of the boat so there was no way she was tubing. :)

That evening they were setting fireworks off in the lake and we all decided it would be fun to go.

Our friends, Matt & Kristen and Maddie waiting for the big show.

Kobe has gone out for a couple summers on the boat and loves it! He was bummed out he couldn't tube and get in the water, but he got to drive the boat so I think that made up for it. :)

This was Maddie's very first time out on the boat. She was SO nervous before we got on and kept saying she didn't want to do it . She was almost in tears. When we got out there, she L.O.V.E.D. it! It was so funny. And I was laughing because it was a CRAZY ride due to the wake of all the other boats also headed out to see the fireworks. It was, uh, a very rough ride to say the least. :)

And this is how little Kensi-roo stayed the whole time. She was literally scared stiff. :( Poor girl. She layed on aaron like that the whole time and didn't move or make a sound. Hopefully next summer she will like it more.

We obviously didn't think the situation thru. Ha! We got out in the middle of this lake with probably close to a thousnad other boats. It was so scary! All these boats were headed to the same place at the same time. The wake was out. of. control. while the boat was racing across them. I was literally scared to death. I think we all were except for Aaron, Matt and Maddie. Maddie thought this was how a boat ride was and was just grinning ear to ear. ha! The fireworks were great, but I couldn't hardly enjoy them because I was so nervous about the ride back. I didn't even think about it because we are normally out in the day, but it was crazy going back because its so dark with no 'street lights' or boat head lights and its a free for all. I tell you what I was praying like crazy that we would just make it back in one piece!

This is the face of one already nautious mama who was a whole lot more sick after that ride. Doesn't Maddie look thrilled though?!

Matt did an amazing job of driving and got us back safe and sound. It was definitely a 4th of July we will not forget and definitely a memorable trip!

More to come...

Catching Up on 2009

This year has been such a crazy year for me. It has been a roller coaster ride for sure with peaks and valleys. A time where I was challenged to rest in my faith. Many times when I didn't rest in that faith and was a wreck. :) I want to go back and just hit the highlights for my own memory...

Around April my thyroid started acting up again. I have had thyroid problems for about 3 years and have been on medication. But in April, suddenly it went crazy again and this time it swelled really large on both sides of my neck. You couldn't really see it on the outside (unless you knew and then you kind of could tell), but it was extremely uncomfortable for me. When I swallowed it felt crazy, like it was going around a huge lump. I went to the doctor to have it re-looked at and they came to the conclusion that I had Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. That means that my body doesn't recognize my thyroid as part of my body and creates antibodies to attack it to kill it off. This can be controlled with medication (the one i was already on), but in 40% of people the swelling in the thyroid never goes back down. I was one of those lucky 40% -ers. :) So they said basically my option was surgery to have a thyroidectomy where they completely remove the thyroid. Ack! I was not excited about this option at all as it is major surgery and you are in the hospital for a few days and as with all surgery there are risks.

I asked to be referred to an Endocrinologist in Charlottsville in the hopes of maybe there was something else we could do. In the end, it turns out surgery is truely the best option for me. Thru all of this, I really suffered from extreme anxiety. Anxiety like I have never ever experienced before. It was so scary. It was also so incredibly frustrating for me that I was suffering so badly from it and that I wasn't just completely trusting the Lord. My mind was such a battleground for those months. In my heart I knew the Lord was with me, I knew the promises of His Word. But my mind was another story. It was exhausting. I had 3 times where I had true 'panic attacks' and literally felt like I was having a heart attack. I guess the thing I haven't mentioned yet is that until they did surgery they wouldn't know for sure whether it was cancer or not. That little detail plagued my mind every minute of every day. My faith was challenged sometimes on an hourly basis. I also felt challenged as to what I was going to let my mind think on. I wrote down Scriptures on a paper to read just to speak truth to my mind and spirit in those moments I just couldn't get my mind to go along with my heart.

It truely was one of the scariest times I have gone thru. So I scheduled an appointment with the surgeon at UVA to do pre-op appointment. There was about a 3 week period in between my appointment with the endocrinologist and the surgeon. And during that time is when we got thrown a curve ball.....I found out I was pregnant!!!!! I am smiling just remembering the night I found out. Imgaine me already a nervous wreck about things, and my imagination going crazy about whether I would be here in a year. I would tear up when I put the kids to bed at night just wanting so badly to not die. Isn't that crazy? The thoughts that I had in those weeks were horrible. Certainly not from God. Ones I had to choose to take captive. And in the midst of all that I found out I was pregnant. Almost comical. Almost. Not quite. :) Of course I then had a whole new set of worries that presented themselves. Would the baby be ok? What would happen with the surgery now? Was it cancer or not and how would that be handled now that I was pregnant. It was such a crazy mix of emotions with the worries of it all, but just the excitement of knowing inside me another one of our children was growing, that we had been blessed yet again!!!

I immediatly called the endocronologist to let him know about the new turn in events (to which he laughed! ). He assured me that if it was cancerous, they could safely do the surgery in my second trimester. The new plan we came up with was for me to go have biopsies done on the different nodules in my neck to see if it was cancer or not. So I had that done (EXTREMELY uncomfortable to say the least.....ugh!), and we waited 3 days for the results. Talk about getting some practice on choosing what you let your mind dwell on and choosing to rest in the Lord. It was such a time of stretching and growing for me.

By Friday at 4pm they still hadn't called, so I couldnt' take it any longer and told them I had been going crazy and begged them to get the results before the weekend. This dear nurse was so compassionate and did some extra work calling around to the hospital and labs and called me back 30 min later to let me know that EVERYTHING was non-cancerous!!! I literally felt a weight fall off of me. I can't quite explain the feeling of relief I felt. Because it wasn't cancer, both my endocrinologist and OB said it would be fine to wait until after the pregnancy to proceed with surgery. It was like a party in my brain! The best news i could have gotten and I felt like I could finally fully embrace and fully focus on the excitement of being pregnant.

I feel like I can't accurately put in words the range of emotions I went thru in those months. But what I do know is that God was so faithful to me. He carried me thru that time. He used it as a time for me to grow. A chance to challenge my faith. The way I think. A testimony of His goodness in my life not only in the good times, but in the rough times as well.

With that part of things behind us, it was so great to be able to focus on the blessing that was dropped in our lap in the midst of it all. We decided to go ahead and tell the kids when I was around 8 weeks along. They were so excited. Especially Maddie. She was so cute. The next day she came home from school with a card she had made and had her whole class, all her teachers and some random neighbors sign. hahaha! What a precious girl.

First trimester was a bit rough with feeling sick. Fast forward to around 15 weeks and I came back to life! Its amazing how much energy the 2nd trimester brings with it. I struggled a bit with some anxiety again around 17 weeks or so. I have had 2 miscarriages. And as hard as I try, it always creeps to the back of my mind. I hate it that it does, but I wouldn't be truthful if I didn't say so. There were 2 doctor appointments around this time where the couldn't find a heartbeat right away. They took me and did an ultrasound right away and discovered I have an anterior placenta (that means its attached down the center of my stomach). It just makes it a bit more difficult to feel movement early on as well as a heartbeat, but everything looked great with the baby. I also had a very close friend (who was 2 weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy) miscarry at 17 weeks. All of that sent me into a bit of a tailspin, where once again I was in a situation where I had to choose to not let me mind dwell on negative things. I experienced another panic attack at the doctors office, sending my blood pressure THRU THE ROOF. My doctor was very alarmed to say the least. I explained to her how I had been having some anxiety issues and I thought it was just all related to that. We did some other procedures just to make sure everything else was ok and I wasn't having high blood pressure all the time. Sure enough, as soon as they listened for a heartbeat, it came right down. So now my chart has a little note to let the nurses know to take my blood pressure AFTER the appointment. :) FINALLY around 23 weeks I have been feeling constant, strong kicks from my little baby! Such a sweet reminder that everything is indeed fine inside of me and calming this mama down.

As I look back on this year, I see how each thing has been a building block for me. Growing me a little more. Maturing me a little more. I have just felt like things are so out of my control, that that actually comforts me. I guess I am a little hard headed and it takes me a while to catch on. :) More than anything, I know that I know Jesus has walked with me in a way I haven't felt before. He is so good. So faithful. I still struggle from time to time with worrying, but am a work in progress.

Wow. That was a long post. So thats where I have been. The reason for the lack of posts all year. :) Things are going so well now. And I am just enjoying this precious time in life. The feeling of new life inside of me. I am so blessed.

My Sunshine

This just makes me smile. What a girl. She makes me so happy....a true delight to be her mama. I haven't blogged about her in a while. I will soon. She's TWO now and more wonderful than ever. Not to mention has impeccable taste in clothes! :)

I've Returned and With An Announcement, too!

I'm back! Sorry for that long break. I feel like I need to reintroduce myself to the blogging world. So much has been going on and happening over the past few months that I just haven't had the time or energy to keep up with blogging. Which is kinda sad because so much has happened. I will have to go back and catch up on here for my own documentation of memories. :)

With all thats been going on the biggest news I have to share is....we are expecting baby #4! I am 15.5 weeks pregnant! We are thrilled and very blessed to be given another precious child. I have had some crazy 'morning sickness', or as I like to refer to it as 'all the time sickness'. But now with that phase behind me, I feel like I am coming back to life! :) That first trimester seems like forever to me just getting thru each day and trying to keep up with the kids and be a good mom. And by keeping up with the kids and being a good mom I mean if we get to the end of the day and they are all accounted for and their was no blood, I considered it a good day. hahaha. I'm gonna have to raise my standards now that I'm feeling better.

My dear Aaron has been amazing once again. He has worked all day then come home and helped do everything from dinner to laundry to baths and never ever complained. He is amazing and I am so grateful to him for his love and devotion to me and our family during these past few months. Well, I am grateful for it all the time, but especially as these past few months of been a little rough for me. What a gift he is.

Thats all for now. Just wanted to jump back in here and at least post something. I will do a catch up post before long. But I know everyone was pretty sick of seeing the post 'Sisters', so thought i'd give ya something new to look at. :)