We had a secret. A BIG secret!

I told y'all I'm not great at keeping up with a blog. Yes, I realize tomorrow will be a year since I last posted. Life has been busy. VERY busy! You see, when I last posted I was keeping a secret. A VERY big secret!

Let's jump back to March 25th, 2012. For about a week before that date I was not feeling good. Not at all. I was nauseous all the time. I kept having these weird dizzy episodes. Headaches like crazy. I kept passing it off as stress. It made sense. I was going through one of the most stressful times any mother could go through. My baby was getting ready to have major brain surgery. I finally looked at the calendar. Really looked at it. Oh my GOD. No way. That evening I ran to the store, and hid in the bathroom when I got home. James busted in there and saw what I was doing. I let him do "the read" because I knew FOR SURE it was "just stress". Boy, was I wrong!

Yep, a little less than three weeks before C-monkey's surgery I found out I was pregnant. WTH?!?! Let's just say between the 2 of us we had a couple of hours worth of cries, freak outs, laughs, & worries. I could not believe this was happening. How was I going to handle going through C's surgery as awful as I felt? How was I going to handle TWO kids?? I think my greatest worry was, did God plan this because something was going to happen to C? I know, I know. Rational thinking wasn't my forte during this period of time. I read into everything on a good day. Add in major life stresses and I'm a paranoid nut job. We swear to keep this a secret. Ummm, I might have told a couple of close girlfriends. I was monitored very closely in the beginning due to a situation we had the year before. I think my OB/GYN also wanted to reassure me that I was going to be okay with everything going on.

A week before C's surgery we got to take a peek at the little peanut.

So, we began to plot how we were going to tell our families. They HAD to know before the surgery! We knew we would be gathering for Easter. That would be the last time we would all be together before the big day. We let C-Monkey break the news for us. Everyone was STUNNED (join the club)! There was excitement and worry. Lots of worry for me.

C-monkey in his "surprise" shirt on Easter.

Surgery day came and went. (I'll talk about his surgery in my next post.)The hospital stay was ROUGH. Thank God for my hubby. He really did most of C's care post-op. I was so horribly nauseous every single day right at 2:00pm until night time. Smells killed me. There are LOTS of smells in hospitals. Most of them are not good either. Even the smell of his food made we want to run for the hills. Except I couldn't run if my life depended on it because I was utterly exhausted. We finally had to tell the nurses so they didn't wonder/worry why I slept so much. Oh, and the headaches!! I was a mess, and so desperately wanted to be "with it" to take care of my boy. I felt so selfish.

After about my 13th week I started feeling human again. Right around that time I was diagnosed with placenta previa (where the placenta blocks the opening of the cervix and puts Mom at high risk for bleeds). Really?!?! My Dr told me no more picking C up. No more picking up anything heavier than 5 pounds actually. If I bled I would end up on bed rest. This baby was really testing me. Looking back, all of this was forcing me to take care of ME..someone I had neglected taking care of for years. I had to take it easy...Dr's orders.

I know most people always say "Oh, I don't care if it's a boy or a girl. As long as they are healthy!".  Well, we actually MEANT it! When you go through the kind of struggles that we have been through with C, healthy is the ONLY thing that matters! Secretly, I longed for a baby girl. I thought a girl would be more attentive to C as they got older. I knew I wanted one of each. That was only fair. A healthy little girl with blue eyes. That was my hope. At 19 weeks weeks we found out we were having......

A GIRL!!!!

Other than some wicked anemia, the pregnancy stayed par for the course. It was exhausting being pregnant with a very time consuming child. I had ultrasounds at least once a month. My placenta wasn't budging (aka-the exit ramp was blocked) so my Dr wanted to avoid any risks of hemorrhaging as I got further along and planned for an early C-section. I found out we would meet our baby girl on Tuesday, November 6th...Election Day. J's birthday was 2 days later so he was getting an awesome birthday gift! As time got closer I worried more and more about how adding a baby was going to affect the dynamic of our house. C had ruled the roost for over 6 years. How in the world would I balance the attention that C required and a newborn? Would she accuse me years later of favoring C because he got so much attention? And the one that most Moms going from one to two kids struggle with...Could I love this little girl as much as I love C-monkey? He's had me to himself for 6 years. I love that boy something fierce. We've been through a lot together. I worried about leaving him. We had both only been away from him for one night, twice. I was going to be in the hospital for 3 nights! That was 2 too many! I had list after list of C-Monkey notes for his Grandmas. My lists started having lists, but with kids like C you MUST prepare! There is no such thing as just dropping him off and saying, "Have Fun!".

C-monkey "talking" to his baby sister

Delivery day came. I cried my eyes out when I left the house. Our lives were getting ready to change FOREVER!

At 1:29p.m. on Tuesday, November 6, 2012 we welcomed Baby KAM. She weighed in at 6pounds, 7ounces & was 19inches long! It was love at first sight!

 

C-Monkey met his baby sister the next morning, and he was NOT impressed.

 Life was very different from that moment on. C has learned to get used to KAM's cries. He likes her toys. He NOW thinks she is awesome. He just looks at her with such love and amazement. It truly melts my heart to see him look at her. She is still trying to figure him out though. LOL! 

 

Thankfully, she has been a very easy baby for the most part. She has been a great sleeper, and overall pretty mellow and patient (hope I'm not jinxing it!). I look forward to seeing them grow with one another. I pray that she is accepting and loving towards her brother. That she stands up for him. That she understands why sometimes he gets a little extra time. Oh, and I hope she KNOWS that I love them BOTH. I love them EQUALLY to bits. It is possible!

 

I thank her for bringing a peace back to my soul, and for healing my mommy heart. She is my sugar and sunshine bundled into one petite little smiling princess. She and her brother BOTH have my heart.

Miracles do happen when you LEAST expect them! I got my healthy, blue eyed girl!

And, now you know one of the reasons why I haven't been the best blogger over the past year!!

Where have we been?

C~monkey then

It's been almost 2 years of a blogging break. The break lasted longer than I had intended.

Why did I stop blogging? I liked doing it for the most part. It was a great way to keep track of what all we had been through. To keep up with all of C~monkey's journey, because my overstressed Mommy brain doesn't have much memory.

It was cathartic...at times.

I liked the fellowship of meeting other families that were going through the same seizure hell that we were dealing with. I felt like they "got it".

Towards the end, it was just one more thing to do.

I had gone back to work. I was busy. Too busy for blogging I thought. Facebook was so much easier. If you weren't on FB...sorry about your luck.

I had concerns over privacy since our previous blog (that I hope to edit at some point & post along with this one) had our names smeared all over it. I felt like people knew too much.

I felt like I wasn't really being authentic. I felt like I had to put on this happy show of what our family was like everyday like it was all rainbows, unicorns, and daisies. I felt like if I said anything negative about being the Mom of a child with Special needs, that people thought I was a horrible person. Granted some of this *might* be true, but more than likely it was all my imagination. Blogging became more stressful because I felt the need to censor my words. Writing has always been the place that I felt I was truly able to communicate freely. If I have something serious to discuss, I would always prefer to write a letter instead of talking it out. My thoughts just feel more "free" that way. Is anyone else like that? So, when I began feeling stifled in my writing the cathartic feeling was gone. I've ALWAYS been a people pleaser, and let me tell you...being a Mom of a kid with SN and being a people pleaser is like standing in a lake of gasoline while holding sticks of dynamite...an explosion waiting to happen. So, I figured if all I'm being is a disappointment (once again, probably 98% imagined) then what is the point? I forgot the point in all of this was to put our story out there, to help other families in this journey, for me to have an outlet for my emotions...good & bad.

All of these are good enough excuses right? Well, since we are being honest, they might account for 30% of why I quit. So what is the other 70%???

I was angry, depressed, and pissed off at the world. A few months before I quit blogging, we took what was supposed to be our "miracle trip to Detroit". Where I thought an amazing Dr. Neuro (he is amazing, don't get me wrong!) was going to come into the room with his magic wand and CURE my kid of seizures that had stolen every dream & every hope that we ever held for our only child, and filled it with nightmares, stress, and tears. Yep, I know, I was setting myself up for HUGE disappointment. We left Detroit sad and downtrodden. Our miracle wasn't found in Motown. I felt absolutely sick (& it wasn't the disgusting Opa cheese we had in Greek town either). I felt like I had let C~monkey down. I felt like I had let everyone that had given us money, cheered for us, prayed for us, etc. down. I was angry that we never seemed to catch a break. I was angry that seizures had come into our house one evening, and robbed us. Robbed C-monkey. And there wasn't one damn thing I could do about it. I was selfish. I couldn't help but feel jealous of anyone that was achieving seizure freedom or even seizure vacations for their kids. I felt like an absolute failure of a mother. So, I had to get away from it all. Get away from drowning myself in the seizure world. Looking back now, this is where I began to slip down hill, faster and faster. I was losing my child, but I was losing myself too. It has been a long 2 years. One that I really wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I look forward to reconnecting with other families. I look forward to having this outlet again...uncensored. I look forward to sharing the really cool things that C-monkey is doing. I also look forward to having this as a central spot that everyone that loves him can check in, instead of a FB post AND emailing people that aren't on FB, because that is a major pain in the butt! LOL! Next post we'll talk a little more about how C~monkey is doing today.

C~monkey now