I have talked a lot about how I got pregnant with our oldest daughter when Adam and I hadn’t been dating very long and how that has affected the dynamics of our relationship over the past 8 years. I am not even close to being finished telling that story and I am planning on writing Part 6 of The Truth Is series very soon. If you haven’t read it and you are interested then you should go catch up.
It’s ok I will wait. No really go ahead….I will totally be here when you get back.
So yeah we were very young and scared and we were having a baby. Toward the end of my pregnancy my blood pressure started to rise and my doctor advised me to stop working. I was swelling and he was concerned that I might be heading into preeclampsia. About 2 weeks from my due date which was May 11th, 2001 we went in for our prenatal appointment. I was so ready to have our baby even though I had no idea what to expect.
People tell you things that you should listen closer to and you hear them, but you just can’t know how you will feel until you experience it. That day at the doctor’s office my blood pressure was dangerously high and I was so swollen that I didn’t recognize myself. So my Dr sent us home to get our stuff and told us to get to the hospital for an induction.
I won’t go into the whole birth story, but to make a long story short I was in labor for what seemed like 12 yrs and everyone thought I would NEVER dilate. But I finally did and the epidural worked so well that you could have sawed off my foot and I wouldn’t have felt it. I was so numb that the Dr had to put this suction cup thing on Addison’s head and help me get her out. It was traumatic to say the least. But finally she was here.
I had been watching TLC’s A Baby Story for weeks so I knew this was the part where the baby was supposed to cry. But she didn’t make a sound. She was limp and sort of a purplish color and I knew something was wrong. Adam’s mom immediately dropped to her knees and started praying and I was just in shock. A whole team of people came in and they were rubbing her and suctioning her. She started to wiggle around and she was trying really hard to cry. She was making these little sounds and her chest was filling up and collapsing and you could tell she was struggling to breathe.
After about 15 or 20 minutes they let me hold her for like 30 seconds. Then they whisked her away to the NICU. A few minutes later a woman came in to talk to me about Addison’s health. She was a pediatrician and she was very direct. She told me my baby was very sick but they weren’t sure what was wrong. She said she was pretty sure Addison had inhaled fluid and it had gone into her lungs. She said it could be pneumonia and that they were giving her oxygen and medicine. I asked her if she was ok and she told me simply and honestly “no”.
I remember being shocked. It was one of those moments that doesn’t feel real and you are sort of outside of yourself. The hospital where she was born has an excellent NICU and she was in really good hands. There were babies in there who were much sicker than Addison and although it was a serious situation for us I couldn’t help but feeling slightly thankful. I prayed very hard for our baby but I also prayed for the health of all of the other babies.
Looking back at the pictures I realize how rough she looked. I only remember thinking that she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I don’t think I will ever forget the smell of the soap that you had to wash your hands with before you could come in or the sound of all of those machines beeping.
We were young and totally unprepared, but I think the experience brought us all closer as a family. Addison coming into our lives made such a positive impact on us and changed our future forever. She made a full recovery from her traumatic beginning and after 6 days in the hospital we took her home.
And literally 5 minutes after we got home with her from the hospital she gave me another kind of shock…..
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry….so I did both.
It was just her little way of saying welcome to motherhood.
Sometimes Mr.007 plays bass in a great band called the Trailer Park Troubadours. The lead singer writes brilliantly hilarious songs that will entertain you for hours. My hubby sent me this video yesterday and it is pretty funny. Totally worth 3 minutes of your day. You’re welcome.
Isn’t he so adorable?
I just remembered to tell you that you will have to click through to the blog to see the video.
Remember when I told you about my fat little Wii Mii? Yeah shii hasn’t gotten any skinnier. But I do have some good news!
A few weeks ago I won a contest over here from Stephanie ( Adventures in Babywearing). I won a Wii PopStar Guitar and I was so excited! I couldn’t wait to get it so I could be the pop star I never knew I always wanted to be. As luck would have it I ended up getting two of these exciting Wii games in the mail. So who gets to benefit from it?
YOU DO!
I have ONE brand new in the box Wii PopStar Guitar to give away. It retails at 59.99
It was the first house my parents bought. They were in their late twenties just like Adam and I are now. I was 6 when we moved in. We lived there for 6 short years, but it seemed like my whole childhood.
When I was 12 or 13 my dad began to sell real estate. So my parents decided to sell the house and move to the farm where my Grandmother lives until we could build a new house.
Usually that is where the story ends. You move out of a house and that’s it. But not with us.
My parents sold the house to some friends of theirs. Their friends were a young couple and they were just starting their family. They lived there for several years but they ended up moving out and the house became a rental.
When I got my license I would go out of my way to drive past the house really slow just to remember. I stalked this house. I loved it. I had such happy memories and I told my parents that one day I wanted to live there again. Over the years I kind of forgot about that dream. It didn’t go away, it just faded. You know… real life kind of got in the way. I got knocked grew up and had a little family of my own.
Fast forward to 2003. We were renting a house not far from my beloved childhood home. I remember sitting on the front porch with Adam one early summer night. I was dreaming of our future home and I just knew it was out there somewhere. It was weird to think that at that moment, someone was living in the house that would be ours someday.
Actually, they were moving out. They hadn’t paid their rent in a few months and they packed it all up and left in the middle of the night. My dad’s friend was ready to sell.
All it took was one phone call from my dad and my dream about living in that house came flooding back with full clarity. I told Adam about it and he was unsure. We weren’t quite ready to buy a house yet. How would we afford it? We had student loans and a 4 year old in Montessori preschool.
And we hadn’t even been inside the house yet. I couldn’t wait to see it. I was ridiculously eager to get inside and see if it looked like I remembered.
I didn’t expect it to be so bad. The renters had left a lot of stuff. A bunch of nasty junk really. It was filthy and the appliances were like 30 years old or maybe even older. The counter tops were horrible and the wallpaper even worse. It was a hot mess ya’ll. My hopes were dashed for a bit, but I could see the potential. I only wish we had taken before pictures because we decided to take on the project and bought the house!
We had new counter tops put in, had a new pantry built and bought new cabinet handles and appliances. We had the wood floors redone and we ripped down the ugly wallpaper. We pulled up carpet and we painted A LOT. My parents and my brother helped us get the house in MUCH better shape.
I was pregnant with Alivia in the picture above. It was Easter 2007 before church and Addison was less than thrilled about having her picture taken.
Easter 2008…at least Addison was smiling! Even with Alivia pulling a big chunk of her hair out!
A rare TN snow day
As much as I love this house I am ready for a newer one. A house with more than one bathroom and level floors that don’t creak so loud that it wakes the baby up when we go into the hallway.
But for now it’s our “Crooked House” and as long as the rest of the 007’s are here I am happy with that.
*updated to note the duct tape on the front door. I just noticed it and couldn’t help but shake my head. It is there to cover a big gaping hole in the door. What else would we use but Duct tape? That is just how we roll at the 007 house. Classy!
Today I went back and read some of my olderposts. It was kind of similar to when you are going through some of your old crap and you find the diary you kept when you were 14. Except that this is the internet and anyone can readhowstupidI sound.
And unlike my teenage diary, I have never written a blog post about how my parents just don’t bleeping understand my stupidworld-is-coming-to-an-end teenage drama.
One day I will have several bottles glasses of wine and post some of those diary entries or better yet some of the poetry I wrote when I was 16.
OR
You could just go to your kitchen, take out your meat hammer/tenderizer thing and bash yourself in the hand repeatedly. Because that is what I want to do when I read my old diaries. The problem I am having is that while my diaries and poems are hidden away at the top of my closet my blog is here on the world wide internet.
Yeah.
Plus I put it here on purpose. Because I thought it would be fun.
Too bad I didn’t anticipate how I might feel a few months later. I guess I will just leave all of those posts alone and hope to goodness that no one ever goes back that far. I think that is a pretty safe bet since the only comments I get on the old posts say things like “free penis pump do you want to lose eleventy hundred pounds in 6 days Acai berry extract home insurance quotes”
That is what my problem is. That is why I haven’t been here for 7 days. I have opened my blog and pushed the ‘write’ button 15 times. I have listened to music and stared at the screen. I have twittered and facebooked and read some blogs. But every time I came to write I ended up sitting here so long my fingers turned into ice and my butt felt like it was part of this ugly green corduroy chair. And then the baby would wake up and my opportunity had passed.
I have been whining and complaining about how messy our house is. I have talked a lot about getting rid of everything and starting from scratch. I have this mental image of pulling a dumpster up the the side of the house and throwing stuff into it. I am not one to hold on to junk for posterity. I regularly take van loads of toys and clothes and all sorts of stuff to the goodwill or the consignment shop. But yet we still have too. much. freakin crap.
Clutter. I despise it. It affects me on so many levels. It puts me in a bad mood. It overwhelms me to the point that I don’t know where to start to fix the problem. The clutter is real and tangible and I can see it and touch it. But it affects me physically and mentally. I don’t have the amount of energy it will take to get the house to where I want it to be.
I have excuses for that too. NEVER ending dishes, meal planning and laundry. Adam and I stay up until almost midnight every night and get up around 6:30. I have stopped exercising. Alivia is constantly moving and when she naps I get on the computer and try to write. Aaaand I am holding onto some emotional stuff that I am not sure will ever go away. So needless to say I sometimes feel like I want to run away.
But I have so many blessings here. I would come right back if I ran away.
I love them….the people here in my house.
Adam is an awesome husband and a loving daddy.
Addison has an amazingly intense personality and is one of the smartest funniest kids I know.
And that Alivia…she is happy and sassy and goofy and adorable.
So what are my options here?
I figured that out too. Get over myself and get out the trash bags. Suck it up and do my job. Yeah…I can do that. Because they deserve a mom who is not crazy, a house that is not a mess and a dinner that is not pizza.
This was my 18th birthday. A few friends came over to my house to do the cake with the parents thing before we went out. We were seniors. We were on Christmas break and we had not a care in the world.
I didn’t care about politics. All I knew was that Bill Clinton was our President and he was in the middle of the Monica Lewinsky thing that year. I remember that being on TV a lot.
I had pretty much stopped going to church and started ignoring God. I had much better things to do. Better things like…driving around town at 60 mph with music blaring. Out with my girls chasing boys and letting boys chase us. Being stupid and making too many mistakes…mistakes that could change lives.
Wow ten years ago ya’ll.
Some interesting stuff I looked up about that year:
Stamps were 32 cents
1 LB Hamburger meat $1.40
Cost of a gallon of Gas $1.15
Dozen Eggs 88 cents
Loaf of Bread $1.26
and Google was founded in 1998
What were you doing ten years ago? Were you already a parent? Were you already a grown up?
I was neither and to be honest it’s all a little fuzzy for me. I remember I couldn’t wait to graduate and get out of high school, but I didn’t have many plans passed that.
I knew I was going to MTSU but I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wasn’t thinking about my future in a logical way. I never daydreamed about having children or who my husband would be. In those pictures up there I hadn’t even met Mr.007. I was still making goo goo eyes at the guy in the hat. Exactly two years later I was 20 years old and almost 5 months pregnant. When I think about that it blows my mind.
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