Friday, December 31, 2010

Saturday, December 25, 2010

merry christmas.


Wishing you and your family
a very merry and blessed 
Christmas Day.

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us.
-Isaiah 9:6

Friday, December 24, 2010

oh holy night.


Long lay the world in sin and error pinning
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

Praying for each and every one of my readers and their families...

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—
that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
-Ephesians 3:17-19

He was born to die...so we could live.

Merry Christmas Eve.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

enjoy.



 
Watch. Enjoy. Pass it on. 
Amazing.

Merry Christmas Eve's Eve
:)

Saturday, December 18, 2010

dear you.

I keep telling myself that I don't hate you. And the truth is, I don't.

I don't know you. And you don't know me, although you know of me.

You would walk by me in the grocery store without looking twice. And I'd probably walk by you too. I've seen a glimpse of you. Once. But I feel like I'll never forget it.

I have to keep telling myself I don't hate you because I feel like I should. I feel like I have the right to hate you.

There's a few things I wanted to say to you. But even if I was given the chance, I don't know if I could.

You helped someone break my heart.

You knew about me. And you chose, for whatever reason, that it was okay.

Let me tell you something. It isn't okay. It wasn't okay. It'll never be okay.

I was building a family. I was building a life. And in one fair sweep, you helped crumble it down. Now I'm left, to try to pick up the pieces with him. To try to find a new normal.

You were half of what took my normal away.

And sure, he was the other half. But this letter isn't about him. It's about you.

But even amongst all this, I don't hate you. I'm sad for you.

I'm sad that you thought degrading yourself this way was okay.

You deserve to be someone's number one. Not a hidden number two.

So even though I don't like you...I don't hate you.

I'm just sorry this happened.

For both of us.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

blurbing it up.

I'm stealing borrowing this idea from one of my Twitter faves Gina, who stole borrowed this idea from one of her friends! It's basically just little ''blurbs'' of stuff. When you don't have enough stuff to make a whole post, so you just have a mind jumble of nonsense. :)

I have an addiction to medical dramas. Especially shows like Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice and I was an E.R. junkie. :) They make my heart race, then warm it up with love.
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This pregnancy has been really different in comparison to my last. I'm not as sick, although I'm pretty crazy sick. I'm also craving totally different things, except Mexican food. I love, love, love Mexican food when I'm pregnant.
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Some people think shows like 16 & Pregnant make getting pregnant at a young age look FUN. I think the opposite. If a teenager watching that show, has half a brain, nine times out of ten..they're fighting, the guy's leaving, the girl's on the brink of PPD. It doesn't look like fun. It looks like what it is: HARD, but rewarding, WORK.
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In addition to my addiction to medical dramas, I also have an addiction to law shows: Jail, Cops, Campus PD, Lockup, Police Women of Blank County. I just think it's so fascinating.
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I don't so much have an actual Christmas Wish List. Every time someone asks me what I want, I honestly have no idea.... I think it's so hard to shop for pregnant women. You can't buy them clothes or shoes really. Well...you could buy them clothes, but a. I don't want maternity clothes because you're hardly in them and b. If I got non-maternity clothes while I was pregnant I'd have a mental breakdown.
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H-Man didn't get too many things for Christmas, for a few reasons. a. It's not the reason for the season. (that sounds corny, but it's true...and I don't want to start that idea with him.) and b. He'd much rather eat the paper than anything else.
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I'm going to write a post about depression-like feelings during pregnancy soon. Admittedly, it's tough to write. It was tough for me to say on Twitter that I felt pretty depressed and down most days. You're supposed to be happy as can be when pregnant. Lately, because of outside things I'm going through..I'm not. It doesn't mean I'm not happy to be pregnant. It just means I'm not happy with things currently. Pregnancy and the little one growing inside of me has nothing to do with it.
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Speaking of that little one, if it doesn't show me the goods on whether or not it's a boy or girl soon..I'm going to have a long talking to with it. It's going to be grounded before it leaves my uterus. ;)

Thursday, December 2, 2010

motherhood changed me.

That seems like a pretty obvious statement....

I mean, who doesn't get changed by motherhood.

I'm not talking about the typical changes. I'm talking about something more than that.

In January, when I was pregnant with H-Man...someone asked me what my plans were for the baby. What my sleeping thoughts were, what my vaccination thoughts were, what my birth plan or labor thoughts were...basically she got me thinking.

I remember so distinctly, I laughed and said "H will get ALL his shots. I'm not going to tell a doctor what to do during labor, they know. And he's going right into the crib when we get home." (I didn't even have a bassinet...) And if you had asked me right then if I wanted an epidural, you would have sold me.

Now...HA! Look at me.

Labor? My water broke, on a Monday night. Contractions started. I walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. I was on an all-liquid diet (blech) just in case I was going to need a c-section. They kept suggesting I might want to start pitocin. I answered with a quick but very polite "Nope! We're fine! Thanks!" And I really was fine. My baby was fine. I was watching the monitors. Twenty four hours passed and c-section was mentioned. "Nope! We're fine! Thanks!". Now I was in some serious pain. "Pain meds?" "Nope! We're fine! Thanks!" In the end, my little one was born...all naturally, without meds, on my own, on Wednesday. After water breaking on Monday. And he was fine. No pain meds. I did it.

Vaccinations? Well if you've read my last post you already know my stance on that.

Crib sleeping? H still sleeps with me. In bed. He goes to sleep on his schedule, I put the toddler bed side up. And hop in bed when I'm ready to. We both sleep better this way.

And to boot. I cloth diaper.

Motherhood completely changed me.

I never thought I'd be a cloth diapering, breastfeeding, babywearing, co-sleeping, naturally delivering, vaccination declining mama. Never. Ever.

And I wouldn't change it for the world.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

vaccinations.

H-Man is not vaccinated. I'll get that right out of the way.

Well, that's not entirely true. He was given his first Hep B shot in the NICU because you simply never know with all the other babies. I'd hate for I'm to get something from another baby just because he was sharing the same nurse.

After that though, he was never given a vaccination.

That has certainly been met with a few "good for you"s and much more "what are you thinking"s.

When I was pregnant, i didn't realize you could NOT give your child vaccinations. Okay. That sounds weird. I mean, obviously they aren't forced on kids and it's a total requirement. But I always assumed that I would just give my child vaccinations. Like the norm.

Then before his vaccination appointment, the doctor mentioned at the next appointment he would be getting his shots. I asked for a list of the vaccinations. I wanted to be an informed parent. I didn't want to just show up to the doctors in 2 weeks, have X amount of shots put into my child, and have no clue what they were. I wanted to KNOW what they were. What was IN them. She gave me the list no problem. And i have to admit, I was taken back by the sheer amount of vaccinations he was going to be given. In my tiny baby that just got out of the NICU. Seriously? There were five vaccinations! Two of which were combined vaccinations. We left and made an appointment for 2 weeks, agreeing to all the vaccinations.

Then, I went home and I researched.

I didn't go to an anti-vax website. I just googled the ingredients. And was completely taken back by WHAT was in these vaccinations. That's pretty much where I started to really think. Did I really want these things in my son? This tiny little boy that I was trying to protect from the whole world? Then I started reading about side effects. Chronic ear infections. ADHD. Autism (I know what was said, but I still think there be some correlation....). Crying baby. Rashes. Soreness. Irritability. I still wasn't sold. I mean, yeah..all this stuff was bad...but did I really want my son to catch what these vaccinations were protecting him against!? Then I researched...how many children in the United States have had polio in the last 5 years. How many children have had Diphtheria in the United States in the last 10 years. Yeah... I wasn't so impressed with what I found.

And that's when I made my decision. There was no way my son was getting vaccinations. At least not now.

I will tell you, it was the hardest decision. It was a complete double-edged sword. If my son got sick with something I chose not to vaccinate him for...I would be devastated. I would be so upset and would probably take the longest time to forgive myself. But..if my son came down with one of the side effects...side effects that have a lot higher chance of affecting him...I'd also be more than upset.

I don't advocate this for everyone. I'm not an advocate of no vaccinations. They have helped us have none of the diseases we used to. I do completely understand the pros of them.

They just aren't for MY family.

I am with H-Man. He is not in day-care. He is not around un-vaccinated people (to the best of my knowledge). He isn't in the care of other people. I know what he's around. (to the best that I can.)

Do I think I've made the best decision for my son? Of course I do. If not, I wouldn't have done it if I thought any differently.

H-Man may or may not ever be vaccinated, I honestly couldn't tell you either way right now.

This all started because I wanted to be informed. 

I didn't just want to be another parent at the doctors office, "yesing" them to death. Thinking that they know everything and it was all right. I wanted to be comfortable in the decision that I was making for my son. I wanted to be involved.


I wouldn't do it any differently, given the chance.
 
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