I have to get better at this!

Gosh! I have been busy! Really! So, over the last two weeks what have we been doing? Well, Mavrick turned 7! Yes, he is 7! I can’t believe it either. We had a Webkinz party for Mav, which was interesting because we did it here at the house and invited neighborhood kids and school kids and we played games. We have never done the party game thing before. We guessed how many gumballs were in a jar, Operation Gumball. Then we played pin the tail on the donkey, had a water balloon toss, had a piñata and wrapped it up with a water balloon toss. The prizes for the winners and runners up were webkinz items. That part got a little expensive, but I justified it in my mind with “we took Michael to Disney World for his 7th birthday.” I think fun was had by all, so it was well worth the expense.

Julie and Stuart Birdseye came to the party and she (aka JeJe) brought the CD with the pics from the sitting with Major and the rest of us. They are amazing. I am so glad that we had them done early. The one of all 5 of us at the top of my blog are one of them. There were 165-ish in all. We are going to do his birth announcements with one as well. She even has one of their pictures on her new business cards. www.juliebirdseye.com

The boys got out of school for the summer on the 21st. It has been interesting getting used to having three kids at home. They are bored out of their heads because their friends don’t get out of school till the 5th. They are going to start staying at my mom & dad’s on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and I am going to try to get my life in order and decide what I want to be when I grow up. We may leave Major with Mom and Dad on Fridays and go to the water park. I am due back at work on July the 11th and I am having a hard time warming up to that idea, but the backup plan isn’t coming together too quickly, and COBRA will cost half of one of Marks paychecks… Last week I was telling Mark about my fears and hesitations and he said to me “God left you hear for something special. He as something wonderful waiting for you.” It briefly occurred to me that he was probably right, and something special and wonderful probably didn’t entail sitting behind a desk at the Town for 40 hours each week…

On Memorial Day, we went to my sister’s house. They had our family and Brian’s family over. They do that a lot and it is always fun. We took the kids to the neighborhood “splash pad” and then took the bigger kids to the pool. Major stayed at the house with my parents, and Mark had to work. We got sunburned, but we all are looking a little tan now. I have not bought a new swim suit this season and wasn’t going to swim. Christy had a swim suit that she never wore and talked me into going. The suit was a bit small. I felt like my butt was hanging out in the back and I had muffin boobs (you know when they hang out over the edge of your suit or bra), but it covered the important parts. Thing is that I now have tan lines, so I have to do some toning up so I can wear it this summer! How is that for motivation!
Major turned 6 weeks old on Wednesday. He is growing like crazy. He has decided that nursing isn’t really his thing, and my boobs have decided that they are going to dry up. Nuthin’ but dust in there now. Really. I try to pump and get about 2 oz a day! Yes, a DAY! Anyway, that child has the worst gas. He does really good some days, and some days, just to take a nap he needs to be held and patted the entire time. Who am I to tell him “no.” My mom has been after me about holding him too much and spoiling him…WHATEVER! My thought is that he is a miracle. All children are miracles, but this little man was conceived while I was on the pill. He is that 1 in 99% chance. And I could have died after I had him and never had the chance to hold him all day, so if I want to hold him till he is 7, I will.
On Wednesday, I had my 6 week check up and my Dr said everything was great. I look great. My blood pressure is great. My weight is great. It’s all great. So she released me back to my life. I really am feeling good now. Like a new mom. I am remembering how over rated sleep is, for more than 2 hours at a time anyway. This time I am really able to keep it in perspective how short this time really is. Major will be sleeping through the night soon enough… and rolling over, and sitting up, and walking, and talking, and potty trained, and turning 7!

On Thursday, Mark had a consultation for his vasectomy. It is scheduled for the 13th. The brought home this literature and it talks about how permanent it is. I know that we don’t need any more kids, but it still makes me kind of sad thinking that we will NOT be having anymore kids. We both agree that there are thousands of children that need to be adopted by a good family, and we could get the little girl we don’t have. So, Mark is getting spayed in a few weeks.

Tonight, Mark and I are going on a date. The first one in a long time. I am excited. My mom and dad have offered to let all the kids spend the night. I don’t know if she knows what she is volunteering for. Major really wakes and eats every two hours the last few days, but I guess that is even more reason to let him stay. I would probably be a new woman with 7 or 8 hours of sleep IN A ROW!

Another Week Has Flown By!

Four weeks old! Yesterday, Major was four weeks old! Time is flying! And he is growing so fast! Tuesday we had to move to size one diapers – no more new borns!


Julie Birdseye came last weekend and took pictures of the kids, and us. She has a few of them posted on her blog at http://birdseyephotography.blogspot.com/ on May the 6th, and they are awesome. She does fabulous work. Of course, her subjects weren’t too shabby!
It’s been a good week. I am finally feeling good. My blood pressure seems to be under control. I am getting up and staying up about 8-ish and I have been picking up the boys from school. It has been nice to feel like I will be myself again soon! But I have realized that I don’t have any pics of me with the baby boy, so here is one that I took myself!

Last weekend was mother’s day. Mom had us all over for lunch and wanted a picture with her kids and grandkids. For not being at all planned, it turned out pretty good. I can't believe I am a "NEW Mom" again!

This Week...

Over the weekend, Christy, Cooper and Isabella came over and stayed with Mom and Dad. They were able to come down to our house a few times and Mom finally got the two boys together. She and my dad have been playing nurse maid to me and Christy since we came home. Bless their hearts, they have been separated really every day since I came home, except for the day I found about my blood pressure. It was nice to have everyone in the same neighborhood for a while.

On Monday afternoon, Michael learned to ride his bike. It took about five minutes. He was obviously ready. And he has been getting after it ever since. We definitely have something new to restrict him from when he doesn’t behave. He is doing really good and now Mavrick has a new determination to be able to ride his bike by the end of the weekend.

Tuesday, I went back to my Dr. My blood pressure was really good, but I was so weak! My dad is still carting me around town and carrying the baby for me. Anyway, my Dr said to keep taking the meds and come back on Friday.

Wednesday, we went to Major’s 2 week check up. They said he looks perfect, when they weighed him he had only gotten back up to 7.10 from the 7.15 he was born at. The Dr told me to start feeding him every two hours! Really! Do I not look tired enough already? Daddy had to carry Major to be weighed because I was so weak I thought I would drop to the floor any second. So, we have started supplementing with a bottle. Major is doing fine and has not refused the breast yet. We just switch out every other feeding. He wanted us to come back on Friday.

On Thursday, we all (me, Major, Mom & Dad) went down to Medical City to see my GP. He ordered all types of blood work to be done as well as for me to have an echocardiogram done next week. He agreed with everything my OBGYN has me doing, but wanted to check a few things. He wasn’t concerned that I had lost 40 pounds, but is concerned as to WHY I have lost so much so fast. We discussed the blood transfusions and what that does and does not do to the body and when my own blood should replace what I lost. Anyway, he wants to be very through and check everything. My mom was very pleased, as was Mark when she relayed all the info to him.
Today is finally Friday! We saw my OBGYN this morning at 11:00. My BP was good and she wants me to cut back to taking 1 pill in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, and 1 in the evening. She is going to get in contact with my GP and has ok’ed me to drive. She wants me to take my BP next week and call it in to her and come back at 6 weeks postpartum. After my Dr, we went to IHOP to eat lunch. I had the Viva La French Toast! Loved It! We had Mavrick’s Reader’s Theater at 1:45 at his school. Daddy and Major stayed in the car and took a nap. After school we took Major to his Dr appointment to be weighed. He was 8.1 ½ , so he had gained 7.5 ounces. YEA!

haPPy to be a big brother!

On Thursday, Michael finally showed an interest in Major and wanted to hold him. So I had him sit in one of the living room chairs, put the boppy around him and put Major in his lap. He looked at Major lovingly and it was a perfect moment.


After about 2 minutes Michael said “Umm… I think he peed on me.” I told him of course he had not. I was sure that Major was just warm from laying on me. After a few more minutes, Major got fussy and mom brought him to me. Michael followed and showed me his shirt.

About Me

I got put back on bed rest on Thursday. I had my Dr appointment. I went in and they weighed me - I've lost about 30 lbs since last Monday. Then they took my blood pressure. It was 169/124, so they had me lay down for 10 minutes and took it again and it was down to 120/104. So she told me that she didn't want to put me back in the hospital or have a stroke, so we would start with a medication and staying in bed. I went back on Friday morning to have it checked again. The meds made it a lot better.

Mom rushed over from Christy’s, spent the night and went to the Dr with me. She went to the appointment with me. The meds make me weak. I was so weak going to the Dr, dad had to get a wheel chair for me. The Dr said that I have “post-partum hypertension.” I also am anemic. She expects me be on the blood pressure meds for 5 or 6 weeks. She put me on some iron pills, said I would probably lose a few more pounds and it would take about 90 days for my body to replenish the blood that I need.

I have also been dealing with the baby blues the last few days... well, since last Friday. It seems that after I delivered Major, my uterus didn’t realize that I had delivered and kept pushing blood through. After a delivery the nurses push on your uterus to make sure it is contracting and that pushes out any extra blood. Over about a 2 hour period, I almost bled to death. I only remember a few things from the entire event. I remember that I had a Mr Pibb and threw up… the nurse pushed my stomach and I felt a gush come out…Mark put the oxygen mask on my face…I heard my mom praying, standing over my right shoulder…someone gave me a shot on the leg…my Dr told me she was going to give me a blood transfusion because I had lost a lot of blood and calling for 4 bags… That’s it. Maybe 5 minutes of 2 hours. I would pass out. I was gone.

So, all of this is understandably disturbing to me. As if finding out that I nearly bled to death after child birth wasn’t enough, then I was dealing with the thought of my kids, my precious babies, growing up with out a mother… with baby Major never knowing me… with Mark raising 3 kids by himself… my parents losing another child. It has been terrible. I haven’t wanted to talk to people. When I would go upstairs and into the boys room I would ball. Just thinking about how much I need them and how much they need me. I got back on my happy pills on Sunday after I was having panic attacks.

Now, a week later, I am feeling better. Last night I had a headache, I took Tylenol at 2 and at 9, and still went to bed praying that I wouldn’t have a stroke or die in my sleep. It will just take some time. I know some of this is natural. I remember after Michael and Mavrick were born, having similar feelings. My prayer life has certainly increased.

Anyway, thank you to all of you who have prayed me through the last two weeks. I am certain that there are many life lessons that God is trying to show me through this. I have a habit of saying “I’m done.” when I am tired of a situation or task. I have learned I am not done, and I would rather be doing something I am not wild about than to miss this great life I have.

First Outings

First trips out of the house were on Monday to Major’s Dr. He is doing great. The Dr. said he is perfect. I knew that, but certainly glad that other people recognize that too. Today we went back to the hospital for his follow-up PKU test. He cried just a little but was fine and slept without complaints. He just eats too much. Really, he will eat till he burps and milk comes out his nose. He will typically only do that around his 1:00 feeding.



Michael and Mavrick love their little brother. Mavrick wants to hold him and kiss him and squeeze him and love him. Michael is ok just looking at him. Overall, I think they are doing good and becoming accustomed to being big brothers. I am a little worried that they may never find their “inside voice.” Surely that will come too.

Major Delivery!

What is today? Everything still seems to be speeding by, yet I feel like I am in slow motion. Baby Major Trey Pittard was born on Wednesday, April 16th at 9:11 pm, weighing in at 7 lbs. and 15 oz, and was 20.5 inches long. He took the long rough road into town. It was over 24 hours from the time we arrived at the hospital on Tuesday night and the time he was delivered on Wednesday evening.

Upon checking in to the hospital, I was given something to help to soften my cervix. At 4:00 Wednesday morning, there was pretty much no change in my cervix. A few hours later, I was dilated to a 2, but the baby was still very high. By noon there was virtually no change. The Dr tried to break my water, but later we found out that my cervix was tilted and the water was not broken. In the mean time, the nurse moved me from one side to another to get my cervix back in place. I want to say around 4-ish, the Dr broke my water–for real this time. It seems like that was the time that things started to happen. And was really one of the times that we thought a c-section may be necessary. I was really having a lot of pain and the anesthesiologist was called back into up my epidural medication.

I had received an epidural earlier in the day, and it worked great for a while. But when they had to start tilting me back and forth, it must have pulled on the epi enough to where it was not working any more. As the contractions finally got more frequent and stronger, so did the pain. For the second delivery in a row, I found myself in full blown labor with full blown pain. The anesthesiologist came back in and gave me a new one with a bigger tube and more meds. In this process I cried till I had to have oxygen because it hurt so bad. I remember telling Mark that it was just “too much at one time.” Too much pain, too many people, too many directions to follow, too much out of my control, just too much. When the epidural was finally back to work it was full strength. And it was also time to push – finally!

I could still fell the contractions coming, but nowhere near like I was prior to the new epi. We first had to get the baby down before we could get him out. The nurse had me push with each contraction. Deep breath, push for a count of 10, doing so four times per contraction. The oxygen was obviously still on. We did this several times, then the Dr came in and we were ready to push. By this time I was already exhausted. I couldn’t tell where I was pushing. I had so much anesthesia that I could not focus on just one area of my body. It was difficult, and again, I was out of control. We continued with the same pushing routine for what seemed like 30 minutes. Major was finally in a position that the Dr could help work him out and after a few more contractions, he was finally in this world with us.

He broke his collar bone on the way out. My Dr didn’t know if it was me ripping or his bone breaking, but she knew something had happened. He was very quite, and I was so thankful that Mark was there with me and could go check and me sure he was ok. Mark reported that he had 10 fingers and 10 toes and looked wonderful. The team of nurses looked him over and said he was fine and that they would give him to me in just a few minutes after a once over.