Visiting Planned Parenthood

About a month or so ago I went to my first protest rally. Honestly I envisioned it to be much more dramatic then it turned out to be.  I had visions of 1960's style protests in my head, with sit ins and anti-anti protesters, yelling and upset. But I was determined to stand up and be counted, so I dragged my four youngest with me up to the protest in front of the Planned Parenthood across the street from our neighborhood.  It was so the opposite of my visions, it was just a bunch of happy smiling "protesters" praying, thanking us repeatedly for coming and especially for bring my kids, passing out little signs and flowers.  It felt great to be there among others of so many other faiths standing up together, standing up for life.

The first time I visited a Planned Parenthood was very different and a long time ago, 12 years actually.  Ryan and I had just finished all the adoption paperwork and we were officially "waiting" for a baby to adopt. At nights I would go go onto our adoption agency's websites that had countless "waiting" profiles like ours. I was pretty much torturing myself comparing our profile to all the others, hoping for a leg up but only becoming more and more discouraged.  There were so many couples like us, how would we ever be chosen? So the one thing our adoption counselor said that stuck out was, find your own baby. I didn't know if I could do that but if I could get rid of some of these couples by finding them a baby, we'd have to float to the top eventually.

So I started small pinning crisis pregnancy flying anywhere there was a bulletin board. I always fanned out five so someone could just take one and leave the rest. I even made information goodie bags for school nurses and visited the high schools and middle schools in my area. I then decided to branch out further and naively visited the local Planned Parenthood, thinking they did just that, helped women and girls in crisis pregnancies plan their parenthood. I knew they also preformed abortions but I thought that must be a last option.

So I made up a goodie bag of adoption materials, put a smile on my face and marched in to Planned Parenthood.  Honestly the receptionist and nurse were very nice. They both told me that they often have women come in looking for information on adoption but they had nothing to give them. They seemed genuinely grateful for my little package. The director soon came out she seemed less then thrilled at my coming, I told her I wasn't there to argue but to give them some adoption information. She waved me away and told me to leave whatever I wanted with the receptionist.

I was so stunned that they who had the audacity to call themselves planned "parenthood", had no information on any other options. A few weeks after dropping off that packet,  a young lady was referred to our adoption agency by Planned Parenthood.

 Maybe my diabolical plan of getting all those fabulous couples off the adoption list was actually working. Or maybe it was the old adage that the Lord helps those who help themselves.

Unwanted pregnancies do not produce unwanted children, it may not be the first mothers who want them but there are plenty of us second mothers who pray everyday for them.  It has been my life's honor and privilege to mother my three adopted children, giving them all my love and an opportunity to their first mothers a second chance.

Sunday's are not as promising as I hoped...

Oh well, five kids is sinking me! In three years I will look back on this year and say," dang I'm glad that's done!"
Today- here is a sweet sampling of why I am in over my head.
Kids missed the bus this morning, had to get everyone up and drive Cambelle and Emmett to elementary school and then go pick up a neighbors' daughter and take Kadence and her to middle school. I usually would leave Kadence home to get ready but she has decided home alone makes her nervous, so she had to hurry so she didn't make the others late. Beckett upset he doesn't have matching shoes and proceeds to whine about it for the next half hour.

After getting the kids to school, I came home and quickly filled the dishwasher, then tried to nurse Capree, Beckett wouldn't get off the chair so Capree wouldn't eat. I needed to pee anyway ( yes this is relevant) so I put the baby down in the living room and went to my bathroom- to pee... One minute later I came out of the bathroom to find that Beckett had dumped 4 of the five little toy baskets in the middle of the living room floor.

Dang kid, the day just got better from there, he threw all his toys over the railing, crawled in the crib and woke up his sister just after putting her down, peed all over the bathroom floor because he didn't ask for help and couldn't get his pants off and pooped on the kitchen floor while I was cleaning the bathroom.

I took Cambelle to the Dr. And helped her do her social studies project due Wednesday because tomorrow the girls have activity days and softball practice.

Reading didn't get done, but homework did, dishes are still piled in the sink after dinner, but we did have Family Home Evening. Ryan's asleep on the boys floor after laying by Beckett to help him fall asleep, and I have already tried to wake him once...I don't want to walk all the way up there again. This is just today, I didn't get exercise in, but I did clean all four of my toilets and scrubbed the stove. Someday.....fill in the blank, just make sure I look good and rested again when you do.

Capree Renee

Well, she's a girl! I was honestly shocked because I just figured it would be a boy, my fertility doctor and his nurse both told us they thought it was a boy. He even said and I quote, " if I was a betting man, I'd bet on blue!" Good thing he's not a betting man- he'd be a poor man! When the Dr. who did the ultrasound for the sex told us she was a girl, I didn't believe her at first. Then I started to cry, I didn't know I wanted a girl, but hearing she was a girl was the best news I have ever heard! I really did want a little girl,  I just didn't dare hope.

She was born on Monday December 22, 2014 at 5:26pm.  She was 21.5 inches long and 9 lbs 4 ounces, 10 fingers and 10 toes, absolutely perfect! I wish I had wrote more about the pregnancy with her, I really loved everything about it and having her at Christmas was the best gift ever!

They induced me that morning, but the night before I hadn't been feeling well. I didn't know if it was the flu or nerves, Cambelle had come down with the flu just the week before. We started her on Tamiflu and held our breath that the others wouldn't come down with it as well.  Back to the day of delivery, I called the hospital just before going in and they told me to wait to call the doctor to see what he wanted to do. I really wanted to have her that day, I wanted her to have Dec. 22 as her birthday, I'm Nov. 22, my sister is Oct. 22, my sis-in-law is Jan 22 and my nephew is April 22. Plus my mom had come and I wanted her to be there for her delivery.


Anyway I called Dr. Stevens and he asked my temperature and it was normal so he said go to the hospital, he was honestly nervous about a repeat occurrence of the same problems we had when Beckett was delivered. I was so happy the Dr. didn't want to change anything! I was bursting with excitement, I could have ran to the hospital!


They started the induction and the dr. came and put in the epidural (happy juice), but I knew it was wrong. One side didn't take and then my Dr. came and told me she was sunny side up just like Beckett. She was trying to come out my back, I was in so much pain. Then a new doctor came in and fixed the epidural (did you know they can do that? me neither) Well, that lady was miracle worker, it was perfect!


Dr. Stevens came back to check on me at 4:00pm and told me that it would probably take 4-5 hours before delivery. I told him not to go far because I was going to have her by 6:00, and he would be home in time for dinner with his family. He laughed as he walked out the door.  At 5:00 pm the nurse came to check my progress, I was ready, we just needed the Dr.  She paged him and he was there by 5:10 and Capree was born 16 minutes later at 5:26!

It all went so well, and she immediately began nursing. I loved every second of it. But we almost had to revive my mom, I guess watching a delivery is a little different then making a delivery. She was a bit traumatized by the whole thing.  She thought he was going to tear me in two to get the baby out.


As soon as I delivered her, I started shaking and my temperature spiked. They ran a flu test and it was positive. Crap. We were stuck in insolation from everyone and everything. No one was allowed in my room without, gloves, a mask and an extra gown. Really it was the flu not ebola! But anyway I actually loved that they left me alone with my baby for three whole days. We slept and snuggled, just her and I. Every mother should get three days to snuggle and love her baby before the wor So the kids weren't allowed to come see me and that was disappointing to us all, but we went home Christmas eve and it was the best Christmas ever. I honestly don't remember what they kids got, but I do remember they all fought over holding her all morning. We told them we would give them a baby for Christmas.

Making Sunday's mean something

I had part of my blog printed into a journal book, it's really awesome actually and I need to do it for the rest of my blog. But I really need to start blogging again as a family journal.

I have also been wanting to make my Sunday's mean something more.  This month we have been looking ask family history stories, there really isn't much more then names and dates. It's actually really disappointing, I would love to know more about these people and their dates, birthdate and death date. So I decided to combine my desire to make my Sunday's into more then survival mode. I will blog on Sunday's to keep a journal for my kids and future generations. with the coming of Facebook and one sentence tweets people don't blog much anymore, it's too bad really. I have become one of those who have fallen victim to the instant updates rather then the thoughtful journalings.

These darn shots....

Do women who get prenant easily and stay pregnant without much thought have any idea how easy they have it? Of course not at least not when it comes to that. Lucky ladies!!

So because this pregnancy started in the freezer over two years ago, I have had to take daily shots since April 5th.  This little one was conceive-created at the same time as Beckett, so esseentially this is Beckett's twin...come late.  Back to the shots for a couple weeks I was taking two of them....these are no little needle in the tummy chub shots like the last time. These bad boys are intramuscular in the upper bun cheeks shots. Ouch! I am glad I retained some chub from the last pregnancy for a little padding! First time I have ever been thankful for that!

Within the first two weeks of taking the shots I developed an infection on one side and then soon after started have an allergic reaction to the oil the progesterone was mixed with!  I don't know which was worse...so they put me on an antibiotic for 10 days and changed my shots to be mixed with seseame oil....yes you read that right, no I don't think I can sub it out while cooking if I run low on my sesame oil.  That stuff really helped, it didn't hurt from the reaction anymore but it is about 10 times thicker then the other stuff and it is really hard to get it pushed into the muscle. Poor Ryan's little fingers! I know it's breaking your heart just like it breaks mine every night when he complains after shooting me in the butt!

So two weeks ago the doctors office told me that I have three and a half weeks left of the shots.  Ahhh....that sounded forever!  But here is how I figured it, three and a half weeks is only a moment in time in the grand scheme of things as long as my baby was safe and needed it, three and a half more weeks of shots wouldn't be much of a sacrifice as compared to a lifetime of regrets and self doubt if I didn't stick with the plan by my doctor and something happened to the baby.

So here we are, two weeks more down, a backside full of medice knots but a strong and thriving baby is growing.  Today my doctor told me that things are going so well and the baby is so strong that I am getting a full week reprive!! Only four more shots and only every other day and I am done!! I get to be normal pregnant!! So I have been on 2 different estrogens and two different progesterone meds, I just laugh when women tell me that they wanted a medicine free baby.  Good for you, I just wanted a baby.

Here we go again!!!

  Well I have been wanting to think of a clever way to let the cat out of the bag but since I have no one still following my posts I don't think the cat will be out of the bag...this way I can start writing about this experience!  I wish I had wrote more with Beckett's pregnancy.

Yup we are pregnant again!  The crazy crowd just gets crazier!! We couldn't be more excited!! So to answer a few questions, no this was not a surprise, a lot of time and planning and effort has gone into this! The only thing surprising is that they can freeze an embryo for 2.5 years and wake it up to make a baby.  This isn't science fiction anymore,  I can only imagine what big mouth ignorant opinion I would have blabbed out if you had told me when in my future was a frozen baby and it's two and a half year older twin! 

When we did the in vitro with Beckett the Drs. made one extra chance for us.  When they put Beckett in they put our chance in the freezer...like a special deep freezer not like in the office break room freezer!  So we waited until...honestly Ryan was about to move jobs and our fertility insurance would be lost,  then suddenly the time was right! Go figure...

I am now 7 weeks and one day,  feel really great, it's really weird after the last time. I was miserable at this point last time, I tell Ryan it's fair this time I have to do way more nonsense to keep the pregnancy.  Pills, patches and daily shots in the butt...ouch!

I have no idea if it's a girl or a boy, so many plusses either way.  The girls want a girl and Emmett wants a boy...Beckett just thinks he is the baby and he is.  Emmett gave me a big smile, wink and a thumbs up when we told him we were having another baby.  He has been wanting two babies, so he is tickled!  

Fancy New Toy

So, I have been wanting my own laptop for awhile now.  I reasoned that with my own laptop I wouldn't have to argue with anyone over my time on the computer.  Every time I head to the computer to use it, I have four little followers asking me if it's their turn or if I'm done yet! Well three Beckett just wants to sit on my lap, not easy to type.   So I told Ryan if I had my own laptop then the kids wouldn't be allowed to use that one and I can start blogging again.  He loved the blog so I was using it is my powerful reasoning!
     So today is Mother's Day and guess what I got?  An IPad Air with keypad cover called a Folio!! It is so stinking cool and I am sitting on my couch blogging  while watching the kids jump on the trampoline with their Dad!  Best Mother's Day present ever!!
      Long story short...I will be blogging again. Nothing of import to anyone but me and my littles.