Monday, October 17, 2016

Weston turns 6

Went to the mountains for the weekend to celebrate Weston's birthday...#6!
Saturday Anthony and I went zip lining and it was so much fun! While we were there Weston and Walker rode horses with nette, papa, and granddaddy. Waylon stayed with nana. 
Sunday was Weston's birthday. We started with breakfast with the pittmans, rode to west Jefferson for lunch, and then hiked to a waterfall. We had a small birthday supper at the camper that night. We came home Monday to see fireworks at Berkeley mall. It was a wonderful weekend! 





State fair 2016

Today we took the boys on our yearly trip to the state fair. We got there, went to one of their favorite spots...the model train exhibit! They watched again this year what felt like forever and then we headed to buy ride tickets. Walker knew immediately that he wanted to do the slide with daddy. After this we headed to check out a few more rides before they decided they wanted to do the beach shack shake ride. Dad rode this as well, since I can't take the round and round shaking. We then decided to head to the roller coaster on the opposite side of the kids midway. We headed off, got there, and then the worst thing in all of my life happened. Weston wanted to ride the coaster with Walker. He said "come on Walker" and we then realized that Walker was not with us. Weston began screaming and crying. Walker was no where around us. I turned in circles what felt like an eternity with everything moving in slow motion. I saw people staring at me. I heard a family say, "they can't find him". Anthony took off at a sprint in the direction that we had just walked. I hugged Weston and reassured him that everything was going to be ok. I started praying, all while trying not to freak out, that Jesus would get him back to us. That nothing was happening to him and that he wasn't scared. My worst thought was that someone would grab him. I was looking around for police but not wanting to leave so A would know there we were. I continued praying. Just over the crowd I saw A's head but I couldn't see that he had Walker clinging to him until he came around the corner. Relief came over me. He was safe. He was unharmed. He was with us. I grabbed him from Anthony and told him that I was so sorry. I hugged and did not want to let him go. I am his protector. The one who kisses his booboos and it magically takes the pain away, who lays with him until he falls asleep at night. Who lets him play with my hair when he's scared or nervous and I had just left him in a sea of strangers. I say this to say that we are all imperfect. I feared that this would one day happen to me and I hope it never does again. I could have lost him and I can't get that out of my mind. 

On the way home we talked about what happened in the sweetest conversation. I asked him what he was feeling at that moment. He said his chin was shaking (which, in translation, is his way of telling me that he was about to cry). He told me that he wanted to tell the people around him that he couldn't find his mama but he didn't know their names. He told me he saw a bunch of grown ups and then he saw daddy. He was extremely smart and stayed in the area that we had just been together, thankfully. 
I let him know that I had been praying that Jesus would lead him back to us, safe and happy. 
Don't judge people when things like this happen around you. I am the mom that counts 1,2,3 all the time to make sure they are with me. I hold hands with them. This was a freak accident that I never want to relive, but hope that my honesty in saying that I left my child in a crowd that the fair will alert others to always be aware. I mentioned to Anthony that I was a horrible mom and he told me "a horrible mom wouldn't have cared that he was gone and prayed for his return". He's so generous sometimes 😀. I fail everyday. I struggle to read books, I need breaks every now and then, I feed them McDonald's. They sometimes fall asleep before we brush their teeth. With all of my shortcomings and this HUGE mistake I mostly want them to know that I give 150% of myself to make sure they know I love them, even if I have to prove it by praying in the middle of the state fairgrounds for them to return to me. 


Wednesday, May 11, 2016

State fair day!

Waylon stayed with nana and the older two went with mama and daddy to the state fair on 10/19...
Looking at the model trains is where we spend most of our time! 






Today's the day

15 months. 15 months. That's how long I nursed and pumped for Weston and Walker. I had never supplemented with any formula. My freezer was full of liquid gold for each of them. I made so much milk that I would spend more money on storage bags each month than I would have on formula. I would have to switched bottles while pumping because the 6 ounce medala bottles would fill up from each breast. When Walker was 10 months old, We had his tongue clipped and I got mastitis. I was at Wayne for 5 days and Pitt for 2. It was horrible but I continued to pump because that's what I did for Weston and it had to be fair. I survived, he survived and at the 15 month mark, I stopped. Fast forward 2 years. We found out that we would have a third boy and it was never a question that I would breastfeed. Anthony has been such a supporter of my breast feeding so it would just roll on like the rest of them. In September, Waylon was born. Just like the other 2 he nursed perfectly...latched right on, didn't lose much weight in the hospital, ate for good amounts of time. Again, I had enough milk to feed the entire infant floor at Wayne memorial. I was pumping when he was 1 day old because the milk was in and there was a lot of it. I would pump 20+ ounces in each pumping session. Thank goodness I saved milk. Nine days later, I was at my OB office with mastitis. I felt horrible and I had a newborn but they gave me medicine and I felt better the next day. It lasted 3 weeks, usually. One week on the medicine and two weeks off and mastitis came back with an attitude, each time getting worse. We didn't know why it kept happening. They changed my antibiotics and each would work once, but not twice. I ended up in the ER the day after Christmas and I missed Christmas at my grandmas that night. It was taking over my life. My milk would be bloody at times, but I insisted that I was not giving up on this. I was going to give this baby the same thing that I gave the other 2. January came and on January 12, just like any morning, I went to work. I felt good. I hadn't had a recurrence since that Christmas episode. I was hoping for the best. "We got it this time"  is what I told myself. Then, around 8:30 am in front of 24 first graders, my knees started  hurting, I felt as if I was going to throw up. As I made it to my very good friend and coworker, I think she knew something was wrong. I really don't remember anything after that except being confused. They brought me home and Anthony took me to the Greenville ER. I was septic. They admitted me. 3 different antibiotic IVs around the clock. Breast ultrasounds. Med students writing all sorts of stuff on clipboards, a surgical team consultation, residents making rounds at 5am, pain medicine, being away from my boys, and so many OBs that I don't know their names. One told me "I've been a dr a long time and I have never heard of a woman who had had mastitis 6 times." That's right, I had mastitis 6 times in 4 months. But I got better, praise the Lord, and went home 4 days later. 3 weeks later, it was Waylon's dedication and church and I woke up with symptoms again. This was #7. I rolled on to church and the next day was at my dr office in Goldsboro. It's a good thing they like me there and I LOVE all of them because we saw each other ALOT. They OBs there told me to stop nursing. I had given it more than enough and I was putting myself at risk for another hospital stay. I listened, but I compromised. I would exclusively pump and all was well for a while. Then it happened, I wasnt keeping up with him. We were going into the freezer stash. I was pumping all I could and it wasn't enough. This was uncharted territory for me. I threw out frozen milk from the older boys because I never used it and this time I was running through it so fast. So that brings us to this week. On Sunday, I pumped and the largest clot I have ever seen came out of me. That was it. I know it was time to stop. I couldn't do this anymore. I have prayed about this...To be healthy and to be a peace with the fact that my child will no longer be on breast milk. Pumping and nursing a baby has been something that was so important to me for almost 6 years of my life, it was one thing in my life that I felt I was great at doing and it would be over. Today's the day that in his bedtime bottle, Waylon will get the last drop of breast milk that will ever come out of my body. Today's the day that I will ever feel like I'm giving my child the very best gift I'm able to give him. Today's the day that I will cry knowing that I will never hook up to a medela pump again. Today's the day that I know that Jesus has prepared me to do this. He heard my prayers and He decreased my supply so that I would not endure the pain of mastitis again. It was a not drastic decrease so that I could continue for this long.  He is giving me peace about this. He has given me the three best gifts that I could ever imagine being mine even if One of them is formula fed. When he's 5, he's only going to want chicken nuggets and French fries anyway. 😀