It's been a while...

I know, I know...I can't expect my blog to grow if I never update it.  So what has kept me away? One word...life.  Life happens and there are only so many hours in the day to get things done.  So this blog gets neglected.  Starting next week (I need to be able to start on Sundays) I will have better things coming.  For now, let's do a little catching up.

Rex Allen turned one on September 7th!  I can't believe my tiny boy is now a 1 year old.

We had an UNO themed party that I saw on pinterest.  As soon as I saw it, I had to run with it.  My mom made the cakes, my sister made the Happy Birthday Banner, and I threw everything else together.  I'll do a separate post with all the pictures and details.

On May 30, we lost my Grandma, my Mom's Mom.  She fought a long and hard battle with Alzheimer's and dementia.  She suffered a massive stroke and heart attack that day, and though the decision was hard, we knew she was tired of fighting.  I still haven't been able to blog about her yet because the emotions are still so raw.

My pain is overwhelming.  On good days I can make it through half a day of work.  On really good days, I can make it all day.  On really bad days, I can't get out of bed.  Pre-Approval for Botox injections is still tied up with the insurance.  They have to approve it before I can get it done, because I can not pay out of pocket for it.  It's been over 2 months now that I have been waiting and given the run-around.  I'm about to give up on it all together.

For the most part work is ok.  There are obviously attendance issues because I miss A LOT of work due to pain.  But, I have been there long enough that I qualified for intermittent FMLA.  So many hours per year that I can use for my illness.  It protects me from getting fired for my attendance.  I'm not abusing it just because I have it.  My end goal is to work 40 hours a week.  There just are times when that can't happen.

Lexi started Pre-K in August.  She loves it.  But she has always loved doing school work.  She even gets to ride the school bus from her school to Daddy's office after school. 

The Christmas season is approaching and I still have no idea where the money is going to come from.  I'm going to be helping my mom out with some crafts, so she is going to give me a portion of the sales. 

So hang with me.  Share the blog with your friends.  'Cause there are going to be some great things coming up soon!

scared

First thing...I got to come home from the hospital today! So excited to be back in my own bed. But tonight I got this overwhelming sadness. At first I couldn't really explain it. I mean, I am home...Lexi is home...we're all together...pain is a little better, so I should be good right?!? The more I started thinking about it, the more it started to make sense. I am scared of the pain coming back full force. I'm scared to wake up tomorrow with an 8 on the pain scale...which has been the norm up until today. I wanted to come home from the hospital more than anything, but I didn't realize how nice it was to know that a nurse would be checking on me all day, and if I needed anything I could just push the little red button. I'm scared of having to manage the pain on my own at home. I'm scared that if the pain comes back how will I function. The past few days if I was in pain it didn't really matter because my only job was to lay there and try to feel better. But now that I'm home I have other normal things that I have to do...go to work, take care of my daughter. I'm scared that if the pain comes back there are some people who won't handle it gently. Then Jacob informed me today that we just aren't going to have the money to make the trip to Dallas to hang out with my best girlfriends at the end of this month. I have been looking forward to this trip since the day I left Dallas after our trip last year. So, bummed doesn't even begin to describe how I feel. Devastated is more like it. I completely understand and I am not angry with him in the least for this. Then, as per my nature, I have extreme guilt. I am already worried about the hospital bills for this little adventure we were on this week. Not just regular hospital bills, but the MRI cost also. I am worried about my lack of a paycheck next week. I am guilty for the fact that my mom missed a lot of work this week, which will also affect her paycheck. I feel guilty because of the stress and worry I put on Jacob and the rest of my family. I have a million things going on in my head. I need to finish 1 baby blanket, do another for friends. I need to do a baby blanket for Kristin, and also one for baby Rex. I need to plan a baby shower for Kristin and buy her gifts. There's just a lot still going on in my head. So needless to say, I still need prayers.

hospital part 2

Today was my second full day here. There is really nothing new to report. I still have pain. I woke up this morning and rated my pain as an 8. When Jacob got here my food tray was already here but I couldn't even force my eyes open. I eventually ate my breakfast and felt a little better. I got pain meds at 1:30 and then slept for a while. It wasn't a hard sleep, I could still hear everyone in the room but I once again felt like I couldn't force my eyes open. When I did wake up in a couple hours I was feeling (much) better. I ranked my pain as a 5 and I didn't ask for more pain meds at 5:30. We were waiting all day for an internal medicine consult. They finally came right before 7 and stayed approximately 3 minutes. I didn't understand what his plans were and I was still hopeful about going home tonight, so Jacob chased him down the hall. He thinks the neurontin needs to build up in my system. He may increase the dose tomorrow. The general consensus between him and my ob is that I willnot be going home until the pain ia gone. That's a scary thought considering I have beenin pain for 7 weeks. So when Jacob came back in and told me that I pretty much had a breakdown. I want to go home! I feel like I can rest and take pills at home. Jacob immediately called my mom who got me calmed down. I got pain meds at 8. The nurse told me not to wait too long in between so the pain doesn't get intolerable. I have been sweating like crazy in here. Everyone keeps talking about how cold it is but I literally feel like my bed is an oven. The fan is missing from my room so that sucks. Keeping my fingers crossed that I have a good night and get to go home tomorrow. Lexi is coming home after being gone for a week so I want to be there not here. I have tried to keep everyone updated as much as possible. It has been hard to keep up with all the texts and tweets. Eventually I will get my Thanks out to everyone. I appreciate all the thoughts and prayers so much. ignore any typos! I am using the kindle fire and I'm still not used to the keypad.

labor and delivery

Well I beat my own record of having to go to labor and delivery. 23 weeks 1 day this time. The past few days my migraine has been getting worse and worse. I have slept for less than 6 hrs since Saturday because of the pain. Today I got to work and started throwing up. It was pretty uncontrollable so i went home. I called my ob because I was concerned with getting dehydrated,and of course the pain. My ob called me back and told me to come to labor and delivery to be admitted for 24 hrs. I got here and they did bloodwork and started iv fluids. I got a couple pain pills and dozed for a second. The pain is still on about the same level. I think the plan is to do an mri tomorrow. Hopefully it comes back clear. I'm sure it will because it always does. Jacob went home to sleep and I'm starving. Off to hopefully get some sleep.

My sick girl

Lexi is sick.  :(
She had some yucky green snot a couple mornings early this week.  No big deal, I've been suffering from allergies so I thought it was probably the same thing for her.  So Monday night I gave her some benadryl at bed time.  Jacob said she was pretty whiney Tuesday morning, but we all have our days right?!  So he took her to school like normal.  He got a text that morning (before lunch) that she was really not feeling well and running a 102 fever.  So he went and got her.  He came home and gave her some Advil.  She layed down on my pillow in front of the fan and fell asleep.  The fever came down some.  I ended up coming home early because I couldn't even function at work.  I was a nervous wreck.  I just didn't like the fact that I wasn't there with her.  I mean, I know Jacob is fully capable of taking care of her...but everyone needs their mama when they are sick right?!  She generally doesn't run a high fever...it might get to 99 or 100 but that's it.  So it had me worried.  She was fairly lethargic last night but we alternated Advil and Tylenol every 4 hours and it kept the fever around 100.  You could tell she just wasn't feeling good though.  Granny came over to see her and she wouldn't do anything except for lay in bed, and that's so not like her at all.  She ended up sleeping with me because I figured we would both sleep better if she was with me.  She slept pretty good, but I was still checking her temp and feeling her forehead all night.  Her fever came down overnight.  But she woke up this morning running a 101 temp again.  Jacob had his mom come over to watch her and call the dr.  They said to bring her in immediately.  She got there and wasn't running a fever, as I had given her Advil before I went to work.  They checked her for mono and strep and they both came back negative (thank goodness!)  They said one of her tonsils was a little swollen, but nothing major.  They checked her ears and amazingly enough she doesn't have an ear infection.  That's usually the culprit when she gets sick.  So they said it just was something viral and would have to run it's course.  It's good to know that there's nothing wrong with her, but that also means that there's no medicine to give her to make her better....just medicine to control the fever.  I ended up coming home at noon with a really bad migraine.  When I got here Jacob was taking her to McDonald's for lunch.  She was feeling much better and had no fever!  She acted pretty normal this afternoon, but then around 4 got really whiney so I took her temp and it was back up almost to 101 again.  So more advil for her.  Gave her some more medicine at bed time and put her in our bed.  It literally took her 2 minutes to fall asleep.  That's a sure sign that she's not feeling good...as she usually has to read and talk for at least 20 minutes before falling asleep.  Aunt Lisa is coming down tomorrow to watch her.  Hopefully her fever breaks overnight and stays down!  Her birthday party is this weekend, so we really don't want to have to cancel that.  She's been talking about it all week.
I know that was a really long post about just 2 days time, but I feel better just talking about her!  Say a prayer for my girl if you would!

                               My sick girl last night.  She looks much the same right now.

Once again, it's been forever since I've updated.
On February 14 we got the best valentine's day gift ever. We found out we are pregnant! I won't go into great details but this is just a miracle baby. We were not trying to get pregnant and generally I have to see lots of drs and take lots of meds to get pregnant. So for it to happen the natural way is nothing short of miraculous.
With this pregnancy I have been pretty sick. The "morning sickness" didn't surprise me, as I was very sick with Lexi. I just hit 12 weeks and my appetite has started to come back. I'm scared of weight gain because I'm so much bigger this time. I am already pretty much as big as I was when Lexi was born.
We are trying to stabilize my meds. My bp med is proven to cause low birth weight, so we had to change that. With Lexi only being 5lbs 5oz at birth, I don't want this one to be smaller than that.
I also had to go off my migraine medicine. This has proved to not be good. Jacob had to take me to urgent care last weekend because I was in so much pain. They gave me a shot and a few minor pain pills. The shot didn't seem like it did anything. They pills kinda took the edge off. Then I kinda got the runaround when figuring out who is going to manage these headaches, my pcp or my ob. For now, it looks like ob.
Let me just say that I love my ob. She helped me get Lexi and I never want another ob for the rest of my life. She thinks my body is just not handling pregnancy well....hence the insane bp last time. She gave me a somewhat stronger pain med and told me it should get better soon. I got to listen to baby though and everything sounds good.
We travelled four hours from home yesterday for my grandma's 88th birthday party. Lexi and I rode with mom and dad as Jacob stayed home this trip. Yesterday I was pretty sick. But thankfully my wonderful aunt and uncle have a guest bedroom with toys and cable tv. So when I had to take a pain pill and lay down Lexi could still be in the room with me. There are plenty of people here that could watch her, but I hate to not be able to take care of her myself.
The party was today and it was great. Can't wait to see all the pictures. I also get to sleep in a queen bed with Lexi. I lo e being close to this girl. I snapped pictures of her while she slept last night because she's too darn cute.
Well, my eyes are dropping closed as I type this and my sweet girl is snoring next to me.
Much love! And I'll try to keep up more!