Introducing... -drum roll please-

I wanted to take some time to introduce you to my children. If you're reading this there's a good chance you already know them, but hey, it's my blog and I can blog about them if I wanna. :-) If you know me you know I'm crazy about these kids of mine. I love to be with them as much as possible (however that doesn't mean that I don't like bed time just as much as everyone else.:-)) and I'm the mom dreading the beginning of the school year when my little darlings are away from me for 6 something hours. I also want to throw out there that I know I'm not a "good" mom and will probably never win any awards- after all, good mommies don't let their children eat popsicles for breakfast, don't throw a towel over peed sheets at 2 am and climb back into bed. A good mom would never let her child go to school unprepared for a spelling test, or on occasion find herself telling her children to "just wipe your snot on your sleeve!", or bribing good behavior out of them with candy...  Any ways moving on...

Sierra Faith is my firstborn. She was a dream come true, I became a mommy! Sierra is my social butterfly. Talks to anyone and everyone about anything and everything. At the gym where she takes gymnastics we had a meeting the other evening. Whilst introducing ourselves and saying what child we belonged to I was met with many, "Oh you're Sierra's mom!" "We know Sierra!" Yep, that's her. She just loves people and always wants them to be happy. If it is in her power to give her upset brother and sister something they're crying about she will. Even if the something they want is hers and something she really treasures. Melts my heart. As previously stated, she takes gymnastics and also horseback riding, and loves both equally. She is an tad bit drama queen but seldom ever gets into big trouble. Never ever comes home from school with "reminders". She is easily corrected for transgressions, has a sweet spirit and usually aims to please. She is a huge helper at home and loves her younger siblings very much. I can always count on her to do whatever needs to be done, she's quite mature and reliable I think. Now if we could get rid of some of the sass... 

 Mia Grace. Oh Mia. Second born she has typical 2nd born traits... which I have some understanding of being a second born girl myself. She is inquisitive and has understanding and knowledge of some of the deeper things in life. While she has the sweetest, tender heart ever she also has this defiant streak that sometimes pops out of nowhere and catches her mother by surprise. Her mind is always thinking, which can get her into trouble because while you are pondering the deeper things in life you can sometimes to forget to actually do your math... and maybe even your spelling. She love creatures. All creatures, big ones, small ones, cute ones, ugly ones. You can often find her carrying around and exclaiming in awe about a hideous bug, or reptile, which we in turn have to research on the internet. This year she is also taking gymnastics, which she enjoys, but I think soccer might be more up her alley.   

Truxton Noble. My little lover! Snuggley and squishy, at age two still lets me hold him and squeeze him. He is all boy though. Every object, be it stick, pebble, fork, carrot, it's turned into a rocket ship, gun, or other weapon of mass destruction in his vivid imagination. He loves big trucks, trains, fire engines, bulldozers... we have to stop to check out big, loud equipment doing it's work sometimes cause it's just so cool! No really, I love seeing his eyes light up and just the wonderment in his face. He's my little sidekick, we go everywhere together. Shuttling his big sisters around and whatnot. He's my big helper at the grocery store, is very efficient at getting all of our items out of the cart and up on the belt to be checked out. He also has taken over the job of unloading the clean (and sometimes dirty) flatware out the dishwasher and putting it in the drawer. He can't wait till he's big enough to play soccer. He likes to eat shrimp and mushrooms but refuses to eat macaroni and cheese. He adores his big sisters and is already very protective of them.

So I could on and on about my babies all day long, but there they are in a nutshell. And while I'm not a "good" mommy, I think that if my children can grow up and just know with their whole hearts that their mommy loves them and that Jesus loves them, and always will no matter what, I will consider that an achievement. I will sign off with the lyrics of a song I really like and relate to very much.:-)

"If I Could"

If I could
I'd protect you from the sadness in your eyes
Give you courage in a world of compromise
Yes, I would

If I could
I would teach you all the things I've never learned
And I'd help you cross the bridges that I've burned
Yes, I would

If I could
I would try to shield your innocence from time
But the part of life I gave you isn't mine
I've watched you grow
So I could let you go

If I could
I would help you make it through the hungry years
But I know that I can never cry your tears
But I would
If I could

If I live
In a time and place where you don't want to be
You don't have to walk along this road with me
My yesterday
Won't have to be your way

If I knew
I'd have tried to change the world I brought to you to
And there isn't very much that I can do
But I would
If I could...
Oh baby... mummy wants to protect you
And help my baby through the hungry years
Cause you're part of me

And if you ever... ever need
Sad shoulder to cry on
I'm just someone to talk to
I'll be there... I'll be there
I didn't change your world
But I would
If I Could

I blogged for many years (you can find them here http://greeniblonde.xanga.com/) but haven't done so in the past few. However, within the past few months I have had several requests to start up again. So here I am. Take me as I am. :-)

I guess I will start with the past several months that have been an emotional roller coaster to say the least. As some of you may know, I found out I was pregnant at the beginning of August. Surprise! We told nearly the whole world and were getting excited and quite used to the idea. After all, I have always want to have at least 4! :-) August 23 came around and was a big day here in my life, school started, we had an earthquake and... I started spotting. At first I wasn't really worried, lots of people spot in early pregnancy, right? No big deal, I'll just go to the Dr. and get some reassurance. Wrong, it turns out I was having my second miscarriage. Devastating. After all only one in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage so since I had had one years ago, between my girls I should be safe!

See, I don't know if many of you think about it much or if you're like me, but from the moment I find out I'm are carrying another life I change gears. No caffeine, no ibuprofen, planning for the future, we'll need to be getting a bigger car etc. And for me it is extremely difficult to switch back to I am no longer pregnant gear. When you miscarry they monitor your blood to make sure your pregnancy hormones are dropping back down to "less than 5". This requires your blood to be drawn every few days. September 14th I had my blood taken and was back down to the less than 5.

Around the weekend of September 24th I started feeling really... well, pregnant. I didn't know how that could be possible, I had just had my blood drawn and it was at less than 5! But I got a box of those lovely tests anyways and SURPRISE, two blue lines! Say wha'?! Yes, I did end up using the whole box of 3, same blue lines on all. So I called my Dr. of course, to explain my sitch, they told me that hCG can stay in your urine for up to 6 weeks after pregnancy ends, so I was most likely getting a false positive from the miscarriage. But I went in for another blood test, just to be sure. Emotional roller coaster. Guess what?! My hCG was at 2100. I was pregnant again! I was so excited! Cautiously excited. More blood work, this time to make sure my hCG was increasing, and it did. A sonogram to see what was going on in there, and there it was. Most beautiful little black circle on a field of gray ever, measuring 5 weeks. I went home excited and nervous to wait for the next two weeks to go by so that we could see if this pregnancy was continuing to progress.

I felt wonderful physically. Not too tired, not too sick. Which made me a bit uneasy because with my three surviving pregnancies I was desperately ill.  But hey, I've now had two miscarriages, what are the odds? We'll be fine, I'm just lucky this time around.

October 17. Sonogram day! So nervous but also excited to see what is going on in there. My womb was growing so I knew baby had to be growing too! And there it was. My beautiful, precious little bean, heart beating 143, measuring 7 weeks 3 days. Perfect. I was over the moon! After you see your baby's heart beating the chance of miscarriage decreases to 3%. What a huge relief!

The next morning, October 18, I started spotting. Just barely. You know, this is fine. We are fine. We had a perfect, healthy baby yesterday. People spot during the first trimester all the time. We are fine. But I'll call the Dr. for some reassurance. Reassured, we moved forward. Thursday the spotting changed. My nurse, I LOVE her, told me to come in just so we can make sure everything is okay, and to give me even more reassurance. I need a lot of that stuff sometimes.

I climbed up on the table for the sonographer to do her thing, and that is when my world fell apart once again. There was no heart beat. How could that be? How? I will never claim to be a saint by any means. I get angry with God. I question Him. I don't understand why He does things. I don't want to do this. I can't do this. I love this baby. How could You do this to me again? You're taking 2 babies from me in 3 months time? How am I supposed to deal with this? I am not strong enough, please don't make me! Do you know what He had the audacity to say to me? "Trust me". You have got to be kidding. "Will I ever make you walk through something I won't give you the strength to handle?" Ugh. I didn't exactly fall apart right then and there like I had done the last time I found out my baby was gone. I think the staff appreciated that. But I must have been freaking them out a little, I was stunned. They told me I had to see a Dr. that day but I could leave and come back in 30 minutes. Go get a grip girl! Let me just tell you right here, I highly recommend Montgomery OBGYN. Their staff, namely my nurse Tessa and my sonographer Tasha, are wonderful, wonderful people. My actual Dr. even gave me her cell phone number, so I could get a hold of her day or night.

I opted to continue to miscarry naturally. I'd done it twice before. I'd rather go that route then the D & C which sounds terrifying just by it's name (Dilatation and Curettage, yikes!), or the pill route which sounds more painful and dreadful. I just felt like I needed to do this naturally for my sake as well, closure I guess. I was given a prescription for pain meds and went home to mourn the loss of my 3rd little angel baby.

I thought I knew what to expect. I was so very wrong. See, miscarrying at nearly 8 weeks is waaaaaaay different than miscarrying earlier, at least in my case, you have a placenta and everything by then! They had talked about "cramping". Yes, okay, I know what that is. They didn't tell me that you actually labor. So Saturday evening when my contractions were 3 minutes apart for nearly 4 hours I thought I was dying. Pain meds did nothing. At the end of that I passed everything, all at once, all together. Wow. Growing a baby is a miracle. I don't mean to sound demented, but honestly, going through that, seeing that, you can't help but know that there is a God. Even if I am feeling like He's such a meanie.

So today I'm alive. My heart still hurts. At moments I don't know how I'm going to survive. The emotional pain overwhelms me. Yesterday marked a week since I'd seen my baby, heard it's little heart beating. I don't know what the future holds. I don't know how you're supposed to feel when you feel like your body is betraying you. They're thinking that my problems might be caused from scarring due to the trauma of Truxton's abruption and birth.

I do trust God. I really do. And I know, that at some point, I will be able to say, not thru gritted teeth, "It is well, it is well, with my soul."

Love you all. <3