Santa!!

And Santa had no idea what to do with a screaming child!!! You can tell that Mrs. Clause has kids because she could pose while holding the screaming kid. After an hour of waiting in line, this is pretty much what I was expecting but we had to get the picture!!

A heart to heart

I have been wanting to blog about something for quite a while now. It’s a subject that not many people like to talk about. The fact that not too many people talk about it is surprising since so many people have had to deal with this. I’m talking about depression. Well in my case, it was post-partum depression. One in five women experiences this at some point after child birth. There are many reasons that one may become depressed after child birth. I’m not going to go into them as it is easy to find on the Internet and that is not my main reason for posting this. My main reason for posting this is just to bring a little more awareness to others that it can happen to anyone at any severity and at any time. I want others to get help sooner than I did if they are having troubles. Waiting until 10 months post-partum is too long. I will just share my story with you.

After Will was born, I had these feelings of jealousy. They really kicked in once my niece was born. I know that jealousy is wrong and I shouldn’t have felt that way. But, I did. I hated feeling that way but just thought it was a touch of the baby blues and it would wear off soon. I was jealous of silly things too. My recovery from Will was horrible. I had to go back at eight weeks post partum to get a spot cauterized that never healed correctly. That pain was almost worse than the tearing that happened in the first place. The jealousy that comes into affect here is that there were several people who I am close to who also had babies right around the same time I did. There is in no way I should have been jealous in the fact that they had such great deliveries and very minimal to no tearing. I should be happy for them right? So, why did I feel this way? I just brushed it off as baby blues.

This one I still feel guilty for being jealous for. The said people above live in town so it is much easier for others to get to their house and gift a meal. Meals after a baby is born have to be the best gift ever. I say this because, once again was jealous that they had so many people giving them supper after their baby was born. With us living in the country, it makes it pretty impossible for those who live 30 plus miles away to send their congratulations in the way of food. We still had family send a few meals our way, and I will forever be grateful for that. As I said above, it is the greatest gift to give!!

Will was an awesome baby. I have said this since day one! But, one of the babies that was born before Will, was sleeping through the night after only a few short weeks. Will wasn’t horrible by any means but still had to get up to eat every 2 ½- 3 hours all night long. He did this up until HE was ready to sleep all night. This wasn’t until he was five months old. At five months, he was sleeping through the night pretty regular and we enjoyed the uninterrupted sleep. It was fantastic, but, the fact that it took him five months to sleep through the night still gave me yet another reason to be jealous over something so silly. Really, he was healthy, there is no way I should have been angry over this.

There were a few other reasons that were silly and quite unimportant of why I was down. Silly or not though, it still stands that I was down. I still felt that it was just baby blues that lingered on for quite a while. Baby blues can last up to a year and I knew this. So I kept trucking through.

My energy was by far from where it was when I got pregnant with Will. The days and weeks went by. I wasn’t crying, not sad, just pissed off at the world. I truly was a bitch and didn’t care. I could tell anyone off and it would not bother me in the least bit. I’m usually a nice person. I am, I truly care about others and their well being but at this point, I didn’t care.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Will was finally moving around more. His personality was growing so much. He was crawling all over the place and wanting to walk more than ever. All I wanted was for Will to take a nap. Even if he just woke up from a nap, I was tired and wanted him to sleep again. This still hurts me knowing this is how I felt, that I didn’t want to play with my son. I do and did love him with all my heart but I was just tired and depressed without knowing it. It still breaks my heart that I felt this way toward Will. I get teary eyed just thinking about how I felt then. No mother should feel that way toward their child.

Finally the time came when I was tired of it. I was tired of feeling like a bitch all the time and having the guilt of having all these feelings hidden inside of me. The guilt of feeling so jealous over such silly things. I talked to my doctor and was prescribed anti-depressants. Within a week I was feeling more like myself. I wasn’t pissed off at the world any more. Most importantly, I wanted to play with my son! I enjoyed playing with my son! All of a sudden, I loved being a mother more so than ever.

Of all the things to worry about another delivery and another baby, the thing I am most worried about is having post partum depression again. As you may know, it does occur more often in mothers that have already had it once, whether post baby or any time in their life. It scares me that it will be worse this time. With Will who runs around all day long taking up so much of my energy and a baby that will keep me up all night, I think I have a right to be worried about this. I know that with help I will get back to normal if it does happen again. I'm not sharing this story to let the world know that I was depressed but to let others know that sometimes the baby blues is more than just that. If you or someone you know is having any degree of depressed feelings for more than a week or two, get help, please. It isn't worth waiting to see if it wears off.

Belly Pic!

This is one thing that I didn't do when pregnant with Will that I wish I had done. Take pictures throughout my pregnancy. The main reason is to look back on the pictures when pregnant with any subsequent pregnancies. This picture was taken at 22 weeks 3 days to be exact. This was the changed date since the Dr. changed my due date back a few days to the 17th. I probably will not take too many but for future references, here you go Natalie!

The changes in a year.

Last year, we had a little guy who couldn't even walk yet.

He filled our lives with joy and loved spending every moment with him.

His favorite thing to do, eat! Everything!

His personality was really starting to shine as he became more mobile.

This year, we still enjoy every single second of this little guy (as we always will) only now, he RUNS everywhere!

His favorite thing to do is play tractors and watch The Lion King.

This boy still loves to eat only if decides to be stubborn and not, then he wont.

Will is learning about time outs as he is taking a liking to not listening to Mom.

This guy is just so awesome. I love the ornery grin he gets when he is up to something goofy. He also discovered that it is pretty funny when you put hair in Moms face and she blows it out. This new trick causes messy hair anytime I hold him. I really could go on and on forever about how amazing he is. He is just the sweetest little guy. I am so excited for him to be a big brother as he loves babies. We did a little Christmas shopping the other day and one of the store owners had a new baby there. She put her down to check us out and he had to go around to check on her.

Oh Christmas shopping, oh how I love to be (so close!) done with you. This is by far my favorite holiday, just not the $$ it costs in gifts. I have 2 more gifts to purchase and then I am making a few more and DONE! Dennis said he was going to get Wills gifts so I'm just not worrying about it. We are on the same track of what to get him though.

As for the other little kid I am oh so grateful for, she is starting to kick more and more. I am so glad that I have posted about Wills pregnancy because I now will go back and see what was happening with him at this time. I was thinking that he was kicking all the time at 23 weeks. Going back and reading what his 22 week blog said, turns out he was just starting to move more then. We did have a name picked out for Will at this time in his pregnancy and for this little girl... not so much. I am in LOVE with a name but Dennis isn't too fond of it. I keep calling her by this name in hopes that it will change his mind some and he will end up loving it as much as I do. Plus, he named Will, I should get this one right?

Baby update:

I had my appointment today for week 22! Can you believe it? Time has really flown by. Baby girl was kinda hiding from us today. She was hard to find on the doppler but once found, her heart beat was all over the place from 120-143! What a range! She must have been doing some summer salts in there or something. Overall, I have been feeling pretty good. The baby is growing and that is all I can ask for. With that being said, here is the little whining for today. I can't believe how hard it is to breath already! I feel like my lungs are the size of a tangerine. Makes me wonder how small they will feel once I make it to the final stretch of the 3rd trimester... My lower back is already starting to ache. The kind of aching that doesn't go away even when laying down or sitting. Again, I may complain about these things but there is no other place I want this baby girl than inside of me growing as she should, so bring on the back ache and the inability to breath, as long as she is growing!!

There were a bunch of things that I had to ask the doctor this week, so I completely forgot to ask how far my belly was measuring!!! I have no idea if I was measuring on track, big or small. I will try to remember to call on Monday and ask. One of the really weired things that has happened a couple of times since last month, was that when laying down on my left side, as I get up using my ab muscles, it feels as if my abs are being ripped apart from my navel down. It is truly the weirdest feeling I had ever felt. It didn't hurt, and twice it wasn't even that big of a deal, just felt it and that was it. Only once did it stop me in my tracks and the feeling lingered for about an hour after. No idea really what it was, just was told to do some stretches.

My foot long, one pound baby is starting to kick hard enough for me to feel more and more. She is so much quieter than her brother was. At this age with Will, I think I could see my belly move from all of his movements. I still only feel the little flutters of her oh so huge ninja moves.

We are still discussing names. I have a name that I would LOVE to name her but Dennis' doesn't seem too keen on it. In hopes that he will change his mind, I keep calling the baby by this name. He doesn't say anything when I call her by this name so I'm hoping that he is secretly liking it, just not going to say anything until it is closer time to meet her.

As far as her brother goes, well a hoot is all I can really say for him. He is just such an awesome little guy. I know, I'm bias but hang out with this kid and he will have you laughing your butt off! Some of the funny things he has been up too lately is running around the living room with a big afghan between his legs yelling "eee up!" The little cowboy!! Will also knows that the pacis stay in the crib. Big boys don't have them during the day. Well, he disagrees with this known fact. He will sneak into his room and get his skinny little arms threw the rails to grab as many that are in his reach. Again, knowing he isn't to have them, he sneaks out of his room with the biggest grin on his face. I have to follow him back to his room to make sure that he will throw them back into his bed. This may be the down fall of moving him to a toddler bed, the availability of these security suckers!

Will has learned the importance of wearing gloves!!! After our first snow of the year (pictures to come) we bundled up and went outside to throw some snowballs for a few minutes. I also didn't have gloves on so I guess I was unaware that his little fingers would freeze much quicker than my man hands. It was a painful few minutes once we came inside. Will didn't understand the water or putting your hands in front of the heater so, we just rock-a-byed while I rubbed them trying to get them back to normal quickly.

Now that my heart burn has finally subsided, I think I will move on and try to eat an entire sandwich. Something that has also been a challenge in the last several days.

Dads Teddy:

Is now Wills Teddy! Every kid has a security blanket of some sort. Whether it is a paci (Will!), a blanket, or a teddy bear. For Wills Dad, it was this teddy bear. Well, not exactly this teddy, as his was 'lost' at some point. I'm sure he would kill me for posting this.

As a joke, Dennis' and my first year together his family got him the exact same bear from the exact same person only 25 years later. This bear is always in our living room and while Will doesn't carry it around like his father did, he still loves to love on him. He cuddles him and reads to him. This was a moment that I had to run into the kitchen to get my camera.

Our little tricker-treaters treats:

These are the Halloween cupcake bites I made for our tricker-treaters.

They are hard to see because I wraped them up, but I like to have things a little more sanitary than well... not. The picks are from Hobby Lobby and the spiders were chocolate and pumpkins were vanilla! I hope that they enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed making them.

How do you eat s'mores?

We eat them in the bath tub! Well, I was going to let him eat it in the kitchen but he wasn't letting me hold the s'more so, bath tub it was!

Oh and doesnt he have a cute butt?!?!?

Good enough reason?

Baby #2 is a.....

GIRL!!!!!