Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Week of troubles: Part 2

Just before we went to the hospital we called Cody's sister Aubrey and her husband Joseph and asked if they would be willing to come and pick Emma up for us. They were great and said that they would be happy to help us out. They truly have been amazing through this whole thing and we feel very grateful for all of their help. While we were waiting for them to come Emma was being really sweet. At one point when I was adjusting my body in bed she looked up at me and asked "hurt. it hurts?"  She was being pretty good about everything that was happening to and around me but when it came time for the IV I asked Cody to take her out. I tend to flip (just a little bit) and I knew that if she saw it all she would have a come apart.

It took a long, long time for the nurse to get a vein to pop out which was something new to me since I normally have great veins for poking so I was even more scared of her missing and having to poke me again then I was before. Lucky for me she did great and as soon as she was done she said " I was so worried I was going to miss! You had me so freaked out."  I know my fear of needles is annoying, even to me, but the best way to overcome a fear is to expose yourself to those things you're afraid of and I never want a reason to have to deal with needles all the time, so I'm good keeping this fear around.

After the first litter of fluid was in me I started feeling better than I had in a long time and by the end of the third bag my voice was coming back and I almost felt alive again.... almost :) .  It was about this time that the ultra sound tech came in to check my kidneys and the baby.  My right kidney was the one that was really bothering me and the ultra sound REALLY hurt. She had to dig into my side to for a couple of the pictures and hold the little wand thing there for a couple of minutes. Not my idea of fun so when she said she needed to check my left side as well I was less than thrilled . The left side didn't really hurt though so that was a relief.

We LOVED seeing the baby. she tried to show us it's cute little face but I don't think the baby really wanted to be bothered. It covered it's face with it's tiny little hands and turned it's back on us . We then asked the tech if she could find out the gender and as soon as she put the wand to it's tiny little bum it put it's legs together. We were a little bothered the baby was being shy but we find out the gender on the 13th anyway so whatever. :)

 After about an hour the nurse came in and told us that they didn't find any stones and that we could go. I was super glad that I didn't have any stones but I was also confused. I had had been in pain for days and I know kidney pain as I have had plenty of experience in the past.  Altogether we were there for 5 hours and after 4 litters of fluid , 2 different kinds of nausea medication and a morphine shot I was feeling completely exhausted but still a little better than before. This might be over sharing but after all that IV fluid at the hospital and a 32 ounce bottle of Gatorade on the way home it was still something like a half hour before I had to pee!! NEVER again will I let myself get that dehydrated .

That night Cody and I decided that it would be best if I went to St. George so that I would have plenty of help with Emma while I recovered. Cody used up all of his personal time at work helping me earlier that week and he was really worried about leaving at home alone . Aubrey and Joseph said that they would be happy to drive me down and we decided that we would leave Friday.

Friday morning Aubrey came over and picked Emma up so that I could sleep. It was so nice to be able to rest and not worry about anything. After sleeping for couple of hours I text Aubrey and said I would like to try and leave for St. George after Cody got off of work around two. Cody ended up getting off a little early so I slowly started packing and getting ready to go. Aubrey and Joseph had some things they needed to take care of and said they would be ready around 3:30 or so.

While we waited I decided that I really wanted to take one of my pillows with me so up the stairs I went to grab it . Really I should have just left it there . On my way back down the stairs I fell. Yep you read that right I FELL DOWN THE FLIPPIN  STAIRS !! I was only three steps down when I fell so I had a ways left to go. Pretty much the only thing I heard when I fell was my back cracking in a million different places. IT HURT SO BAD! The loudness of the fall and my yelling brought Cody running pretty fast.  I wanted to keep yelling but Emma showed up at the bottom of the stairs looking freaked out and asking if I was ok so instead I pulled it together and asked Cody to help me get to our bed.

When I laid on the bed the contractions were instant. I was pretty freaked out. Cody called Aubrey and Joseph and told them what happened and Joseph came to help give me a blessing. I wont share the exact words here but in the blessing I was assured that the Lord was very mindful of the baby and that everything would be ok. By the end of the blessing the contractions had completely stopped. I felt so grateful to know that my Heavenly Father was not only aware of my circumstances but was actively helping me over come them . That night as I laid in bed I felt a peaceful calm in the room and it wasn't long before I knew my Grandmother Arnold was there with me . Although it wasn't until after I told Cody " funny I swear I just smelled my Grandma Arnold, I think she is here" that I recognized what it was that I was feeling. Cody kinda chuckled and said "Yeah? Well you do seem to need lots of extra help right now." As soon as he said it I knew that he was right. The previous few days had been extremely hard for me to get through and I knew that I must have been getting lots of extra help even though  I hadn't realized at the time. Looking back , and as I write this, I can see more and more blessings that we received during all of this.

To be honest this hard time doesn't really seem to be over yet. The day we got back from St. George Emma caught a HORRIBLE cold and the next day it had taken me down too. I still feel the extra help and am super grateful for it, and hey one of these days things are bound to get better and dare I say be normal once again.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

The week of ...troubles: part one

It all started early Tuesday morning. I kept waking up really uncomfortable but I didn't really think much of it because , well, lets face it, pregnancy is not EVER comfortable, at least it isn't for me.  After my adorable alarm Emma woke me up with her usual chant of "hold jew, hold jew" I noticed that I had a pain in my back.  I brushed it off as " pregnancy non sense" and went about my typical morning. I got Emma out of bed, changed her diaper and made us some breakfast. While we were eating breakfast I kept needing to throw up and noticed that I was feeling more exhausted than I had in weeks. Again I brushed it off . It was around 10:30 when I just couldn't fight the sick feeling anymore and lost what little breakfast I had actually eaten and by 11:20 I was texting to ask  Cody to please come home from work because  "It's been a difficult morning . I haven't really eaten and I threw up awhile ago and it's proving difficult to keep water down. I'm just loosing energy super fast." Still I thought it was just a hard pregnant day and a little rest would cure it. YEAH RIGHT!! by the time Cody got home I was curled into a ball on our bed and the second he walked into the room I was begging him to "please please rub my back." The rest of the day I did nothing but lay in bed and whimper and move around just trying to get comfortable. This continued well into the night until I finally decided I would try laying in the tub full of  hot water . After awhile the pain eased up a bit . It was a little after twelve when I dragged, and I do mean DRAGGED, myself out of the tub and back into bed. I remember stirring a lot that night but I thought I did pretty good. I must have been in a good deal of pain as a slept though, because the next morning when I asked Cody how he slept he lovingly called me a "loud sicky sleeper" and said that I kept waking him up whimpering and breathing really fast and heavy.... ( ha ha, yeah I know how it sounds).

Wednesday morning went about the same . The afternoon did get a little better though and by that night I was enjoying watching the riffed(an audio track synced with the movie that has jokes about lines and stuff)  movie Independence Day and telling Cody how i was starting to feel better and thought that a good nights rest would have me back to normal the next day. Well I was very wrong.

Thursday was by far my worst day. Thankfully I was able to sleep until a little after 9. My first thought when I opened my eyes was I think today will be better and then the pain stabbed at me again and I realized that this is what had woke me up and that the day was going to be anything but easy and for once I was right.  Cody came into the room and I told him that I  really wasn't feeling well and that I was just going to get straight into the tub . On my way into the bathroom I drank a little bit of water and downed a mouthful of Malox . It hurt a lot to lay in the bath tub and not even 10 minutes into it I was leaning over throwing up what little fluid I had put into my stomach .  I couldn't stand laying in the tub anymore because of the pain so I pulled the drain plug and turned on the shower to a very hot setting and slowly pulled myself into a standing position. I stood there completely exhausted and shaking just trying to get the pain to lessen . When I got out of the shower I was very hot and incredibly thirsty . I took two little swallows of water which instantly had me running to the bathroom where again I threw up the little bit of fluid in me. The worst part was that my body would not stop trying to throw up even though I had absolutely NOTHING left to give.    It took nearly ten minutes for my body to stop freaking out and by the end of it I was a complete mess of tears, I had just had enough already, Or at least I thought I had.

When Cody came in and found me sobbing on the bathroom floor I told him what had happened and he called the doctor. They thought because of the pain in my back and my being so sick that I probably had a kidney infection, which wouldn't be a first for me and really I thought they were right. They ordered a prescription of ZOFRAN for my nausea and asked me to go to the hospital's out patient clinic for some lab work .

Going to the clinic wasn't easy for me . I was mentally tired and physically weak and by the time I had gotten myself off the bed and dressed I was in every way exhausted . All I wanted to do was lay back down on my bed and cry. The only thing that kept me going was watching my amazing husband trying SO hard to help me as he chased around our very busy two year old . I knew that more worry was not what Cody needed and if I stopped trying it would make things a lot worse for him.

Because I was so tired I felt like it took hours to get Emma dropped off and make the 20 minute drive to the clinic. It was a huge blessing that the clinic wasn't busy at all and that the woman who helped us was super sweet. She asked me a couple questions gave me my cup and sent me to the bathroom. While I was gone she told Cody "I thought it would be better if you finished answering the questions for her. It looks like she needs to get out of here as soon as possible." By the time I was done , which took awhile since I hadn't been able to drink anything for quite some time, everything had been taken care of and I was free to go. This didn't seem like a small thing to me and I was very grateful for her consideration.

Cody got me home and settled and then went to pick up my prescription. The ZOFRAN ended up costing us $125.00 and I felt super guilty about it. When I was telling Cody this he just looked at me and sweetly said "You have to be able drink something and keep it down dear." I knew he was right but still I had this nagging thought of  "He works so hard for us and here we are blowing 125.00 just so that I can drink water?! uh!!" The lab work took 4 hours to come through and it all came back negative so off to the doctor we went.

Because we needed to hurry to make it in time to see the doctor at his office we ended up taking Emma with us. It was the first time in three days I had really gotten a good look at my daughter and she bore the signs of her mother being MIA. Her hair was down and I could tell by the way the curl in the front hung a little too stiffly that she must have dipped it in her morning cereal. The white shirt she wore had BIG catchup smears on it telling me that she had had a hot dog for lunch and really enjoyed it. When I first really saw her I said "oh my goodness she is a mess" and even though i felt a little self conscious about it  I couldn't help but smile at her. Cody's response to all of this was a smile on his face and " yeah, I'm not a very good mommy, besides she looks fine."

When I got in to see  Doctor Gurley (who is great Cody and I really like him) it wasn't long before he was telling me that he wanted to admit me to Labor and Delivery because I was so dehydrated and because he wanted to check me for kidney stones.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Thinking time

This week has been a little crazy  but it has also come with a lot of  time to reflect on things. Things I haven't fully appreciated, things I don't want to forget that I still have not written down, goals that have been left in the dust that I would actually love to accomplish. Really I could go on and on about what has been racing through my brain these last few days but i won't . :)

I would like to use this as a starting point for many of the things that I need to write but haven't yet .  I'm going to start with the beginning of this week and then go where ever my brain takes me so I'm sure a lot of it will be very random but  I'm using this as our family journal  (at least I'm trying to) so I figure it's all good as long as I at least write it down.... Right? Well even if it's not and it ends up being weird and confusing I'm giving it a shot any ways. So here it goes. Wish me luck!



Thursday, March 15, 2012

4th of July

The 4th of July was really fun! It was just our little family and we really did have a wonderful time celebrating together . We had a little BBQ, played with sparklers and set of our own fire works.






Emma really loved the sparklers




Cody begging for a kiss

Still begging.....
Emma REALLY likes to tease her Dad!

Cody " Hey , Hey! PLEEEASE give Dad a kiss"



YAY! He got the kiss!

Emma trying to crawl to the fire works.


A ginger drink that Cody loved on his mission. We put sparklers in the bottle. it looked pretty sweet.

The move

June  brought some new and exciting changes for our little family.

 We moved out of our tiny, spider infested apartment into a MUCH bigger and brighter beetle and earwig infested apartment. It was an absolute steal ! 725 internet and utilities included it had a laundry room and a huge pantry and in all honesty, and in spite of the bugs, we  were in love with our new home .

At this house I learned lots of things like ...
- ALWAYS check the floor for bugs before putting my 11 month old on the ground. I found way too many beetles in the child's mouth.
- Mosquitoes hate ME!! and I hate them. See picture..
Yes, this is my leg and yes that is a Mosquitoes bite. I also had one on my arm that seriously looked like I had a large egg under my skin  they were very hot and very painful . Needless to say, I REALLY HATE Mosquitoes.
- When you ask your landlord if they have had regular pest control to spray for bugs and he says they take care of it themselves , just know there will be some serious bug problems and plan pay to have the place sprayed by an ACTUAL "bug guy".

-When You are looking at a place to rent and the Landlord says " There were some zoning issues that a couple of the neighbors were complaining about but that's all settled now."

DON'T BELIEVE IT!!!
We actually ended up having to move after only being there for two and a half months of living there. I had seriously JUST hung the last curtain the day before the cops knocked on the door to give us a heads up that our Landlord had been turned in for illegally renting his home out .
We felt horrible ! One minute we were sitting on the couch laughing and talking about what to do with Cody's day off and the next  we were scrambling trying to figure out how we were possibly going to find a home AND move within TWO WEEKS!  This took place at the start of fall semester so Cody was SUPER busy with work and school stuff and so I did all of the packing and most of the moving our boxed stuff. I felt really bad for Cody . He would come home from being on his feet all day and then jump right in and do what he could to help. At one point he was even going on his lunch breaks to load up the car and run to our new apt. Oh , did I mention that we moved almost ALL of our boxed things in our two door Honda Civic. Not all at once of course, there were what felt like a hundred trips to get everything moved.
  The funniest part about all of this is that my mom had a training meeting in Salt Lake City and so on her way to SLC she stopped to see our new place and have some dinner . Yeah that was Sunday and by the time she came back through on Friday we had moved :)
 The Lord really did bless us . There is no way without his help we would have found a home so quickly . We truly have felt his love and concern for us and feel so grateful for our many blessings.

Bath Times Past

First time we ever let her sit up in the water by herself . This is when she discovered splashing in water is awesome! Our kitchen was VERY wet after this bath.



OH how i miss her chubs!!

Emma at just about two months












HA! sh totally looks like a little boy in this picture but I still love it.


She had the cutest little monkey head!


Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Cody's Flight to Oregon

 Last July Cody had to go cross country  as part of his flight training . He ended up flying into Oregon and staying the night with my Uncle Steve and Aunt  Sharon . Yep! I was jealous . I LOVE the ocean everything about it is AMAZING but  I haven't been to one since I was pretty young and I have never been to a warm beach but warm or not I still love them!
   Cody enjoyed the flight and really  loved landing at the New Port Air Port. I guess it is right on the coast so he thought it was pretty cool. Uncle Steve was kind enough to pick Cody and his instructor Jorge up at the airport. Cody was happy to have a chance to get to know my him a little better and said he really enjoyed talking with him. But seriously who wouldn't  he is a pretty great man.

Some great views from the air plane




Cody at the beach

Jorge