Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Is anybody out there?

If you are reading this, you are truly loyal. It has almost been a year...wow.
Rex is one, he is talking up a storm and crawling everywhere and is SUCH a character! He is such a fun little man and brings us so much joy it's hard to describe.
I have been motivated to blog because I am in a very similar place than I was two years ago exactly, and I am sifting through my thoughts. Two years ago, I had surgery and was told I needed to try and have a baby and if I was unsuccessful within 8 months, I needed to be put back into artificial menopause. That's how my amazing little Rex came to be!
I am now a week away from my 5th laparoscopy and my brain is all over the place, so I need to refocus. I am battling feelings of sadness and frustration and simply being overwhelmed. While I am basically a pro at this surgery by now, it's a whole different thing now that I have a little boy in the picture.
What I know is this, God is good. In the 7 years that I have been battling Endometriosis, I have never been through a desert time that God has not brought me through. He hasn't only brought through, but he's grown me in that time and He's blessed me with a husband, and son through those times. So why is that I can still find space to whine and complain? I have been though it, and God has not failed me yet. His ways are not my ways, I dont always understand, but I dont need to. My faith has grown through all this, and I know it will continue to do so if I choose to let God do His work.
I pray that one day my instinct will be to be thankful and praise God, in all and through all things. I want to be a positive person whose faith is not shaken by circumstances on this earth.
My favorite verse ever:

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

It's so true. All I have to do, is look around at my family and the incredible friends I am surrounded by. A little pesky disease will not have the power to take away from the overwhelming blessings in my life.

As a treat, since you have been so nice as to read all this, I will share some of Rex's favorite words with you :)

"Booty"- yes i sang "shake shake shake" to him and now hes hooked...
"MO PEAAAAAASE"- give me more food or drink IMMEDIATELY
"Doggie, woof woof"-Grandma taught him that, definitely his favorite things to say.
"Mommy"
"Daddy"
"tanktu"- thank you
"BOP!"- bonk
"poooopy!"
"no"-what fun
"no tank"-no thanks-rare, but a little better than no.
"WHEEEEEEE!"
"Whoah"
"Uh-Oh"-usually preceded by intentionally dropping/throwing something on the floor.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Sprickets(Jess Thompson this blog post might make you cry, proceed at risk of your tear ducts)

Have you ever had these horrid little creatures in your house? They are crickets that have long spidery legs and jump really high.

They come visit every winter and I HATE them!!!!! I loathe spiders and they just look like giant jumping spiders from the depths of evil town....yes evil town...

Anyway, so far I have killed two of them in odd ways because I could not find a shoe that I could get to without having to pass evil spricket. Erin had a brilliant idea that I should blog about all the different ways that I kill them since they have been unique thus far.
TRY to contain your excitement, I know it's hard...

Spricket Termination #1: I was in the kitchen and my only available weapon was a 40 pound bag of dog food. So I chased the spricket around the kitchen and hovered the bag over it and then let it fall. After 3 tries, I finally got the spricket, gave housemate Mike a headache, and scared the mcpoopy out of my dog. Success!

Spricket Termination #2: I was in the basement early after Rex's first feeding. Evil Spricket approached my son, said spricket got smashed with the husbands tool box. Don't mess with my baby Spricket!


It's spricket season, so fortunately for you all, I am sure I will have many more of these in the coming months :)

Jess, if you couldn't look away and you read this...I am so sorry...(kind of)

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Mommyhood

I love being a mom. I really just love it. Rex has added so much to our lives and has extracted more love out of us then we knew existed. He has been such a great kid so far too. He is a good eater, and has chubbed up to almost thirteen pounds already! He sleeps from about 10 30 at night till 7 in the morning. He is not colicky and he smiles at us all the time. I have zero complaints about my firstborn, God was merciful:).
This boy is a real boy too. He grunts, burps, pees, and does other things...only like a boy can. He spits up all the day long, so we both go through many many clothing items per day. I am so very grateful for all the clothes he got because otherwise I would live in my laundry room. It has made me think that a great baby shower gift could be clothes for Mom too...
We haven't had to spend as much money on food and gas as we did when I was at work, which has stretched my maternity fund so that my first day back at work will be November 9th! I am loving every second that I have with Rex, its been such a gift! I also have met with my very wonderful Director Dana, and she has been really understanding and the schedule I have when I start working again will be absolutely perfect...things are definitely coming together.
Motherhood makes one reflect. He is only 2 months old, but he has already made me realize why my parents did what they did when I was growing up. I feel shame that I ever thought they were doing anything less than what they thought was best for me. I had wonderful parents who gave me boundaries and had strong expectations, I used to be such a brat and I never understood how much they loved me until now. It already breaks my heart to think that Rex will hate us at times and he will not always feel the love that we have for him.
I think that parenthood is the perfect example of our relationship to God. He loves us no matter what we do, it pains him when we are in pain, and He has nothing but our best interest at heart if we would only listen to Him instead of giving in to our selfish arrogance. It's really been amazing to be reminded of that every day. Very refreshing and it helps me be a little bit better of a listener. You know?

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Catch Up Time

As usual, I have been extremely neglectful of my poor little blog. If my little boy will cooperate, I will catch up on the last couple months.
In June and July a lot happened around here. I got huge, we had 3 baby showers, the nursery was completed, and Rex arrived!

First, I just have to say how grateful and blessed we feel. We have been so taken care of by our wonderful friends and family, both practically and emotionally. We are so thankful. Due to the incredibly generous people in our lives who donated money to my maternity leave, I can stay home with Rex until October. That is such a gift and it was really humbling to see God taking care of us through the wonderful people in our lives. Every day I think of how happy I am to be home and I think of the wonderful people that made that possible. Thanks to everyone for all the love and support.Things would be much more stressful without you!

So my due date was August 16th. In July at my 33 week appointment, it looked like Rex would not be waiting till August. I was already dilating and contracting. This sent us into a wee bit of a panic, there was much to be done. I had to pack my bag, get some last minute items and Wolf had to make sure he was reachable at all times. At the beginning of the following week, I went to the hospital having contractions about every 4 or 5 minutes apart. They discovered I was dehydrated and since it was 6 weeks early, they slowed the labor down and it stopped. While I was hooked up to the monitors, Rex's heart rate dropped pretty drastically once and very briefly. That won us an overnight stay in the Hotel Mercy Hospital. It never dropped again, but while we were there they did an ultrasound and discovered that Rex was a big boy and would have been fine if he had been born that night...We left the following afternoon, and continued the waiting game.
The next few weeks were long....and hot! I was contracting and continuing to dilate but the contractions weren't ever close enough together. My feet and ankles were no longer separated but now big cankles! Very attractive. My doctors and I feared me going to 40 weeks because of the size of Rex and the fact that I am not the largest person in the world. A natural birth was the preference, but the bigger he got the less like that would be. I did everything they told me to help jump start labor....Winnie and I and anyone else I could drag along went on lots of hot and sweaty walks. My feet hardly fit in my sneakers, it looked like they were bubbling out of them...so perty.
On July 29th my doctor said my water was ready to break any moment and I was now 4 cm....so she tried to help things along, and succeeded in starting some more consistent contractions. I contracted all night, and finally at about 5 am on thursday the 30th, we went back to Mercy. Contractions were about every 3-5 minutes apart. The on call midwife that checked me first was really nasty..like she almost made me cry. So, I walked around the hospital for about an hour and half trying to make the contractions come on harder and waited for her to go home. At 7 30, she finally did, and another midwife saw us. She said that Rex was not lodged in the way he should be at this point, which could either mean that he's too big for the birth canal, or his cord was in the way. If it was the cord, it would be extremely dangerous for my water to break somewhere other than the hospital, because the cord could come out with it. Plus she was concerned about the heart rate dropping the last time we were there. My doctor came in and agreed with all of that and they informed me that we would not be going home without a baby.Yay!

They admitted me about 8 am, drugged me up with the epidural, gave me patosin and we waited. The contractions came on hard and strong but he still wasn't making progress, so they broke my water and we waited some more. Every time I would contract, his heart rate would plummet, so they tried all sorts of things to try and move him around in there to get off his cord. Nothing worked, so at about 2 50 in the afternoon they told me it was time to get him about to make sure he was alright. I went in for the C section about ten minutes later and he was born at 3 21. The cord was all wrapped around his neck and he was face up, so its good they got him out!
He was 6 pounds 5 ounces, and 20 inches long and very healthy! My mom and wolf were with me throughout the whole labor and were wonderful coaches, I was so happy they were both there!

So, that is how our little Rex made his arrival. Now he's home and we are figuring things out together. My next post will be about my experience so far with motherhood...this post is far too long already to include that.

If you are reading this, you are a patient and loyal blog reader....thank you!

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Hello again!

I promise I am done making promises I cannot keep...haha.

I apologize that it has taken more than a month for me to update!Let me see if I can catch you all up on life in the Wolf world.
For starters, I am 31 weeks pregnant now...only nine weeks to go! I have definitely reached the uncomfortable stage. I absolutely have the preggy waddle, and whenever I sit I knock the wind out of my lungs. Rex is definitely taking over.

I can feel his little hand or foot sometimes when he's stretching out which serves as a constant reality check that there really is a HUMAN BEING growing inside me. How does God come up with this stuff??

My sister Jessica designed the nursery and our families and friends helped her put it together. I finally got to see it last night, and it looks amazing! It truly is perfect and I feel so blessed by the hard work and heart that was put into it. If you are on facebook you can check out the pictures!

As it gets closer and closer its getting scary. Its a ton of responsibility and its hard not to worry about bills and the life changes and our financial stability. However, God keeps putting me in my place. I can't worry for too long before He reminds me yet again, that He is always ultimately in control. He did not create Rex and then disappear, He will provide what we need, when we need it, and probably in ways we would not expect. That's pretty much it, when I choose to believe that it is hard to continue worrying. He has provided us with an amazing support system and we know that we are far from being alone. We already feel so loved and supported by the people in our lives and we are so super thankful for that.

Life is getting busier and busier. Rex has got a strong little heartbeat and he's flippin around in there like crazy. As far as my OB's can tell, we are both very healthy and doing really well.
One interesting thing is that because of my past surgeries where they have severed certain nerves, I may not feel my contractions. Wahoo! I will welcome that if its true, but we shall see...

One awesome thing from recently is that Wolf and I escaped to Annapolis for a weekend to celebrate his birthday and that was so fun! We really needed that break and truly loved every minute of it. We came back feeling very refreshed. Annapolis is a really fun place to walk around, I need to take advantage of it more often.


I haven't had any new sonograms lately, so unfortunately I don't have any to post. If I do have another one, I promise to post them!

Let me know if there's anything I forgot to update on....

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Yeah about that...

Remember how I said that I wasn't going to take a million years to blog again?? Well, clearly I am a liar. Lately, at the end of the day my brain has resembled mush. However, today is Saturday and before I start the bazillion things I need to do, I am going to give you a bit of a pre-mush brain update!
As far as Rex is concerned, he has a middle name now! His name is going to be Rex Matthew Wolf. We both love the name Matthew and we also both really love Matthew Maloy. Yay for a great name and a great person!
Rex has been kicking and seemingly enjoys to do somersaults constantly. I can see my him move through my shirt now, its very alienesque...but fun! This weekend I am exactly 6 months pregnant. That means...very soon my big old belly will be replaced by a teeny little baby boy. How crazy is that?! I suppose now is the time to come out of denial about our "office" which is to be his room. So, today, Wolf and I are going to start picking our way through the rubble of our office/junk room, to make way for baby Rex. I have decided on having Monkeys as the theme of his room, because I really like monkeys and Wolf wont let me have a real one!

Speaking of my wonderful husband. He is getting really healthy! He's workin out every day and eating really healthy and he is being a very positive influence on preggo wifey. It is a little sad that my belly is growing as dramatically as his is shrinking...as long as never weighs less than me, we'll be fine! He's inspired me to get crackin on the Wii Fit again )even though it is consistently mean to me and always comments on my weight gain! I really do want to invent at Wii Fit program for the Big Preggo.I would make lots of money.

Hmm what else....

I can't think of anything at the moment, so I need to stop procrastinating my projects. Keep nagging me to blog, I always mean to but then I forget!

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Rex Wolf

So, my maternal instincts have proved to be correct! I am having a boy, a boy that is not afraid to flaunt his boy-ness...

His name really is going to be Rex. That is the name Wolf has always wanted to name his son if he ever had one, and it's growing on me. I haven't decided on a middle name yet, we'll figure it out soon though I'm sure.

The last couple weeks have been busy, but good. This past weekend I went on my first ever Women's Retreat with Grace. It was really wonderful. I had such a good time and I really loved the speaker. Her name is Melanie Summey, and she is probably the best speaker I have ever heard. I actually did not want her to stop talking, and normally I have no attention span whatsoever for listening to a talk. It was pretty darn sweet. I feel like I took a lot away from it. It was all about focusing on your foundation and making sure that it's strong so that we are ready for whatever comes your way. Very practical, and very applicable. One fun highlight from that trip is when Terah sat up in the middle of the night, in her sleep, and said "who's there??!!"
apparently, I replied "I am, and I have to pee!" and then I ran to the bathroom to pee. I do not remember that part. I just remember Terah yelling at the imaginary intruder, but Terah told me what my response was.

I can't believe I am 5 months pregnant already, these months have flown by! Definitely growing bigger by the day and I am feeling Rex move around in there all the time. He particularly enjoys to get all crazy when his mommy is trying to sleep. I am just now starting to feel him with my hand, but he likes to trick his daddy by freezing everytime he tries to feel it. Soon enough though! We had to make a trip to the ER two weeks ago at Mercy....everything was fine, but it made for some WONDERFUL stories! Mercy is located in the middle of Baltimore City, and we went there in the middle of a very cold night. We met some very special people. I will have to dedicate an entire blog post to those people...next time I promise.

Here's a teaser: Look for these characters in the upcoming post.
Smelly He/She
Gangrene Foot
Beyond Drunkity Drunk girl
Poo Chair
Transvesty


Anyway,I am honestly feeling great. I love life. I feel really blessed and really thankful. I hope that I will get better at living my life in a way that reflects that.

I do not plan on taking a million years to post again...