Happy Birthday Abi!

4 years ago today we welcomed our first child into the world. A beautiful baby girl that we named Abigayle Lynn Cain. For the several months of her gestation we bounced back and forth on what to name her. We decided on several names for boys and girls. I did not want to know the gender until birth, and since Tim was not around much during the pregnancy he has no choice either. I still remember how many people told me how completely old fashioned it was to not know the sex. I figured at my age there really aren't too many surprises left, and this was meant to be one of them. So let's start at the beginning. Many do not believe that we had planned on having our daugher. We had both been going through some things in our own lives but we agreed on a few things. We agreed that we were madly in love with each other and had been for years. We also agreed that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and wanted to have a family. The only question was when did we want to do this. We quickly decided there had already been too much time to pass so right away! So immediately we tried, and immediately we succeeded. I was on the fence about whether or not I wanted to tell anyone. There was so much to do, and so much to change. So many things to get used to. Where I wanted this I was not ready to tell the world about our life decision. Tim on the other hand rushed around to tell everyone. He was so excited about our starting a family. I am sure that by the end of the day there were not many people that did not know. We got mixed emotions from friends and family, but it never swayed his emotions. He was ecstatic to be starting our family! We started going to doctor's visits, and like I said earlier he was not around much. Due to work and training he was gone quite a bit. I was left to deal with it by myself. No big deal women had been doing this for years right? Well one day I did not feel right. After finishing breakfast I had no energy to clean the kitchen. I often had no energy but this was different. I resulted to laying on the couch and taking a rest for a while. Within miutes of laying down I was extremely dizzy and sick to my stomache. I rushed to the bathroom and just immediately started pourning sweat. I figured that I must have eaten something that did not agree with me, as this was nothing like my usual morning sickness. I digressed and tried to go about the rest of my day. Then my stomache started hurting something fierce. It was in my upper tummy area. I had felt the round ligament pain and this was no where near. At this point I was in too much pain to move all that much. It started to subside and I tried making my way to the phone to call Tim. In the midst I noticed that I was bleeding. I quickly called him and told him something was wrong. He took my to the emergency room. The people there brushed me off as being an over worried first time mother. I tried describing the pain but they told me I was wrong. There was nothing I could do and we went home. About a month later it started happening again. This time it was in the middle of the night and Tim was there. He saw me writhing in pain and he called an Ambulance. Again they said that I was being over worried and it was just round ligament pain. They let me know that sometimes if your stomache has to stretch a good bit they can be pretty intense. I was certain this was not my problem but I could not prove it. Eventually we got the news that Tim was PCSing and we were coming home to Alabama. I had mixed emotions. I wanted to be near family during this time but was worried about the stress of the move. I was about 7 months pregnant at this point and had been having a lot of pain. Never the less this is what we had to do and my wonderful husband pulled it off. He kicked things into high gear and did all the necessary work. I can never truly express how amazing this man is. The day after making it to Andalusia I woke up in terrible pain. It was the same as always so I was not alarmed at first. This time after all of the steps had happened the paid did not subside as normal. My grandmother came in and she realized something was vry different. She called Tim and they rushed me to the hospital. This time I was in labor. I was 2 centimeters dilated and the Dr said we were having a baby. This was my first time of meeting Dr. Bowen! After 3 days in the hospital, constant IV and a few shots in the rear they were able to stop labor. Dr. Bowen said that my baby could potentially survive but would stand a better chance the longer we could wait. I was so happy that they were able to stop the labor, but he still had no idea what was causing the pain. I was sent home on bed rest until birth. A feat that was not going to be easy since I had a house to settle into and a baby to finish preparing for. The next couple of months went by faster than I ever wanted. We finished getting everything necessary for our soon to be daughter. My wonderful sister and mom helped to prepare an amazing baby shower for me. Everyone was upset because they didn't know whether to buy blue or pink. I was still just happy to have at least one big surprise left! On October 3rd I went in for a check up. Dr. Bowen told me that my blood pressure was way to high and we needed to induce. I was already starting labor but not progressing fast enough. My blood pressure could cause a lot of problems for the baby or my during pregnancy. Tim could not be with me that day so I had to go home. The doc said that next week whether he was there or not we had to induce. I let Tim now and he went with me the following week. We checked in to the hospital at 10 that morning and got started on Pitocin. I was beginning to think she was never going to come out when at 8 that night she finally was here! I was so happy to finally meet her! She was 7 pounds 3 ounces and came out screaming! Ever since she has kept me on my toes. She had a hematoma growing on her spine that luckily never did anything. She falls down quite a bit, and I swear has an incredibly high pain tolerance. She is my shining light. Without this little girl I have no idea where I would be, and I do not want to know. She helps to pick me up when I am feeling sad, and she makes me want to fix the world. I want everything to be amazing for her. The best way to do that is to be the best mother that I can be to her. I love my little Lovebug and feel so blessed everyday to have her in my life!

Happy Birthday Ian!

One this day one year ago I gave birth to my one and only son. The little piece of chunk that I now call my baby man. This past year has really flown by so quickly. I think it has been all of the changes in my life. Let's back up a bit and start from the beginning. When I first found out I was pregnant Tim had been gone for about 6 weeks. We were wanting and planning to have another baby and were trying. I was so worried and scared about what was going to happen. Since having Abi I had 2 miscarriages, one of which was very bad. The Doctor's had told us that it was possible, but not likely with the amount of scar tissue that I had. The only thing we could do was try. I was laying on the couch sometime in February of 2011 and like I said Tim was deployed. I was feeling something awful and had been for a few days. I just could not shake it and ended up calling my mom to come watch Abi for me for a few days. I was going to make a Dr. appt and find out what was going on with me. I knew I was not pregnant considering I had taken a pregnancy test and it was negative. So when I went to the doc and found out that I was in fact pregnant I was elated! I immediately rushed home and sent Tim an email and let him know. I waited to make sure that he got the email and then I started letting everyone else know. I got all of my medical stuff set up and made it to my first Dr. visit. I got to see my little peanut on the ultrasound and got my due date (originally September 8th). After 2 weeks they had bumped my due date back to September 13th and started telling me that my blood work was not coming up correct and it would appear that something was wrong. Everything seemed to be measuring correctly, but my bloodwork was off. I started weekly visits where blood was drawn everytime, as well as urine twice a visit to check for everything. I remember it vividly on March 21 my Dr. called me and said that some bloodwork had come back and Ian was positive for Down Syndrome. She told me that with my history of complicated pregnancy it would be unlikely I would carry full term, and in the event that I did with my and Timmy's family medical history he would most likely not live past the age of three. We found out that children with down syndrome often have heart defects. Heart defects already run pretty deep on both sides of our family. At this point we did not feel that our baby stood a chance. Then the doc hit me with the news that perhaps I needed to consider abortion. I was astonished to hear that come out of her mouth. My mind at the time was racing in a million different directions, but abortion just wasn't one of them. I wanted this baby, I tried for this baby, I was having this baby. I just wasn't sure how I was going to make it through this. My husband was on mission and on the other side of the world. I could not get in contact with him and tell him what was going on and what this meant. I dredged on without him... I set up an appointment with one of the best Pediatric Units from Sacred Heart hospital and Dr. Dobek and his staff helped turn that pregnancy completely around. After my first visit they did an ultrasound and some other work and found out that Ian in fact did not have Down Syndrome. I was so relieved I cried right there in front of everyone. That was also the first time we found out he was in fact a boy, and got our first real take home pictures to show to Tim!

After finishing up with them I had a follow up with my OB and I found out that what had actually happened was they had mixed up my paperwork with another patient. They put her due dates on my chart and vice versa. They actually thought I was a month further along than I was. Tim and I agreed it was time to get a new Dr. So I made the trek to see Dr. Bowen. Who without a doubt is my favorite ever and has delivered both of my children! I faced a ton of other trials while pregnant with my son. I ended up also with high blood pressure as well as gestational diabetes. I gladly did what I had to do to make sure my little man was taken care of. After finally being induced with him everyone was telling me how quick it would be. I was admitted to the hospital at 2 pm and they were all telling me he would be here by dinner. They were wrong. At 2 the next morning they came in and took me off the drip and said they were going to let me get some rest. They let me know that in the morning they were going to let me go home and we would just have to wait unless I chose to have a c-section. So I went to sleep and then I woke up at 4 to the oddest feeling....MY WATER HAD BROKE! I mashed the button and called the nurse in there, told her what happened and she told me that it wasn't possible, I wasn't even registering contractions. I informed her that without a doubt I felt it, she checked and surely enough it had. She set me back up on fluids, checked me and said that I still was not really dilated enough to have him. I needed to wait about another hour that way I would not have to push as much. The contractions started. Let me tell you for all the ladies out there who HAVE NOT felt them.... they really hurt. They have not even made a word yet for how much hurt that is. The nurse kept insisting that I could not be feeling them b/c of the epidural. I said a slew of dirty words, I believe something to the effect of "GO fuck a menstrating monkey" but I was hurting so I am really unclear. (I did apologize later) I kept letting them know I needed to push. I could feel him and I needed to push. No one came.... I yelled at Tim and told him to get ready, our son was coming out and he needed to catch. Not even joking I told him that. He rang for the nurse and they came in. He told them that I was ready. Again the nurse said that I wasn't, but she would check and see how close I was. She put on her gloves, lifted the covers and her eyes got big. She yelled to call the Dr. I asked what, and she said, "Oh there's his head!" It took them less than a minute to get everything ready, and less than a push to get him here. Now a whole year later we have laughed, we have cried. We have come so far and done so many things. So many months ago I was scared that he would never make it here, and now I am so thankful for every day that I get to spend with him. Tim and I have since decided that we are totally done with having children. We are blessed to have the two we have here with us and the two we did not get to meet. So here is my little man over the past year! HAPPY BIRTHDAY IAN NICHOLAS CAIN! Born September 24th 2011

/2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZKWD0XVo2WA/UGEg2e1Vs9I/AAAAAAAAAFo/CdHhJBjUbYY/s320/IMG_0218.JPG" />

By any other name....

It does not matter what you call this time of year I love it. Wether it's Autumn or Fall it is without a doubt my favorite time of year. I love everything about it! I love soup, I love the cooler weather. I love sitting around a fire and talking about everything that has happened through the year, and what our plans for the next will be. Since having children it also serves for the only time that I get to really cuddle anymore. I also love all of the warm colors. The reds with the oranges and the browns. The smells are amazing. In my car I have pumpkin, and in my house it's spiced apple. I really can not think of one bad thing about this part of the year! I enjoy it so much that for dinner a few days ago I actually made Thanksgiving dinner. Dumplings, sweet potato's, the whole deal. To make this part of the year even better BOTH of my children were born this time of year! I spend so much time making sure that they have a great birthday. This will of course be Ian's first. Every year for Abi's birthday I try to have an outside party for her weather permitting. We make sure to buy lots of outside toys to really get out and enjoy this perfect weather! This time of year takes entirely too much time to get here, and is gone entirely too fast! It is about time to start breaking out the Halloween stuff, and then I will have to fight myself to not put up the Christmas stuff. I wish it could be this time of year all year long!

It's been a while...

For starters I am terrible about social media of any type. That includes Facebook as well as blogging. I may check them everyday, but most days I can not seem to summon the energy to just say something. My kids certainly aid in keeping me busy and on my toes. I really have a hard time finding a spare minute. Since having children there really is no extra time sometimes. I don't mind anymore. I think occasionally I have those freak out moments where I just want to be me for a little while. I don't want to have to think about and worry about the words that come out of my mouth or the things that I do. I want to be lazy! My daughter has gotten to the age where she is picking up things left and right. You have to be absolutely careful what you say and do around her. If you do not want it coming out of her mouth, then you should not have it come out of yours. Tonight as a matter of fact she had a whole long speech about turds. Yep, turds. I think through a mixture of embarrassment and exhaustion all I could manage to do was laugh. My son on the other hand does not seem to be as advanced at his age as I think he should be. I know that children learn things at a different time. I really think that I am basing what he should be doing off of what Abi did. Abi was on the go very early, and Ian has always seemed lazy. From the get go Abi was impatient. I went into labor with her the first time when I was only 7 months pregnant. Through this great medical technology (and a shot in my rear) labor was stopped and she carefully waited the last few weeks. I do not believe at all that she was happy about this considering she had not fully made her way in the world before she was screaming. The Doc almost dropped her because she meant she was angry! Ian on the other hand at 40 weeks was still sitting pretty. He had no reason to come out. I had to be induced and even then it took 16 hours of very painful labor before he gave up the fight. Ever since then he has just taken his time. On the one hand I am so thankful that I get this chance to baby him for so long. When my babies are not babies anymore I know I will be terribly upset. For now I just enjoy everyday the best I can. The big man is awake again so it is time to go. Hopefully this will be an easy fix, and if it is not oh well.

Hormones Hormones go away, come again another day!

I have hit that hormone surge for the first time I think in this pregnancy. I have been crying for the past 2 days over absolutely NOTHING!! I went on youtube to look up some videos and stuff to remind me of "happier" times and still bawled my eyes out. I think alot of it has to do with the fact that I feel lonely. Even though I have this little person growing inside me my heart is on the other side of the world. Nothing can take the place of that one special person in your life...my daughter is something different. I LOVE LOVE LOVE spending time with her, and just seeing her smile is enough to make me believe there can't possibly be any bad left in the world. Then I have that ever dreaded time to myself...ya know that time where you start to think about EVERYTHING that isn't going how you think it should be. You think about all of the things that you need to get done, and for those that have been pregnant before you realize exactly how short of a time frame 9 months is when you have to prepare to bring a new life in the world. Going through this alone has made me realize exactly how little time I have. I have to buy the baby stuff, and do all of the paperwork and make all of these decisions on my own. I didn't remember having to decide all of the things BEFORE delivery with Abi. I had to turn in paperwork already about who I wanted in the delivery room, whether or not my husband would be staying overnight with me. Whether or not I wanted to breast feed or have my baby stay in my room with me all the time. Decisions that aren't easy to make...and to some people these seem like no brainers. HOWEVER I don't know where my husband is going to be come delivery time. What if he has been sent to the other side of the country for something. Just b/c I have a due date of Sept 30 doesn't mean that is when the baby is going to come. I am not a big planner in the first place. Life has taught me that you can't really plan for things. You can hope and pray that things go how you want and expect them to, but that rarely happens. I am sure that my husband will want to be in the delivery room, and I am sure that he is going to want to stay over night, but that doesn't mean that he will be able to. Yes I want my baby in my room with me all the time, but I don't know what delivery is going to be like so I don't know that I will be able to take care of my baby. There are so many unforseen circumnstances that they ask you to prepare for and it is utterly impossible to account for everything. After losing my last child I decided then and there to just take things day by day, and be grateful for what time I do have, and not worry about the time that I don't know about. I can't stress out about the things that may or may not happen. It makes life irritating, and it makes me angry. As it is now, I am stuck at home, my husband is on the other side of the world and I may hear from him and I may not. I have his family down my throat wanting to know what is going on with him, and I don't know how many times I can tell them that I don't know before it sinks in. I have a very irritating life right now, and no one to share it with. These hormones have almost beaten me into submission >< I have a good deal of chinese food, and some buttered pecan ice cream, and they will by far be my escape for at least the next 24 hours. Here's to hoping that this pounding headache and sickness goes away!

What do you do when your Dr. farts?

So today was my first actual face to face visit with my new OB, and I stand by my previous judgement of not being too overly happy with the office. I will say today was sure alot more fun than previous visits. Actually got to see the little one for the first time, which is always a pleasure for any parent. Still too little to hear the heartbeat but I could see the heart beating. With previous bad experiences with pregnancy this is always a comforting thought. After my ultrasound I get to walk over to the waiting room to actually see the doc, and surprisingly they got me back there fairly quickly. I took ANOTHER pregnancy test, and they took some blood, and then I talk the dreaded walk to the room and you know what's coming next. I think sometimes they like to see how long you will sit in there and stew on the inevitable bits that are about to happen...of course they get the easy part. I am sure that I am not the only woman that is uncomfortable with being spread eagle in front of someone that they are meeting for the first time, and really wish that the doc would have come and met me my first visit in the office so it wouldn't have been so awkward. I am also sure that I am not the only woman that has ever wondered what is going to creep out during the exam. We are pregnant ladies and those little gas bubbles seem to like to pop at the most awful of times. There I am laying on the table and the doc has started the exam...and then it happened. My doctor farted! It wasn't like a little baby poot...this was one of those curtain moving farts! It also had a little smell to it. I didn't know what to do, whether I should say anything about it. I was worried that I was going to end up being THAT person, and here we find ourselves in this predicament. The exam continues and I am just laying there mortified...she is however going to be the person taking care of my baby and me for the next several months and I don't want to upset her. As she is finishing the exam she decides to address the big fat stinky elephant in the room. She looks at me and says " Ya know with the vantage point I was at, I was glad that was me and not you." I could no longer contain myself. I almost laughed myself off the table, which is of course a good 4 feet off the ground. I didn't mean to laugh, I just could no longer hold it in. She then tells me that when I get dressed I can go ahead and get my next appt date, and that she wants to see me again in 4 weeks. After further consideration she changes it to 6 weeks and then props the door open and leaves. I still had to take a moment to compose myself and try to get dressed around this door that is partially open. When I get ready to leave I grab my paperwork and quickly proceed to the lobby in hopes of getting my next appt time and leaving. As I am passing by my doc's open office door I hear her talking to one of the nurses about the Mexican she had for lunch. So this is now my new rule...I will NO LONGER go see any Doc after lunch. I am just not sure that I can handle that much excitement :D

Dear Deployment I HATE YOU!

Well communication between the hubby and me is diminishing more and more. He is work longer hours and getting less time just to kick back or let me know what is going on. I know that he does what he can, doesn't mean I have to like how things are! I miss talking to him and hope that things slack off out there and I get to hear from him more. What started out as a contact a day is now I am lucky if I get a 15 min conversation on his way out the door or to bed.

Abi hardly hears her daddy's voice anymore which is making her act up more and more. She knows that he is gone and is beginning asking for him more frequently everyday. She doesn't understand that he is away for work. She brings me the phone or sits in front of the computer and asks me to call him....it breaks my heart to try and explain to her that I can't. She waits and waits, and eventually gets mad because she thinks that I am not letting her talk to her dad...not that he just doesn't have the time. I hope that one day soon something will click inside her tiny little head and she will understand that her daddy does want to talk to her he just can't right now, and that I am not trying to stop her from talking to him. I think they need to set time aside for everyone to contact their family everyday. I am sure they would find a way to keep it from ppl anyway.

I sent my dog to go live at my Grandma's for a while. I am trying to get my stress level (and blood pressure) down. So far that is proving hard to do. I have to have surgery soon and need to cut out a lot of stress to make it easier with the healing! It's going to be a simple surgery, but a major one. Hopefully this will fix all of my problems, and I have been promised that the Heartburn will go away this time. So YAY for getting hernia's sewed up!!! They told me the other day that once I wake up from the surgery that I am going to have a lot of pain in my chest and left arm, that it would feel like heart attack symptoms but it's perfectly normal. I really am not looking forward to that. I went through it with my gall bladder surgery, and that hurt more than the incisions that they made! At any rate I need to get this done and over with so hopefully things will start getting better. I really am tired of eating Tums all the time. They don't taste all that yummy >< Koda is just way to rambunctious of a pup for me to try to take care of while I am recovering. I am not supposed to do much for the first few weeks so I don't pop a suture. This makes me really nervous as I am not good at being a couch potato.

Anyway I mostly wanted to thank the Army for being totally retarded and too demanding. It is grossly unfair how are soldiers are treated. I think pack mules get treated better than most of them. Timmy was telling me how they are on 12 hour days, and they are talking about putting them on 20 hour days. Which means no more getting to talk to him unless he is at work. I really hate the way they handle things over there. Then my hubby has to make a choice of talking to Abi and me OR sleeping so he doesn't hurt himself with lack of sleep. HMMMMMM which is going to make me worry less??? It does no good getting mad about it, because I know that it is never going to get better...if it changes at all it will be for the worse. It is really hard being the one that is left behind. When you don't hear from that someone you wonder all sorts of things. Did something happen? Is he just still stuck at work? Did his internet go out? Did I say something to upset him? Is he out on a last minute mission? You never know what is going on. Sometimes you hear from the people he is there with, and other times you just have to patiently wait until you hear from them again. You have to be thankful for the times that you know and try not to worry too much about the times that you don't know anything. You have to hold them near and dear to your heart and know that they are doing the same thing with you. However hard it may be to remember these things when they are so far away.