Sweet boy..

The other day we took the boys and my mom to the apple orchard. It was wonderful to get out and get some fresh air and walk a bit. It was our first outing in the car with both boys in their car seats. All the sudden our SUV feels small and crowded. :) Anyway Weston started to wimper. Brody in a very concerned sad voice says...

"OHHH baby?? you sad??

He is so sweet. :)

Butt kisser

Brody boy was laying on the floor with his brother putting his arm around him. He was kissing him all over when he looks up at me and says with a big smile....

"I kiss his butt!!"

I am certain that Weston is going to love hearing that after he was born Brody was kissing his butt. :)

Update

Hello!! I haven't responded to every email and comment that I recieved from my post regarding Post Partum and Brody. I am so blessed to have you all in my life. Your encouraging words, support and prayers mean so much. Things are going really well. Sure I am still tired, I still have moments. :) BUT all in all Weston is sleeping 2-3 hours at a time during the night. We have had only 2 all nighters. Otherwise sleep has gotten a little easier and for the most part I lay down and take a nap in the afternoons. Mentally and emotionally I feel good. Brody is doing great. Things seemed to get better within a day or two at the most. Don and I took him on a date one morning and it was fun. My mom watched Weston. Last night we put Brody to bed and Don and I went out by ourselves. :) It was short but it was really fun. We hope to go out one night once my step dad arrives for dinner and maybe even a movie. Who knows. That will be our longer date. It will be nice to have since Don is going back to school. I know that time with him is about to dimish greatly. Don starts school tomorrow. :) I am actually a little excited for him. It's his last year and then he graduates. WAHOOOOO!! It's been a long haul. The next couple of weeks will be more adjusting but I feel good about it. Yesterday I had my first morning alone with the boys. Only for about 2 1/2 hours and it was amazing how relaxing it was. I am sure that some of the challenges are going to come when Weston is a little bigger. Right now he sleeps A LOT! So basically I hung out with Brody yesterday and read books. Again I want to say thank you to all of you for your encouraging words and helpful advice. Taking Brody on a date was a real turning point, he crawls into my lap sometimes when I am nursing and we read together. He loves loves to kiss and hold the baby. Well that is pretty much it for now. Like I said I am feeling better and am dealing with the lack of sleep. I know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I am so grateful to know a loving and gracious God, and to have wonderful supportive friends and family. :)

Post Partum

I wanted to take a picture of me right before I left for the hospital but honestly I was a little distracted. So this is the last picture that I have before Weston was born. It was on my birthday and my mom took it at the Guthrie Theater. It's kind of a fun picture.

One week after the baby is born. I still look a little pregs. :) However, I feel really good. I am proud to say that I wasn't wearing maternity pants in this picture. I was psyched. I am looking forward to getting back into regular exercise.

One week old. :)

Weston Robert (Part 2)

Wow the difference between night and day. This is the only way to describe the births between my boys. I knew that every birth could be different and would be different but I also didn't want to have any expectations. Like I said before Brody's birth for myself and my husband was traumatic. I know it could have been worse. I started early labor Wed. May 16th in the evening. Up until that point I had not had any contractions. Several hours into the labor I started vomiting. Little did I know this was going to happen for 16 hours. That was awful. I was so exhausted by the time they put me into a labor and delivery room. I cried for 3 hours for an epidural and finally got one. It still wasn't until Friday morning that I started pushing and even then it was another 3 1/2 hours before he was out. UFF DA!! I wanted to recap it before I went on to tell you about Weston's birth story because it just blows my mind. :)

Saturday Sept. 12th I woke up that morning feeling a little crampy. I saw some signs that morning that made me curious if I was possibly going to be laboring that day or the next. As the day went on I had some mild contractions on and off. Nothing much though. However I got excited. Yeah well I should have bottled it!! Over the next few days I would wake up at 3, 4, 5 in the morning wondering is THIS the day! :) I am sure no one else has EVER felt this way... :) So I started praying that I would be patient. Then Wednesday came and that was awful. I had a total false alarm. I woke up at about 3:30am and went to the bathroom. (IF details bother you well then stop reading.) While I was going to the bathroom I felt what I could only describe as a pop sensation. I remember thinking that was weird. Went back to bed laid down and within minutes felt a bigger pop. HMMMM... really weird. Got up and started to walk to the bathroom only to feel like I was peeing my pants. OMG... I totally thought my water had just broke. EXCITEMENT.... This time really thinking labor. Around 5:30 am I called the midwife. I wasn't having contractions and I didn't have any gushing type of liquid. I was leaking some fluid but not what I expected. When I spoke to her she thought it sounded like my water had broke but wanted me to hang out and she was planning on calling me around 8am. So 8am comes still leaking and still no contractions. Like I said the leaking wasn't a lot but it was still enough. So I headed into the clinic and at that point I knew in my gut that it wasn't my water. Sure enough it wasn't and I was not going to have a baby that day. Excuse me for a minute while my world comes down on me.... Ok dramatics over. Hehe... Seriously though I was heart broken and I cried. I kept thinking I was going to meet my baby and then I wasn't. Friday was my birthday. It was so fun. I started the day off by having breakfast with my dear friend Melissa and my mom. We had a great morning. In the afternoon my mom, my don, and I went down to the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis. Either on the way there or just before leaving home I started having contractions again. We went walking around the bridge, walked up to the Guthrie theater and back home. The whole time I was having contractions. Some of them were painful and then some of them were a slight tightening. Pretty inconsistant. I continued to have contractions through the evening. I called the midwife on call around 10pm that night. She thought I was in early labor but wanted me to try to sleep. If I couldn't sleep I could come in to the hospital get checked and they would give me something to help me sleep but send me home. I didn't really want to go in if they were going to send me home. So I slept. Around midnight I woke up with a hard contraction. I decided to take a bath. The whole time I was up I wasn't contracting. I got back into bed and it was about 25 minutes from my last contraction I knew in my gut that they were stopping. :( Woke up at 4am and cried again. I was started to convince myself that my uterus was too comfortable and that he was never going to come out. :) Logically you know the baby has to come out but I did really feel like the thought of waiting a day, or a few days or possibly a week was never. Again haahaha.. my poor husband and my mom had to live with me that last week and I was very irritable, whiney, and I cried a lot. So Saturday rolls around and the contractions started again around 1pm. They were stronger then the day before. So that was good. However, this time I did NOT want to get my hopes up. Brody was at my dad's house all week. My mom was finally here visiting and she was going with my mother in law to pick him up that afternoon. Don suggested that we (him and I) go get him if I was feeling up to it since we hadn't seen him since Monday. I was nervous because it's an hour and half drive. I didn't like the idea. I was glad I was having somewhat painful contractions. I think Don thought they were going to stop again. Anyway, this time over a few hours they increased in intensity and they were about 4-5 minutes apart. So I called the midwife again around 4pm. She told me it was up to me, I could wait at home a little bit or I could go in and get checked. The contractions were pretty uncomfortable and after about 15 minutes of trying to decide I told Don that we should go in. He had just put supper in the oven and it was going to be 40 minutes before it was going to be done. I felt bad because he was hungry but I didn't think I should wait 40 minutes. :) So he asked if he could at least take a shower and I said ok. We got to the hospital and right away they brought us to a labor and delivery room. I was really surprised because with Brody I had to sit in triage for almost 12 hours before I got put into a labor and delivery room. They had me put on a gown and get set up to be checked. I am guessing they don't have a triage area or something. :) I don't know. I was so nervous though that they were going to send me home. NOt sure why as at this point the contractions were pretty hard and I was crying through them. When the nurse checked me around 5pm or so I was dilated to 5cm. WAHOO... I was excited but still I asked "At 5cm you won't send me home will you." I was so nervous still that the contractions would stop or weren't regular enough for them. However, she smiled at me and said not likely! SWEET... I was finally going to have my baby. Right away I let them know I wanted an epidural. The nurse called the midwife and she was on here way into the hospital. I got an IV and they were getting fluid in me so that I could get an epidural. I called my friend Melissa to let her know how I was doing. Don and I were so blessed to have her at the hospital to photograph Brody's birth. Melissa and I had been praying that she would be able to be at Weston's birth but we weren't counting on it. YOu see Melissa has 4 kids, (2 of them are in school) she is pregnant with her 5th. Oh yeah did I mention she lives an HOUR away. If she was going to be at this birth it was going to have to fall into place perfectly. So I called her up and she was going to be down in the cities for a photoshoot that she had. We figured out that she was going to be minutes away from the hospital. So far so good. Her photoshoot was at 6pm and she figured she would get to the hospital sometime between 7:30 and 8pm. So around 6pm the midwife arrived and she checked me and I was dilated to a six. WOOT WOOT! So in an hour I dilated a cm. I was pretty excited about that. Around 7pm I got an epidural. Wahoo. I love them. :) My mom was back with Brody by this time and I really wanted to see him. So they were going to come up to visit. Around 7:30 they checked me again and this time I was still a 6. I was a little bummed. I expected however that I would be in labor for several hours. At least I was comfortable. Melissa arrived shortly after 8pm. We visited and giggled about how big of a difference it was between this time and last time. I was all smiles when she came in. With Brody I got my epi about an hour after she had arrived. Even after I got it I was so utterly exhausted. It was nice to feel good and have some energy. My mom arrived with Brody shortly after Melissa arrived and it was so so so wonderful to see him. He crawled up into the hospital bed with me and was hugging and kissing on me. He was a little apprehensive to see me in the bed like that but he was very sweet. My mom and Brody left around 8:30-8:40. At that time Don and Melissa decided to go over to the vending machines and get a snack. My midwife at 8:45 decided to check me. She had a birth the night before and was exhausted from being up all night. She had been thinking she would go and take a nap if it was going to be awhile. Well they checked me and I was dilated to 10!! HOLY MOSES!! Can you believe it, I am certain I had a surge of adrenaline when they said that. I was nothing short of excited. Melissa and Don were coming back into the room after leaving for a few minutes to get there snacks only to be told I was ready to push. HAHAHAHA... I can hear Melissa in my head so clearly... "WHAT??" My midwife Barb is new to the clinic that I am at and they needed to have another midwife in attendance with her when the baby was born. So they called Penny the other midwife to let her know she was needed. They got the room all set up and while waiting for Penny decided to start having me push. In the first two pushes they could see the head. :) I don't remember what originally made me laugh but the nurse encouraged me to keep laughing because it was pushing the baby out. Before I knew it we were all laughing. SO here I was pushing, laughing, pushing laughing. TOTALLY different then my first experience. There was NO laughing... ;) At 9:15pm Weston Robert was born. I couldn't have had a more positive birthing experience was it actually started. :) They put him on my chest and I was in love. I never got to hold Brody right after he was born and being able to hold Weston was amazing. Don cut the umbilical cord and again I was so so proud. We didn't get to experience that either. It was great to have the opportunity with this baby. So all in all I was in labor 8 hours and 15 minutes. I pushed for 20 minutes... if that. :) My amazingly talented friend Melissa put a slideshow together of Weston's birth and you can see it here. (I CAN"T GET THE LINK TO WORK! IF you go to the side of my blog and find BillMissandBrood you can watch the slideshow there.) Words can't express the gratitude that I have for the gift that Melissa has given me in the pictures that have been captured of both of my boy's births. THe pictures are something I will treasure forever. Her presence at the hospital means more to me then anything, her support and prayers mean so much to both Don and I. I am so thankful for my friend.

Ok. So there is one last part of the story. I made Don call my mom and bring Brody back up to the hospital. :) I knew he was still awake because they had just headed home 45 minutes before Weston was born. I couldn't wait for him to see his new baby brother. It was fun to have a little company afterwards too because I was so excited. So my mom, Brody, and Grandma Janet came up to the hospital around 10pm. Brody was apprehensive. :) However, we have it on video so maybe at some point I will share that as well. I haven't even watched it yet. I remember him being excited and then he got a little upset. I will update you with this though. Brody has been doing really well the last few days. As you know the first couple were hard but he adores Weston. Wants to hold him, kiss him, and touch him all the time. We have really made a point to spend special attention and time with him and I believe this has made a world of difference. I hope you all enjoyed my crazy LONG Story.

The REAL reason I am NOT sleeping..

This is meant to be a positive post but I will say there is a little bit of me that is frustrated right now that I am NOT sleeping. My baby Weston is sleeping wonderfully. I should be sleeping. Last night was the first night home and he was awake all night. It was hard. Neither Don or I really slept. I took a nap today so that helped. However tonight I laid down to sleep and was praying that God would help clear my mind and help me find rest. I could tell my mind was wide awake even though my body is yearning for rest. However as I laid there half asleep and still praying I realized I had tears streaming down my face. Have you ever had an experience where you didn't even know you were crying until you felt your tears. Maybe it was the fact that I was half asleep. I also didn't realize that my heart was as heavy and sad as it is.

My darling boys are almost exactly 28 months apart. Brody was born May 18, 2007 and baby boy was born Sept. 19th, 2009. My experiences in many ways couldn't have been more night and day. Becoming Brody's mommy changed my life. I learned something about myself that I might have known but didn't completely understand and God used that experience in many ways to help me grow up. I have always been a very sensitive person, emotional and reacts to my feelings. I want to make sure that I say that these aren't bad things however I would allow my feelings to control me, and I completely trusted what I felt to be true and right. After Brody was born boy did I struggle. Being a mom was hard for me to adjust to. I resented breast feeding, I felt like a horrible mother, I didn't know what to do when he cried, sometimes I wanted to hurt him, I cried when Don left me to go to work. I felt alone. It makes me cry to write this. I didn't know how to love a baby that I didn't know. I had post partum depression with Brody. What God taught me through this and how I grew was that I learned to trust in what I know to be true rather then how I was feeling. I had to learn the power of changing my thoughts. I never took meds, I struggled for 8 - 9 months before I started to feel happy and it took a year before I started to feel somewhat "normal". God truly saved me during this time and taught me how to manage my feelings, how to respond to them and how to choose to change them. Is this making sense?? I completely and utterly have fallen in love with my Brody but I didn't have that experience necessarily when he was born. It has sort of haunted me this pregnancy. I have desired for this experience to be different, I have prayed for it. It was so different. Holding Weston was everything that I felt it should be when you hold your baby for the first time. An enormous amount of love filled my heart to the point that it ached. I will share my birth story at some point but I really felt the need to write this out tonight first. I believe that with Brody's birth it was so long, hard and exhausting that it had a lot to do with how I felt when I first held him. I was in labor 35 hours and pushed for 3 1/2. Completely and utterly exhausted. I think that by the time I held him I just felt sort of numb. The reason that it haunted me during pregnancy was because I was nervous about having the same experience and I was nervous about having a positive experience. So I am leading up to a point and for reasons of my own I wanted to write and share in detail how I am doing but I do hope that this can be encouraging and a source of hope for anyone else who has struggled with PPD. Like I said I laid in bed tonight praying that God would bring me rest. When I woke with tears I realized that I do have some signs of post partum again or the baby blues. God revealed to me areas of anxiety, sadness. I know I am tired and I know that sleep will help. However, I needed to recognize what was a little buried. I am sad because I miss Don. I feel very distant from him right now. I believe that it's mainly because we are both tired. I am sad because Brody seems to be having a hard time adjusting and has been acting out. I am anxious about how to handle this. I feel helpless because I don't know what he needs to help him adjust, I am really really anxious about doing it by myself once Don is back to work and school and my mom leaves. I realized tonight that when I should be sleeping I am awake praying urgently for sleep but this is why. I knew it was there but I just didn't realize how much it was all affecting me. I knew I needed to get up and read my Bible. I opened up to Psalm 13. I have been reading random Psalms lately and tonight God reminded me of what he taught me after Brody was born. The Psalmist is asking God how long will God forget him, how long will God hide his face, how long must he wrestle with his thoughts and his sorrow that is in his heart. As I started to read this I realized the extent of what I was feeling and how much I could relate. I have been feeling pretty good since Weston has been born but I wasn't really allowing myself to be honest with the extent of my feelings. So I read on. In verse 5 he writes BUT I will trust in your unfailing love, my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me.

So here I am writing this out so that I can see for myself and share with you that God is reminding me of what is true. He love me, I can trust him, he is there for me whether I FEEL like he is or not. He has been good to me and will continue to be. OH praise God. I am not alone. I am thankful for what is true. I know that Don and I might be tired but we will learn to function with two kids and we will reconnect. Brody has only been a big brother for a few days, he needs time to adjust and God will show Don and I how we can help him do that. I will adjust, I will figure out how to be a mom to two boys and I am not alone because God is with me. I have to remember to not allow what I am feeling to rule me but to take captive of my thoughts and focus on the positive. I wanted to share how I am feeling, and adjusting so that you can be praying for me. Specifically that I will really be mindful of my thoughts and take the negative thoughts captive and give them over to God. However, the concerns that I have still feel very real and I would love prayers for Brody as he adjusts, for wisdom how to love him through it and for courage as Don heads back to school and work. I get so nervous thinking about taking care of two boys by myself. WHEW!! However, I know that God doesn't give us more then we can handle. I said that I meant for this to be a positive post and it is. It is because tonight he spoke to my heart, he met me where I was and gave me what I needed. I am so thankful to know a God that is so personal and loving.