(I didn't really know how to separate the big stories in this post since they all coincided with each other! This is a huge post and it has taken me a couple weeks of finding a little time here and there to finally get it all written down, so sorry if there are any repeats or random nonsense things going on here, but after this post our life got a bit calmer, so hopefully I won't have the overly huge posts anymore!!)
We are loving our new little baby girl! When she was at the hospital she failed her hearing test on one side, when we took her in to get it checked out 2 weeks later she passed just fine! We were a little nervous for a few days and kept talking to both ears haha!
We are loving our new little baby girl! When she was at the hospital she failed her hearing test on one side, when we took her in to get it checked out 2 weeks later she passed just fine! We were a little nervous for a few days and kept talking to both ears haha!
Timber got to have her first real bath.
I had two cute little helpers during the process too!
Then the pass off to Dad to get her wrapped up in the towel.
Aspen loves to hold her!
Hunter graduated preschool!
They had a program at the park.
One of their songs they sang was "Let it Go," Aspen was also dancing to it!
Got his "Diploma" from his teachers!
This is one of my favorite of Timber's newborn outfits.
I love this cute boy!
Getting together for some pictures of Hunter's T-Ball team.
His individual one. His coach took the pictures and gave copies to all of us.
This is Timber meeting her cousin Jack and Uncle Derrick. The crazy thing about this is that Jack and Timber will be in the same grade! They are only 7 months apart but definitely a big difference in size!
Caitlin and Jaron gave her this cute onesie.
Such a sweet baby, it's crazy how fast she chubbed up!! And how fast she got the baby acne. She got it really bad, probably the worst of all my kiddos, it was sad!
I'm glad I took a picture of her crinkle ear because after a few months it went away completely! We thought for sure it would be like that forever, but it looks just like her other ear now.
She also has a little blond Anna (the movie Frozen reference) patch. It took me a couple weeks before I could decide if I was seeing things or if she really had a blond streak, I kept thinking it was just the light shining on her hair, but nope she totally has an Anna patch!
Can you believe this mess came from one cherry!!
Hunter caught him a lizard friend!
Hunter loves to take pictures...
of everything and anything, but especially his own cute face...
And occasionally his sisters too!
Our first family Picture! After Hunter's selfie shoot Ben set the camera up for this cute shot of us!
Then Hunter found the camera again.
But we managed to get it back for a few minutes so we could take some pictures of Timber in her blessing dress. We blessed her on June 1st. Ben blessed her and we only had a small gathering of family, a lot of them weren't able to make it unfortunately. In her blessing he blessed her to be happy twice, my aunt gave him a hard time for it, but she has been a grumpier baby than our other two were... Gotta try to fix it somehow, right!?
Got to love this one! Her hair was a bit crazy this day too, but I will admit I encourage it to stick up so you can tell how much she has, but I should have taken more time to tame the really wild hairs!
I love this cute sweet baby!
Right before I had Timber my Grandma Crosby had emergency gall bladder surgery, she was sent to St. George to have it. She seemed to be getting better and was released from the hospital and put into a rehab facility. She was there for a few weeks and from the sounds of it not really her normal self. After a few weeks the nurses found that she had an infection and wasn't doing well so she got sent back to the hospital. They did another surgery which she never ended up fully waking up from. She came out of the surgery ok but wasn't ever responsive afterwards, so the family had to make the decision to stop life support. It was a rough time for my Mom and her siblings. I didn't end up seeing her in all of this. I just thought for sure she would come through it. Grandma Robinson had had surgery right before I had Aspen, then passed away in the rehab home a few months later, I didn't think that could possibly happen again! Also Grandpa Crosby has Alzheimer, dementia, and palsy and he is 9 years older than Grandma, she had been taking care of him for several years with his problems we never thought she would go before him! It seems like once she finally had time to think of herself all the stuff she hadn't been noticing in her own body just took over. Grandpa had been able to get into the new VA assisted living home only a few months before this happened. When it looked like there was a good chance she wasn't going to make it I made plans to go see her, but she ended up passing a few hours before I was planning on getting there. It still seems weird to think that she is gone! And just crazy that both my daughter's births were followed shortly after by both my Grandma's passing. I guess it is the circle of life, my daughters came to fill the loss of my Grandma's????
This happened a couple days before Timber's blessing, which made it so Di and her family were down and came to her blessing on Sunday. Then on Tuesday (June 3rd) we had her funeral in Kanab. After the viewing and the funeral services we followed the family to Alton where she was buried by my Mom's mom with a plot there for Grandpa to be by his wives (my mom's mom passed away when she was a teenager, then a year or 2 later Grandpa met Grandma Mignon.)
We had headed over Monday night and stayed at my parents house, Di was getting ready to give her eulogy and had been going through some of her journals. It was so fun to hear all the stories Di was finding! She had dated a guy named Ben before meeting Grandpa and we searched through the journal and would read all the stuff with his name. This Ben was not a member or at least not active, and Grandma was trying to help him be better, one time she said she got in his car looked in the back and said, "nice beer can!" Haha, it was so funny! And she kept using phrases like "Oh golly gee" I couldn't imagine any of it coming from Grandma!! Reading her journals was what got me to get back on my blog, this is my journal and hopefully my kids and grandkids will find something here when I'm gone that will make them smile and remember me in a happy, fun way!
Ok, time to tell the tale of my lump. I had an appointment with an ear nose and throat doctor on May 12th, they set me up to get a CAT scan and also had me start taking some antibiotics hoping for them to help bring the lump down. Funny side note, the wait at the doctor office was so long that Timber was ready to eat by the time they took me back and they told me it would be a few minutes so I started feeding her, the Nurse Practitioner came right in, it was a girl so she just checked out my lump while I was feeding Timber! She would just move the strap of my nursing cover out of her way as she felt my lump! I'm glad it was a girl but still a bit of an awkward exam, haha! After talking with Derrick I ended up stopping the antibiotics after a day, having a brand new baby that would be nursing and taking in those antibiotics that they didn't even know yet if I really needed didn't sound good to us. I went for my CAT scan on May 20th and sat there and sat there, then the lady doing it (who happens to be a friend of my mom's) came out and let me know that the machine wasn't working she was trying to reboot it but it would take a while so we rescheduled for the next week. She's only there on Tues so I went back on May 27th so I could be seen by her. They had to do an IV and put contrast in for the images so I wanted her since my mom knows her and knows she good at the IV part (I don't like needles.)
The images basically just told them how big the lump was. When I was first seen at the ENT office the NP had told me that there was a possibility that they would end up having to take a biopsy of the lump depending on what they found in the CAT scan, but she said they would let me know if that was the case. So I went in for a follow up with them (this time seeing the actual doctor) on June 2nd. The Doctor came in felt my lump then said "now I would like to take a biopsy of your lump." I'm guessing the look I gave him prompted this next question, "Did nobody call and tell you we were going to do that today?" NO! No, they didn't! Is what I was thinking. I knew it was a possibility but I had tried to block it from my mind because they had said they would let me know if they needed to do that. If I had known I was getting a needle shoved in my neck and scraped around I would have had Ben go with me! It actually didn't end up being too bad though, he numbed it before so it was mostly just pressure. My lump being right above my collar bone made it so I was hearing it all very well though! I am not a fan of needles and just listening and feeling the pressure and the weird pull on my sinuses did make me a bit uncomfortable. And weird me I wouldn't even touch the band-aid they put on to cover where they took the biopsy, I made Ben take it off, which he did very grudgingly and with quite a few eye rolls.
Well that doc appointment happened the Monday that we headed to Kanab for my Grandma's funeral the next day. So I got a lot of weird questions about my lump and several people asking Kira if they could see her lump, haha! I'm so glad she got to deal with some of my lump question seekers! Thank goodness for a nursing baby and me having to go hide in the mother's lounge during most of the luncheon! If it hadn't been Grandma's funeral my mom would have had quite an earful for telling anyone about my lump! Especially all those distant relatives that I really didn't even know. I also had my aunt tell one of my nail clients that I had cancer. That nail client happens to be the mom of one of Ben's co-workers and also a friend of ours, so he was a bit shocked to find out I had cancer from his mom!! By the way we didn't have any results of what it even was at this point, so all we could say was that we didn't know if it was cancer, we were stilling figuring that out!
On Friday, June 6th we got the results back on the biopsy, they were inconclusive basically, so... Surgery! I had been told that was a possibility but I have never had surgery so was really hoping that wouldn't be the case! When they called on Friday they told me they wanted me to have surgery on Tuesday, June 10th. What?!?! I only get a few days notice! And also Ben was supposed to be going on his Priest scout camp that day, the camp that he had been the main instigator of. They had gotten the boys to get scuba certified and were going to California to go scuba diving in the ocean. I let the NP that called to tell me the news know that my husband would be gone that day, and she just said, "oh do you have other family around?" Seriously!!! My first time having surgery and doing it without my husband! She must be smoking something! Or perhaps not everybody is so attached to their spouse??? I talked to her about the possibility of doing it at a later date, she informed me that he was squeezing me into his already full surgery day so she was pretty sure he felt it was important to get it out quickly but that it was my choice.
I talked with Derrick and Ben and we ended up going forward with the surgery on the 10th. (Which ended up being a really good thing for our insurance, our plan renews in July, so even though it was stressful and crazy that everything happened so fast, it was a very big blessing since we had just met our deductible with having Timber, if we had waited a few more weeks to get everything taken care of we would have had to pay a lot more out of our own pocket! Meeting our deductible a few months apart from each other would have been horrible!!) Ben got it worked out with the scouts and made plans to go up the next day and meet them out there depending on how I was doing. Talking with the surgery center schedulers went kind of similar to my talk with the NP, they weren't giving me much info, just very basic stuff, then I would ask a question, she would give me a quick answer, so then I informed her that this was my first time ever having surgery, then she got really sweet and very detailed and told me I would do great! Haha, is it not common to have not had surgery by the age of 28??? It was kind of surprising to me that both people I talked to about it acted like it was no big deal, I guess it is their job so they deal with it everyday, I just figured they would be a bit more sympathetic about it, the scheduler was once she realized it was my first time, but the NP was still very nonchalant about it. After I got it scheduled I hurried and scheduled 2 nail appointments that I knew were going to need them soon since I wasn't sure how the surgery would affect my arm (the lump was on my right side and I'm right handed) and got them done and out of the way so I wouldn't have to worry about that for a few weeks after. And I pumped as often as I could so that I would hopefully be able to have enough milk for Timber since I wouldn't be able to feed her for 24 hours after.
Another side note, I don't like to talk about things like this til they are done and over with, so I tried very hard to keep any of this from anyone possible. I would talk about it to people that asked me about it and other than that I mostly just kept quiet about it.... which resulted in Ben thinking I was totally fine with everything... until I had a bit of a break down a day or two before the surgery. He was very sweet about it though and just held me as my pent up fears came out in tears. Since we haven't really experienced anything like this, he didn't know I was really going crazy inside, I guess I must be pretty good at hiding my terror! Since I was trying to hide all of this I waited until the Sunday right before the surgery before I told my counselors that I was having surgery and might not be there the next week but that I would let them know for sure after the surgery, I was supposed to conduct on Sunday so not too hard to fill in for me if I didn't make it. Also Ben had to work it out with the Young Men's president for the camp out, he let him know that I didn't really want people knowing about it so he kept it on the hush hush for the most part. He did end up letting the Bishop know though, Bishop Olds cornered me in the hall on Sunday to find out what the whole story was. He was pretty nice about it, but it has been funny since then, people still think that I don't want to talk about it because of all that. There have been a couple times where you could tell they want to ask me about it but haven't dared too, haha! I don't care about talking about it afterwards, it's just before I don't want reminders of stuff like that, I try to pretend they aren't happening so that I can make it through the day better.
The the day of the surgery came, Brandi watched our kids for us and since Ben already had the day scheduled to be off work for the scout camp we didn't have to worry about that. After we dropped the kids off at Brandi's I pumped one more time in the car on our way to the surgery center. That was kind of an adventure, haha, I was trying to do it all under a nursing cover, but I'm pretty sure I may have flashed someone oops!! I had to get every bit of milk I could though! And we totally brought a cooler with us to keep that little bit good while I was in surgery haha! On my way up to get checked in I got a text and I gave a little sigh thinking oh great here come the texts from the few people that know telling me I will do great, yada yada... It wasn't though, it was a text from my friend Jenny who didn't have a clue I was having surgery and was just saying Hi since we hadn't texted in a while. It's funny but her text really helped me to calm down, there was more in life than just me getting surgery! So if you read this Jenny, Thanks!! The nurse that got me all set up, IV and all was very sweet. She actually had had cancer herself just a little higher up her neck than my lump was, so she was very sweet about me and my lump and all sorts of confidence boosting that if that's what it ended up being I could handle it! When she saw the lump she told me it was like I was Arnold Schwarzenegger, then quoted, "I'll be back" it was pretty funny. The doctor came in and talked with us about what going to happen and marked me where he was going to cut, he went right along with the crease in my neck hoping that would mostly hide the scar (which it did, you have to know where it is and being looking for it to even notice it.) As he finished talking to us the anesthesiologist came in and as he was getting the fluids started in the IV asked if I had questions, I asked, "Are you sure I'm going to wake up from this?" He chuckled at me, and said, "I guarantee it." That was my only question, although I did feel like telling him that some people don't wake up from it, so how could he guarantee it?? But it's better to just leave it on a positive note instead right? All questions done they had me pass my glasses (they didn't want me to have contacts in) to Ben for safe keeping and they put the medicine in the IV, he told me it would work fast, and it really does! I said bye to Ben as they wheeled me towards the surgery room, my eyes already getting really tired, and I'm pretty sure I saw a slight glimpse of the surgery room, then I was out.
I woke up, (what felt like minutes later) to me getting wheeled into recovery. They had told me to plan on about an hour in the first recovery which is basically getting you to wake up, then another hour in the second recovery to get you to eat and drink a little and start to move around.... I had about 15 min in both. I got to the first recovery and wouldn't stop talking, right when I got there I asked her if I was really done, then I kept asking when I would get my glasses back (I hate not being able to see.) So when they told me I would get them in the second recovery I kept asking when I would get to go there, I don't think I stopped talking, so she checked my vitals real quick and said you know what I think you are good to go, and when another nurse peeked in my curtained section she said "She came to me talking, she's ready to go and she wants her glasses." They were both kind of chuckling, I'm sure they love the people that wake up cheerful from surgery, that probably doesn't happen very often. In the second recovery, the second I stopped moving I asked when Ben would be able to come so I could have my glasses. Luckily they had already gone to get him and she said she thought she heard his footsteps coming, he walked in right after that. She checked a couple things then asked if I wanted something to eat, I immediately replied "Yes!" I don't like not having to eat for stuff like this! She brought me 2 puddings, some cookies and some apple juice, all of them were gone within a few minutes. When she saw that they were gone that fast she said, "Looks like you are ready to go!" She took another vitals then unhooked the IV and left us to get papers to sign while I got dressed. I was a little sore sitting up to get dressed but not too bad, I did have Ben help me a little to make sure I didn't hit where they cut me at all. After we signed the papers they had me sit in a wheel chair to take me out, she grabbed me some more cookies on the way out too, she must have been able to tell by my scarfing the food down that I was hungry! On the way home we stopped at the pharmacy to get the pain medicine the doc prescribed me (800 ibuprofen) I only ended up taking a couple of them, and really the only reason I did was to make sure I stayed on top of the pain, I was worried it would be bad since they were prescribing me pain medicine, but it really wasn't bad so I don't think I took anything after that first day. Then Ben had to drop something off at a friends house, they were redoing the inside of a home they had bought and were about done redoing it, I was very tempted to go in and looked around, but thought I better not since I probably looked a bit scary in basketball shorts and old T-shirt, hair not done, yellow iodine all over my neck, etc. I did look at my cut for the first time while he was in the house, it was kind of weird seeing it and realizing that it was real, that I had just had surgery, and that I had just been asleep while they cut into me and took something out of me! After we left there we headed home, Brandi was so nice and made us dinner! So we had a little while at our house just the 2 of us before she came with our kiddos and dinner. I took a shower and did my hair in and Elsa braid (can you tell we like Frozen around here??) to keep my hair away from the cut, just like with the bandaid after the biopsy, I was not about to touch or have anything to do with that spot, ya I'm weird that way. Luckily he was able to glue it shut so there weren't any stitches to worry about or any maintenance at all, just had to leave it alone and wait for the glue to come off! It's been a long time since me and Ben were in our house without any kids here (or have we ever been here without kids?) so it felt pretty empty. We have been places without our kids but I don't know if we have ever been home without them. That night the relief society president came to check on me, Bishop called her that day so she would know. It felt kind of weird having all these ward council members being involved in what I was having going on since I am a part of them and usually on the other side of this, trying to help others with stuff like this.
For the next 24 hours when Timber would need to eat I would pump right after she ate and have to dump that milk down the drain. The first time I had to give her a bottle was pretty funny, she snuggled in to nurse and I stuck a bottle in her mouth, she froze, then after I wiggled the bottle around a little she did take it from me, but you could tell that wasn't what she was expecting from me! Ben also fed her a time or two while I pumped, it was sweet watching him feed her since he hasn't really ever gotten to do that before with any of the kids (He might have once with Hunter but I can't remember for sure.) It was also surprisingly hard to watch him feed her... I have had my moments of complaining about nursing, but since watching him feed her I try to never complain. It's funny cuz I feel like I do all sorts of things wrong in motherhood but feeding my babies I can do, and I can do it well, I'm a bit of a cow, haha, meaning I produce plenty of milk for my babies. So even though it was sweet watching him get to feed her, it also hurt knowing that in that moment I couldn't do the one thing I know I can do right as a mom, it would be different if I had really made the choice to not do it, but I don't feel like there was much of a choice to be made in this. Funny thinking about it now, technically I still was the one that "fed" her since it was my milk he was feeding her, but it put motherhood more into perspective for me and I have tried to cherish ever moment I get to just hold her and feed her, and I really have, I quite often go hide so that just me and her can hang out in a quiet room while she eats. Towards the end of the 24 hours I knew that I wouldn't have quite enough milk for the last 2 feedings so I split what was left in half and gave her the first half then the second half of the last 2 feedings was formula. I was worried she wouldn't take the formula so I figured it she ended up refusing it then at least she would have a little something to eat and not just nothing. She was pretty funny tasting the formula, she didn't like it at first and pulled some pretty good faces, but she did end up eating it.
The next day went pretty well I was feeling good, just a little tender so my mom made plans to come over after work so that she could help me get the kids to bed so that Ben could head out to be with the scouts for the rest of their camp out. The next day I also text my counselors and let them know that I should be able to make it to church on Sunday and that the surgery went well, my first counselor is so very sweet and showed up the next day with dinner for me and my kiddos, she had also brought me dinner right after I had Timber too! She is amazing, a wonderful example to me!
The the day of the surgery came, Brandi watched our kids for us and since Ben already had the day scheduled to be off work for the scout camp we didn't have to worry about that. After we dropped the kids off at Brandi's I pumped one more time in the car on our way to the surgery center. That was kind of an adventure, haha, I was trying to do it all under a nursing cover, but I'm pretty sure I may have flashed someone oops!! I had to get every bit of milk I could though! And we totally brought a cooler with us to keep that little bit good while I was in surgery haha! On my way up to get checked in I got a text and I gave a little sigh thinking oh great here come the texts from the few people that know telling me I will do great, yada yada... It wasn't though, it was a text from my friend Jenny who didn't have a clue I was having surgery and was just saying Hi since we hadn't texted in a while. It's funny but her text really helped me to calm down, there was more in life than just me getting surgery! So if you read this Jenny, Thanks!! The nurse that got me all set up, IV and all was very sweet. She actually had had cancer herself just a little higher up her neck than my lump was, so she was very sweet about me and my lump and all sorts of confidence boosting that if that's what it ended up being I could handle it! When she saw the lump she told me it was like I was Arnold Schwarzenegger, then quoted, "I'll be back" it was pretty funny. The doctor came in and talked with us about what going to happen and marked me where he was going to cut, he went right along with the crease in my neck hoping that would mostly hide the scar (which it did, you have to know where it is and being looking for it to even notice it.) As he finished talking to us the anesthesiologist came in and as he was getting the fluids started in the IV asked if I had questions, I asked, "Are you sure I'm going to wake up from this?" He chuckled at me, and said, "I guarantee it." That was my only question, although I did feel like telling him that some people don't wake up from it, so how could he guarantee it?? But it's better to just leave it on a positive note instead right? All questions done they had me pass my glasses (they didn't want me to have contacts in) to Ben for safe keeping and they put the medicine in the IV, he told me it would work fast, and it really does! I said bye to Ben as they wheeled me towards the surgery room, my eyes already getting really tired, and I'm pretty sure I saw a slight glimpse of the surgery room, then I was out.
I woke up, (what felt like minutes later) to me getting wheeled into recovery. They had told me to plan on about an hour in the first recovery which is basically getting you to wake up, then another hour in the second recovery to get you to eat and drink a little and start to move around.... I had about 15 min in both. I got to the first recovery and wouldn't stop talking, right when I got there I asked her if I was really done, then I kept asking when I would get my glasses back (I hate not being able to see.) So when they told me I would get them in the second recovery I kept asking when I would get to go there, I don't think I stopped talking, so she checked my vitals real quick and said you know what I think you are good to go, and when another nurse peeked in my curtained section she said "She came to me talking, she's ready to go and she wants her glasses." They were both kind of chuckling, I'm sure they love the people that wake up cheerful from surgery, that probably doesn't happen very often. In the second recovery, the second I stopped moving I asked when Ben would be able to come so I could have my glasses. Luckily they had already gone to get him and she said she thought she heard his footsteps coming, he walked in right after that. She checked a couple things then asked if I wanted something to eat, I immediately replied "Yes!" I don't like not having to eat for stuff like this! She brought me 2 puddings, some cookies and some apple juice, all of them were gone within a few minutes. When she saw that they were gone that fast she said, "Looks like you are ready to go!" She took another vitals then unhooked the IV and left us to get papers to sign while I got dressed. I was a little sore sitting up to get dressed but not too bad, I did have Ben help me a little to make sure I didn't hit where they cut me at all. After we signed the papers they had me sit in a wheel chair to take me out, she grabbed me some more cookies on the way out too, she must have been able to tell by my scarfing the food down that I was hungry! On the way home we stopped at the pharmacy to get the pain medicine the doc prescribed me (800 ibuprofen) I only ended up taking a couple of them, and really the only reason I did was to make sure I stayed on top of the pain, I was worried it would be bad since they were prescribing me pain medicine, but it really wasn't bad so I don't think I took anything after that first day. Then Ben had to drop something off at a friends house, they were redoing the inside of a home they had bought and were about done redoing it, I was very tempted to go in and looked around, but thought I better not since I probably looked a bit scary in basketball shorts and old T-shirt, hair not done, yellow iodine all over my neck, etc. I did look at my cut for the first time while he was in the house, it was kind of weird seeing it and realizing that it was real, that I had just had surgery, and that I had just been asleep while they cut into me and took something out of me! After we left there we headed home, Brandi was so nice and made us dinner! So we had a little while at our house just the 2 of us before she came with our kiddos and dinner. I took a shower and did my hair in and Elsa braid (can you tell we like Frozen around here??) to keep my hair away from the cut, just like with the bandaid after the biopsy, I was not about to touch or have anything to do with that spot, ya I'm weird that way. Luckily he was able to glue it shut so there weren't any stitches to worry about or any maintenance at all, just had to leave it alone and wait for the glue to come off! It's been a long time since me and Ben were in our house without any kids here (or have we ever been here without kids?) so it felt pretty empty. We have been places without our kids but I don't know if we have ever been home without them. That night the relief society president came to check on me, Bishop called her that day so she would know. It felt kind of weird having all these ward council members being involved in what I was having going on since I am a part of them and usually on the other side of this, trying to help others with stuff like this.
For the next 24 hours when Timber would need to eat I would pump right after she ate and have to dump that milk down the drain. The first time I had to give her a bottle was pretty funny, she snuggled in to nurse and I stuck a bottle in her mouth, she froze, then after I wiggled the bottle around a little she did take it from me, but you could tell that wasn't what she was expecting from me! Ben also fed her a time or two while I pumped, it was sweet watching him feed her since he hasn't really ever gotten to do that before with any of the kids (He might have once with Hunter but I can't remember for sure.) It was also surprisingly hard to watch him feed her... I have had my moments of complaining about nursing, but since watching him feed her I try to never complain. It's funny cuz I feel like I do all sorts of things wrong in motherhood but feeding my babies I can do, and I can do it well, I'm a bit of a cow, haha, meaning I produce plenty of milk for my babies. So even though it was sweet watching him get to feed her, it also hurt knowing that in that moment I couldn't do the one thing I know I can do right as a mom, it would be different if I had really made the choice to not do it, but I don't feel like there was much of a choice to be made in this. Funny thinking about it now, technically I still was the one that "fed" her since it was my milk he was feeding her, but it put motherhood more into perspective for me and I have tried to cherish ever moment I get to just hold her and feed her, and I really have, I quite often go hide so that just me and her can hang out in a quiet room while she eats. Towards the end of the 24 hours I knew that I wouldn't have quite enough milk for the last 2 feedings so I split what was left in half and gave her the first half then the second half of the last 2 feedings was formula. I was worried she wouldn't take the formula so I figured it she ended up refusing it then at least she would have a little something to eat and not just nothing. She was pretty funny tasting the formula, she didn't like it at first and pulled some pretty good faces, but she did end up eating it.
The next day went pretty well I was feeling good, just a little tender so my mom made plans to come over after work so that she could help me get the kids to bed so that Ben could head out to be with the scouts for the rest of their camp out. The next day I also text my counselors and let them know that I should be able to make it to church on Sunday and that the surgery went well, my first counselor is so very sweet and showed up the next day with dinner for me and my kiddos, she had also brought me dinner right after I had Timber too! She is amazing, a wonderful example to me!
This is a picture of the day the surgery happened. I wish I would have taken pictures everyday because it ended up getting really bruised. The doctor had warned Ben that it probably would, he said he had had to really work it out of there. I had a follow up with the doctor on the 16th, so 6 days after the surgery. I had my hair down and had moved my hair over one shoulder so that it wasn't in the way when they took my blood pressure. When the doctor came in I noticed he kept looking at my shoulder, then he finally asked if he had made a horrible scar and if I always had to have my hair covering it now! Haha, he looked pretty stressed as he asked it, I couldn't help but chuckle as I moved my hair so he could see his handy work! It took the glue until our 4th of July vacation in Delta to fully come off, and even right after the glue came off it was just a faint pink line, it healed great! I do still have a lump there, but it's different, before if I put my shoulders up it would make the lump stand out more, now the lump disappears when I do that. The doctor is pretty sure it's just scar tissue, but I'm supposed to go back in if it ever changes in size or bothers me. We also got the results back and everything was fine, it was just a swollen lymph node! No cancer! It was a pretty big relief to hear that, and what he told me next made it even better. He told me that 9 times out of 10 a case like mine would have been cancer. I'm very glad I didn't know those odds til after we had the results! I had a final follow up on July 17th and even still at that appointment he was still baffled at how I had that big of a lump without it being cancer. He started that conversation with, "I talk about you all the time!" Haha, talk about awkward!! Then he realized how bad that sounded and explained that he has discussed my case with a bunch of other doctors and they are all baffled as well! I was feeling on cloud 9 for several days thinking that I had just conquered the world! Then... one of my friends posted on Facebook that she was having her baby, I was pretty sure that she wasn't due for a few more weeks so I went looking through all the comments and found that they were inducing her because they had just found that she had breast cancer and they needed baby out so they could start her on chemo as soon as possible. I felt like such a jerk, thinking I had conquered cancer when really I hadn't done a thing with it, all I knew of it was the process that led up to her finding out that she had it. She has battled through it amazingly and is now done with chemo, has had a double mastectomy, and just finished with radiation, she has reconstructive surgery to do and then hopefully she will be done with all this craziness! I am so glad that my results were what they were, but feel so deeply for her, we hadn't really talked except a like or little comment here and there on Facebook in the past several years, so one good thing did come from this, we got back in "real" contact and have been able to visit and hang out a few times in the past year.
Shortly after my surgery I ventured to the store for my first time on my own with the 3 kiddos. This is how we looked coming out of there haha!! Isn't this how your supposed to handle 3 kids at the store???
Hunter lost his first tooth on June 18th, he was very excited for the tooth fairy to come!
Timber's first time sitting in the Bumbo, she really wasn't quite ready, right after I took the picture her head got tired and started to flop, so she didn't use it again for several more weeks, but she looked so cute this time, and the pic made her look like she had way thick hair!!
I love babies and take a ton of pictures of them! I just think she is adorable!
I was changing her bum and tosses her shorts above her head, when they landed they looked just like a little baker hat! So of course I had to try them out as a hat!
Timber had her 2 month check up the end of June and she was 10.6 lbs and 21.5 in. long. That put her in the 43% for weight and 17% for height.
Timber had her 2 month check up the end of June and she was 10.6 lbs and 21.5 in. long. That put her in the 43% for weight and 17% for height.
Remember earlier...
in this super long post...
when I said Hunter likes to take pictures???
It doesn't just apply to cameras...
also phones, and I can always tell by what recent pictures I have if I have left my phone unattended, because the above pictures were just the best ones, there were a LOT more where they came from!
And if I'm taking a picture of the baby...
then I of course have to take a picture of the 2 cutest older siblings!!!
