Over the past couple of weeks I have had a very heavy heart. Some of you may remember my friend Brandi and her family. Specifially, Brandi’s son Luke. Luke is a nine year old twin boy who has been battling stage 4 Neuroblastoma cancer for some time. He is such a trouper and his strength is inspirational. 

So many of you got to know Brandi and her family last Christmas through our blog and have asked for an update. There is a new update on Luke over at CaringBridge that says it all. The post is written by Luke’s father Mark. Please keep their entire family in your thoughts and prayers.

Cancer sucks.

I may have a heavy heart right now but I will always be full of hope.

Please consider making a donation to CaringBridge in Luke Johnstons name or consider donating to the The Pediatric Cancer Foundation in hopes that their research will be able to benefit others in similar situations to little Luke… No amount is too small and every bit is appreciated.

It has been a month since I we gave birth to our beautiful, sweet Addie. Everyone has a birth story, and Addison is no different. I have been avoiding her birth story for several reasons. If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I had a very hard time with my pregnancy. I thought for sure I’d have a break with my delivery, but that didn’t happen. Having a preemie might be a whole other blog post. But I’ve also waited to tell her story because I wanted to find the positive and beauty in welcoming her to the world. I want to remember the good and hope that the bad has faded by now.

Tuesday, March 20th, I woke up feeling mildly “crampy.” My cramps didn’t feel anything like the contractions I had been having for the last 4 weeks. Instead, Doug stood at the end of the bed asking me over and over again if he should go to work. I really didn’t know what to tell him. After about two hours of debating, we finally decided to call the doctor and see what he thought. They told us to get to the hospital right away. This was around 10:30am. We had a little drive ahead of us, and we were admitted at 11:30. I was 3cm, but since I was “high risk,” they kept us.

I told them that I wanted an unmedicated, natural birth. Just as I had with Emma. We were all convinced that this would be even faster and easier than Emma. My total labor with Emma was about 5 hours and very easy. It was also relatively painless compared to what was about to happen.

I was going to be checked every hour to see how my labor was progressing. It was turning into a very slow process. We walked the hall for hours trying to get things going. Every hour I was sadly disappointed that I wasn’t farther along than I thought. At about 5:30pm I was only 5 cm and in a lot of pain. I could no longer talk and though I was insane for thinking I could do this naturally. My doctor decided to break my water, convinced that this was going to speed things along. I remember he looked at Doug and said “no more than an hour and a half.” To me, that was eternity. I wanted it to end, and knew I wouldn’t make it another hour and a half.

After he broke my water, things got very real very fast. I hit 7cm in no time but the pain was outrageous. My doctor knew that my labor with Emma was very short and was sure I could push through from 7cm. At 6:30pm a team was brought in and I started pushing. With Emma, I think there were 4 people in the room. With Addie being so early we had a pediatric team, plus we were in the middle of a shift change, so there were about 10 people this time around. I didn’t care, I wanted it over with. I realized halfway through this process, I’m not as strong as I thought. I started to give up just when my doctor told me she was stuck in my birth canal. Somehow I had to find it in me to push like never before. Thank God I had several sane people helping me out, because I checked out. I couldn’t do it. I was thinking horrible thoughts and was no longer an active participant in this game of life. If it wasn’t for my nurse, who had been with me all day, I don’t know if I could have done it. It was her stern voice telling me to listen to my doctor that brought me back to reality. I finally gave it everything I had, and was able to give one more push. Just what we needed to get Addison into this world.

I was so out of it at that point, I don’t really remember the specifics of what happened from there. Addie was brought to my chest immediately but she wasn’t very responsive or breathing well. The pediatric team that was standing by came over and started rubbing her vigorously with warm towels. She finally let out a small cry, but for the most part, she was quiet. This is very common with premature babies. Surprisingly, she was big for being premature. She weighed in at 6lbs 13 ounces, 20 inches long.

All those months of misery replaced by love in just minutes. That is all I felt when I held Addie. I didn’t remember the sickness, the bed rest, injections, countless pills, weekly vaginal ultrasounds, or the horrific labor that left me battered and bruised. None of that mattered anymore. We had our second, beautiful baby girl.

Our road so far has been very rough. I’ll tell you more about that later. But today, Addison is one month old. It has been both the longest and shortest month of my life. I am happy to say that she is finally a healthy 7 pound, 13 ounce baby!

Happy One Month Birthday Addison! We love you!

Last year I got Em a really cute shirt for St. Patty’s Day. It had a green shamrock on the front with a few buttons attached. It was really cute and simple. I’ve been wanting to do this same idea for an Easter egg. Now that I have the time, I gave it a try.

I should tell you, I love to sew. But usually that means with a sewing machine. I’m not good at sewing on buttons, so I knew this was going to be a challenge for me. Once I got into the groove, it was really easy. You can also do this with any other shape, size, holiday, or event. I love that Em wanted to pick out the buttons to use on her shirt. It was a great way to spend time together and have her help and be hands on.

Here’s what you need to create a fun egg shirt for Easter:

• Buttons in several shapes, sizes, and colors. (Joanne’s now sells these in little containers by color)
• A needle and thread. You can use the same color thread or match the colored thread with your buttons.
• A pair of scissors.
• A cut out and fabric pattern of your shape. Here’s a free egg pattern online at Momsbreak
• Fabric paint if you plan on writing on your shirt.
• A t-shirt, solid colors work the best
• Double sided fusing fabric (you’ll only need this if you aren’t going to sew it directly to the shirt)
• An iron

I use corresponding thread and button colors. You don’t have to do this, you can just use one color that will work for all your buttons. You can see the little containers these buttons come in. I got them at Joanne’s for around $4.50 but you can always get a coupon to save even more.

I laid out how I wanted my buttons to look once I sewed them on. This isn’t how they turned out, but it gave me a really good idea of where I want to place my buttons.

One I got the buttons all sewn on to the fabric swatch, I placed it on the shirt. At this point, you can do one of two things to attach it to the shirt. You can either zig-zag around the edges, or you can use the double sided tape. Since I had planned on writing on the shirt with fabric paint, I choose to use the tape. I then traced my egg with the fabric paint to give it a finished look. If you’re going to sew it on, make sure you leave enough room around the edge to do so.

Cut your fuzing fabric to match your egg. One you have the egg in place, use a hot iron to fuze it to the shirt. Pin the egg to the shirt inside out. Heating the shirt side. The amount of time it takes to heat the fabric won’t hurt your buttons. The fabric paint will give your egg a finished look so don’t worry about your edges at this point.

Using washable fabric paint, draw around your egg to give it a finished look. I love the puff paint but any fabric paint will do. I wait until it’s completely dry before adding my messages.

Here you go, one very cute Easter Egg shirt on an adorable little girl. She loves it and can’t wait to wear it!

I’ve been avoiding my blog. I just pretend it doesn’t exist right now. I have been posting a few updates over at Doug and Cam but even those are getting few and far between. The reason? I’m feeling really frustrated. I’ve felt like this for weeks, and feel guilty about it because I know my pity party will eventually come to an end. Until then, I struggle with those encouraging words people send my way. So instead of being ungrateful, I’m just hiding.

When someone asks how I’m doing, I give the generic reply, “I’m good.” In reality, I want to scream. I want to tell them how I really feel. This pregnancy has sucked. I have hated every moment of it. From day one, I had months of morning, noon, and night sickness. Looking back now, those were the easy days. We had a scare at week 13, and we worried we might lose the baby. On to almost three months of bed rest and a couple “trial” runs to the hospital for early contractions. Top that off with painful weekly hormone injections, too many medications, and spontaneous nose bleeds. Now, I’m struggling with a breach baby that isn’t fitting very well in her current position. I’m in a lot of pain right now, and the lack of sleep is really wearing on all of us in the house. Em is sick with a cold, and now Doug is too. But here we are. We’re well into week 35, almost at week 36. My doctor finally told me he would no longer stop my labor progression. He knows I can’t take much more of this and has agreed with me that “this sucks.”

What bothers me is how judgmental people are. Everyone has an opinion. One thing I’ve learned throughout this process, unless you’ve been in the exact same pair of shoes, you can’t judge me for wanting this to be over. Very few people can relate to how hard two months of bed rest and solitude can be when you are supposed to be enjoying one of life’s greatest moments for a woman.

Of course I want a healthy baby. I don’t need to be told over and over again that “each day counts.” I get it, I really do. I pray every day that this little one will be healthy. But I’m tired of sugar coating how I really feel. This baby will know how much we love her. She will also know that the time she was inside my belly was incredibly difficult. But we will survive, and we will soon thrive together.

That’s the day I look forward to. Hopefully, very very soon!

One of my favorite bloggers, Jessica from Four Plus an Angel recently asked her Facebook readers ”Are there any words your kids say or used to say incorrectly that you don’t want to correct because they sound so cute?” I have struggled with this since Emma started talking. There are so many cute things that she will say, incorrectly, that we don’t bother changing. Hence the name of my blog, No Thank You Please.

I don’t think there’s any harm in letting her go uncorrected. She’s only 3 and she’ll learn soon enough. Until then, I’m going to enjoy her cute, incorrectly pronounced words and phrases.

Here are a few we hear ever day…

“No thank you please”

“I want to sit on yours lap”

“Nevah” (Thanks Jake and the Neverland Pirates)

“Let I look”

“After-morrow” means, of course, tomorrow.

“I’d like a special teet” (treat)

I was in the middle of writing this post when I saw this article over at Babble.com, “I Suck at My Second Pregnancy.” I’ve been struggling with this for some time. Basically, since we found out I was pregnant.

The reason I have guilt has nothing to do with our current situation, it started long before that. I realized early on that this pregnancy was going to be different. The pregnancy itself, not the baby, had to take a back burner to our everyday life. We have a 3.5 year old who needs a lot of attention and I honestly haven’t have had time to even realize I’m pregnant. With Em, we could tell you exactly how far along we were, our due date, her name, ect. We even had her nursery done by the time we were only four months along.

With the second pregnancy I lost a week somewhere along the way. You would think I would be more on top of things since I’m on bed rest this time around, but I just can’t keep up. My husband finally ordered several things we need and put the crib up over the weekend. Considering this baby can come at any time, that was probably a good idea. I just assume these things are going to happen on their own…somehow.

I’ve talked to my OB about “the second pregnancy guilt.” He says it’s very normal. Life goes on but that doesn’t mean you don’t love this child as much as you do your first.

Did you go through this? Did you do anything special during your second pregnancy that made it unique to your first?