Saturday, March 12, 2011

Oh-My-Gosh

In January of 2010 my period once again didn't show up. I didn't assume all was well this time. I was all too familiar with what was happening to my body. I took a test, and low and behold it was positive...AGAIN! 

Finding out I was pregnant with Cohen was a BIG shocker. And by BIG I mean huge, enormous, over the top! I couldn't believe it, absolutely couldn't believe it. Kailey was only 5 months old when I tested positive. This means I got pregnant when she was 4 months old!! CRAZY!! That means they would only be 13 months apart! And by NO means were we trying! I was actually on birth control. -Note to self: Don't use YAZ ever again!- I was really upset with being pregnant again, but I got over that quickly.

My first thoughts were:
How am I going to take care of TWO kids UNDER 2?
How am I going to handle being pregnant and taking care of an infant?
Am I going to be good at managing two kids?
How do I handle it when they BOTH start crying?

But I soon realized that it will all come naturally when the time comes...I am a mother after all...

After finding out that I was pregnant again, I immediately stopped my BC and called my OB/GYN to make an appointment. I was guessing I was around 6-7 weeks along, but they wouldn't see me until I was 12 weeks! I was like seriously?!? 12 weeks? Isn't that a little late? Did you not hear me correctly? I said I tested POSITIVE on a home pregnancy test and I need to make an appointment to make sure it's right! I'd almost be in my 2nd trimester for heavens sake!

Anyway, I want to state that I in no way intended on getting pregnant. However, Cohen (and Kai bug, too) is not nor never will be, a mistake. He is what God wanted for our family. Yes, I was a little upset, okay, a lot upset, when we found out, but I love him just the same! Now, I can't imagine what life would be like with just a toddler. I needed Cohen in my life and God knew that, so he gave him to me, and I couldn't of been happier.

When family found out (because of lack of planning on my husbands part- he left a receipt for prenatal vitamins on the kitchen table for everyone to see), they we're very happy. Actually they were mad and thought we were lying about being on BC! But thats another story by itself...

Here is our first glimpse of our baby boy...


Tuesday, March 8, 2011

As the tears flow...

The past couple of weeks I've been reading stories about mothers who've lost their children, their babies, their lives... Every time I read one of these stories or watch a memorial video on YouTube, I'm drowning in tears. I just can't hold them back. I can't Imagine if those pictures were of my children, of my baby, of my life... I want to question God when I see things like this. It breaks my heart and soul, and deep down in my gut, I can feel something break. Little innocent children and babies lives are being taken, and cruel and evil killers get to live? That's just something I don't understand fully. How is that fair? Why don't they get to live a wonderful life filled with love and hope? Why do serial killers get to live and murder people?


Going back to the thought that I can't bare. If one of my children died (God forbid) my whole life would crumble. Seeing these stories of SIDS makes me question every moment I have with my 5 month old son, Cohen. I can't imagine my life without him, or without my Kai Bug. I'm sobbing just thinking that it COULD happen to anyone, including me. I love my children so much and now I stay up longer just to make sure they are breathing, I watch their every move, I don't get as frustrated with them when they wont stop crying, or when my 18 month old decides she wants to throw a fit in the middle of Walmart. I've been taking in EVERY moment possible. I usually like to see myself as a "the glass is half-full" kind of person, but in all reality I think of it this way: It depends on how the glass got that way... Meaning, the glass is ONLY half-full if it is FILLED to the halfway point, and the glass is ONLY half-empty if it is EMPTIED to the halfway point. I don't know if that makes me a pessimistic or an optimistic, but that's what I think.

I always over-think things. I could be hauling Kailey on my hip and go through a doorway and I'll think to myself, "What if I had hit her head on the door jam and busted her head open? Blood oozing everywhere, do I call 911? Do I rush to to the ER? If I rush to the ER do I have to put her in her car seat, because, in all honesty, it takes 2 minutes to do that... and if I waste 2 minutes, then something bad could happen, right?" Not sure why I do this. But I do know it started after I had Kailey. Maybe because I'm so scared of loosing her. I really don't know. But I do know that I love her, and I love Cohen, and I would do anything for them.

I can only imagine what these families that lost their children are going through. I did get a glimpse of the pain though. I had a dream a few nights back, and I woke up in utter shock. In my dream, I had just given birth to my precious baby boy, only I didn't remember it. The only reason I knew I had given birth is because someone told me we had to attend his funeral. Apparently, in my dream, he had died a few days, maybe hours, after I gave birth to him. I never got to hold him, never got to see him, never got to touch his face, or see him smile. I didn't get to change a diaper, put on his clothes, or wrap him ever so snugly in a receiving blanket. I didn't want to believe it. I had to see for myself, so I ran to the front doors of the funeral home, but they wouldn't let me in. I had to wait and enter last because there was a line to see my baby. Then the dream changed to an outdoor setting at dusk. It almost looked like a backyard. This was his burial site, his final resting place. I burst into tears at the site of such a small casket. (No, they shouldn't have to make caskets that small.) I finally got to see my baby, but once I got there, his face was a blur. After the funeral people tried to make me feel better, and all I remember saying is that I didn't get to hold him. Then I woke up to him crying and needing to be fed. I couldn't help but cry my eyes out. I haven't had such a vivid dream since I was pregnant, but it felt so real. It was such a horrible feeling.

Like I said before I don't know what I'd do if I lost either of my children. Honestly, I think that I'd be curled up in a ball in my bed for months. I don't get how a healthy baby can just stop breathing, and I definitely don't understand why. My heart aches for EVERYONE who has EVER lost a child. No baby or child should ever have to die. You all are so strong. And as I sit here typing this, listening to my children breathe as they sleep, I'm thinking about all your children who are no longer here.Who no longer get to spend precious moments with their loved ones, who don't get to experience their first birthday, their first holiday, their first kiss, or their own wedding. Those children who are missed oh so much by loving families who want answers, but may never get them. Who no longer get to breath this world in. Even thought this is a bad and evil world sometimes, it's so worth it to be able to live. Life isn't fair sometimes, but what doesn't kill us will only make us stronger.

Tonight I want to honor a few of the children with wings.

Paisly Grace Davenport: 6/21/2010 (Born Sleeping)
Michael Cohen Marshall: 6/7/10 - 6/18/10 (Congenital heart defect)
"Maddie" Staats: 10/14/2010 - 2/17/2011 (most likely SIDS)
Savanna Dawn Bouge: 3/28/2010 - 11/12/2011 (most likely SIDS)
Kelsey Smith Briggs: 12/28/2002 - 10/11/2006 (Blunt force trauma to abdomen)
McKenzie Grace: 12/23/2007 (Born Sleeping)
Carly Elliotte: 11/15/2007 Lived 4 months in NICU (Heart Defect)
Hannah Elliotte: 11/7/2008 (Born Sleeping)
Bradley: 8/16/2008 (Born Sleeping)
Audrey Caroline: 4/7/2008 (Lived 2 hours with many defects)
...and many, many more

May you all Rest In Peace!

Tonight my heart is broken
</3 Kayla 

Sunday, March 6, 2011

My first baby belly...

The day I found out that I was pregnant with Kailey, I was so shocked. We weren't actively trying to get pregnant, but we weren't doing anything to prevent it either. In all honesty, we hadn't really tried to prevent pregnancy the first 4 years of our relationship, so, of course, I didn't think anything about it. My periods were always irregular. They had been since I first started my period in 7th grade. Sometimes I even skipped a month all together. But this particular month I was 2 weeks late. I decided to test anyway, just in case, but I was sure my period would come eventually, like it always did. 

Blake, my fiancĂ© at the time and now my husband, went to the local Walmart (that's the local hot spot when anyone needs ANYTHING... lol.) and bought a pack of 2 ClearBlue digital tests, and a 2 pack of First Response tests. I tested with the digital test first thing the next morning...
I have to be honest, I cried in shock. I was 18 years old. This couldn't be happening to me... So I thought "maybe it's wrong..." and took another test around lunch time. This time I used the First Response test with the little pink lines...

Even though the test has it written on there which reading is which, I still somehow got it confused for all of maybe 30 seconds. I saw those two pink lines and felt relief. Then I looked again and my heart sank. I sat there on the toilet looking at that test for a really long time. Thinking how am I going to tell everyone that me, the girl who was the first to graduate in her family. The girl who had big plans for college. The girl who wanted to do something with her life better than what her parents did. The girl who wanted to be a nurse, to work in labor and delivery will be having her own baby before she can accomplish those dreams. That I will be in a labor and delivery room giving birth to my own child before I go to college. But then I found myself in all those thoughts and realized that giving birth to your own child is a much bigger accomplishment than going to college. Having a child and raising a child is a major responsibility, and if that is what God wants for my life, then so be it.

So I got up, put on my big girl panties, put the tests on the counter, and went and got Blake. All the while-I was smiling, and he was smiling. Our child was welcome in our lives. And from then on I was excited.

Blake joined the Army in February 2009 and he would be leaving for basic and AIT by the end of that March. Meaning, I would be by myself for most of the pregnancy (besides me living with his parents while he was gone).

I didn't start showing until around 16 weeks. These pictures were taken at 18 weeks. We found out that we were having a girl on March 12, 2009. We were so happy. Blake left for basic and AIT on March 22, 2009. I wasn't very happy since he'd be gone for 5 months. 
I made the most out of the experience though. I took a lot of pictures and sent them to him all the time. Even though I missed him so much, I knew he'd come back soon. I also knew that I had a piece of him with me at all times, and that gave me comfort too.

Here are some of the other pictures I took during the pregnancy...


Me at 26 weeks...
This is me at 28 weeks...
This is me at 36 weeks
This is me at 38 weeks...
This is me at 39 weeks...

The baby shower was so much fun! Well, technically I had two because the ladies at work threw me one as well... We played the typical games, and had the typical gifts :] Loved it!

This is the beautiful cake that we had made. I love it, and it was so so good!
This was the cutest pair of flip flops I'd ever seen! They were sooo tiny!
This is most of the people who came... Some got away before we could take a picture! lol.

Alright ladies, it's time for bedie bye. Both of my children are sleeping (of course because it's 1:30!) and I need to be sleeping too!! G'Night.

<3Kayla

Saturday, March 5, 2011

A little background in the begining...

Hi everyone!

I want to start off by telling y'all about myself. My name is Kayla. I am currently 20 years old. I am married to my high school sweetheart, Blake, and we have two beautiful bundles of joys in our lives. My husband is in the Army National Guard, and we live in the middle of almost nowhere - Auburn, Georgia.

This is our daughter Kailey (pronounced Kylie) Brooke. She was born on August 14, 2009. She weighed 7lbs 9oz. and was 19.25 inches long... :]



This is my husband and I the day of our wedding. Just 3 weeks after our beautiful daughter was born.


This little man right here is Cohen Michael. He was born on September 23, 2010. He weighed in at a whooping 8lbs 13oz! and was 19.5 inches long! And just look at that hair! (Which all fell out later, but is now starting to grow back...lol.)


Well, that was when they were born. This is them now.

This ball of fire is Kailey Brooke at 18 months old! It's crazy how time flies by and you look back and you're left wondering where it went. That's how I feel with her anyway. I feel like I gave birth to her yesterday, but she's almost 2! I remember the day so vividly. I had to be induced because I was a week past my due date, and the doctors didn't think I'd go into labor anytime soon on my own. Going back a little bit just to say that my husband (fiancĂ©) at the time was doing his basic training and AIT (advanced individual training) for the Army in Missouri during most of my pregnancy with Kai. Anyways, he graduated the day before Kailey was born and got to the hospital just as they were inducing my labor. We were so thrilled that he got to be there because, honestly, we didn't think he was going to be able to see her born. I remember when she came out. I got to help deliver her, and got to pull her up on my chest. I was so amazed at what I had done, what God had done. Still to this day I can hardly believe that I made her. I made her tongue, her lips, her hands, her everything. And if I wasn't for me (and yes, God too) then she wouldn't be here. All I could think about was how much I loved my little girl, and how I could never live without her. I was amazed at how easily it is to love your own child. Even though she was just born-I loved her so so much.


This little big guy is Cohen Michael at just 5 months old. Yes, I said 5 months old. He weighs in at 19lbs 4oz and is 27 inches long! He is sooooo huge! He's already in size 9 months clothes! I barely even got to put him in his newborn sizes when he came home, because he was already almost 9lbs! Speaking of him being a newborn, the day he was born, I had to be induced again. Apparently, my uterus is the mother of all uterus's because my babies just want to stay in there! He was also a week late. His birth wasn't as easy as Kailey's was. My epidural didn't work very well with his labor. I could feel everything from the waist down, and of course there was nothing the doctors could do about it. They even gave me two re-doses, one of which had a sedative in it. Neither helped. It was agonizing. I can't remember as much from his birth as I do with Kailey's. But I do know that I loved him just as much as I did Kailey when I first saw him. I remember asking the nurses how much he weighed. When they told me 8lbs 13oz I immediately asked my doctor if I tore... Fortunately I didn't!


So, now you know a little about me and my family :]

<3 Kayla