Kendyl is here!

Okay so she has been here for over 9 weeks, but I am just now getting a chance to blog about her arrival. On Monday October 28^th I had an amniocentesis to see if Kendyl’s lungs would be developed by November 1^st, my original c-section date. We received the results the morning of October 31^st that Kendyl’s lungs weren’t quite ready for the outside world yet. I am so thankful that Dr. Nelson and his nurses were so thorough. We were balancing between me going into labor and risking my uterus rupturing and Kendyl’s lungs being developed. They took great care of both of us!

My c-section was rescheduled for November 6^th. Uriah and I had to get to the hospital around 7 that morning and since I couldn’t eat or drink anything after midnight I tried to sleep as late as possible. I will never forget Uriah….who NEVER eats breakfast….decided he needed to eat breakfast that morning lol. I was only slightly irritated. We arrived at the hospital and immediately went up to L&D. I was lucky enough to have an old friend, Jessica McCain, helping with my c-section that morning. It was so nice to have someone I knew helping take care of Kendyl and me.

Around 9:30 they took us back to the OR. I had Chandlor at UAMS and opted to let student nurses, doctors, and anesthesiologists take part in the delivery. I realize now what a difference that makes! Jessica got my IV in on the first try, and the anesthesiologist got my spinal in on the first try. I can remember the student anesthesiologist trying at least six times and the student nurse had to try several times to get my IV in. I know that they have to start somewhere and I’m still thankful that I went that route with Chandlor, but it was nice to only be poked once :P  Within what seemed like a few minutes Kendyl was here! Dr. Nelson stuck Kendyl’s head over the barrier so that I could see her before he handed her to the nursery nurse. It was love at first sight! Uriah was able to go watch them clean her up and check her vitals then he brought her over to meet me. She was perfect. She weighed 6 pounds 6 ounces, was 19 inches long and was born at 10:06 am.  Not bad for her being barely 38 weeks!

Uriah and Kendyl headed to the nursery where they took Kendyl’s blood and finished cleaning her up. They let Chandlor come into the nursery and meet his baby sister. From what I was told he was more interested in getting back to the waiting room where all of the action was at HAH! While they were doing this I was taken to recovery. They brought Kendyl in and I was able to nurse her. She did really well and latched on immediately!  After getting out of recovery Uriah and I asked for some alone time with Kendyl and Chandlor before family came in. It was such a special moment…together as a family of four for the first time!

The rest of the day is a blur to me. Pain medicine makes me so loopy/sleepy I don’t remember most of what happened. Apparently I yelled at Uriah for putting Kendyl in her bassinet because I was afraid someone was going to jump through the window and steal her? Luckily I have a patient husband ;)

Dr. Pilkington, Chandlor and Kendyl’s PCP, came in at some point that night and let us know that Kendyl looked great! He took a good look at her back and had zero concerns. Such a relief since there is only so much you can see in an Ultrasound.

Kendyl did and still does look just like her daddy. Chandlor favors me so much I just assumed that Kendyl would too. Wrong! She looks nothing like me. I was so shocked to see that she had blonde hair! I think everyone was. She currently has gray eyes, but I’m sure they will change color within a few months.

We spent two days in the hospital. Uriah stayed with Kendyl and me. Chandlor stayed with his dad, Joey, but came and visited us both days with my grandma and mom. After being released Kendyl had to go back to the hospital for two days to be checked for jaundice. I was so thankful when her numbers were where they should be…I hated getting her out in the cold with all of the germs!

Chandlor was and is still adjusting to being a big brother. At first he seemed indifferent. The way he has always acted when I held another baby. After a few days he realized she was here to stay and started acting out. I think he is finally getting the hang of things. Every two weeks we take him out by himself…even if it is just to dinner. He goes to his dad’s house two nights a week and we are afraid he’s going to start realizing that Kendyl gets more alone time with us. Spending this extra time with him seems to have helped a little J I know he will love her once she is old enough to sit up and play with him, but until then it is probably going to be a little challenging.

Most likely Kendyl will be our last child. When Dr. Nelson went to take her out the old incision on my uterus from my c-section with Chandlor started to tear (I’m really lucky I didn’t go into labor). Since the scar tissue is so weak he doesn’t recommend that I put it through another pregnancy. We were kind of on the fence anyway about having a third child so it was almost a relief to have the decision, in a way, made for us. If we do decide that our family isn’t complete there are plenty of children who need homes J If Uriah can love Chandlor like his own then I know that we can both love a non-biological child as our own.

One of my very best friends, Lacey Redman, had baby Milah on the same day in the same hospital as I had Kendyl!

Six days later another one of my best friends, Amanda Kimbriel, had Ellie!

So blessed to have all of these new additions!

Chandlor's 3rd Birthday Party!

We had such a great time at Chandlor’s birthday party! His birthday isn’t actually until November 2^nd, but as of right now I am scheduled to have Kendyl on November 1^st so we decided to have his party a little early. We went with a pirate theme! Chandlor only recently started showing interest in cars, trucks, tractors, and motorcycles. I kind of wish I would have waited a little longer before deciding on a theme…but I’m a planner so I buy and plan everything in advance. Overall, Chandlor’s party went really well! It was originally supposed to be at the park, but somehow the pavilion was double booked. We volunteered to have his party elsewhere. I felt really bad for the lady who was trying to figure out what to do about the double booking and I knew that our family and friends wouldn’t mind a last minute change J

Michelle Mayer did such a great job on Chandlor's cake!

 

 

Chandlor loves attention! I mean what 3 year old doesn’t? At the beginning of the party he rolled around in his wheelchair and flirted/played with everyone while they ate. It made me happy to see he was having such a great time. He did almost clothes line himself once on a table. He is at that perfect height in his wheelchair where most tables are about at his neck. He raced full-speed towards a table with no intention of stopping J luckily I was in running distance and caught him just before he hit. He thought it was hilarious.

 

 

Chandlor stopped taking naps on the weekend (for me at least) a few months ago. That being said, Chandlor didn’t have a nap before the party yesterday and towards the middle/end it became very obvious ;) He didn’t want to open his presents, or for anyone to sing happy birthday to him, or really much of anything. He mostly just wanted to go downstairs and “play sacketball” aka basketball. He got so many nice presents! I can’t thank our friends and family enough for coming and celebrating his day with us!

 

Uriah and I got Chandlor a truck for his birthday. Luckily my grandpa is very very handy and was able to re-wire it and make it hand-powered so Chandlor can use it. We gave it to him at the end of his party and even though he had been rotten for the past hour we finally saw a smile on his ornery face. He asks to drive everything so I am excited that he finally has something that he can drive!

Usually Joey gets Chandlor on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but his mom is in from Houston this weekend so he gets Chandlor for the whole weekend. I am so glad that Chandlor is getting this time with his other grandma, but I am missing my boy J Uriah has already taken most of his toys out of the package (and played with them) so we are excited for him to get home tonight.

This will probably be Chandlor’s last birthday party by himself until he and Kendyl are old enough to protest having their parties together so we wanted to make the most of it. There was a great turn out I think he had lots of fun J 

 

Life Lately..

Life has been so crazy lately! Between babies and weddings and Chandlor I have stayed busy! This Friday Chandlor had an appointment with a general surgeon at ACH. He has been battling a pressure sore or a contusion (we’re not sure which one) for a year now. He referred Chandlor to a plastic surgeon. We are hoping and praying that she has the answer. A year is a long time to have a sore, but it isn’t uncommon for people with Spina Bifida to battle these things for years. She is the same plastic surgeon who closed the opening on his back when he was born and it has healed beautifully, so we have a lot of confidence in her.

We had lunch at Apple Bees. Gramme decided to come with us so she could see Lyndsey and the babies.

 

Chandlor’s appointment gave us a great excuse to go see my cousin Lyndsey and her babies. They were born earlier this month at 30 weeks, but are both doing so great considering! They will have to stay in the hospital for a while to gain weight and be monitored. Lyndsey has been so strong for them; she is already such a great mom! They are lucky to have her.

Adalynn is on top and Ryder is on bottom. They both looked so different compared to last time!

 

I’m going to rewind a little bit…Paige got married last weekend! She is the last one of us girls to get hitched. Paige was stunning. It was the perfect country wedding! She asked Amanda Kimbriel and I to be her maids of honor. So thankful she asked me to be a part of her special day! It was beautiful and perfect. I can’t believe that we are all growing up, getting married, and having babies. It seems like just yesterday we were trying out for cheerleading!

Photo by BackRoad Photography, Amanda Shephard.

 

On another note....I have to brag on my corn chowder soup that I made this morning…it was really yummy! I also made a pumpkin roll…it was just okay…I won’t be sharing a picture of it ;)

 

 

I am going to try and blog more often. I feel like life happens…a lot…and it keeps me from writing important memories down. I’m going to try and stop with the excuses ;)

Momma guilt

We received some great news yesterday! According to a Level 2 Ultrasound and a Harmony test our sweet little girl should be healthy. Theoretically (according to genetics anyway) if we were to have a girl she would be healthy if we were to have a boy there was a 50% chance that he would be healthy and a 50% chance that he would not be healthy. We have known that she was a girl since I was 16 weeks pregnant so for the most part we had ruled out any issues. Our doctor recommended (and we agreed) that we should have the extra testing done just to make certain everything was okay.  If there were even a small chance that she would have issues we wanted to deliver at UAMS so that she would be close to AR Children’s hospital.

Before we knew we were having a girl I was obviously hoping for a healthy baby. This thought made me feel guilty. Chandlor is awesome! He is perfect in every single way possible…wishing for anything but him just seems wrong. How can I say “Chandlor you were lots of fun, but I would really like to have a healthy baby this time.” I feel like that discredits him on so many levels. However, hoping for an unhealthy baby clearly makes me feel guilty as well for very obvious reasons. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish that Chandlor could do everything that a “normal” toddler does.  In saying that… I’m not going to pretend like I didn’t think about how neat it would be for Chandlor to have a companion…someone just like him to share his life and struggles with…another guilty thought. So very confusing.

I’m not sure if any of this makes sense...I definitely hope that it does not offend anyone or give them the wrong impression. I am so happy and thankful that we are having a healthy baby! This is what I have wanted and hoped  and prayed for throughout my entire pregnancy. However, I have learned that having an unhealthy baby does not mean that your world..or their world has to end. We would have been happy and very blessed either way.

We are pregnant!

Well…we are pregnant! I cannot wait to welcome another sweet little blessing into our lives! I decided to share the process of this decision…determining when to get pregnant has to be one of the hardest decisions I have ever made. I wanted to make sure that I had enough one on one time with Chandlor, but not too much because then the transition would be extra hard on him. I also wanted to make sure that we could care for more than one child. Chandlor needs lots of extra care (medicine three times a day, being cathed four times a day, the list goes on and on). It was really important to me that the new baby wouldn’t take away from Chandlor’s care…and that Chandlor’s care wouldn’t take away from the new baby. Since day one Uriah has been part of Chandlor’s care..I am so thankful that he is willing to step up and share this responsibility with me. We make a pretty great team :)

For those who don’t know, Chandlor’s Spina Bifida is genetic. He inherited a duplication on a chromosome from me. To make a long complicated story short…I am healthy because I am a girl..he has Spina Bifida because he is a boy. Therefore, with our next child there will be a 25% chance that it (I hate referring to he/she as it) will have some form of disability. This also added to the complicated nature of this decision. Uriah and I decided a long time ago that this was a risk we were willing to take. Chandlor is so so perfect. If we do have another child with a disability…we are just extra prepared due to experience. I think this was probably the easiest part of this decision.

Our ultimate decision revolved around Chandlor’s weight…oddly enough. I had to have a vertical c-section (incision from belly button to pelvic bone) with Chandlor because of the large sac on his back when he was born. This makes me much more susceptible to uterus rupture in preceding pregnancies. It is recommended that the average pregnant person not lift more than 35 pounds. Chandlor isn’t quite as mobile as the normal two year old. He has his own special way of doing things and getting into things ;) but he requires help getting into the car, bathtub, bed, etc. I didn’t want to not be able to provide Chandlor with all of his care for nine months! The thought of it was honestly heartbreaking. Not to mention having to find someone to be with me at all times to help take care of him…it just wasn’t feasible. So we decided it was either in the next year while Chandlor is still small enough for me to carry him…or when Chandlor is six or seven when he is hopefully independent enough to get himself in and out of things. I have always wanted my kids to grow up together…and the thought of not giving Uriah the opportunity to have a biological child for another four years just didn’t seem fair. He loves Chandlor so much and thinks of him as his own, but this doesn’t keep him from wanting his own biological child. Needless to say we decided that now was the best time.

We started trying in February expecting it to take four to six months…we found out we were pregnant in March! We were ecstatic! We decided to only tell a few close friends and family members until I was 12 weeks pregnant. I think we would have done this regardless, but I am slightly high risk due to the chromosomal duplication. So far everything looks great! Due to my vertical c-section I cannot go into labor. Therefore, we actually already have a tentative delivery date of November 1^st (this is the day before Chandlor’s b-day yikes!). I will deliver at 37 weeks to make certain that I do not go into labor. With Dr. Case leaving she recommended that I see Dr. Nelson at Millard Henry in Russellville. So far he has been wonderful! We should know between 20 and 22 weeks with limited certainty the health of the baby. We haven’t decided yet if we will make this public knowledge. One of the most awful parts of being pregnant with Chandlor was all of the sympathy and funny looks. I think we will know how to move forward once we know. We have faith everything will be just fine regardless :)

I wanted to record this thought process for my own memory’s sake. Chandlor has really shown me how fast time goes by and how important it is to record even the little things…I hope I have more time to blog in the future!

Uriah, Chandlor and I are so very excited. Uriah has already proven that he is an excellent father figure…and I know that Chandlor will be an awesome big brother!

We decided to let Chandlor make the announcement :) 

This is our 12 week Ultrasound

Raising Chandlor

I have been struggling trying to decide what my first blog should be about. I finally decided it should be about my biggest and most important job, raising Chandlor! I think a lot of people have misconceptions about my life…some think that it is unimaginably hard…while others think it is a piece of cake. Truth is…it is neither of these things. Taking care of a child with special needs is without a doubt the hardest thing I have ever done, but it is also the most rewarding experience of my life!

I was 18 weeks pregnant when a Level II Ultrasound confirmed that Chandlor had Spina Bifida. That day I thought my world was ending…it didn’t take me long to realize that it was only just beginning! I quickly learned that I was Chandlor’s advocate. The doctors needed my permission for any surgery/medicine/test they would perform or prescribe from that day until he was 18. For a girl whose grandma still did her laundry…this looked like a huge responsibility! I caught on though and became comfortable with it a lot sooner than I anticipated I would.

In the past two years Chandlor has had three surgeries (the first when he was 22 hours old), more Cat Scans X-rays and Ultrasounds than I can count, been prescribed numerous medicines, learned how to crawl, learned how to sit, learned how to talk, learned how to stand with the assistance of braces, learned how to maneuver a wheel chair, and stole hundreds of hearts…all with a smile on his ornery face! Despite all of this he has the same attitude, demeanor, determination, and imagination as any other two year old. He cries when he is mad, he smiles when he is getting his way, and believe it or not…sleeps when he is tired.  He is so much more “normal” (I HATE THIS WORD) than people give him credit for. He is awesome.

I have come to the conclusion that God puts people on this Earth like Chandlor for a reason..to keep us humble and to make sure we don’t take simple things for granted.  I have also come to the conclusion that God gives special needs children to people who need them and to people who will love them and take care of them. I am so unbelievably blessed to have been chosen to be Chandlor’s mom. He teaches me something new everyday.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about the next 5 or even 10 years. Chandlor is 2 and doesn’t yet realize that he is different from others. I have come to terms with Chandlor having Spina Bifida and embraced it as a part of our lives, I can only hope and pray that he will do the same. I try and keep things as “normal” (there’s that word again) as possible. He plays in dirt, gets bumps and bruises, shares his toys, and gets disciplined…often. So I’m hoping there will be a smooth transition of understanding.

All that I will ever ask of anyone is that they don’t feel sorry for him and that they learn from his disability. I promise you that anything God has taken away from Chandlor He has replaced with something even better. I refuse to raise Chandlor in a way that would make him think the world owes him a favor. When he is bad..he gets in trouble, when he is good…he gets rewarded. Tough love sucks, but is necessary. And always always be thankful for your health and mobility.

All in all this life we lead isn’t an easy one, but it is worth it! We have had our ups and downs…and will continue this same pattern I’m sure, but doesn’t everyone? How would we appreciate the good times without the bad?

For more information about Spina Bifida follow this link http://www.spinabifidaassociation.org/site/c.evKRI7OXIoJ8H/b.8095307/k.4C3B/FAQs_About_Spina_Bifida.htm

Thanks for reading my first blog :D