January 29th

Taxes are done, and now we just have to wait on them. We will be able to pay up on all our bills as well as paying our rent a few months in advance! Im so looking forward to it! I feel like things are starting a new, and all is going to be ok. Raiden is eating 4-6oz every 3 hours, ebony is about to graduate kindergarten, and kai well kai is kai lol. Our family is doing great right now!

January 26th

How many times does one need to tell a 6 and 4 year old to clean their room?? Im sick of asking all day! Sigh and then when i take the time to clean it they dont say thank you, and its worse within a hour. Wonder what can be done to help them understand that they need to help clean their room. Need new techniques on how to discipline with out them rebelling. Ebony is almost a lost cause...screams and crys every time i ask if she can go clean her room.

On the upside, they are having a blast helping take care of their brother. What stinks is that Kai has been sick like 4 times since raiden has been born.. not sure if one of those was bad allergies but its rare for him to get sick this many times. Poor thing he loves being around his brother too, and now he cant be close.

Ebony looks like she is excited but really she wants to hold him and give him back LOL she loves her brother but she has "Been there done that" lol

January 25th

Happy 3 Month Birthday Raiden!!! You light up my life and every day you make me more proud and more blessed that im your mother.
With that said i have a new idea for a tattoo for him. My first idea was a combination of all three of the kids names but their meanings. So ebony, kai, and raiden would translate into a picture of the ocean at night with lightning...still working on designs for it and a place for it to go. But my most recent thought is his footprint either on my chest near my heart, or someplace else..not sure yet.
Today we ventured out to the mall...had to do our taxes. And what a great trip that was! Not only will we be getting a ok amount back, i was able to window shop for myself and the kids! I cant wait too a sling and new clothes for raiden, and new shoes and some clothes for the kids!
And what do i get!? A brand new wardrobe! When i became pregnant with raiden i was 210Lbs!!! The heavist i have ever been in my life! Right now i am 180! I lost 30lbs just having him!!! I still have a ways to go but right now only tank tops and 1 pair of jeans fits me right now. So i get to go shopping for myself and it feels good seeing how its been a long time since iv shopped just for me.

Skipping A Few Days or Weeks..

Trying to find the motivation to get things done is so hard... but i want to do sooo much. I would love to decorate our apartment but alas we are hoping to move out soon. So here i am looking at things to make our new place cute and our own...no we dont know where we are going, but i like to think about what it would look like. Thinking of ways to decorate help me escape the perils from the day, like finding out that our SSI application after 31 days still hasnt been processed. One of those times when being on hold for over 20minutes really makes a person want to break their phone.
And in other news i found out that my birth controll was the culprate to why my supply started dwindlling away. So obviously its condoms or no sex..well so far its the latter. We are just to scared to do anything cuz we dont want to have a 4th child right now. Maybe when raiden is in school but deff not right now.

The perils of Pumping

When i had my daughter we tried nursing. Because she is tonge tied it made it difficult to latch on. Once that was determined the reason for her inability to nurse i was given the option to pump. I remember it like it was yesterday (you never forget your first time hehe) my mother and i were sitting in the lactaion office at the hospital. The consultant came in with the pump. Got me all hooked up, and wouldnt you know it i screamed at her soon as she turned it on!! haha I was embarassed and mad all at the same time. I was also young and dumb and swore i wasnt doing that again. When my daughter turned 5months i found out i was pregnant with her brother...4 months later i was put to the test yet once again. Thankfully he wasnt tonge tied. He tried to nurse but my milk hadnt come in untill 4 days after he was born. By that time he was used to the bottle..so i didnt even try.
When i became pregnant with Raiden my husband was adimit about his son nursing. For my love for him i said we can at least try. Little did we know that he was going to be born with HLHS. Once he was stable in the PICU i made myself pump..i kept telling myself that this was for the health of my son, and that he needed my milk more than formula and it was going to help him get strong and healthy. (might be why i over produced too) I felt and still feel like im a milk factory! My supply has gone down within this last week, and im trying every natural way of getting my supply back. Its never fun having maintenance men working on your apartment and screwing with your schedule..but its a thousand times worse when you need to pump or nurse your baby. I could have put a note on the door telling them to come back in 45 min, but i know the work would never had gotten done. I also could have just nursed him and had a blanket over him...but im way to conscious of myself to do that with strange men walking in and out of my house.
But now im back on track..and have to remember that i HAVE to wake up at least once in the middle of the night to pump and then to pump ever 3 hours max. With a kindergarten and a  4yr old its hard doing that every 3 hours. I dont think my stress right now is helping any either. I drink close to a gallon of water a day some days more, and i will admit i have a addiction to caffeine. I have to have at least one diet pepsi in my day and a cup of coffee.  I just dont feel complete without those. Its hard but i have to do it to keep my lil guy strong.

The first month

It was amazing, i forgot how easy it was to wake up with the baby to feed and to change his diapers. It also helped that he came home after 3 weeks so he had a sleeping schedule partially down. And i had had some rest so i wasnt exhausted myself. By 7 weeks old i was able to get raiden to sleep from 10pm to 6am! I hear stories about moms having a hard time getting their little ones to sleep all night or to just get on a schedule period, and i am so glad that i was blessed with kids that like to sleep! My other two started sleeping from 7pm-7am at 6weeks old. So i think Raiden is doing very well! He wakes up just in time for his medicine at 6am then around 6:60-7am he is back to sleep until 9am. Some mornings he stays up and takes longer naps during the day, but that doesnt bother me.
The hardest part of him sleeping all night is for me to wake up and pump. I started pumping 3-4days after he was born. I wasnt sure of the resources i had and my husband bought me a hand held electric pump so that i didnt loose my milk. Then a week after that i had an appointment with WIC and was issued a media pump. And thank goodness becuase my little pump's motor is about to die! lol On average i was pumping 2-3 ounces from each breast. One morning i was able to pump 5 ounces each. My lil guy was going to be well fed. After i was used to pumping i started freaking out. My chest didnt hurt, the "girls" felt normal again. Not one of my lactation cunsultants had given me a heads up that they go back to "normal" once used to producing milk. I thought that they were saposed to feel engorged when it was time to pump or nurse. I dont miss that feeling but since out of the 3 kids this is my first time breast feeding it scared me cuz i thought i was loosing my milk. And of the three this was not the time to loose milk i needed him to have this!

November 16th 2010

I woke up at 5am ready to give Raiden his medicine. We were still at the hospital just waiting for his cardiologist to come in and give us the discharge papers. They had explained how to weigh him (we were given a take home scale) and they also gave us a Oxygen reading machine. He gets his blood pressure meds twice a day, he gets lasiks twice a day, and he gets asprin in the morning. 6am and 6pm...easy to remember. When everything was said and done, we got the discharge papers and our little soldier out of the hospital at 11am. 

The first place we went was to see his great grand mother. She wasnt able to make it to the hospital after he was born so we thought we would see her before we went home. After our visit we picked up ebbs and kai from our friends house and went home. They were sooo happy that their little brother was home. For days they asked where he was and why the baby wasnt home. Its amazing how little kids think, they understand so much more than we give them credit for. I would ask ebony (age 6) if she knew where her brother was. She would answer and say "yes hes at the hospital" i would then ask her if she knew why he was at the hospital and she would respond "he had to have his heart worked on to make him stronger". If only she knew.

It was an amazing first day back. I had all my babies with my in my arms, my life felt complete once again!

The PICU

 I was there every day or night with the exception of 3 days. And those were the hardest 3 days to be away from him. My other 2 children had colds and i had no sitter for them, plus my husband was at work. And to top all that off we only have one car, and my folks had gone back to WA. Mentally knowing that i knew there was nothing i could do, but emotionally i felt like i was letting raiden down for not being there with him. All our nurses understood our situation and were very helpful, except for one. She was a new nurse that over saw him for that 3 day period and called me asking when i was going to be there to see him. I explained that i couldnt make it in and she said i needed to be there because of the baby. Duh i had to be there but if my other kids couldnt be watched and were sick what was i to do. My family flew down to stay as long as they could and went back home. I had no one else to help out. I talked to the social worker about what happened with the nurse and let her know our situation. Last thing i needed was CPS being called on me because i wasnt there. She understood and helped out with parking passes. (not that it was the problem) Thank goodness that i had told them i was pumping and planned on nursing, i was able to receive free vouchers for breakfast lunch and dinner while i was visiting with him. He was rarely awake and when he was he was just so perfect.
Everyday was a mile stone for him. They were worried about him being able to breath on his own, and he was able to. They worried about him not being able to eat from a bottle well due to the tube that was put down his throat, and as soon as the took the feeding tube out he was eating the normal amount of milk for his age. He just kept surprising them. It got to the point where i think they were expecting him to do really bad and he just kept proving them wrong. Then on the 13th of november we did our 2day overnight in the PICU. He wasnt hooked up to anything and we took care of him with very little help from the nurses. And then it happened.. on november 16th 2010, Raiden was able to go home with us!!!

Raiden's Surgery

I never thought that i would have to spend any long period of time in a hospital for any of my children. Yet here we were, with our 1 week old son. Waiting for him to go in for his heart surgery. I couldnt handle not being at the hospital and was there at 7am with my husband. Before this, this was the first time i had seen my husband cry. We talked all day, trying to keep our spirits up. Thankfully my family was able to watch the children while we were there. Around 4pm we were called back up to the PICU. So many thoughts were going threw my head...was he ok..was the surgery successfull?? I needed to know! And there he was, laying in the warmer with his little chest opened up. First thing i did was cry, and then the dr told us that he went threw the surgery with flying colors!! They let us know that his chest would be open 24-48 hours for that just in case they needed to go back in, in a rush. I couldnt stay that night with him, i couldnt bare seeing his chest open like that. At the same time it killed me to be at home, yet the nurses and dr's told me to go home and get rest. They could see i was pushing myself beyond what i should have been doing.
We were back the next day sitting with him...it was so strange seeing him like that. I learned then that he might be in the hospital for 30 days. I didnt know how we were going to keep this up. Driving back and forth, my daughter was in school, my son was sick with a cold so he couldnt be there with me. I felt like everything was falling apart, and fast.
November 3rd we got a phone call from the dr saying they were closing up his chest that everything was looking great...better than expected even. It felt so good to hear that...my little man was so strong!! We got to the hospital just hours after his chest was closed up, still heavily sedated but he looked calm and content. Its so amazing how resilient babies little bodies are.

Being Discharged

Raiden was in the NICU at UC Davis for a few days before he was moved into the PICU. He was admited on the 26th of october and on November 16th we were able to take him home. But that time in between was the hardest time. When we walked in and saw him the first day i had just been discharged from where i had given birth to him. It was hard to walk, the epi was still wearing off, it hurt a lil to sit, but no matter what i was determined to walk and see my son. Seeing him in the incubation crib was so hard. All i could do was cry, i know that the dr was trying to tell me what was going on and what they had to do to raiden, but i couldnt hear any of it. All i heard was the sounds of the heart monitor and beeping of other monitors on him. A social worker was talking to us and for that time i was able to get my mind back to where we were to answer her questions. I hate social workers, i know that they are there to help, but iv had bad experiences and heard of how they can ultimately hurt you in the end with how personal they can get with their questions. Mark took me home round 3pm i needed sleep i had been awake way to long and was sleep deprived. But once i got home i couldnt sleep.
I started cleaning and organizing, i didnt know what to do with myself. My other two children came home for a few hours and they were able to help distract my mind. I knew then that i had to be strong for not just raiden but for them as well.

Then Things Changed...

It was crazy, by far the easiest labor iv ever had. Really it was nothing! Had Raiden LaRoy at 9:33am on Monday October 25 2010. The epidural that i received was to high so i still couldn't feel my legs, but other than that i was feeling great! I had to share a room for the first time, and id have to say id rather not do that again. A couple hours after he was born we tried to see if he would breast feed. And he was a champ at it!! I never breast feed my other two so this was not only a new experience for me but it felt so good having that close connection to him. That first 24-32 hours were great.Well besides having to make sure that the other persons' guest didnt see me whip out by breast to feed the baby. At 8pm my nurse came in to check on us and noticed that raiden was breathing a bit fast. She said she was going to go have him looked at (just in case). When she came back in the room with out him i knew something was wrong and started tearing up. She said that she hoped it wasnt what she thought it was but was having the dr staff to take a look at him. A hour or so later his cardiologist came in the room to talk to mark and i. He let us know that raiden had high acid levels in his blood and needed to do more test to confirm his suspicions about what was wrong with raiden. Mark went home to shower (and break down) and came back around 1am. I laid there crying not knowing what was going to happen to my child, the cardiologist just told us that there was a good chance that our son was going to die. I tried my damndest not to sob to loud cuz there was still a person in the bed next to me and it was 10:30pm at that point. At 11pm they wheeled raiden into my room in the mobile incubator. They were taking him to UC Davis where the top Pediatric Cardiac Surgeons are in our area. They asked if i wanted to hold his hand before they took him and i did, but honestly i was so afraid of touching him. Once he was gone, again i cried. Iv never in my life cried as hard as i did that night. Nurses kept coming in the room checking on me and making sure that i was ok. All i wanted to do was go to sleep, i knew there was nothing i could do, nor could i follow him to the hospital that night. I started to drift into sleep when yet another nurse came into the room. She started praying with me (more her than me i has half asleep and didnt have the strength to tell her to get out of my room). Looking back on it now i laugh but seriously the woman was laying up on me telling me i was so strong. CREEPY!!! I know she had good intentions but come on!! After she left i tried going back to sleep..mind you i had been up since 5am and by that time it was close to 1am. When mark made it back i was finally able to get sleep, after many times my nurse told me to go to sleep, he made sure that they didnt bother me so that i could get sleep. I was so glad to get out of the hospital so that we could go to UC Davis to see our son.

Pregnancy After 4 Years

2 months after I miscarried we were moved into a hotel by our apartments due to a black mold problem. Thank goodness for that, it was disgusting. Thank goodness it was in our bedroom and not the kids. It was while we were at the hotel that we found out I was pregnant yet again. My husband had this funny feeling that i might be so he took it upon himself to buy 3 pregnancy test (he wanted to make sure). I took the test on 3 different days at different times just to see what they results would be. The first test was very faint, the second a lil darker, and the third bright pink. I tried going back to my dr but found that my insurance had changed and had to find a new dr.
The dr that i found was a older gentlemen and was, and still is, awesome. I normally dont like male drs but i felt comfortable with him. He did all the initial test that are to be done, blood work, glucose test, ect. Every time i went in i asked it the baby was ok. The last miscarriage really sent me for a loop. When i hit 11 weeks i was paranoid. I didnt want to do anything because i was so scared of loosing the baby. And yes there was a heartbeat and an ultrasound done and there was a baby!
At 14 weeks were found out that we were having a boy!! I was so excited to see his heart beating. To see his little face. I couldnt believe i was having another son. My husband and other son were in the room with me when we found out. All my son kept saying was, "mommie look thats my baby on the tv!" He was so excited, which made me almost cry.
I only had morning sickness for 3 months and sailed threw the rest of the pregnancy. It was around 7 1/2 months that i became very dehydrated and went into pre-term labor. The drs were able to stop it and i upped my half a gallon of water intake to a gallon. After that i was good, threw the month of september and october i had contractions everyday. On the evening of october 24th round 8:30pm i felt like i needed to use the bathroom. I asked my husband to help me up off the couch so i could waddle down the hallway. I had just stepped into the bathroom when my water broke..right there, all over the floor! That was a new experience because the drs had to break my water with my son and daughter.
No one told me that once your water breaks...it doesnt stop. I thought it would, but it was like a gush every so often. So not lady like lol. Once i was upstairs they had already called the anastesiologyst. It took him 3 stabs at my back to get the epidural in correctly. Of the whole labor process getting that done was the most painful part, literally.  By 9:33am on october 25 my son was born.

The first time...

The first time we found out i was pregnant we were extactic. A 3rd child and the first for my husband then Fiancée. But it was at 7 weeks that my dr told me of her concerns about the pregnancy. She couldnt find a heartbeat. She said that it wasnt to worry, it can be hard to find that early. At 9 weeks she gave me the news that she believed that i had a blighted ovum, and that is the reason she couldnt find a heart beat. That night i told my husband the news.. He was upset but kept high spirits for me and my other two children. At 10 weeks the dr prepared me for the possibility again, and told me what to do if i miscarried. That saturday on the day of 11 weeks i miscarried. I have never been threw that kind of physical pain before. My kids were so excited that they were going to have another brother or sister, and it pained me to tell them that they werent. And at the age of 4 and 5 they really didnt understand that i wasnt pregnant anymore. I stayed in bed for 4 days. I couldnt move, couldnt take care of the kids, couldnt function. It was to hard to deal with and i didnt know how to cope with it. We agreeded that it was a sign that maybe then wasnt a good time to have a baby, we only had one income and were struggling as it was.