Why I Haven't Been Blogging

I've pretty much almost dropped off the face of the blogging world for the last half a year and I have finally decided that I really want to start up again now that things have finally started to settle down. Meanwhile I'd like to write a little bit about what's been going on to catch the ol' blog up to speed.

Sometime last summer, maybe the beginning of July, we began attending a new church. We had been searching for a family integrated church and when we tried this one it was everything we'd been searching for and more. We hadn't had a real church home since summer of 2005. In the months since we started attending this church, they have been a tremendous blessing to our family. I know God brought us there just in time for what we would face the rest of the year!

August and September:

(PIC LEFT: Mom in December of 2010, the last time I saw her before she stopped letting us take pictures of her.) In September my Mom lost her 10 year battle with cancer and went Home to Jesus. I was blessed to be able to make the trip to the other end of the state to visit her in August one last time. She didn't want me to see her because she didn't want me to see her and remember her like that, and yes, it was horribly hard to see her that way, but I'm so very glad I got to just go and spend a little time with her one more time. I took my oldest daughter with me, who was almost 5 years old at the time. Chicklet did very well with it. Much better than I did. She told my mom, "Grammie I'm so sad that you have to go to heaven soon and I won't see you for a long time, but I'm so happy that you won't be ouchie any more!" She gave her lots of gentle hugs and kisses but she spent most of the visit happily painting nearby. After we returned home, Mom eventually slipped into a coma, and on September 4th she left this world.

(PIC RIGHT: 6 months preggo. No it's not twins. *sigh*) I'd been having problems with preterm labor since 12 weeks with this pregnancy. It was connected to the stress of losing Mom, as it happened every time I got a report that Mom had taken a turn for the worse, of which there were many. When she died, I had to force myself to ignore and not deal with any of the feelings of greif until the baby was safely born.

(PIC LEFT: Birthday girl!) September 7th my sweetie-Weetie turned 1 year old. I planned to write her birth story out on my blog in honor of it but being 3 days after my Mom died, I didn't really have the heart to do much. Actually we had planned a joint birthday party for the girls on the 10th and I considered postponing it but decided it might be just what I needed to get my mind off things and help me to avoid letting the greif send me into labor yet again. So on the 10th we went ahead with the birthday party.

(PIC RIGHT: Birthday girl too!) On the 17th my Chicklet turned 5 years old, and the next day we discovered she had a loose tooth. 2 days later another one started wiggling too, and she lost them both soon after. They were the first two teeth she got as a baby and she was an early teether so it makes sense she would loose those two first and early.
(PIC BELOW: 1 lost and 1 loose.)

While we were visiting Mom in August, she insisted on buying our curriculum as her last gift, so she ordered the curriculum we had chosen for Chicklet for us. When it came we were very excited. Chicklet flew easily through the first third of the MFW K curriculum in the following few months before we began a very long break for the holidays and new baby.

Also in the month of September I had to have my top right wisdom tooth pulled. It had a terrible cavity that was causing me alot of pain and I was not sorry to see it go only because I naturally never had a bottom right wisdom tooth so that top one came in tilted and was always sawing up the empty gums where the one that never existed should have been. If I'd had a bottom wisdom tooth on that side I would not have been enthused at the prospect of losing it's counterpart. So I had it pulled and it was a long and difficult extraction. I had nightmares afterward about the cracking sound as the dentist pulled it out. And then we got the flu and it made it's way slowly through the family. September was a rather difficult month...

Our new church brought us meals for a week after Mom died. I was so touched that they would do that... we were still so new there!

October and November:
October brought my Mom's birthday and the pain of knowing that it would come around likely many more times again before we would be joining her in Paradise. I thought about her celebrating in Heaven with her parents and sister that went on before her.
I dreamt of her alot.

In November we celebrated our first Thanksgiving alone. We almost always spend it with my husband's family, and last year we had just lost my Nana and knew Mom might not have another Thanksgiving herself, so we spent it with my family. This year with all the preterm labor I couldn't make the drive safely so we stayed home. The day before Thanksgiving the prodromal labor started. No, not Braxton Hicks (been having those for months), and no not full blown labor either (been there too a few dozen times during my Mom's slow passing). These were nonstop painful contractions that felt like the real thing only didn't actually make enough progress to be real. I would be contracting nearly nonstop for another month.

December:
In December the end of pregnancy crazies started. You moms will know what I'm talking about. That part where you're waking up every day wondering if today will be the day and then going to bed every night bawling because today was not the day. That part where it hurts so much to move or not move and you don't want to go anywhere because people keep asking how far overdue you are and reminding you how miserable you are. When your mind starts playing tricks on you and your grasp on sanity starts losing itself in a whirlpool of hormones. And in my insanity I did something very. very. very. stupid...

It was December 24th and my first possible due date had come and gone and there were some people at the gas station on the corner holding a sign that said free. They were also holding... puppies. Yes I did. Yes, I was not thinking clearly at all. They were just so cuuuute. And my "I need to be snuggling a baby right now" instinct was in overdrive.
(PIC BELOW: The furry little rascal in question.)

Around 2:30 in the morning on Christmas day, something changed with the prodromal labor. It was trying to actually go somewhere. I did NOT want a Christmas day baby so I tried everything I could think of to stall it out but it would not be stalled. It kid of backed off for a few hours, long enough to take alot of pictures of my babies enjoying their presents, long enough to make eat Christmas dinner.

(PIC ABOVE: The SuperBug opening presents.)

By that evening I knew I was in "real" labor but was confused as to why it was taking so long. I'll write up the whole story eventually but looooong story short, I was in labor for 3 days and delivered a healthy baby girl on my birthday, December 27th, at 8:54pm. It was my first home birth. She was born in a pool in my kitchen and came out of the water screaming and pink and hungry! We named her Hannah Joy and she was my second smallest at 8 pounds 6 ounces. She's beautiful and has big juicy cheeks that everyone comments on. :)

(PIC ABOVE: The morning after her birth.)

I'll have to come back and tell you about the beginning of this year and throw in some pics later (ETA PICS!) because right now I hear a certain tiny person making hungry sounds, and 3 other small people acting cranky and in need of being put to bed. ;)

~*Jessica*~