Lessons in Forgiveness, as Taught by a Four Year Old.

Okay! How stinkin cute are these little snow babies? Ya, I made those! In my mind, we were going to find the perfect spot to take a picture, and get an amazing picture with both kids looking and smiling...perfect spot, check! That is about the only thing that went right. Did my picture turn out cute? Yes. Did Kastyn cry the WHOLE time because he moved when I told him not to move and got his hands covered in snow? YES! As Wesley and I stood in snow to our knees, just trying to get him to settle down for ONE STINKIN PICTURE! It is the moments like those that I pray every day to have patients for. As I type I am continually asking him not to touch the keys on my keyboards, and then deleting all of the things he is typing. And I want to bite his little fingers off. 

I was raised in a really good home, and taught a lot of great things. But it was also a normal occurrence for someone to loose their temper. I have been blessed with that wonderful, wonderful habit. My anger starts to bubble, and I loose it. Since I have become a Mom, I have become more and more ashamed of this habit. Since becoming a Mom, I have also learned about the amazing blessing of a child's ability to forgive easily.

Everyday, I get upset at Kastyn for one thing or another, and just as I am kicking myself for the way I handled it, he comes up to me asking for a hug and a kiss(He gives THE BEST hugs in the world by the way) and tells me that he loves me.

He has to wear a patch over his right eye for 2-4 hours every day. Some days go smoothly, and other days, he asks when he gets to take it off about every five minutes. He has also figured out just the right way to rub it so that it will "fall off", assuming he will get lucky and not have to put another one on. Well today it "fell off" about twenty minutes after I put it on, after I continually asked him to stop rubbing it so it wouldn't come off. I lost it a little bit and ripped it the rest of the way off. He cried and told me that it hurt, and I told him to stop being a baby as I put on a new patch. When it was FINALLY time to take the second one off(on days like today, it is just as hard for me to keep it on as it is for him) he carefully removed it, and I saw the huge red marks that I had left on the side of his eye from the first patch. He wasn't being a baby, it did hurt. By the looks of it, it really hurt! After looking at it over and over again, I told him that it looked really bad, and that I was really, really sorry for hurting him like that. His response was,"It's okay Mom, it doesn't even hurt anymore."

This kid never ceases to amaze me. No matter what I do, and how terrible I feel about it, he is always so quick to forgive me, and tell me that he loves me. If everyone in the world could Love and understand forgiveness like a child does, there wouldn't be raids, or shootings or protests. I know that the issues surrounding all of these things are much bigger then your mom loosing her temper with you because you didn't listen to her. But the concept of the forgiveness is the same. I hope that one day, people will realize that all of this hate and violence isn't solving anything, and it's only causing more hate and violence. When I grow up I want to be just like Kastyn and spend my days being as loving and forgiving as he is right now!  

Life Lessons of the NICU

I know, I know, I have harped on this NICU thing long enough. I feel like its starting to get far enough behind us that I need to just stop talking about it. But the fact of the matter is, it was a huge part of our life. It was where we started getting to know our sweet little girl. Having a baby in the NICU was one of the hardest things I have ever gone through, and also one of the most amazing things. When you hear about the NICU you always here about all of the hard and scary things that go on there, but you never hear about all of the good things. Now that we are home, I find myself missing little things about it. I sometimes find myself wondering what the NICU nurses are talking about at that moment. We went and visited yesterday, and though I was hyperventilating as I was walking through the hospital, it was so good to see all of those amazing people who helped us and took care of our Laynee.

When you have a full term baby you get sent home 1-3 days later with your baby in tow, and you just figure it out. When you have a baby in the NICU you aren't aloud to leave until you have taken a CPR class. I took the class as soon as I could so I wouldn't have to worry about it later. But I didn't know that my "education" would end there. The hardest thing to understand about a premature baby that was Laynee's size is that they look fine! On the outside they are a perfect tiny little baby. But on the inside, there are so many basic things that they just don't know how to do. Like eating! It takes them a lot more time then I ever expected to figure out how to eat, and how to eat without getting tired. Which means there is a lot of choking involved. I never thought I would have to learn how to stimulate my baby to get her to breath. I will never forget the first time she stopped breathing while she was eating. Her lips started turning blue before the monitors started going off. At first I couldn't believe that the nurse was watching me try to figure it out. But as she talked me through what I neede to do, I started to calm down a little. As Laynee started to breath again, I realized, my nurses hands were there the whole time. She was totally ready to take her at the chance that I was unable to do what I needed to do. I am SO glad she didn't. Although scary, I needed to learn that. I have had to use those skills since we have brought her home. I remember them telling me she would grow out of it, and I didn't understand how one could "grow out" of choking. But she did! Her brain is developed enough now that she knows what to do to recover if she is chocking.

I learned that every bodies situation is different. There were so many days that I would go home so discouraged because I had to sit there and watch someone take their baby home, and they had only been there for a couple of days. I had been there for 3 week! Why were they going home and we weren't?!?! Because their babies weren't as early as mine. Their baby could breath without oxygen, mine couldn't. Their baby was ready, my wasn't. I was lucky enough to be able to spend almost all of my time at the hospital. Kastyn was being taken care of by my in-laws, and even though I missed him like crazy, it was so nice to be able to spend all of the time I wanted(sometimes needed to more then wanted to) at the hospital. I didn't have to worry about getting home to get him from the baby sitter, and try and go back and forth all day. This however created a judging problem in my head. The mom of the baby next to use was never there! Her baby was born the day after Laynee and they were the same gestational age. He wasn't on oxygen, and picked up on eating a little faster then Laynee did. I was so so frustrated that I was spending all of my time there with my baby, and her baby seemed to be doing better. "Seemed" being the key word! He only went home a day earlier then we did. I had these terrible feelings toward this mom up until about 3 days before we were able to come home. I was walking out to my truck to go home for the night, and I ran into this mom in the parking garage. O crap I thought!! Now she is going to talk to me, and I am going to have to pretend to be nice to her. Come to find out, she had had strep throat for a week and then the rest of her family got it. So that is why she wasn't there for 2 of the 4 weeks that they were there. Plus she had 3 other kids at home, one of them a little younger then Kastyn, who begged her not to leave every time she needed to go to the hospital. She had tears in her eyes as she was telling me about this. Then she did it!! She said,"I am so glad that I can talk to you about this! We are both going through this together, and even though we don't know each other, I feel like we have this awesome connection knowing exactly how the other one feels!" Then she gave me a big HUGE hug! As I walked away, I felt like I had just been kicked in the stomach with metal cleats! This woman had just been so nice to me, and in the last three weeks, I had not one good thought about her! I was such a terrible person! However, I do find it much easier to slow my judgement on people I don't know. And I am committed to teaching this lesson to my children. You never know what someone is going through just by looking at them, or hearing bits and pieces of their life through a curtain.

I learned how to appreciate all the little things my kids do. Kastyn came to visit one night and got a couple of toys out while he was home. They didn't get put away until after we were home. I even vacuumed around them! Now my house gets really messy and I make him clean it up every couple of days. But I always remind myself how sad I was when he wasn't here to make a mess. Every milestone Laynee has made, big or small, has been so amazing to me! I get so excited every time she does something new! Just being able to pick her up and hold her for as long as I want is still an amazing feeling! It may also be a little bit of the reason why she is so spoiled!

I have always known that Wesley loves me. And that he will always be here for me when I need him. but this experience reiterated that for me. From the minute that we found out that our baby was really coming  8 weeks early he was AMAZING! I could tell that he was freaking out! Partly from the tears running down his face,(He NEVER cries. I think I have only seen it one other time in the 10 years that we have known each other.)But even though he was scared, he gave me the most amazing priesthood blessing! After that, I knew that no matter what happened or how hard it got, we were going to get through it. TOGETHER! We had a lot of alone time during that month, and I learned that it is possible to be intimate with each other even though we weren't aloud to be "intimate"(wink, wink!)

Like I said, it was one of the hardest things I have ever been through. It was also the most AMAZING thing I have ever been through. I hope to one day help parents like me have as positive of a NICU experience as possible.

A Letter to My Kids

I have been in a bit of a funk lately. I can't seem to pinpoint why, but I could give a few reason why it may be happening. But I am not writing this to complain about what is going on in my head. Cause we would be here all night, and it wouldn't solve anything. However, as I impatiently wait for this "funk" to pass, I can't help but look at my kids and hope that they never have to feel the way that I have felt at many times in my life. I believe that they were put on this earth because they are strong enough to handle the hardships that go along with being a kid in this generation. But I never want to see them go through the things that I did, or worse, harder things, and not know what to do for them. I know that it is inevitable that this is going to happen. So I wrote them a letter of the things I hope that they can learn from my life experiences.

My sweet children,

As your Mom, I will always hope that you know how special you are. However, I know that it is not that easy. I remember coming home so upset because of a boy(most of the time your Dad:)) or trouble with friends and my parents would tell me,"Brother So and So, or Mrs. So and So has nothing but good things to say about you. They are always talking about how positive and friendly you are." I remember thinking, "Are you guys nuts? I don't care what YOUR friends think! That is not going to make that boy like me, or that girl be friends with me" I get it, at your age, the opinion of an adult is nothing more then a grain of sand. I wish I could tell you it will get easier, but it doesn't. Even at my age I watch people that I associate with get together and I wonder what its so wrong with me that they don't ever think to invite me. I hope that you can learn at a young age that it doesn't matter how many friends you have, or how often you get invited to do things. What matters is knowing who you are, and being confident in that knowledge.

As a teenager, I was so desperate to have friends that I was willing to compromise my morals, and do things that I knew were wrong just so I could feel excepted by my peers. All that got me was a ticket for $1,300, 40 hours of community service, and a huge moment in my life where I realized that I could never trust those people that I thought were my friends. It is never worth it to disrespect yourself in order to gain the "respect" of others.

NEVER GIVE UP! When you find your passion, the thing that you love, hold on to it until you reach your full potential. Never let anyone tell you that you cant do something. Never let them tell you that you are not good enough, or that you should just give up. YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH!! You can do anything that you set your mind to. Never be afraid to try new things and push your limits. It OK to be a little scared sometimes, or to go outside of your comfort zone. Those are the things that will make you strong.

Kastyn, I never want you to feel like you are different then everyone else. Those things that make you different just make you, you. There is nothing wrong with having those little things that make us different, If we weren't supposed to be different we would all look the same. And though it may have made things easier, it would have also made for a boring life. You have a personality like no other person in this world. You are so smart and pick up on things so fast, we don't even know where these things come from. Always be YOU, and never let anyone make you feel like that isn't good enough.

My sweet Laynee, if there is one thing I want you to learn as a girl, it is to take care of, and love your body. I have always had insecurities with the way that my body looked, and I never want you to feel the way that I have felt. It is OK if you don't look like the girls on the magazines, or in the movies. Never compare yourself to other people. You don't know their story, and they don't know yours.

Always remember, we are not given tough times to punish us. We are given tough times to make us stronger. The things that we go through in life strengthen our relationships, and make us appreciate the things that we may have been taking for granted. Tough times never last, but tough people do. You are never alone. You will always have a Heavenly Father that is there for you. Turn to him often. Be strong! Love life! And always know that you are good enough!!

Love, MOM

Don't Get That on My Sweatpants!!

Kastyn always has to have a napkin. He can't stand to have messy fingers. He will ask for you to wash his hands half way through eating a handful of cheesy chips. And I have to take full responsibility for this un-boyish behavior!! When he first started feeding himself, I would literally sit next to him with a wet wipe so that I could wipe his hand after every bite. I couldn't bear the thought of him actually TOUCHING ME with his messy fingers...OK lets be honest, I still can't bear the thought of it!! Heaven forbid he gets cheesy finger prints on my sweatpants, and my over sized t-shirt that I have 25 others just like it sitting in my closet(I pretty much live in my t-shirts from all of the 5 and 10K's that I have ran. Cause who wants to sit around the house in a blouse and jeans?)

I don't know where this problem came from! I should just be able to tell myself, "He's just being a boy. Let him be messy!" YEAH RIGHT!! My friend can let her kids eat anything, get anything on their fingers, hands, face and clothes, and she doesn't even bat an eyelash!! She just changes their outfit, or wipes their hands off. OF COURSE!! Just wash their hands when they are done!! YEAH, NO!! The second I feel like those fingers are coming towards me, there might as well be 20 spiders crawling all over me!! That's really how I feel!! My skin starts crawling and I start hyperventilating.

Last Christmas my Mom asked me what Kastyn wanted for Christmas. We had just went to look at the lights at temple square and went for a stroll through City Creek afterwards. There is a HUGE toy store there! And as we were walking through Kastyn found a little Play Dough set with a truck and some fun things to go with it. We told him that maybe Santa could bring him some for Christmas. So when my mom asked me what he would want, I told her play dough! I used to play with play dough all of the time and I loved it!

She passed the message along to my aunt, whose son had "drawn out" Kastyn's name for the gift exchange, and she got him a cute little set with a fire truck! He LOVES firetrucks!! It took a couple days before we got it out, and when we finally did, I was so excited for him to play with his play dough!! IT GOT ALL OVER MY FLOOR!! All over my rug, all over my table.all over the chair!! What was I thinking?!?! This was NOT fun!! He had a huge smile on his face, and all I wanted to do was put it all away and never get it out again!! So now...because I am such an awesome mom, I usually come up with a dumb reason why he cant get it out. Or just tell him that he can play with it later, in the hopes that he will forget about it. Which almost always works!! WINNER!!

Today, I have to sweep my floors because there is dried up play dough from this afternoon all over it. But you should have seen my little guys face. It was like a "you never let me do anything fun" look, and I couldn't even handle it today. So we got it out. He played with it, I played with him, and all I have to do is sweep up a few little pieces off of my kitchen floor. Just like all I would have to do is wipe the cheesy, sticky fingerprints off of my $10 sweatpants that probably have a bleach stain on them somewhere!


I am lucky enough that Kastyn wont be starting Kindergarten until he is 6, because his birthday is one day after the deadline. Could I probably work the system and get him in? Yes. I don't think 1 day would make much of a difference. But I don't want him to be turning 5 when everyone else is turning 6, and so on and so forth for the rest of his educational career. So, I still have him home with me, (with the exception of the 2 hours a day, 2 days a week preschool he is staring in the fall) for 2 more years. Some days he drives me nuts and I wish it was sooner. Some days he doesn't listen and he gets his cheesy fingerprints everywhere!! But one day. I am going to miss those fingerprints. And I will probably make them myself just to make myself feel better about not having a messy boy that follows me around the house everywhere I go. But, its still going to make my skin crawl when I see those messy fingers coming towards me!! What can I say, no matter how many "deep thoughts" I have about the future, some things will never change.

Today...I Quit!

Here I sit, rocking my baby who I just got to settle down after 2 hours of crying, and now that I have this FINALLY peaceful baby in my arms, all I keep thinking is,"my NICU nurses would have figured this out an hour and a half ago." My head hurts, I just snapped at Kastyn, which he responded to asking for a kiss, and I just want to quit!!

Even with all of that, I would never say that having two kids has been hard for me. It's actually been a lot better then I expected, and I think I appreciate it more because I didn't have either of them home with me for the first month that I was actually a "2 kid parent". Honestly on days like today, I don't think that I am not cut out to have 2 kids. I think that I am not cut out to have any kids. Patients is never something that I have had much of, and it wasn't taught in my home. Exploding when you hit your boiling point is what we learned how to do.

Every night I pray that the next day I will have the patients to let Laynee cry, and to not get mad at Kastyn when he is being a tyipical 3 year old. But it's not easy for me. No matter how hard I pray for it I struggle every day. But I am trying! I'm trying really hard! And I think that's why Kastyn asks me for a kiss after I yell at him. And why I get to look at this beautiful baby girl in my arms while my head is pounding from her 2 hour crying marathon. Because I CAN do it! I can still be a good mom, even though I loose it more then I should. And my kids have heard me yell as much as they have heard me laugh. They also know I love them.

Maybe one day I'll be able to solve a problem without blowing up, or completely shutting down. But for now I am going to give out the kisses, no matter how crappy I feel about my actions after. I'm a loud mom, but I am a work in progress, and one day, it's going to pay off.

Mother of the Year Award.

We have all heard of it. If only it were a real thing that represented something good. Unfortunately we have all received it, some days we get it on more then one occasion. I know that there isn't a day that goes by that I don't receive it at least once a day. So...I thought that I would help make everyone feel better and give you my Top 5 reasons why I am the mother of the year.

5. So far, having a second child has not been as hard as I anticipated it to be. But the hardest part is SLEEP! When you only have one kid, you can sleep when they sleep, not matter what time of the day, or night that it is. But, that doesn't work so well when you have two. Especially when the older one gave up naps at least 2 years ago. Needless to say, when the baby sleeps now, I have a lot more laundry to do, a lot more things to pick up off my floor, and a 3 year old to entertain. No time for sleep. I have turned my sweet little boy into a bit of a couch potato. If you turn "his shows" on for him, he is entertained. Ever since we got Laynee home from the hospital a normal morning consists of feeding the baby, turning on the T.V. for Kastyn, and then going to "lay down" with Laynee for a minute. Which is code for,"I'm going back to bed." I can't tell you how many times Kastyn has come in asking for breakfast and I have said "I'll get you some in just a minute." Then fallen back to sleep without realizing it. That is until Kastyn comes in yelling at me because he is STILL hungry, and I haven't gotten his breakfast yet. OOPS! Mother of the Year Award.

4. Last year I decided I was going to potty train Kastyn over Spring Break. Surprisingly it went really well. I made him a chart, and when it was full we would let him go pick out any toy that he wanted. Well he finally filled up the chart and we decided instead of getting him ANOTHER toy to add to the toy box(which really means, to add to my living room floor) we wanted to get him a bike, and start teaching him how to ride. Teaching this kid to ride a bike takes way more patients then God put in my patients cup. Its one of those "the glass is half empty" things. Our house in up a little hill, nothing to dramatic. So one day I was out there trying to teach him how to ride and he still wasn't getting it. But I noticed that when he was starting to go downhill, he was actually getting the motion of pedaling. LIGHT BULB! I just needed to let him go down the hill. I could run next to him so I could catch him if he falls! I AM A GENIUS!! Yeah not so much...he fell WAY faster then I expected him to, and he skinned his elbow. BAD!! Mother of the Year Award.

3. Yesterday we went to my Grandparents' house to have dunner for Fathers Day. After dinner we ended up going to a park nearby and playing some baseball with the cousins. First of all, I only brought 2 diapers with me! I didn't think we would need more then that. So naturally, Laynee pooped, and I didn't have a clean diaper to put on her. As I was getting her in her car seat I was paying more attention to talking to my aunts and cousin, and not enough attention to buckling the baby in. All of the sudden she started SCREAMING!!! We are talking bright red faced, refusing to breath screaming. I couldn't figure out what in the world was wrong until all of the sudden I saw it. The pinch mark on the inside of her thigh! I totally pinched her leg in the buckle of the car seat!! Mother of the Year Award.

2.I absolutely hate sharing my food! I cant tell you haw many times Kastyn has found me in the pantry with a mouth full of candy bar, or some other treat. I just give him a package of fruit snacks to make myself feel better. Mother of the Year Award.

1. We really struggle getting Kastyn to eat dinner. Lunch and breakfast is pretty easy because it is a lot of  kid food". This kid could seriously eat chicken nuggets, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the rest of his life and be totally fine with it. Around Christmas time I think it was in 2013 we had been gone all day long and he had been telling us he was hungry. So we stopped and got him some chicken nuggets from McDonald's We weren't hungry, and we KNEW he would eat chicken nuggets! Apparently since it was now dinner time, he didn't want chicken nuggets anymore. They were yucky! I was at my wits end and I let it all boil up at that one time. I started shoving chicken nuggets into his mouth!! What part of me thought that was a good idea? I don't know! But with as frustrated as I was, it was the best thing I could come up with at the time! I NEEDED HIM TO EAT!! So there I was shoving food in his mouth while he is crying and having a total meltdown, and the next thing I know he throws up all over me!! Serves me right!! I couldn't believe what I had just done. I wasn't accomplishing anything positive by doing what I had just done. I was dissipointed in my self for days!! Mother of the Year award.

I am happy to say that the scabs have healed, the pinch mark is gone, and Kastyn is actually starting to eat better. I still sleep more then I should and hide when I eat my treats, But hey 3 out of 5 aint bad! I'm a work in progress, we all are!! At the end of the day, I take a deep breath, kiss my kids good night, tell them I love them, and think about how cute they are as I am falling asleep, Then I wake up the next day and wait to screw up again!!

Life As We Knew It #nofilter

It didn't hit me how hard it was going to be having a baby in the NICU until I was discharged from the hospital, and going home without my baby. To a house where my other child wasn't going to be. (Kastyn stayed in Ephraim with Wesley's parents for a whole month! We only saw him 3 times in that whole time)For three days, although we were on different floors, all I had to do was get on the elevator and go see my baby whenever I wanted. And if I was tired or needed to get out for a minute, all I had to do was go back up to my room and sit in my bed. The day I was discharged from the hospital started out OK, until the time started ticking down and I realized that I was going to be spending the night an hour and a half away from my baby! I was going from,"She's just downstairs." to "she is in a whole other city over an hour away from me!" I don't think I talked much the whole way home. And no matter how nice it was to go home and sleep in my own bed, all I could think about was how bad I wanted to wake up and get back to my baby.

My sister lived only ten minutes away from the hospital, so we decided that Wesley would go back to work till we got her home, and I would crash on her couch and spend most of my time at the hospital. With Wesley up there with me on Wednesdays(his day off) and the weekends.

The first day went OK. I sat next to my baby in her room all day, And if I needed to get out I would walk down to the hospital cafeteria for lunch, dinner, or to refill my water jug. (The cafeteria at IMC is AMZAZBALLS by the way. We would go there to eat even if we weren't staying in the hospital). My sister worked late that night, so I hung out at the hospital till about 8:30 and decided to leave for the night. I had never been to her apartment before, so it was going to take me a bit to find it anyways. I got there, and literally started moving in to her apartment! I had enough stuff to make it through the week, including a huge blanket and pillow! So I had a lot of stuff. Plus my "hospital grade" breast pump that my insurance paid for me to rent from home health till she was two months old . You should see these suckers!! (I should have taken a picture of it before I gave it back) This thing weighed at leas 20 pounds! Then add the plastic box it comes in is another 5 pounds, with a strap to carry it by that wouldn't stay fastened for more then a minute.

OK enough complaining about how heavy the pump was!! Sorry I get off track sometimes! So I get there and set my huge pile of stuff in her living room, and take my place on the couch. We visited for a few minutes while she waited for her boyfriend to get off of work. When he got home, they decided to go out. She kept asking me if I would mind if she left, and I told her no. I really didn't mind! I didn't want her to feel like she had to entertain me, or be with me the whole time I was there. So they got ready, and they left. The second they closed the door and locked it behind them(I guess that is the kind of thing you do when you live in the city!), I just started bawling!! Not because she left me, or for any reason really! It was honestly just the first time that everything had came to a boiling point. From the minute I was told I was going to be riding on a helicopter and my baby was going to be born 8 weeks early, I never just let it all sink in. There was so much going on, and I had no clue what to expect. So there I was, completely alone for the first time in 4 days, and it all hit me! I had just spent the first day alone, 1 hour away from my husband, and 2 hours away from my little boy, and it hit me what the next few weeks of my life were going to be like.(I have never said anything, to anyone about this particular moment. Partly because I didn't want anyone feeling more sorry for me then they already did, and partly because I felt silly getting so upset, and I really had no idea why I was THAT upset! So Whitney if you are reading this, please do not feel bad! I promise its not because you left me alone in your apartment. Honestly I think I needed that five minutes alone to just break down and let it all sink in.)

I got to the NICU the next day and was told 2 things. 1-My baby had a heart murmur, and they were going to be doing an echo cardiogram to see what was causing that, and 2-There was a possibility of transporting Laynee to Utah Valley hospitals' NICU. Which would mean I could go home with my husband every night, and I would only be a half hour away from my baby. Wesley worked at Central Utah Clinic just across the street from the hospital. So I could just ride with him to work every day and he could come join us as soon as he was off work. A sense of relief came over me as I called Wesley to tell him the good news.

Her heart murmur ended up being a PDA and PDF, basically just fancy terms for saying that certain valves in her heart hadn't closed all the way yet. The murmur was gone by the time she was discharged from the hospital.

It took until the following Monday to get everything set up for the transport, and I honestly didn't know it was going to happen for sure until about 2 hours before it actually happened. They kept telling me that they were going to call and let us know when the Ambulance was on its way. So I went and grabbed some lunch, and went back to get some snuggle time with my baby until we knew what the plan was. When I got back from lunch the nurse told me that she hadn't heard anything yet, and she would let me know as soon as she did. I had been sitting in Laynee's room holding her for no more then 20 minutes when the intercom came on and said,"Life Flight is here for pod A2." A2? We were in pod A2! Was that message for me? I thought they were just taking her by ambulance and now Life Flight is here?

They pushed in a gurney with all sorts of monitors on it, and an incubator. And they had Life Flight clothes on. There was a man and a woman. The man was a respiratory therapist, and the woman was a nurse. The nurse started evaluating Laynee while the man started asking me questions.

Laynee was so upset that she was being bothered, and she had just been fed, so she was spitting up everywhere!! Like seriously EVERYWHERE!!! She stopped breathing for a minute because she had spit up so much. There was so much going on, and I was still so shocked that they sent a helicopter! I was even more confused when the man asked me if I was planning on riding with them or just following? After my own helicopter ride, I didn't think there was going to be enough room for me, And how in the heck was I supposed to FOLLOW a dang helicopter? He told me it would take about 40 minutes to get there(which is how long my own helicopter ride took from way farther away) So I finally asked them what they were driving. Turned out for whatever reason, they were wearing their Life Flight clothes in the ambulance. Confusion averted!!

I got all of our stuff together and loaded in my truck, and headed off to meet my baby at her new home away from home. I was so excited that we were going to be closer to home!

I checked into the NICU, walked through the door, my whole attitude changed and my  heart dropped! I HATED IT!! THIS PLACE WAS NOTHING LIKE IMC!!(Jen and Lisa if you are reading this please don't hate me!) For starters, she had a whole room all to herself in the other hospital.  This place was one big room filled with babies, and the only thing separating us from everyone else was a curtain. I regretted my decision immediately! I felt so selfish for moving her to this place just so I could be closer to home. They pulled me right in, introduced me to her nurse(our personalities clashed immediately!) and had me start re-labeling all of my frozen milk. I had a WHOLE KITCHEN SIZED TRASH BAG full of frozen milk! As soon as we were done with that they showed me around the floor and got me a pump so that I could pump at Laynee's bedside. I was an hour and a half past the time I needed to pump. I closed the curtain, and completely lost it!! With nurses and doctors coming in and out trying to get everything settled, and watching me uncontrollably melt down!
(Note to anyone reading this that is currently in the NICU: If you have melt downs in front of them they bring you treat buckets. The next day they felt so bad that I was so upset they brought me a whole bucket full of treats, Wesley told me I needed to keep it up if that's what we would get out of it!)

Wesley got there and it got worse! I tried so hard to stop. But no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't. And it got worse! In Murray we could have any one who wanted to visit come in as long as we didn't have more then 4 people in the room. No one younger then 14 could come in, except for siblings. So Kastyn was able to go in and see her when he was there. At Utah Valley we could choose 4 visitors, and as soon as we picked those 4 people, we couldn't change our list. And Kastyn wasn't allowed in until Mothers day, which was 3 weeks away!

As we let that sink in, the doctor came in and explained that one of the babies in Murray's NICU had a contagious bacterial infection. Laynee was going to have to be on isolation until they were sure that she didn't have it. The odds of her having it were basically zero, but they had to be safe. They had to do a "rectal swab" every night for 3 nights, and each test took 24 hours to do. She was in isolation for 5 days.

I went home telling myself that I HAD to go back with a better attitude. I kept telling myself that all sorts of babies had gone through that NICU and were totally fine. I was never actually worried that they wouldn't take care of her, Everything was just so different then what I had spent a week getting used to. And the next day was better. Every day it got a little better. She got out of isolation, we got new nurses that we LOVED, and we got used to a new way of living in this new place.

Every weekend, someone would ask me,"So when is she coming home?"
My response was always,"We don't really know, hopefully next week." Next week was always my answer. It was the worst waiting game of my life. All she had to do was eat consistently on her own and she could go home. They kept telling me that they usually pick that up between 36 and 37 weeks. But the first few times that we breast fed her she nailed it! We thought that we had this rock star baby, and that they were going to be sending her home way earlier then they expected.

 My biggest goal date to get her home was always Mother's Day. For a couple days, that goal actually seemed obtainable. Then all of the sudden she zonked out on us and was not interested in eating at all. They kept telling us that was totally normal, it was also totally annoying, and totally discouraging.

I hated breast feeding Kastyn. I had to use a nipple shield because he never latched, and it felt like a chore. I felt like all I was doing was feeding him, and I was the only one that could feed him. But with Laynee it was different. I actually really enjoyed it. I don't know if it was because at the time it felt like it was the only thing that I could do for her. Or if I just had a better attitude about it, But it was going great. Except for the days that she was so tired she didn't want to do it anymore. I felt like it was wearing her out. And it was discouraging me because I would feel like she was doing really well, only to find out that she only got 10 of her 48 ml that she was supposed to get. So a little over a week before they sent her home, we decided to switch to strictly bottle feeding, and I would continue to pump so she was still getting the breast milk.

Mother's Day came, and we were still in the hospital. The best part of my day was that they opened up the unit for "summer visitor rules" which meant that we could take Kastyn in to see her. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I thought about that day. I wanted my kids home. But if I couldn't have them home, this was the next best thing. Up until that day, it was the first day I had been so happy since Laynee was born.

Everyone kept telling us that one day she was just going to catch on to eating, and all of the sudden they would be telling us we would be home in 2 days. I never believed them until it actually happened. Everyday she would eat a little more then the feeding before. One day, they were still kind of questioning her, and the next day they were making arrangements for us to "room in" the next night.

When your baby is being sent home with oxygen, and a monitor, you have to stay in one of the rooms they provide for the night before you take her home. Just so that you have a nurse right down the hall if you need them. I honestly thought that was going to be a very long night. But it actually went really smooth. The monitor never went off. She only woke up twice to eat and went right back to sleep. We were discharged by 9:00 that morning and on our way home.

At the time it felt like the longest month of my life. I remember sitting there thinking so many times that we were never going to get out of there. I even said that to one of our favorite nurses and I will always remember her asking me,"Do you see any 12 year olds being gavaged?" (that what they called it when they would feed them through the feeding tube). But now that its over, it seems like it flew by. I sit here and try and remember which nurse we had what day, and I realize how fast it went. I don't miss it one bit, But I do miss some of the AWESOME people we met there. And getting to visit with them all day long. I learned things that I never would have learned if she would have been a full term baby. And although it was scary situations that brought on those learning experiences, I am so grateful for them, and grateful for the experience, Wesley and I have never been closer, and I am so much more grateful for the little moments with my kids.

   

The Day I Became a NICU Momma

In January of 2014, my husband Wesley and I decided we wanted to "pull the goalie" and add baby number 2 to our family. We had a two year old little boy named Kastyn, and we felt like we were ready to give him a baby brother or sister.

Backtrack a little to May 2010. We found out I was pregnant for the first time, and couldn't have been more thrilled. It was time to have our first child! When I was about 6 weeks along, I had gone to lunch with my cousin, and we had just gotten to the mall for a little retail therapy. I went into the bathroom as soon as we got there, and my heart sank. I was bleeding! I hadn't told my cousin I was pregnant, I was planning on waiting until I was a little farther along. But I am not someone who can hide her feelings. Especially when it came to the disappointment of this situation. And to make it worse, I had bled through my KHAKI pants! Luckily, I was at the mall! I could go buy a new pair of pants to get home! Unluckily, I was at the mall, on a Saturday! I now had to now walk through a building with everyone and their dog, and a huge blood spot on my pants!

I got home later that afternoon, in my new pants, and told Wesley that I was bleeding and had miscarried. His grandma, who we were living with at the time, suggested we go to the hospital. Just to make sure everything was OK. Wesley was a student x-ray tech at Gunnison Valley Hospital, so that is where we decided to go. That way we would know the people checking me out.

As they were doing the ultrasound, they kept hhmm-ing. Talk about being confused. I was staring at a screen that was showing my insides, which I had no idea what anything was! And all anyone who did know what they we looking at was hhmm-ing! Finally she said,"Well, there is still a heart beat, you are still pregnant!" WAHOO!! "But... you have a Bicornuate Uterus."

"What the heck does that mean?" I thought to myself as Wesley and I both looked at each other, totally confused. Come to find out, a Biconruate Uterus, is a heart shaped uterus. Some women have it and it gives them a lot of problems. Other women go their whole lives, or a whole pregnancy without ever knowing they have it. 

Unfortunately, I am in the "it gives you problems" category. And about 3 weeks later, I did miscarry that pregnancy. 14 months, 4 midnight emergency room visits, and a whole pregnancy of bed rest due to random bleeding problems, we welcomed our first child into the world! Although my pregnancy was terrible, he was born at 39 weeks 3 days, and weighed in at 6 pounds 6 ounces, and 19 inches long. He was tiny and perfect and we were so so in love!

Deciding to get pregnant again was not easy. My pregnancy with Kastyn was anything but easy, adn I gained 60 pounds! I had been running for a couple of years and didn't want to have to give that up. I was finally feeling really good about myself. But it felt right! We knew it was time to add another bundle of joy to our family. 

I got pregnant in September 2014, with a due date of June 2, 2015. And I was very anxious to see what this pregnancy was going to be like. To our surprise, it was a great pregnancy! I had one "bleeding episode" at about 7 weeks, but it never happened again. We found out just before Christmas that we were having a little girl, and I was thrilled!! We were going to have one of each! I was able to run up until about 25 weeks, and then I was getting big enough that it hurt my whole body to run and I had to give in and quit until after I had the baby. But everything was going so good I was OK with that. I had gained more weight then I was hoping to, but not close to as much as I gained with my first pregnancy. Things were going great!  

I woke up the morning of April 11, 2015 and was feeling normal. I was 32 weeks and 4 days, and we had just scheduled a repeat c-section that Wednesday for May 28. There was finally a light at the end of the tunnel! (Kastyn got stuck and my labor with him ended in an emergency c-section. So they thought that would be the best rout to go with this one.) We were visiting family for the weekend in Ephraim, about an hour away from our home in Santaquin. It was mny little brothers 10th birthday, and we had spent a lot of the day hanging out with him, my parents, and my grandparents. Talking about how soon this baby was going to be here!

 We went back to my in-laws house where we were staying, and started to get ready for dinner. Normally we leave on Saturday night to go home so we don't have to be up super early on Sunday morning and make the hour long drive to be home in time for church at 9:00 am. But Wesley wanted to go turkey hunting with his brother-in-law and a friend that night. So we decided we would be fine to get up early the next morning, so that he could go. While he was gone, I started having contractions. We had finished tying a quilt for the baby a little earlier, and had been sitting around the kitchen table on the hard chairs for a couple of hours. So I thought I was just cramping up from all of that and didn't say anything. 

Wesley got back from hunting, ate dinner, and we moved into the living room. I thought that once we were sitting on the soft couches my "cramping" would stop and we would go to bed and go home in the morning. After two hours, not only did it not stop but they got closer together. When we went down stairs to go to bed I finally told Wesley what had been going on and that I was pretty sure we were going to be making a trip to the hospital. We got into bed and I timed my contractions while Wesley slept. A half hour after we got into bed, I woke Wesley up and told him we needed to go. I was now relieved that we had decided to stay one more night, cause we could leave Kastyn sleeping at my in-laws house.

As we were on our way to the hospital I just kept hoping it would all stop. Or that we would get there and they would be able to give me some sort of medicine to make the contractions stop. As much as I didn't want to be pregnant anymore, I knew it was way to early. We got there and they hooked me up to the monitors and started asking me all of the questions they always ask you. When the nurse got done with the questions, she turned the monitor to show me my "ant hill" contractions as she called them, and said she was going to go update the doctor on-call and see what he wanted her to do. Not long after, she came back in and said that the doctor wanted her to "check me". She said that she didn't think it was necessary, but that she would do it since he asked her to, All I could think about was that no matter what she thought was necessary, this WAS NOT supposed to be happening yet and they nedded to get it figured out. As she checked me, her eyed widened, and she went to grab another nurse to make sure she wasn't crazy. The second nurse came in, checked me, and said,."Yep, she is dilated to a 4 and I can feel the head." 

WHAT!! That wasn't supposed to happen. They were supposed to check me, tell me I wasn't dilated, give me medicine to stop the contractions, and send me home. Instead they were making arrangements for Life Flight to come pick me up because that hospital doesn't deliver babies earlier then 37 weeks. Not only was I being put on Life Flight, but the nearest hospital with a NICU, Utah Valley Hospital in Provo, was full and on divert. So I was being flown to Inter-mountain Medical Center in Murray. A 40 min. helicopter ride, and almost another hour of driving past Provo that Wesley was going to have to do to meet me there. They gave me the steroid shot that helps develop the babys' lungs faster and started getting me ready for my first helicopter ride. 

I had no clue what to expect in my helicopter ride. They showed up and started literally strapping me into the bed, and then using me as a table for the monitors, because there wasn't enough room for all of it, and me one the helicopter. Wesley, his Grandma, who was spending the night at the hospital already with her boyfriend who was super sick, and his Mom, were with me and they wheeled me out to the parking lot to put me on the helicopter. And Wesley and his mom jumped in our truck and headed North to Murray. I will never forget how long that "40 min" helicopter ride felt! I remember hearing them say we were flying over Provo, and it seemed like we had been in there for an hour at least! But, we finally got there, and they got me all squared away in a labor and delivery room. 

Wesley and his mom got there around 4 o'clock on Sunday morning, the 12th of April. I was still at a 4 when they checked me, when I got to IMC. We spent that whole day sitting in my room, talking to all sorts of doctors giving us "our options" as the contractions continued. By around 7 o'clock that night the pain medicine that they were giving me had stopped working, so they decided to check me again. After almost 24 hours in labor, I was dilated to 6 cm, and they decided there was going to be no stopping things and offered me the epidural if I wanted it. OF COURSE I WANTED IT!! I don't have much pain tolerance. 

I was able to sleep really good that night. Even with the nurse coming in every hour to check on me. I had no pain, and they had put in a catheter, so I wasn't getting up every five min to go to the bathroom anymore. At 3:00 am they came in to give me the second steroid shot. The goal was to at least get both of them into me before she came. So we were grateful I made it that long, even though it made for a really long couple of days. They day shift doctor came in to check me at around 7:00 am the morning of April 13 and I had gone from a 6 to an 8 through the night. They decided that the best thing to do would be to break my water and deliver this baby.

I was so torn!! I remember being so so happy that I wasn't going to be pregnant anymore, and that the pain was going to stop. But we had talked to the NICU doctors and I knew she was to early. They told us to plan on being in the NICU until her due date, June 2! Almost 2 months! And even as they told me that I kept telling myself, we'll only be here two weeks tops!

The doctor came in and broke my water at 8:00 am and I was completely dilated by 8:30 am. So they started prepping. We had decided that even though I was originally supposed to have a c-section, we were going to try a V-back.(a vaginal delivery). Either way that I delivered, I was going to have to deliver in the operating room. They had windows in there with a nurse waiting that went directly into the NICU. The delivery went great!! Laynee May Hermansen was born by vaginal delivery at 9:40 am after only 40 min. of pushing. We got to look at her for two seconds before they whisked her off to the NICU for evaluation. She weighed in a 5 pound 5 ounces, and was 18 inched long and had a head full of dark hair! A great size for a baby that was 8 weeks early! 

They let Wesley go in and see her as soon as they got done examining her, and I was able to go in on my way up to my new hospital room. She was perfect, and I was instantly in LOVE!! So was her big brother. My father-in-law had brought Kastyn up just in time to see Laynee with us.

They took me up to my room, me upstairs, and my beautiful new baby downstairs. I settled in for what I thought was going to be just a couple weeks of hospital living. Little did I know how wrong I was, and what was going to be one of the hardest experiences of my life.