Dad, Mom and Three Crazies!

So, I have this medium sized pet peeve...... people who say, "you're JUST a stay at home Mom."

Yes, I am a stay at home Mom. But as soon as you add a JUST in there, It makes me want to JUST smack you a little bit! I know, it probably sounds pathetic that I get so defensive over one word but it's because I'm very passionate and proud of what I do. I love being able to be home with my children all day and feel very fortunate and thankful to my Husband for working so hard and making that possible!!!

One of the greatest perks with being a stay at home Mom is that once I get the older kids off to school, my schedule is pretty lenient and everything I do on a day to day basis (besides Doctor appointments or anything along those lines that come up) I plan. I get to go to the gym, get my shopping done, clean the house (sometimes) and have a lot of Charli and me time where I get to watch her grow up. I LOVE THAT! After school it's pretty crazy with homework, sports, dinner, playing etc. till about 8 when all the kids are in bed, just as I'm sure every household with kids goes through at some point in their day. So, this all sounds like the perfect life right?? It really is great and I really do love it and by no means do I want to sound like I'm whining about this great blessed life I'm living. I just want to voice my pet peeve on the whole "JUST a stay at home Mom".

When Steve and I decided to move across the country, away from family and friends and have me quit my job to be home with the kids all day, I promised myself that in doing this, I would make sure to be as involved in the kids' lives as possible. My TV does not get turned on until after all the kids are in bed (unless I'm doing a work out video). I devote one on one time to homework, piano, reading, playing catch, puzzles, etc. I don't walk around in my PJ's all day watching TV or taking naps. I don't ignore my kids when they are home. I try my hardest to be the best I can be as a Mother and again, am fortunate to be home and have that extra time with them and I make the best of it! So like I said before, I'm very passionate about being a stay at home mom and get defensive about the "JUST"

Being a stay at home Mom also comes with its challenges, and I'm not going to lie.... I have told my husband a few times in the past year that I was going to go get a job before I go absolutely insane. I'm not saying that working Mom's have it easier by any means.... I know this because I have also been a full time working Mom and it had its challenges too. But being home all day and having no adult interaction day after day can make a person crazy. I have one child that has more energy than the energizer bunny, one child that can't multi-task or remember what I asked her to do 5 minutes ago, and a baby that is attached to my hip all day. I don't have vacation days or even a lunch break. I do this job 24/7 and it can be very very challenging some days!

Other challenging Mom positions I have been in would be a single Mom, a full time student Mom, a work from home Mom, a pregnant and working/stay at home/work from home/ student Mom, a- my husband is sometimes gone three weeks out of the month and my family is 2000 miles away stay at home Mom:) Each and every one of those titles has its perks and each and every one of those titles comes with different challenges. Basically, if you're a Mom, there should be no "JUST" ever put before the word Mom...... Just saying:)

I think we as Moms, no matter what title comes before the Mom part, can relate to this!

So, one thing I have always wanted to have on record is baby birth stories. Again, I suck at journaling so I have never actually sat down to put them on record but I know someday, I'm going to really wish that I had. Actually, I've already beaten myself up pretty good for not getting Kyle and Mckenna's written before now and I know that sitting here trying to remember every detail, is going to be difficult. However, I'm pretty excited about pondering back to those times and reliving them.

Kyle Trenton Fox

May 20th, 2003 was the day I realized my life would change forever! I had been spending that day packing up my room in New York and getting ready to move home to Cedar City in two days. I was about 10 or 11 days late but just kept playing it off as stress and PMS.

Finally, the morning of the 20th, I decided I would just go grab a test to check just in case. I took the test, didn't even look at it, and went back to packing my room. I had completely forgotten about the fact that I had just taken a pregnancy test (that's how much I really doubted this pregnancy) until I had to go back into my bathroom to grab some more stuff to pack. At that time, I glanced at a test that had a nice vivid positive sign and I was in quite a bit of shock!!!

I stared at the test for a very very VERY long minute and kept checking the instructions to see if I was reading it right and if I actually took the test right.... I mean, peeing on a stick can seem so simple until you realize what kind news the stick can tell you 3 minutes later. After I decided to pull my jaw off the ground I gave Mr. Fox a phone call. He handled it..... well, pretty crappy really. I heard, "Dammit, dammit ....."(over and over) and then he said he'd call me later and hung up. Very supportive and positive of this news :P

So, we ended up talking a couple hours later. He called his Mommy and told her the news and I guess she told him to man up! I flew home on the 22nd of May and shortly after visited Dr. F where, I saw my babies heartbeat for the first time:) At that point, I fell in love. Now, Mr. Fox and I were planning a wedding during all of this and just enjoying the excitement of our new lives so I didn't really have time to get too sick. I actually only threw up twice and both of those were while I was traveling, so I can't really complain about this pregnancy. Matter of fact, I really enjoyed it! I loved feeling my baby kick and watching my belly grow. Up until I was about 32 weeks, the pregnancy was about as perfect as can be.

When it came time for the ultrasound, I thought for sure that it was a baby girl. I just kept dreaming of a little girl and had heard so much about how a Mothers intuition is usually right, so I knew it was a girl. You can imagine my surprise when the Doc. announced that we were having a boy! And our boy was not shy whatsoever.... probably a little frustrated that his Mamma kept calling him a girl actually and he showed us that there is absolutely no way that our Doc. could be wrong.

I'm a BOY!!!!

At about 32 weeks, I started having problems. I woke up at about 2 am one morning in terrible pain and decided, I needed to visit the hospital. While monitoring me they realized that my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart. That's not a good thing at 32 weeks! I was given some steroids to help develop our babies lungs and then shots to stop my contractions. They monitored me a while longer, I threw up a few times, and finally sent me home on bed rest. A week later, I was back at the hospital again, trying to have my baby. So again, I got steroids and more shots to stop contractions. After that, pregnancy was great again. on the morning of January 25th 2004, Doc scheduled me for an induction.

Mr. Fox and I got ourselves all prepared the day before and very excitedly, went into the hospital at one am to get things going. The started me on Petocin and by about 3 I was in more pain than I had ever in my life imagined! It was absolutely horrible! I wasn't dilating, just contracting horrible, painful contractions. By about 5 am I had kicked Mr. Fox and all nurses out of my room. They came in and told me I was only dilated to a 3 maybe 4 and I just wanted to be alone at that point. I could hardly breathe, the contractions were so bad. Finally, about 6 am I was dilated enough to where I could get an epidural and I did! I wasn't going to even try to be some super-hero-in-labor-crazy-lady! The epidural was AMAZING!!!! (Mr. Fox didn't think so though, he nearly passed out while watching them give it to me)

Finally, at 8am, it was time! I was dilated enough to start pushing. I figured I'd push a couple times and bam! I'd have a baby...... yeah, that wasn't the case. 8:15 goes by, still pushing. 8:30, still pushing, 8:45, you guessed it, still pushing. Now lightheaded, sick and nearly an hour later, we're almost there. On January 25th, 2004 at 8:55am Kyle Trenton Fox came out screaming and as cute as could be! He weighed in 8lbs 7 oz and was 21 inches long. It was the most amazing thing I had ever experienced in my life. I looked over at Mr. Fox and he had tears flowing from his eyes. He ran out to my Dad and his Mom and announced that Kyle was here and life was great.

Nurses kept telling me to rest now and relax, but when you see something so precious and beautiful, relaxing and resting wasn't even something I was considering at that time. I just wanted to hold him and kiss him. I never wanted to let Kyle go. (I regretted that 2 days later when I was completely exhausted and had no nurses to take him) but at the moment I was so in love! When I finally parted from him for a minute he went and got a bath and circumcised (so glad I didn't have to watch that because I would have bawled like a baby). Now breastfeeding, I really really suck at. I learned very quickly that I didn't enjoy it. I had to have shields and cones and all sorts of nonsense. People who say it's so natural and easy LIE! We eventually got it weeks later but it wasn't fun.

That is my Kyle story!

Mckenna Lee Fox

Mckenna let me know that she was coming into this world on April 13th 2005. I had been teaching piano at a music school when I had a sudden feeling that I was pregnant. I hadn't even realized that my period was late and I didn't have any of the symptoms of early pregnancy. I just had a feeling. After I got done teaching, I grabbed a test on my way home and took it and immediately it read positive. I was rather shocked for a moment since we weren't trying to get pregnant. Actually, mine and Mr. Fox's marriage was struggling quite a bit and he was just getting out of jail 3 hours away when I discovered the news. I went that day to pick him up and announced the news in the car. We both decided we'd work on our marriage and enjoy this new bundle of joy that was headed our way!

My pregnancy with her was completely different than Kyle. I was miserable!!! I threw up every single day for 9 months and put on 70 pounds. I have no idea how you put on 70 pounds when you throw up everyday but I did! I even went walking or to the gym everyday but still just packed on the pounds.

When it came time for the Ultrasound, I just knew I was having another boy. I had already been planning how cute him and Kyle would be playing together....but, I was wrong again. Mckenna very proudly showed off her little girl parts. I came to the conclusion after this that my Mother's intuition at knowing the sex of my babies is rather crappy!

Mckenna's due date was December 24th. I so badly did not want to miss Christmas with my nearly two year old son. Nor did I want to be in the hospital on Christmas so I took Castor Oil after Mr. Fox's birthday dinner on December 16th. It is just about as miserable as you could imagine. I threw up the first dose and decided to try guzzling it down one more time. I was that desperate. I was able to keep it down the last time I took it but it was still a very miserable experience for the next couple hours. I had to set up camp in our bathroom during that time!!!

The next morning at 5am, I woke up to contractions every 10 minutes. I got up and walked around a bit and then laid on the couch for a couple hours just timing my contractions. By noon, they were much closer together so Mr. Fox and I grabbed some Burger King and headed to the hospital. They monitored me for a couple hours and then told me that I would be staying because this baby was a comin! The contractions with her were delightful.....Well, when you compare them to the hell I experienced with Kyle that is. I was able to get up, walk around, talk through them. They kept coming steady and I was dilating at a nice steady rate. I wanted to go all natural with this baby because it was going so good but decided to just get the epidural ready just in case. They gave me a small dosage when they inserted the needle, but other than that, I gave birth pain killer free.

By about 5pm the Doc. S. came in and broke my water and we just waited a little longer till it was time to push. When that time came, I pushed for 15 minutes, got a little sick but then my sweet bundle of joy just slid easily right on out. On December 17th, 2005 at 6:15 pm Mckenna Lee Fox brought tears of joy to my eyes as she came into this world. She was 7lbs 10 oz and 20 inches long. She was just as beautiful as could be.

Feeding her wasn't any easier than with Kyle. Breastfeeding is definitely not my thing and she sucked till I had no nipple left! Again, I don't get how people enjoy it.

My sweet little Mckenna story:)

Charli Addison Randall

When Steve and I got married, we decided right away that we wanted to try for a baby. I figured it would happen easily and quickly since Kyle and Mckenna were both *ahem* not planned! A couple months go by and no baby but we still don't worry too much. After about 6 months I decided to see a doctor about it. The doctor told me it's perfectly normal to have gone 6 months and no baby yet and to just keep trying. By about a year, I started getting really frustrated. Some days I'd even cry when I started my period. 18 months into this and I had 3 close friends that all announced they were pregnant. None of which were trying to be pregnant. Needless to say, it really started becoming hard on us both to see everyone around us pregnant and we weren't even getting close.

We then went back to Doctors and started getting tests ran on both of us. Ultrasounds on me showed that I had some scar tissue and cysts but not serious enough to prevent me from getting pregnant. Steve's tests, however, showed that his sperm were mostly abnormal in shape. Our doc told us that it can usually be fixed with surgery if it is caused by a Varicose Vein in his testicles. So, off to a Urologist we went and sure enough, he had a Varicose Vein which could possibly be fixed by surgery. There was no guarantee that this would fix the problem but it was our only hope so we decided to give it a shot.

After the surgery the doc told us that it would take about 90 days for all the sperm to replace themselves and start being normal. Three months later, we took a test and still negative. I started looking into adoption and figured that if we were going to have another baby, that would be our only way.

Well, four months after the surgery, on November 7th 2010, I took another test..... 4 days early. I took a deep breath and checked the test and there was a tiny little faint positive line!!!!! I couldn't believe it. I texted Steve a nice long rambling text, took another test that had the same soft line and realized, it must be true. I still couldn't believe it so I called the doctor's office and got some blood tests done. Still positive. They had me come back 3 days later for another blood test and my numbers were increasing which was a really good sign.

At 6 weeks they had us come in for an Ultrasound. They wanted to see if we had a heartbeat before we got our hopes up too much. They saw the yolk and gestational sac but no heartbeat. They said it could be too early so to come back a week later. Steve and I already were preparing ourselves for the worst and just kept reminding each other that at least we knew we could get pregnant now. At 7 weeks, we went back in for that ultrasound and we saw us a little beating heart:) At that point, we decided just to start announcing it because the stats of a miscarriage were less than 5 percent once a heartbeat is seen. We figured we'd just pray for the best and let the world know our news!

My pregnancy with Charli was okay. I wasn't near as miserable as I was with Mckenna but it wasn't as great as Kyle either. I had morning sickness until about 15 weeks and then after that it was good for a while and then I had horrible heartburn. When we went into the ultrasound I had had dreams about this cute little boy, so I just knew it was a boy. Needless to say, I am a horrible-sex-of-my-baby-guesser so there was no surprise when we saw us a girl in the ultrasound pictures and once again, she wasn't shy whatsoever!

The scary part: At about 20 weeks, I started spotting. I have never spotted in a pregnancy so immediately, I was so concerned. I got into the doc. that day and he said that I am probably doing too much and I need to quit my job. I was working as a CNA and lifting residents often and on my feet all day. So I quit and started taking it easy. I continued to spot until I was 34 weeks. Every time it got bad, I'd go to the doc. and I was still okay, but told to take it even easier! I don't think it helped that I was packing up my entire house all by myself so that we could move from Utah to West Virginia!

When it came time to have my little Charli I chose to be induced. Steve was working out of town and I needed to plan when my Mom would fly out to West Virginia to watch Kyle and Mckenna. I figured planning my labor would take some worry off my mind. So, on July 28th, 2011 I went in to the hospital and they started the induction. The first thing they did was give me some cervix ripen-er drug. This went on for about 12 hours and I wasn't doing anything. The doctor then tried a balloon catheter. This helped to to become dilated to a 4 but still, progression was slow. 24 hours into my induction and all I was doing was contracting irregularly. I couldn't eat anything but chicken broth and jell-o and I was so miserable. About 30 hours into my labor they finally gave me Pitocin. This helped me to make some progression, but it was still just slow and painful. Finally, at 9 pm on July 29th, the doc tried breaking my water. He hoped that this would help move things along. It did. I went from a 6 to an 8 to an, "I'm having this baby! Call the Doc!!!!" By the time the Doctor H. came in Charli was already crowning. Things weren't set up or ready, but we were delivering anyway. I had gotten an epidural put in a couple hours earlier but again, didn't have them give me medicine through it yet. I only wanted it there just in case. Well, Charli was coming way too quick for me to get medicine put in and at that moment, with things going as fast and as intense as they were, I would have loved one. I was crying out in pain. It was the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life!

But, all worth it. At 10:46 pm on July 29th, 2011 Charli Addison Randall was born. She was 8 lbs 1 oz and 20 1/2 inches long. I realized at that moment that the two and a half years of trying to get pregnant, the spotting and bed rest of a pregnancy and the 36 hours of long painful labor was nothing. I had my adorable little baby girl in my arms and loved her so so much!