Hello
all my Family & Friends!!! If you are stopping here from ICLW -
WELCOME!!! If you aren't - and just stumbled across my blog - WELCOME!!!
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| Taken May 19, 2012 - my kids picked out a "Fancy" face painting |
A little about me.... I'm in my late-thirties (gasp...cringe....cry) ....I am married to a WONDERFUL AMAZING man ... (2nd marriage for me, my first ended after 10 years) ... My older two boys are from my first marriage, my youngest two are from my current marriage. I am a stay at home Mom right now ... nurse, taxi driver, teacher, maid, blah blah blah. I have my hands full.
I have been battling an auto-immune disorder since I was 16, and now I battle 3 ... and I have diabetes which is rather insulin resistant. I have asthma and some pretty bad serious allergies to just about everything (environmental, animal, foods, solution) .... I have CFS, Fibro, severe psoriasis, and diabetes .... It doesn't stop me from enjoying life... or at least trying! But I have been having a lot of bad days. I spend a lot of time in bed. Homeschooling, writing, working.... doing what I can to support my family.
In my free time ... I am a writer ... a photographer .... and a gamer. I love to play SIMS 3 and W.O.W. . and I loooooooooove to read.
However, to my husband - they are all his boys - since my ex husband is only minimally in their lives (we're talking occasional letters, and just recently he started to call).
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| Taken on my birthday: June 25, 2011 |
My husband, is 40 (something he would like to not admit to) .... he is truly the love of my life. After a bad break-up with his daughters Mom, and my divorce, we met online of all places. We started off just talking as friends because he was in North Carolina and I was in Wisconsin. He moved to Wisconsin in 2006, and we moved to Washington State in 2010. He recently - mysteriously - lost the ability to walk (unassisted) in November (2011)... he can use a walker for short distances but has to use a wheelchair for anything of length or long standing time. (When I say he uses a walker, I mean he uses it completely improperly - using it to put most of his body weight on since he has a hard time moving his legs at all) .... Feb. 2014 he re-gained the ability to walk. April 2015, he has periodic issues now and again. Most days he does okay, but every once in awhile he has moments where he is afraid he's going to end up in the wheelchair again because his legs are hurting so so so very bad.
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| May 19, 2012 - Nathan with Daddy |
He loves music, he's a gamer ... he loves MMORPG type games (W.O.W, LOTRO, SWTOR, you name it) .... He loves to play games on the X-Box/Wii with the kids. He is my computer savvy guy. If it's broke, and he can't fix it..... you are S.O.L....... most likely.
DB has a daughter from a previous relationship who is 10 years old. I have two boys from my first marriage, Calahan & Noah. DB and I have two boys together, Nathan & Kaedyn. And then we adopted an adult, my friend died a few years back and I found out her son was homeless, so I took him and his girlfriend off the streets and into our home. Kale and Shila are both 21 now. She has a little girl through a previous relation, Clairah, who is here once a week. She is also pregnant with Ellyanne Rae, named after Kale's bio-mom and me. :) Clairah and Elly are my Grandbabies. I am Nonna and DB is Pappy.
If you don't know what ICLW is ....... check it out (HERE)
and join in next month!!! I know most of you are still struggling to
have families .... and I can do nothing but pray for you ....and try to support you through your journey...
IF YOU ARE JUST NEW TO MY BLOG - this is also a great place to learn about me and my family :)
You can check out a bunch of my past ICLW introductions HERE .... each one might have a little different information.... but over all .... this is my journey to have children.....
Let me start out by saying that I have had SIXTEEN MISCARRIAGES in the years I spent TTC and I got four wonderful, beautiful, miracles out of those long years of tears and heartache. Even though we are not actively trying to have children, and despite a vasectomy (which obviously failed) ... I continue to have miscarriages now and again.
Knowing some of you may not want to read about my journey to having children - I will just send you here: The short of the long story - as condensed as I could get with as much detail as I could pack in.... it is the story of my children and many of my sixteen losses, plus my timeline. Most recently loss, Easter Day 2015.
We were blessed with FOUR amazing boys. They are true miracles and I am LUCKY to have them in my life!!
If
you don't think I went through enough TRYING to get and stay pregnant
..... well, getting pregnant was never really the problem... it was
staying pregnant .... anyway, as if that weren't enough ... my kids
insist on keeping me on my toes!!
Some of the medical issues our family deals with ....
Calahan - ADHD/mild ODD .... Dysgraphia
(learning disability) ... and when he was 2 1/2 we went through a
Leukemia scare with him - bone marrow tests and all - luckily he didn't
have Leukemia ... but from this we know he has some sort of bleeding disorder that they haven't been able to figure out. Oh he was 8lbs 7oz at birth.
Noah - 1lb 12oz at birth - Mosaic Trisomy 16
- extremely rare genetic disorder. We were told he would die before he
was born, right after he was born or shortly after ... he just turned
10 years old! He had kidney failure in 2007 thanks to a
bacteria running amok in his belly ... and luckily his kidney's healed
but they get tired when he gets sick and we have to really watch him. He
has significant hearing loss in his left ear and wears a hearing aid. He has Dyslexia .... sensory issues, and various other stuff. During pregnancy he had a poorly functioning placenta ... IUGR ... low fluid a lot of the time... he was also born with a hyposadious and a natural circumcision ...Also diagnosed with Aspergers, ADD and Anxiety
Nathan
- 3lbs 4oz at birth - my little boy who loves the color pink .. lol..
originally he was diagnosed with Dandy Walker while he was in-utero ...
however, we have since learned that he has Russell Silver Syndrome
(a type of primordial dwarfism) ... he is 5 years old now, and 26
lbs. He's a little shorter than his 3 yr old brother. Technically he
does have Dandy Walker Variant ...the vermus is missing in his cerebellum .... He also has something called polymicrogyria,
his doctors say instead of the major fold between the two hemispheres
of his brain, the front of Nathan's brain looks like a bunch of grapes -
it has a lot of folds. In addition to that, he has hypothyroidism, a high soft submucus closed cleft palate (meaning there is a mucus membrane on the roof of his mouth but no muscle behind it, which he had surgery on May 25, 2012 to correct), Asthma ... he has Autism, major speech delay and various other things going on. He had a 2 vessel cord and IUGR during pregnancy ... he was also born with a hyposadious and Aortic Septal Defect... he is Human Growth Hormone Deficient and is on HGH Therapy ... We are awaiting the wonderful alternative communication electronic device so that we might finally be able to communicate with him.
Kaedyn - aka Bubba ... he was a fat healthy baby :) He has eczema and severe allergies .... he has asthma
and chronic croup when he gets sick.... and that's all :) Well he
does have speech issues also because he picked up "Nathanese" ...
Nathan and Kaedyn have a twin like relationship. They were 16 months
apart but Nathan was newborn-ish size when Kaedyn was born. Kaedyn has
started to take on the "protector" role over Nathan and only he can beat
him up.... Kaedyn's speech has improved by leaps and bounds since starting pre-school and he is completely able to communicate now - we love it!!
Our Family - Easter Weekend 2012
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| April 5, 2015. Our WHOLE family. DB, Nissa Rae, Nathan, Calahan, Noah, Kaedyn, Shila (with baby belly Elly) and Kale .. MISSING: Alana and Clairah |
Some of the links will take you to my other blog - My Unique Flowers - where I update on all the medical stuff.
Also want to draw attention to the following posts (articles) I wrote:
FEELINGS OF INFERTILITY (written in 2006)
AGAINST THE ODDS (a story about Noah written in 2004 and revised through the years)
SURVIVING SPECIAL NEEDS (written in 2011)
MY SON ALMOST DIED (written May 2015 - About almost losing both Nathan & Noah)
wow your family is incredible, reading noah's story almost brought me to tears, you must be an incredibly strong woman to deal with all that on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteHi, over from ICLW #90
ReplyDeleteWhat a journey and battle you have been through! and you continue to show such strength.
Best of everything to you and your family.
Hi, I"m here from May ICLW.
ReplyDeleteYou have a beautiful family, and it sounds like you're an amazing mum :)
Hi from ICLW!! What a beautiful family. I don't know how you have time to blog with 4 little ones, but thanks for sharing your story
ReplyDelete