Swimming

So you know how I told you my son loved the water, well we decided to take him to the pool. OMG he freaked out. He loved it. In fact so much we decided to put him in swimming lessons. We had a great weekend. Went to the pool twice, took J and I to Gymboree and finished it off with a family BBQ yesterday at J's aunts house. I love weekends like this. Oh and to top it off we found out my aunt is coming visit next month. Yeah!!

Lake Days

So my little man loves the outdoors. I can't tell you how much his mood changes if he is crabby and we go outside. HE LOVES IT! He also loves water. We should have named him Nemo. So the lake is obviously his favorite place these days. So I figured I would share a few pics from our trip to the lake yesterday when my family was in town! We had a blast!

Just to prove he's not always happy! It was time to leave:-(

Karma

So yesterday I helped out an old friend with a summer class she is taking. She is also pregnant right now and I do have to say she is one of the cutest pregnant people I know. She is the friend your jealous of because the only way you know she pregnant is looking at her cute little belly. She's the friend you have that will walk out of the hospital wearing her pre-pregnancy jeans with no problem. She however is the nicest little thing, and her and her husband are going to make cute babies! Anyhow, she had to interview me for her class and all the questions were on my labor, delivery and postpartum parts of pregnancy. It got me to thinking last night about how in just one year my life has truly changed. How much different everything is now with my little man, and how much my marriage has changed. I LOVE EVERYTHING THAT LITTLE BOY HAS DONE FOR ME, TO ME, AND THE PEOPLE HE HAS MADE MY HUSBAND AND I BECOME. I was unaware how much more I could love my husband when the little man came into the picture. For example the best part of my day yesterday was sitting on the couch last night watching my 2 boys on the floor playing and laughing. It almost brought tears to my eyes. There is nothing I do now that I don't think how it will effect those 2 guys. I am absolutely in LOVE with both of them. They are my world and there is nothing I wouldn't do for either one of them. Anyone who knows me really well knows that my faith has truly been tested the past 7 months. I see things on a daily basis that make me question why things happen. For example, my little guy has some sort of lung disease. We will never know what it is, he has battled with it from birth, and we are constantly monitoring and are worried about weight gain. He is doing good today but we never know what tomorrow will bring. He can't live in a bubble but when he gets what other normal kids would consider a cold or sick, he will be really sick. He will always have to monitor his breathing and be conscious of his surroundings and doings. We did everything right. So why does HE have to deal with this. He never asked to be here, he never did anything to anyone but yet HE is the one who has to suffer, and it breaks my heart that I can't take it away or deal with it myself. Then I turn around and I see people who can't afford the kids they are having, or are having kids for the wrong reasons and there babies are perfectly normal. (which I am glad they are!) But it truly makes me question the order of things. Why does good suffer and bad celebrate? I've come to the conclusion that this is why I HAVE to believe in Karma. I know it may sound wrong and mean, but until you have watched YOUR child suffer in the NICU for 9 days, and have brought your child to the ER twice in 1 day because he can't breathe, and you walk away from EVERY doctors appointment once a month with NO answers and feel like you have just been beaten up emotionally and physically, you have NO right to judge me or my feelings. I have days where I get so mad at the world, that I am so bitter to those with healthy children it makes me feel like a horrible person. I shouldn't feel this way. But then I have my friends who remind me that I have every right to be mad, sad, upset, and bitter. That I shouldn't hold these feelings in because it will eat me alive. I know this sounds like I am always this angry bitter person. But, I am not. I only have these feelings on the days I see my little boy having a rough day, or the day I see my husband so worried about him it's eating him alive. The other 29 days of the month we are a normal happy family that acts like nothing is wrong. We are a strong, happy family that just has to blow off steam every now and again as I am told all families do. We just have a different set of issues. So wow I kinda went in a circle there. I am so glad I could help an old friend out, and I am glad it made me do some thinking. It made me realize after all the shit we have been through, it has only made us a happier, stronger family. And there's nothing more important than my 2 boys, but I've always known that!

I's First Lake Day!

Hello out there!

Again I know its been awhile! You have to cut me some slack I have a very active 7 month old! And just because I feel bad for lack of post, I put up a few extra pics! (I would have anyway.) So the reason it takes forever for me to bog is because currently my office is on the second floor and the only time I'm up here is to put Isaac down for naps and to go to bed myself. Well as of today that's all about to change. My contractor should be showing up any minute to start the remodeling on our formal dinning to turn it into our new office. We are putting in french doors and hardwood floor. We decided we needed the extra bedroom upstairs and the office on the first floor would be more useful! I am very excited!
Isaac is getting stronger, faster, and better by the day. We still don't know what kind of lung ideas he has and probably will never know but he is getting stronger and that's all that matters. I can't even put into words how much I love that kid.
I do have to say with all of this good news my heart is a little sad today. I have to say I am really losing my faith. Faith in why things happen as they do. I can't go into details, but some things are truly unfair. My heart hurts for one of my dearest friends, while I just can't pull myself together to be happy for another. Life is unfair. I don't understand why good suffers and bad gets what they truly don't deserve. Enough of that I know you want pictures!

7 months

6 Months

6 Months

5 Months

A change of pace!

So as a mental stress release from all the medical issues we face with my son. J offered up the idea of finally starting my photography business I have been trying to do for almost 2 years now. I am so excited to announce that on April 1st I open Brandy Burke Photography! I love that I can work when I want and as much as I want to. It's a great escape from all the stress. I have always been the kind of person that needs a creative outlet when things get stressful. And I can tell you by the massive amounts of hair my husband and I are finding all over the bathroom that I am stressed! So here's to an exciting week!

Brandy Burke Photography

Nov 4th The rest of the story!

So I had finally started pushing. The doctor left me with my husband and the nurse. All I could feel was pressure. Pushing at the beginning felt great. I was more at ease pushing than relaxing. I was VERY slowly making progress. At 9 the nurse and my husband joked that we could have a baby by 9:30. YES!! Is all I thought. The longer I pushed the more frustrated I got I felt like nothing was happening. Gradually I started to feel alot of pressure. Like OK this pressure is getting painful. I expressed this to my nurse. J looked at my epi pump and to him it looked as if it was empty. The nurse said that it would beep before it ran out. The pressure quickly turned to PAIN. My epi failed and I could feel everything. The nurse left J and I in the room by ourselves and told us to not push. Looking back now I say WTF was she thinking? I had a good 10 very painful contractions that were off the chart and I told my husband to push the nurses button, I needed help. The next 60 seconds went as follows.

Me: Push the G D Button I am in pain

J Pushes button

Nurse at Desk: Yes?

J: She's kinda having a baby in here

Within 15 seconds my nurse, doctor and another nurse come running through the door. My doctor who I will now refer to as asshat says

Asshat: What's the matter?

J: She's kinda having a baby and I thought someone with a medical degree should be here.

Asshat looks at me and says I will be back.

My nurse stays with me and helps to push. By this time I am in horrible pain and an anesthesiologist comes in. He ups my epi but by this time my pain is to far gone to get back under control. by now it's 10:15 and I have been pushing an hour and a half. I AM EXHAUSTED! I am passing out between each contraction and I have no energy to push. The nurse calls for my doctor and we wait and wait. We waited an HOUR pushing and passing out before she comes in. I later find out she was in a C-section and tells my nurse to wait for her. She comes in and tells me I have 3 contractions to get him out or c-section. At this point I am so tired and hurting I don't care how he gets out .he doctor gets the vacuum ready to help him out. He is stuck under my pelvic bone .he next contraction comes and I PUSH. I have a second wind for some reason and I push like no one has ever pushed. THE VACUUM ISN'T WORKING. I scream at the nurse and doctor as they are figuring out that the damn thing isn''t plugged in correctly. I very loudly scream, "Are you fucking kidding me?" 2 pushes later they get it together and he pops out. They lay him on my chest and he is screaming. I help wipe him off and they whisk him away. My husband walks over and takes pictures and I just lay there with no energy left. A few minutes later they bring him back over for me to hold him and explain that they have to take him to the NICU for help. He is needing help to breathe. J goes with him and I quickly wake up! My asshat doctor and my wonderful nurse are about to do many not nice things to my lady bits. Now something they don't tell you is they have to "massage" your uterus after birth to get it to stop bleeding and for it to return to it's normal size. The word "massage" is bullshit. It hurts and it is almost as bad as an epi free delivery. What I found out later because at this time I was so tired and in so much pain and my baby was taken from me I couldn't concentrate for anything was that I wasn't doing well right after and I had to have a D & C, and repair work. Now normally if you have this they will give you major drugs for the pain because technically it is surgery. I HAD NONE! 0! I felt every scrap, stitch, pull and poke. And to make matters worse the asshat doctor messed up my repair work and had to pull all my stitches ans start AGAIN. It took and hour for me to be finished and after that hour I HAD TO GET OUT OF BED! I  had to go to the bathroom and get cleaned up and try to urinate. Of curse I hurt so bad it didn't happen. Now we are 2 hours post delivery and I am in bed eating because I am so hungry. Once I m done I am able to visit Isaac in the NICU. J and the nurse roll me to my baby. I don't know it now but this is the only time I will get to hold him for 3 days. I hold my precious baby for 5 minutes and then I tearfully apologize because I am to weak and tired to hold him and am terrified of dropping him that I make J take him from me. I go back to m room and pass out for 4 hours before the real torture of find out what was wrong with my son.