Surgery Success

Bobby's surgery was a success! It took about 30 minutes longer than the last surgery did so you can bet that I have no fingernails now due to anxious knawing. When the surgeon finally came in to give me the rundown, he said that "it was a mess in there". Apparently, when Bobby got sick, the previous "wrap" around the esophogus loosened and then his stomach worked really hard to reform to the way it has been for the last 29 years. The surgeon said that everything was twisted and contorted all crazy. Everything is back in place and the surgeon prescribed some anti-nausea medicine to treat any sickness before it hits!

Bobby is recovering MUCH faster than the last surgery but is still extremely tired and sore. He was strictly on a clear liquid diet for about 3 days but has since then introduced noodles and even mashed potatoes last night! He wasn't able to keep down solid foods for a good week last time so things are looking good! He is, however, extremely bored and hungry.... I couldn't even imagine having to drink chincken and beef broth for my "big meals", yuck! On the positive side, he has lost about 10 pounds since last Friday! His goal is to lose another 20 so we are going keep him on a balanced, healthy diet as we introduce more foods in!

Thank you for all the prayers and please keep praying for his sanity throughout the remainder of his recovery-

We hope you all had an incredible Memorial Day weekend!

Surgery..... AGAIN!

As if the first one didn't stress me out enough, Bobby has to get his esophogus operated on again. It is my understanding that he has 3 hiatal hernias exposed and because his esophageal sphincter doesn't operate properly, the hernias are constantly getting torn up by all his stomach acids. Last summer they repaired the hernias and fixed the sphincter but it came undone when Brady, myself and finally Bobby caught a bad stomach bug at the beginning of the year. Bobby said he could have lived with the symptoms (constant heartburn) but didn't want to be diagnosed with cancer 20 years from now because he didn't get it taken care of. I think they take the lining of the stomach and wrap it around the esophogas, covering the exposed hernias and as a result, he can't burp or throw up ever again. When we got sick, it all came undone... So here we go again......

We leave for the hospital at 5 am to get prep started at 5:30 and he'll go in to surgery at 7am. My stomach is already in knots from the anxiety. Please lift him up in prayer for a successful surgery as well as a quick recovery! This time around, if anyone even LOOKS like they might be coming down with something, Bobby is headed to his moms!!

Braxton Michael Reed

Last Wednesday, which happened to be Bobby and I's 3 year anniversary, we had an appointment for an ultra sound for baby #2. I have had a feeling for quite some time now that it was a boy. The ONLY thing that threw me a little was the morning sickness. Anyhow, I can honestly say that boy or girl, I would have been completely thrilled. We went in and it seemed like it took FOREVER for the ultrasound tech to journey south to the area that would change our lives forever but she finally got there and low and behold- leg, leg, penis!!! It's a boy. I saw my husbands face light up for the 3rd time (1. When I said yes 2. Brady's 20 week appointment 3. Braxton's pee pee unveiling). It was absolutely priceless! To us, everything looked and seemed absolutely perfect!

Bobby and Brady went ahead and left to go home rather than hang out with me for the actual appointment with my Doctor. When she came in, she said the oh-so-common "Congratulations on your little boy" and sat down to look over the ultrasound pictures. She then proceeded to tell me that it was not a big deal but Brax had light spots on his heart, which is a "soft sign" for down syndrom. NOT A BIG DEAL????

There are about 10 different "soft signs" of down syndrome, including a large space between the big toe and second toe, light spots on the kidneys and/or heart, a short femur, lack of nasal cavity formation, only 2 main bloodvessels (as opposed to 3) running through the umbilical cord, etc. Dr. Hubbard said that because Braxton only has one of the soft signs, that it is highly unlikely he is a candidate for downs. She said that anatomically, every thing else checked out perfectly so I should not lose any sleep over it. She didn't even schedule another ultrasound or amnio which means she really isn't very concerned. Even if little Brax turned out to have downs, we'd still have more love to give than he could handle!

I know that God won't give Bobby and I more than we can handle but please pray for Braxton's health.

Brady is so excited to have a little brother :)

Insane in the Membrane

This past week has been absolutely insane. We kicked last week off with a new haircut for Brady. It was a much more emotional than I ever thought possible. It all happened so fast, maybe that is why it was so hard for me to settle down. My baby looks like a big boy now, no more curls :(

This is Brady before haircut....

And after... He is MISERABLE to take pictures of right now, he hates sitting still. Anyway, he was fantastic during the haircut because we just put him in front of Tigger and Pooh and it was cake! He's so cute :)

A little more on Brady... He started saying "please" this week! I was getting really impatient with him because his way of asking for things was more of a groan and I had past my window of opportuity to teach him sign language. Sidenote: he learned "more" in SL really quickly and still uses it every day. I wish I had taken the time to teach please and thankyou along with it 4 months ago because now he is over it. He wants something and he wants it immediately. Anyway, we have been working really hard on please and I hadn't paid attention to my voice inflection as I was saying it to teach him and when he says it, he shouts "PEA" very loud and excitedly, it's hilarious!

I have to go back to school now so when I get there, I'll blog about baby #2!!

Stink eye

Well this morning not only brought farewells to Bobby's brother, who is now on his way to Virginia to board a little boat enroute to Bahrain to fight pirates, but also a snotty, swollen, red eye. Poor Brady....

This Swine flu outbreak has turned me into quite the hypochondriac so I feel like I have just been waiting for SOMEONE to catch something! Brady woke up with a stink eye this morning that was just confirmed as pink eye by his pediatrician. That means he is highly contagious for the next 24 hours or so, until it clears up. Bobby took off work today to take him to the doctor and he won't be able to go to the babysitter tomorrow either, so I'll have to stay home with him tomorrow. I love Brady/Mommy days :)

Brady has been acting a little wierd lately (not sleeping well, really emotional and EXTREMELY clingy). It's been going on for about 3 weeks now and it's really starting to worry me! Brady is the kind of little kid that walks into a room and makes best friends with everyone so what the heck is wrong with him! Is he at the age for the seperation anxiety to set in? He is amost 17 months.... I thought that was supposed to have already come and gone!

Anyhow, say a prayer for his little night terrors and nasty eyes and wash your hands constantly to steer clear of the swine flu!

Mommywood

I have had, or should I say am having, the absolute best time teaching my Careers Class at the Owasso Mid-High. The principal offered to extend my contract back in March and without hesitation, I accepted! After teaching a lesson on balancing life and career, I quickly realized that there is no way I can possibly pull this off. I desire to be a wife, mommy, teacher and coach and I have a level of excellence that I am expected to perform at on all of these "life tasks". Talk about stretching myself too thin.... When school starts in August, I'll be leaving my house at 6:30 am (Brady still sleeping) go to practice, school all day, practice again and get home around 9 pm (Brady in bed for the night). Keep in mind I will be nine months pregnant. There is absolutely no time for me to be a wife and mom and I refuse to put my family on the backburner for my own selfish ambitions or successes. As a result, I have decided not to accept my contract extention after all. I will continue to coach so that I will still have "my thing" but most of my energies will be focused on Bobby, Brady and baby #2 (who will have a name on May 13th at about 3:45 when we find out the sex).

I am very excited to be able to be a stay at home mom but to be 100% honest, I am a little nervous! I am afraid that I may feel guilty that I am not out working to help provide for my family. My mom didn't stay home with us when we were young (because she was a single mother) so as much as I hear it is the best thing for my children, I have no personal experience. Don't get me wrong, I still rush out of school to get pick up Brady so that I can get as much playtime in as possible before bedtime, it's just that all I know is work work work, pay the babysitter. I think the dynamic with two children will be completely different in that I will be insanely busy and it will be so nice to be able to have a clean house and a hot meal on most nights. Our house is usually clean on Saturday morning and then by the afternoon it is a wreck again and the cycle continues on a weekly basis. Maybe I'll really start getting into cooking and saving coupons? HA! We'll see..... Any stay at home moms, feel free to give me some sanity advice :)

I'm BAAAACK!!!

I apologize for being MIA the past couple of months! To completely honest, I forgot my password and didn't have the 3 minutes it took me to go through the process of changing it! April has been the absolute most insane month of my life! I had Colorguard auditions, parent meetings, a ton of projects going on at school, design meetings and I finished teaching English 1 at night school. Next week is kind of a crazy week putting a wrap on everything but I finally see light at the end of the tunnel. There are only 17 more days of school left after today (seeing that we don't close our doors due to the swine flu), and then SUMMERTIME baby!!! Bobby is still in the middle of his baseball season so we'll still have a couple games to go to every week and various tournaments on the weekend. Brady and I love love LOVE going to the baseball games!!! Brady calls it mmmba (baseball) and carries one around EVERYWHERE he goes! It makes me a little nervous in the house since he is turning into our very own Carlos Zambrano (Pitcher for the Cubs) so I may have to replace his real baseballs with some plastic ones. Anyhow, I am back and I PROMISE to do a better job of blogging! Especially since I have decided not to renew my teaching contract next year (more on this later)!

Feelin' Brand New

I promise an update soon....