Making Resolutions

I normally do not make resolutions. I mean, what's the point? I know I won't keep them and then I will just feel crummy about my lack of willpower. But this year is an exception to that rule. I am resolving to resolve this year! So here are my resolutions in no particular order.

1. To blog once a week, with my sisters Megan and Whitney! 
2. To lose weight. I can no longer blame Camdyn for my waistline and I need to lose this extra ring around my middle ASAP. I'll be running with my teammates every week, so they'll help kick my tail.
3. To move forward with my life. My focus will be on Camdyn and my relationship with the Lord. 

These are three goals I think know are accomplish-able. Here's to 2012! 

Forever Changed

The Lord gives and takes away - still my heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name.

The past few months have forever changed me. My marriage has crumbled around me and I am left tattered and broken. My heart aches for my husband and what was once our happy life together. My heart aches for the life my baby girl will have to face without her daddy by her side every day. This is not the life I had chosen to be living, yet, here I am.

I will spare you any of the gory details, but know that while my heart is tattered and broken, my faith in Him is not. God has a plan, even in the midst of divorce, and in this too I will seek to glorify His name.

Dancing Baby

I would have never imagined that my daughter's favorite show would be Jimmy Swaggart's singers, but she loves it! Bryan was scrolling through the channels one day and stopped on the televised church service. They were in the middle of singing an old gospel song. Camdyn ran to the TV and started clapping along. Since then, that is her and Bryan's special thing each day. Well today, we recorded the dancing, clapping and arm raising that our daughter participated in!

One Years Old

Dear Camdyn,

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skys are grey. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away."

These words have been sung to you more times than I can count. And they are so true. You, baby girl, are my sunshine. You are a beautiful and precious gift from God. I love you so much.

This letter has taken me several days to construct because I want to capture you. I want to tell you so much!

When you were growing inside of me, you were so fiesty! You kicked and hiccupped constantly. To this day, I am convinced you used my rib cage as a punching bag! But I didn't mind. Every kick and punch was a not-so-gentle reminder that a life was inside of me and God was entrusting another human being to me!

The day you were born was amazing. After being in labor for 25 hours, I was so ready to meet you. When I saw you for the first time, my eyes welled with tears. You were beautiful. Ten fingers, ten toes...perfect! You may have been 4 weeks early, but at 7 pounds 11 ounces, you looked nothing like a preemie! That should have been my first clue that you would march to your own drum!

Your first month was a wild one. I thought you would never sleep! You ate every 2 hours, so I apologize to you for being such a zombie! On the plus side, you made such cute noises. I remember you saying "Ang-gah" when you were crying hard. It reminded me of "Anger" and I couldn't help but laugh. You were telling me "Mom I am angry, HELP me NOW!" :)

Your second month was much easier for mommy. You actually slept through the night beginning at 10 weeks! :) You laughed outloud around this same time. Melted.my.heart.

Your low chuckles turned into flat out giggles in months 3 and 4. You began rolling over, eating baby food, and were constantly changing!

Month 5 carries mixed emotions. The good: You found your toes. (You loved to eat them!) You began learning to sit alone. You began to say Momma - "Om-ma" Oh how it warmed my heart that you said momma before dadda! ;)
The bad: You had to spend your first Christmas in a hospital room. You were sick with Ecoli and a UTI. It was a hard month for you sweetheart, and you had to endure more that month than I have ever had to in my life, but you were so brave!

At 6 months old you sat on your own very well, squealed with delight at all things funny, and rolled all over the floors to get where you wanted to go.

Month 7 was the month of independence. You began standing up (holding on to an object), and you learned to crawl too! You started feeding yourself and loved taking the spoon away from mommy!

Whoa! At 8 months, you were on the go! Crawling all over the place, talking all the time, popping handfuls of Cheerios in at one time - You had us on our toes! One other cute thing you did this month was learn to wave bye-bye!

9 months was an adventure! You began eating table food (You had your first taste of ribs- Thanks Grandma!). You began pulling up and standing all by yourself. You also finally learned to clap and love to clap along with Patty-Cake.

At 10 months, I knew you weren't my little baby anymore- You were too quickly approaching toddlerhood! You took your first steps! You began saying Hey, Hi, Hello, and Bye. That made 6 words you could say! (I always knew you'd be smart!)

The next month was your 11th. This month you learned to say "Dog". It's pretty funny, because you only would say "dog" in a whisper! But you say it over and over again as soon as you see one! You also started taking about 4 or 5 steps before falling down.

July 26th marked your 12th month, your first birthday! You dove into your cake with both hands! This month you began walking all over the place, opening cabinets (babyproofing was needed ASAP!) and getting into everything.

You have such a sweet personality. When I am upset, you will lay your head on my shoulder as if you are comforting me.
You are so inquisitive. You stare at everything, taking it all in.
You are so kind, never meeting a stranger. You wave hello and goodbye to everyone you see!
You face the world head on, no fear! That may lead to a few more bruises than most, but it will serve you well as you grow and become a young lady.

I love you so much Camdyn and I thank God for you, my sunshine, every day.

Love,
Mommy

God's gift to moms: Mommy Gut

If I had one iota of advice to offer new moms is that you should always listen to your Mommy Gut.
Camdyn is an amazing little girl - she is full of energy and LOVES to eat. (19 pounds at 5 months!) Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 was the day of Camdyn's vaccinations. I am weary of vaccinations and I requested that they be split up. This day, she received the second half of the vaccines she should have had at her 4 month checkup. That night, Camdyn was VERY fussy. More so than usual. She always has her "witching hour" where she is tired and cranky, but I could tell she just didn't feel well. I chalked it up to being sore from her shots. The next morning, Camdyn refused to eat all of her bottle. She pushed it away after 2 ounces. She was lethargic all morning, and was very whiney. I had this overwhelming gut feeling that something was very wrong. I feared that she was having a vaccine reaction and called my doctor's office. I explained what was going on, and the nurse asked me if she was running a fever. When I told her no, she told me that kids could act fussy for up to 72 hours after receiving shots and without a fever, there was nothing they could do.

That night, I changed Camdyn's diaper before bed. In it, I found a blood-tinged discharge that shook me. I knew that this was NOT normal. The next morning, I called the doctor's office and demanded that they see us. Dr. Landis was in the office this morning. He looked at her, and thought that she perhaps had a UTI. This diagnosis required a catheter to confirm. I helped the nurses hold down my baby as they inserted the cath. She didn't have very much urine in her bladder- only enough to confirm a UTI, but not enough to also perform a urine culture to determine its cause. Dr. Landis asked us to feed her so that we could draw out some more urine. We tried breastmilk, formula and pedialyte. Camdyn refused it all. Because of his fear of dehydration, he sent us to Children's Hospital in Atlanta. Here they hooked her up to an IV, drew out more urine, took some blood and pumped an antibiotic into her. They sent us home that night.

The next morning at 4:30 am, my phone rang. A nurse from Children's was calling to let me know that Camdyn's blood culture came back positive for gram negative rods. This was not good and we needed to bring Camdyn back right away. We were admitted, and then finally told that the final diagnosis was EColi. We had to spend 5 days in the hospital. (Not exactly the first Christmas we had imagined celebrating with Camdyn!) Watching my little girl have to go through so much pain was the hardest thing I have ever had to endure. The ecoli was in her urine, causing a UTI and now in her blood; she was one sick little girl.

I knew something was wrong and had I listened to the original nurse's advice, I would have let Camdyn go on for 72 hours, and who knows what kind of damage the EColi could have wreaked in that span of time. Instead, I listened to my Mommy Gut and my baby is back to her normal, sassy self.

4 Weeks Early

From the very beginning, Camdyn has had a mind of her own!

Friday, July 23rd, my parents left to go out of town for a wedding. My mom's parting words to me were "Don't go into labor while we're gone." "Don't worry," I replied, "I have 4 more weeks until she is due!"

Sunday, July 25th started out like any other day. We had gone to church in the morning and then went to O'Charleys with our good friends, Rusty and Angie. My best friend Kelly called a little later that afternoon and together we got pedicures. We were joking that she would kill me if Camdyn came before her son, Jack. (We were pregnant together and Jack was due on Tuesday, while Camdyn wasn't due until August 21st.) At home, Bryan and I completed a few more items on our baby "to do" list. Then I settled in for the night upstairs. I was lying on the bed watching tv when I felt the urge to go to the bathroom. I stood up, and immediately, water gushed out. I thought I had just peed on myself! I went ahead to the bathroom and then picked up the phone to call my mom.

"Mom, how do you know when your water breaks?" "WHAT?! I thought I told you not to do this while we were gone!"

She encouraged me to go ahead and call the midwife and see what she thought. The midwife on duty told me to come on to the hospital. They could run a test on me to see whether it was pee or amniotic fluid that was now on my bedroom floor. The test showed amniotic fluid and Bryan and I were admitted into Northside Atlanta. My parents left Gatlinburg and came in the next morning. Labor was easy... My epidural was a-mazing. I was technically in labor for 25 hours, but I only pushed for 10 minutes.

My biggest fear was that Camdyn wasn't ready. What if she wasn't done cooking? I couldn't bear the thought of her being unhealthy. Well, Camdyn may have been 4 weeks early, but she weighed in at 7 pounds, 11 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. She was perfect! No breathing issues, no health problems.

The first moment I held her in my arms, I fell in love. Camdyn McKinley Barnes was beautiful, and our perfect gift from God.

And by the way, Camdyn was born 10:50 pm on July 26th, and baby Jack was born at 1:10 pm on July 27th. Sorry Kelly!