Mom won

A month ago I decided I was going to buy my 10 year old new church pants. He was flooding in his current ones. He was not happy to be shopping and he didn't think he needed new ones.
Last Sunday I was in his room after he got dressed while I was dressing the 3 year old. He said, I like these new pants so much better. The old ones were pretty tight, I would go to the bathroom before I got dressed and hope I didn't have to go during church so I didn't have to rebutton them.
It took everything I had not to say, booyah, who was right?! Instead I said oh I'm glad they fit better, that's why I wanted to buy you new ones.
He likes getting new things, but is extremely distrustful when I want to replace an item. Why would we ever replace what we know and have. Plus he hates clothes shopping. But overall he hates replacing and change.

I forgot to give this a title

I'm not sure why I'm writing this. Posterity? Get it off my chest? For therapy? Maybe Posterity...


I found my fourth baby was a boy when I was 13 weeks pregnant. I didn't even know I had an ultrasound scheduled. The ultrasound was clearly showing a boy even before the tech asked if I wanted to know. A friend of mine said ultrasounds that early can be deceiving. I already had two boys, it was pretty clear. Obviously more than two and half years later the ultrasound was right. I thought he was going to be a girl, I thought my daughter had a little sister. I was pretty upset for a few days.

For months I prayed to the Lord to not tell me if I was suppose to have more kids, I also prayed to not know if I wasn't suppose to have more kids. I was still breastfeeding my third baby, and I was pregnant and tired all the time! I just didn't want to know, I wanted to be here and now. Or nowhere near. As the months went I, I started to feel better, I weaned my baby, I wasn't sick anymore, just in pain everytime I walked, I forgot to pray to not know anything. When I was 7 months pregnant we went to see family for Thanksgiving, I was talking to a relative who is also a mom about our babies, families, birth order, size etc. She said something that kept playing on repeat my head.

The next day as we were driving nine hours home I had a very strong impression, your family is good, enjoy who you have. This did not help me enjoy my pregnancy in the slightest, I had a small toddler, with separation anxiety, who sat on my lap everyday all day long, my body hurt all the time, and every time I had to walk my body hurt. I would only use the stairs 4 times a day, when I woke up, I would carry everything I needed all day downstairs. Then I would go up when my one year old needed a nap, I would get him again when he was awake and then when it was bedtime. My husband was still traveling for work in those days and when we would go up for bed sometimes my 1 year old would run away and slide down the stairs, backwards like early walkers do. I would just wait at the top of the stairs laying down on the carpet waiting for him to come back, I knew he would sooner or later come back because he couldn't bare being away from me, but it hurt to much to chase him, so I would just wait.

When my son came everything seemed perfect. It was a positive birth experience, I was happy to have him in the family. His siblings seemed genuinely excited to have him in the family. Before he was a week old, his not quite 18 month old brother was sick. It would be a constant theme for the next few months. Remember his RSV breathing treatments? The only thing I can say, what thank heavens the 1 year old was never ever hospitalized.

Then during the summer my postpardum depression came with vengeance. After Christmas I mentally felt better, but I had a fair amount of physical health problems. When I weaned my last baby, I was so excited. And my mental stability plummeted. I felt like a shell of a creature, like I was always under water. I got that mostly under control. But I had good weeks and bad weeks, I was on a roller coaster of health problems.

So under all extensive reasoning, I should have been happy when my little boys turned 3 and 18 months a week apart of each other. But instead the depression came back with full vengeance. I was so sad, they weren't babies anymore. People really didn't understand. "But you didn't like them as babies" I know...

I don't really know why I felt the way I did. Maybe it was an end of an era. Maybe I felt like I wasted away my days with babies. I truly don't know, it doesn't make sense. But I've been on and off sad for 6 months and I'm finally excepting it for what it is.
I'm covered in grief.
For a long time I didn't feel like it was ok for me to be in morning:

1. I had four healthy kids, I shouldn't be sad I wasn't having more babies
2. I didn't actually like being pregnant or having new babies, so I shouldn't be sad
3. Other people have less babies than me, or none, and they are sad, so I shouldn't be sad
4. If I was tougher I could have had more, so I shouldn't be sad
5. My husband felt more than content with our children, and didn't want anymore
6. So many days I just count the minutes until bedtime, why would I be sad not to have anymore babies?
7. I still have chronic pain from pregnancy, or postpartum 

It took me awhile to accept all those facts. The beginning of all those points are facts. But often times emotions don't care about facts. So I realized I had to accept all those. They are what they are, and I can't change any of them good, bad or indifferent. All those statements are truth, but that doesn't change the fact that I was sad all the time, that I was never going to have another baby. So I started to think about some feelings I was having that I needed to accept.

1. I thought I would be sad when the youngest turned 2, instead I love him more. 
2. My body grows big healthy babies, and it will probably never do that again.
3. As my body grows big healthy babies, I grow weaker and frailer
4. Sure I have a few years to decided this, but after a few years, I'll never be able to go back and have babies, once my body is too old its too old. Once my family grows up, they have grown up and will never be little again.
5. Even if my kids exhausted me every day, doesn't mean I don't love them.
6. The amount of children a person has, says nothing about them other then the amount of children they have.
7. Just became my husband doesn't want more kids doesn't mean he is heartless.
8. Women that have more babies then me aren't "better" 
9. Sure my children may ask if we are having another baby, but that doesn't mean not having another baby makes me pathetic.
10. My kids have always been so obsessed with their little brothers it makes me sad that they will never have that experience again. But that's ok, they did have it.
11. I think I always thought I would have 5 kids, I knew 6 or 7 was too much for me, but 5 seemed good. Apparently 4 is good.
12. I played house and played with baby dolls until I was at least 11 years old. As a teenager I didn't want any children.
13. Just became my teenagers won't have baby siblings doesn't mean they will be pathetic young adults who look at children like they might be diseased because they are acting like stereotypical kids. Then again maybe they will, and that isn't my body's fault.
14. Its ok to be sad, that I'm done growing babies, even if I don't like babies.
15. Its ok to be sad and relieved at the same time.
16. Its ok to be sad.
17. If I wasn't sad, then maybe I wouldn't be obsessed with everything my 2 year old does, maybe I'd be exhausted and annoyed all the time thinking I would do they YET another time.
18. Its ok if my daughter doesn't have a sister. Right now I'm not quite sure how, but I'm sure it will be.
19. Its ok if my daughter is sad she won't have a sister.
20. Its ok for me to be sad.
21. When I think about baby girls I'm swallowed up in grief. We were pretty broke (paying MBA tuition in cash) when she was little, and I always thought it will be fine I'll have another baby girl I can spurge on. I rarely rarely bought clothes for her, she wore so many handme downs. Everytime I ran out of handme downs someone out of the blue would give me bag. I never had spurged on a baby girl. I never surged on any baby. My little boys live in handme downs. My daughter had sensory issues and hated things on her head, and stopped letting me dress her when she was only 1. 
22. She never liked bows on her head, I have no one to buy bows for.
23. The Lord is infinitely aware of my grief. He accepts me for who I am.
24. I'm often quite relieved I only have one daughter. I love boys, I grew up with lots of brothers, and still as adult find females confusing. I adore my daughter and thank my lucky stars she is mine, but I'm so relieved I only have one.
25. Sometimes when I see people with a tail end baby, a baby at least 5 years younger then the rest. I think that could be us. Maybe in a few years my husband will say to me, we make cute babies, lets have one more. But then I think logically. That would be the more terrifying thing. I can't handle more babies.
26. Every so often my husband tells me we make cute babies. For a split second I think, he wants another! Then before the second is over, I pray, please do not tell me you want another.
27. Every time I hear someone say, if I could do it all over again I would have had more, I want to cry. I know, I know, I agree.
28. Its ok to be sad.
29. The Lord is aware of my sorrow.
30. I won't always be sad, I keep hear four years after your youngest is a good time.

His Faith

I've said it before and I'll say it again. My husband is a peach.

During past three or four months, we have been fasting and praying to make a decision. Its been a great opportunity, lately I've felt very blessed by his faith. More than three or four days do not go by that I'm so appreciative of his faith.

Now Anxiety

In December I spent the whole month sick with bacterial, viral and parasite infections. Once I finally got all that cleared out of my system, I started to really feel better. I felt like my depression was completely at bay.

Then in January I started to get extreme anxiety. I'm not sure I ever had anxiety like this before. I've felt sympathetic to people struggling with anxiety because mental illness is a nightmare, but I didn't get it. Now I get it.

I had panic attack symptoms, felt like my heart was going to make me pass out it was palpitating so much. Honestly I'm not sure I would have know what was happening if I didn't spend so long researching depression. My husband is very sympathetic about depression, but my anxiety made me so nutty my husband didn't know what to think. This was definitely a new thing for us, I think he thought I was crazy. 

I was, I would come home from church thinking about all the terrible things that could happen to us. Why we should never leave our house. Worrying about my children drove me off the deep end. So many things that could happen every where. Plus were they happy? Am I fulfilling their needs? Or, I often wondered why my children hated me, based on the lack of cleanliness in the house they must hate me.  It was really quite nutty. I wasn't like that every day, but boy some days, I could barely fall sleep, then once I did I couldn't get out of bed.

Very quickly, I realized something was off. It might have only been the look in my husband's eyes, when I would open up all my fears, or when he found me yelling that everyone must hate me for how messy the house is. I don't write this to be mean to Brent, more just to tell my story, but he would look at me like who is this person in front of me, and what did she do with my wife? I could tell something was wrong, by the expression in his eyes. 

But my depression essential oils did nothing, I was a walking potpourri, and so nutty. Finally one night, Brent looked at me and said what is going on? I didn't know...

He went to bed, because clearly this was not a problem he could solve, and we don't agree with old adage never go to bed angry. We find most problems are solved with a good night sleep. I started researching essential oils for anxiety though. I order a few, and within a few days I felt normal again. Its actually been nice, its like oh, Hello there, my old self, I've missed you over the past few years. Every so often I find myself again, and its so such a relief, then something new pops up. 

I still have days of extreme anxiety, but they are usually days where I forget to put on my anxiety oils. Like last Saturday, I ended up with three kids in the city on a Saturday morning running errands. After 2 hours of busyness, we stopped at a fast food restaurant at lunch time to use Valentine coupons. There were several restaurants all along a busy road, and every parking lot was full, along with each drive thru. I really lost it when my 7 year old started climbing out of the car before I told she could. Really? she hasn't had to hold my hand in a parking lot since she was 4. At first I was positive they would ALL get run over if they weren't holding my hand. In hindsight not a single car was moving except on the road across the curb. I only have a basic knowledge but I've researched brain and mental illness enough in the past few years, that I think my hippocampus was stressed by a long morning and mixed with exhaustion my brain's frontal lobe didn't have control over my reason. My flight or flight reacted faster than my cerebral cortex could reign it in.

Overall its definitely the anxiety, its make me a perfectionist, when I make the slightest error, I'm convinced the world hates me and I shouldn't be allowed out. Literally. One day I almost started crying because I accidentally cut someone off in a roundabout. Another day the only spots open in a parking lot were for compact cars, except one covered in a snowbank, and one that the Suburban next to had parked over the line. In an effort to be a good person I didn't park in the compact car spots, but then I spent the whole time in the store so stressed at how the driver of the Suburban would react to not being able to me being so close. It also paralyzed me in fear, I could barely find the items I went into the store for. This is extremely uncharacteristic of me. In the words of my parents the other day, since when have you ever cared what people think about your choices? Its true, most of my life, I make a choice and I don't worry about anyone's opinion. I do what I do, and don't look back, but now lately...

Listening to the radio is definitely helping though. I have my car set up to play pandora off my phone, so I hear music I that I actually enjoying most of the time I'm out. The radio helps me not panic on the road. (Don't worry we don't go out much lately.) Usually I only panic when the radio is not on yet. Plus the oils. 

The essential oils are helping me, but maybe not my house, my house was spotless last month, I cleaned cleaned cleaned. Its all I did, unless I was yelling at people for not keeping it clean. Thankfully my children are forgiving. Even after I yelled at my daughter for trying to get run over (yes my exact phrase) she still told me it was the best day ever.

P.S. When did she get so stinking old!

The rest of a be continued

To finish a post I wrote almost  a year and half ago, here are my baby nicknames.
My first baby is- the reason I get up in the morning
My daughter is- my miracle baby
My third was- our happy baby (Our joyous baby, we didn't know having a baby in the house could be so fun, we finally understood why people loved having babies around.)
My last baby, I kept wondering who he was, what he emotionally meant to me as a baby. Then a few months ago I figured it out. But I thought it was embarrassing.
Now I don't, I've accepted it for what is, when he came and who is he.

He is my last-born- born in the wilderness of mine afflictions.

You might recognize that I borrowed that phrase from Lehi. It speaks truth to me. I don't think Lehi loved his children who were born in the wilderness any less than his other children. Jacob went on to be a prophet, so being born during a great trial doesn't make you any less of a person. Lehi said, of Joseph, "...in the days of my greatest sorrow did thy mother bear thee... may the Lord bless thee forever (2 Nephi 3)." Sure my last baby was not literally born in the wilderness but he was a baby at an extremely hard time in my life, probably the hardest. He was definitely born in the wilderness of my afflictions. As you know, you've read all about my struggles th2 past two years.

But as time goes on, I think I love and appreciate him more, knowing he came right before such a hard time. Maybe that is the reason he was born giving the best hugs in the world.

And now he is two. (These picture are all old, all before his first birthday.)

This morning at breakfast his two oldest siblings were on the verge of tears thinking about him turning 3 next year. They don't want him to grow up, they want a baby to love forever, to love them forever. I listened sympathetically to their words, hugging their 2 year old brother, he was visibly upset as they were talking, but I guess I should have said, enjoy him while he is 2, you have a whole YEAR with him at that age. I don't think he was upset that he is growing up, I think their sadness they were directing at him was upsetting him.

Knocking a tooth

This is what my husband wrote on fb last week.

My son knocked in his tooth tonight so I called Dr Michael Bull for advice. I did my best to pop it back into place. We looked through a bunch of family pictures to try and see what his teeth looked like but couldn't find a single one that showed his teeth clear. So we ran him over to the Dr's house to make sure everything was good. Amazingly, Dr Bull took pictures for primary on Sunday and had the perfect shot showing my son's teeth. It's the little blessings that make the big differences. Tender mercies I think they're called nowadays.

What he doesn't tell you, its 10 minutes before it happened, I said, ok everyone is getting too crazy we need to go to bed. Well no one listened to me and guess what happened. I loved this experience though. I totally knew someone was going to get seriously hurt, if they continued to play, but no one was listening to me. I loved that the Spirit told me something bad was going to happen, but the Lord still set up a plan for it all to work out in the end and set us at ease.

I've thought a lot about this concept for years, and I'm grateful for this experience.

I was also grateful our friend was a Dentist who was able to set our mind at ease. Our three year's tooth was very sore for the next few days, but I didn't worry about it, because I knew everything that could help it was already done, so now only time would tell if it worked or not. 

A different boys journey in the snow.

My three year old is one of the most active kids I've met, and he loved shoveling for a week straight. Actually the day he didn't get out and shovel is the day he knocked his tooth out, his dad pushed it back where it belongs. (Story for another day, maybe.)

We had J's birthday party that Friday. He really wanted his friends to walk home from school with him, so I told him I'd meet him near the end, I thought we'd never get home because Turbo needed to shovel all the walks. Turbo and I took an extra 10 minutes or more to get home than the other kids.