The Accident

I've been driving for the last ten years and have never been involved in an accident - at least one where damage was done to my vehicle. Once, not too long after I started working in Dallas, someone in a Toyota Tercel rearended my Ford Pickup on the highway. While no damage was done to my truck, his car was totaled - my dual exhaust pipes shredded his hood, the back end of my truck was sitting on his car, and he had no insurance. All I had to do was have my pipes re-welded.

So I guess it was bound to happen. Yesterday morning I woke up feeling great. There was now a slight probability we could be pregnant and I was just in a fantastic mood. It was 7:15am and I was less than 10 minutes from the office, just having crossed I-35 traveling eastbound on I-635. As customary for this time of morning, the far left lane I happened to be traveling in was at a complete stop, letting the traffic coming from 35S get on before the lane became the HOV.

I saw her coming. I was talking to Brent on the phone and I said, "This truck is fixing to hit me!" Sure enough, she slammed on her brakes and cut the wheel, but still hit me at a pretty good rate of speed. My head slammed against the headrest, and I said a few expletives. Once I regained my composure we made our way across five lanes of rush-hour traffic to the shoulder.

This poor girl in her Expedition was a mess. She was young, maybe 20, and thoroughly upset. Thankfully, there was no damage to her vehicle, she wasn't hurt, and by all comparison the damage to my car was minimal. I'll need a new bumper, rear quarter panel and trunk, but it could've been a lot worse. We exchanged insurance information and I headed on to work. My day was still good, despite it all.

About two hours later I realized I was experiencing some stiffness in my neck and back. Under the advice of her insurance company I went to the ER over at Medical City Dallas to be checked out. They were wonderful, and I was diagnosed with a cervical sprain and given some antinflammatory and muscle relaxers, and sent home. Boy, did I NOT know what was coming.

When I got home I took the meds and went to sleep. That's when I became the angriest person I've ever known. Brent kept calling because he had to go down to Hillsboro and he wanted to check on me but I was having none of it. When he finally got home around 8pm I could not wake up for anything, but somehow managed to ask for chicken fried rice from my favorite Chinese restaurant. And was very mean, so I'm told. This morning he told me he thought I had a concussion but I doubt it. Needless to say, I won't be taking any more of those meds!!

So aside from a little stiffness this morning, I'm not half bad. My car should be in the shop today or tomorrow to be fixed and life will resume as normal. The girl that hit me called to check on me, which I thought was really sweet. I felt really bad for her, I know it probably had something to do with the sun being right in her eyes.

Love, KC

The Unbearable Wait . . .

You'd think being in our third month of "trying to conceive" I'd be getting used to the waiting game. I'm not. Moreover, Brent is almost more impatient about the matter than I am.

Never in a million years when we decided to have a baby did I think it would take three months, or more. We both thought it would happen immediately. I guess at some point everyone who begins this journey feels that way, and I'm now part of that exclusive club if you will. I've become borderline obsessed with everything I can find online to help with this process, which ultimately is most likely just stressing me out more. LOL

Oh well, just needed to vent for a moment. Monday November 2nd is the magic day this month, and I think Brent has a mental calendar going - at least, he asks just about every day.

Hoping this is our month . . .

Love, KC

The Decision to Go Natural

When most women of today decide that they want to have a child, at least in my experience, almost the first thing you hear is, “Bring on the drugs!” It’s like it’s the most natural thing in the world to have an epidural and not be able to feel the pain of your child coming into the world. Ever since I really decided to have a baby the idea of being drugged up just scares me.

Let me preface this by saying – I know you all think I’m a wimp. And sure, maybe I was as a child, but the older I’ve gotten the tougher I’ve become both mentally and physically. It’s been a long progression and maybe not always a great one, but somehow I believe it was to lead me to this point. Hell, I have eleven tattoos; surely I can handle almost anything, right? I chose to endure that pain for a beautiful result, and while childbirth is no doubt that pain times one hundred, it’s also for a beautiful result.

Making the decision to have a natural childbirth was, like most things in my life this year, not really a decision at all. I’m not quite sure when it first began, but I do know that reading Pacing the Panic Room helped to solidify the decision, as well as lead me to a multitude of great resources. Brent is firmly against a home birth at this point, and I don’t have my mind really made up, but I’m hoping that watching The Business of Being Born will help us both.

What I do know for certain is that I don’t want an epidural or a hospital for that matter unless medically necessary. After my recent experience with the OB, I think that I would feel much more comfortable with a Certified Nurse Midwife. I want to be able to labor at my pace, in a calm and comfortable environment when the baby is ready and not be induced because my doctor has a golf game at 11am. I don’t want to be hooked up to IVs and have a monitor screwed into my child’s head in utero.

Crazy? Maybe to some. But a growing number of women are going back to the way God intended it. Natural. So that’s my goal. It won’t be an easy journey, this much I know for sure, but I am so very confident in my choice and know that it will be what’s best for my baby. Fortunately there are so many resources available in my area, and I’ve already scoped out a birthing center near my home.

For me this year has been about the happiest time of my life, learning and trusting and coming to terms with a faith I don’t really think I ever possessed before. God will only give me as much as I can handle, so I will leave it up to Him. Maybe that’s why we’re not pregnant yet. There’s been so much going on that we really haven’t had the time – at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

We’re ready now, God. Ready when you are.

Love, Us

It's Official!!

Well, after months of waiting . . . WE'RE ENGAGED!! Yup, finally happened. Of course it was never a question of IF it was going to happen, simply WHEN.

Brent picked a fight with me the day before about it, trying to throw me off he said, and I was really heated all day. It was my Mom's birthday, and I needed to go buy her a present and since I was forbidden to enter my own house, what better opportunity to shop??

I arrived home around 5:45pm to dimmed lights and Brent dressed up, with cologne on. Like that wasn't supposed to raise my suspicions. I assumed he was just trying to make up for being so mean to me all day and went about sulking while he cooked dinner. Braeden hadn't had a nap that day so he'd managed to get him to sleep on the way home, and that kid slept until 6pm. He was cranky when he got up, but crawled up in my lap and we slept for another half hour.

Dinner was served and I was still feeling pityful. We'd all been sick for the last week so that didn't help matters much. Brent cooked some amazing chicken and green beans on the grill, one of my favorites. When we were finished I was told to wait at the table with my eyes closed, while LB got me a "surprise". I heard him say my "Marry Surprise" and couldn't help but grin.

LB came running to the table saying, "Here Kirbe!" and Brent qued up his favorite song for me, Bless the Broken Road by Rascal Flatts, as Braeden handed me a ring. It was awesome. I opened my eyes and saw this:

How can you say no to that? Of course I didn't! Brent got down on one knee and said some really sweet, sappy things that I'll keep between us. I was overjoyed, and couldn't wait to share with everyone.

We've picked January 18, 2010 as the date - one year to the day of our first real date. Now the planning begins!

Love, Us

27th Annual James Gang Family Reunion

Just a quick post about family reunion this year . . .

It was Brent and Braeden's first introduction to most of my family - as well as the added pressure of being Family President. We decided to provide BBQ for Friday night and spent nearly 36 hours smoking meat beforehand. A whopping 35 pounds of brisket and pulled pork. Everyone loved it and Brent was a hero.

Being President was much easier than I thought it would be. All in all I just made sure we ate on time, said grace before meals and conducted the meeting on Saturday. My cousin Chad and his wife Nichole get the honor for next year.

Braeden had an absolute blast! I wish I would have taken pictures but there was just too much going on. That child stayed dirty from the time we arrived until his bath Saturday night - and only then because it flooded overnight and we had to leave early Sunday. I'm so glad he got to spend so much time just being TWO, and being a boy and just being free. It's something I've realized as I've gotten older that I really took for granted as a child.

Even though we made for an early departure Sunday morning, it was wonderful to see my family again. It's the only time I see most of them, except for my Dad's brothers and their families. It was especially great to see my cousin David Wayne, who I haven't seen in almost ten years - and who hasn't changed one bit.

Til next year . . .

Love, Me

Deflation

When we decided to board this baby train, we thought it’d be so very easy. Lord knows, if we could have wished ourselves pregnant it would have happened a hundred times over in the first couple of days. But, we did our best to be patient and silently prayed that we were one of the lucky few that struck gold on the first try. Amidst this all we could talk about were babies . . . names, furniture, toys, discipline, the works. You get yourself so hyped up that when you find out you missed the mark, your world suddenly deflates like a balloon.

For those of us who have never had (diagnosed) fertility problems, pregnancy is thought to be easy. Have sex for a few days before you ovulate and PRESTO! BABY! As nervous as I was at first I was finally ready for this to happen, and so I was utterly disappointed when I realized I was getting my period. Brent has been convinced since about a week into this process that I was pregnant. All of the signs were there and you could just feel the excited energy in our house. Then, on Saturday night, I noticed what I thought was spotting. It was very, very light and I knew it was one of two things. Since my period always starts first thing in the morning I hoped-Hoped-HOPED it was a sign and went to bed giddy as a school girl.

Waking up Sunday morning I was crushed. I spent the morning so very sick with my trashcan in my lap that I held onto a string of hope I could still be pregnant. It became abundantly clear though as the day wore on that I was not. So on Monday I decided to go to the doctor and make sure everything was normal by comparison and sure enough, it was. I could tell I was ovulating out of my right ovary just by looking, and since that is where most of my discomfort comes from every month. And, as it turns out, withdrawal from my migraine meds is what caused the pseudo-pregnancy symptoms. I told him we wouldn’t be back until I had good news.

As sad as I was, I think maybe Brent was a little more distraught. My heart hurt for him almost worse than for myself, especially when a couple of days later he said, “I’m just ready. Ready to be married and ready to have lots of babies.”

I’m ready too.

Jumping on the Train

At some point I realized that I was intentionally not writing anymore, not because there was nothing to write about, but because there was new, exciting news that I badly wanted to share but not in a public forum. Then it occurred to me that no one read anyway so I may as well put it out there.

Brent and I have always talked about having babies, how we want five or six children and would love if they were all boys – but hopefully one little girl, otherwise I may have a boy with painted toenails. We’ve gone as far as picking out nearly all of the names and the order in which they will be named. Obsessed? Maybe. But it’s just a testament to how sure we are about this life we’re living, and how anxious we are to start our family. Even so, we had agreed very early on to a three year plan: married after a year (even though we probably would have been married shortly after our second date had it been up to us), and babies after three years. By that point LB would be five and we would have had sufficient time to ourselves.

I’m not quite sure when this plan changed. I think it was gradual, that I woke up one day and realized I was turning 25 soon, and all of the women in my family had their first child at 25. That I have close friends who are pregnant and it increases a mother’s want ten-fold. I had lunch with my dear friend Amanda, who after years of trying is finally pregnant with their first son to be born in October. During the course of conversation she assured me many times that all of her friends who wanted to become pregnant had done just that within a month of her pregnancy. Somewhere in that logic the real reason hit me: what if it takes me that long to have a baby? My mother tried for seven years to have me, and had all but given up hope when I became the miracle baby. It terrifies me to think that I could have the same issues, and if I did, why didn’t I start trying sooner? My choice of career all but dictates that I cannot have a child between the time frame of approximately November 15th and March 1st, because that is the busiest time of year for me and well, I’m the only one who does my job.

So the following weekend, on Sunday night, I was putting a new pack of pills in the case and Brent and I were discussing how if we wanted to get pregnant, it had to be in three month intervals, because that’s how often my medicine came in. We laughed and then Brent said something that caught me off guard.

“We could try now?”

Now, as much as I’d been thinking of this very thing, I never thought he’d come out and say it. We spent two hours sitting in the bed, talking, crying, discussing our concerns; all the while I held my little pink pill in my fingertips. At the end of the night we were okay, but I knew that should we change our mind on Monday, we’d still be okay. He was convinced I’d get pregnant right away, but I was not quite as sure. I was miserably sick for the first week, mostly from fear of this life-changing decision we were making, but little by little, day by day, the fear turned to excitement. This would have been MUCH easier had we just “accidently” gotten pregnant. So we went about our normal routine, with an air of anticipation between us, and talked excitedly about what was to be.

During this, I explained to Brent how there were certain things that I really believed in and wanted in my pregnancy experience. I hope to be able to breastfeed, as much for the cost saving benefits as the fact that it’s what’s best for the baby. He's even been scoping out the best book on the subject for me. I also want to make my own baby food, which is relatively simple and so much healthier than the jarred crap you can buy at the store. Lastly, I really want to cloth diaper. Eyebrows raised at this notion, but once I explained why I wanted to do it, we were quickly all onboard. Long before I ever truly considered pregnancy and found Pacing the Panic Room, I had come across a link for these cool cloth diapers called "Fuzzibunz" on a popular baby blog. Sitting at work I was so engrossed in the website that probably an hour passed before I realized that I had read every page and researched where I could buy this amazing product. You see, LB was only 23 months old when we met and still being diapered. He had horrible diaper rash and we spent a ton of money on disposables – and he was only here a week a month. I vowed then and there, that because I knew I’d never be able to move him to cloth and have his mother go along, that with my babies I would put them in nothing but cloth. My mother even grimaced at this, like many thinking back to the folding and pinning of cloth diapers of yesteryear, but once I showed her the site even she was impressed. How could you not be? No rashes, easy cleanup, better for the environment, and babies who are cloth diapered are even said to potty train quicker (our latest struggle with LB). My want for this all but doubled when I realized that the folks from PtPR were doing this exact thing, and to hear their stories was really encouraging.

With all of our thoughts and concerns laid out on the table, we decided to go ahead and jump on the baby train. So here we are, about 2 ½ weeks into the process, and both anxiously awaiting the next few days to see what happens. Brent seems to think I’m already pregnant; I need concrete proof. He says my crankiness and irritability should be proof enough, since I am never like this. We shall see, can’t wait to find out!

Love, KC