"I DUE"

Six years ago yesterday I walked down the isle in a white dress to commit my life forever as Derek's wife. The first few years had some up's and down's but each year that goes by our marriage gets stronger and I fall more in love with him. I could not ask for a more wonderful, handsome, sensitive, caring, selfless God-loving Husband and Father for our children. I look forward to many more years of growing together and watching the kids navigate life. I pray weekly that our girls find a husband as wonderful as their Father. I tell Madiysn this regularly and today she asked Derek, as he was tucking her in and about to pray with her, "Dad, it must be hard to find that special boy or girl to marry."
Little does her angel heart know just how hard it can be. I can only pray she endures any future heartache with a positive outlook and grows stronger from it, not colder like her Momma did. I thank the Lord that Derek chiseled his way in and warmed my heart.

Since Madilynn's due date is so close to our anniversary, we decided to celebrate it two weekends ago. Our wonderful friends Terri and Adrianna watched the kids for us. We left Saturday morning and took a leisurely drive down the coast. Along the way we saw a cute little breakfast stop and had a very delicious and uninterrupted breakfast. No sticky hands in our hair or thrown pancakes. We even took a look around a swap meet. Then it was on to our destination. Derek and I pulled up to the trendy Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego. After exploring the entire hotel and all the crazy memorabilia, Derek treated us to our very first couples massage (and actually Derek's very first massage ever). It was so relaxing and wonderful to enjoy that peace together. Hungry by this time, we agreed to a sushi dinner at the famous NOBU sushi restaurant located in the hotel. We got really creative and tried a few things we had no idea how to pronounce and were very pleased at how delicious it all was. Still having some energy, we decided to hit the roof-top to check out the extremely popular (wait in line two hours) night club overlooking San Diego. Being hotel guests were were VIP to the club so no waiting in line for us and no $20 cover charge. We people-watched for about twenty minutes and realized how out-of-place we felt as we saw young half-clad females rub their bums on very intoxicated men. I couldn't help but to giggle as I stood their nine months pregnant. Don't get me wrong, Derek and I used to hit the clubs together during our dating and pre-baby phase. I'm sure we still have a few moves in us if we tried but the reality is, we would rather bust out a few moves with the kids to High School Musical.
So Derek and I retreated to the room and ordered a movie. I took full advantage of the awesome shower equipped with two rain shower heads and my favorite part, the body wash and shampoo samples. I couldn't help to notice there wasn't a little person pulling the shower curtain back and trying to climb in the shower with me though. I must admit that I felt a bit guilty for taking such a long shower because the shower heads were far from water conservative. I even joked with Derek that though they were nice, I wouldn't be able to have something like that in our house because I would feel way too guilty wasting that much water everyday. He totally agreed. I love that man! So we watched a movie and even treated ourselves to a drink from the fully stocked refrigerator. I fell asleep halfway through the movie snoring like a banshee apparently. We awoke by the sound of quiet. No, "I'm hungry" or "monkey keeps climbing on me" or cats trying to climb their way under the blankets. It was almost too quiet. Almost.
We got ready just in time for check out and had breakfast in the hotel's cafe. It was a quiet breakfast. Without words Derek and I could read each other and know that we missed our babies and it was time to get back to sticky fingers, diapers and the best hugs and kisses in the world.

Yesterday marked six years of marriage and eight years of a life together. We spent it just the four (or five) of us not doing much because our newest family member has made things a bit harder on me physically. It was still nice to just be. Unfortunately the night ended with a bang. A large bang as monkey fell off the potty (yes she is toilet training and doing wonderful) and hit her forehead pretty hard. Instant goose-egg. We all felt horrible as it happened while we were all in arms reach. Luckily she is fine but the night was filled with guilt and anger. After much praying we were all better by this morning and Maelynn has her first decent bruise that makes her look a little more rough and tumble.

I had a OB appointment scheduled for today. This was a really big deal since the last three were cancelled because Dr. Biter was delivering babies. I woke up excited as I still hadn't received a phone call to reschedule. As the time drew close to leaving for my appointment I was really happy. We took the kids over to our good friend Niah's since we knew we were going to ask Dr. Biter to check if I had made any progress. About halfway to the appointment the van started to make really strange sounds. All I could tell Derek was to "get to the Doctor's and we will figure it out from there." There was no stopping me from making this appointment! So we quietly drove and prayed we would make it to the office as our van sounded like the transmission was about to drop out the bottom. We really could not believe the luck we were having. We did make it to the appointment on time and got to finally see Dr. Biter. It was a wonderful reunion. He checked out baby and she is good. She is facing a bit forward (explains the back pain) so I'm doing some positions to hopefully get her facing down. My blood pressure was a little low 99/66 but I'm not experiencing any side effects from it. I weigh in at 151 (a 39 pound weight gain). I'm also 3cm dilated and 80% effaced. Dr. Biter did a membrane sweep to see if that would help things along. Now we wait, and hope baby Madilynn comes soon. She is officially "DUE" on Wednesday.

We are happy to report that the van is okay and it was not the transmission. The van was repaired in a few hours and we were back home at a decent hour. I was even able to make it to a last minute chiropractic adjustment to help ease the PSD discomfort. Getting adjusted has been a life saver!

Well, we are so ready to close this chapter of our lives and begin the new one "Family of Five." We could use any prayers for a safe, easy (yes I know wishful thinking), quick labor and delivery. I hope this finds everyone well. We will let you know when little Madilynn decides to join us.

God Bless,
Amy, Derek, Madisyn, Maelynn & Madilynn

Dizzy!

You can be sure that God will take care of everything that you need. PHILIPPIANS 4:19

I have been putting off posting a new blog because I really just don't know where to start. The past month has been insane! My head is still spinning with everything that has happened.

To start: I took Maelynn in for her physical four weeks ago . I pondered even taking her because I was just so tired that day and I was still in the process of researching more about the MMR vaccine which she was due to get. Still, I just pushed myself to go to the appointment and the entire time I had a little voice screaming at me to leave. I ignored that and my instinct. The Doctor gave me a wonderfully prepared speal on the pros of the MMR after I asked if he could separate the vaccines and get them Thimerosal-free (mercury-free). He said he could not. I held my baby as she got poked and then was told to give her Tylenol. I went home feeling terrible. Three days later Maelynn broke out into a horrendous rash covering her entire body. She was extremely irritable, cried constantly and just wanted to be held. She has always been a wonderful sleeper but she started waking a few times in the night in a panick screaming. She didn't even want to eat. I took her back to the Doctor and told him I know it was a reaction to the MMR. After arguing with him, he finally agreed it was probably the measles portion of the MMR but she would be fine. Then he proceeded to fill out some lengthy paperwork which I presume was to report a vaccine reaction to the CDC. To this day we are still battling her reaction. I took her to my Chiropractor who was able to adjust her a few times and it has helped immensely with getting her immune system back in order. She is also on quite a few different vitamins and supplements to flush her system out. It was awful to watch our normally very happy baby turn into a clingy, constantly crying, unhappy little girl all day long for three weeks. After speaking with a few friends of mine I found out through one that her son had the same reaction and it turned out to be a form of measles he contracted. I also found out the Doctor should have warned me not to let her in the sunlight because having a measles outbreak and being in direct sunlight (which she was) can cause blindness! You see, Doctors assume all vaccines are 100% effective when the reality is they are actually giving children unnatural forms of the disease that the doctors don't recognize, or treat as something else.

We are continuously praying this does not have any lasting effects on her. We are still having some trouble with her sleeping patterns and she still has some rashy spots but she is back to eating us out of house and home and she is much happier. She barely has any meltdowns and is content playing on her own again.

Madisyn is in her second week of camp. The first week was okay. Unfortunately the camp members forgot to apply sunscreen to the kids and poor little fair Madisyn got a pretty awful sunburn. I was not a very happy Mommy and she of course wasn't feeling all that great. They did apologize which I wish I could say helped a little but it didn't. I'm very protective with the kids when it comes to the sun, especially with them being so fair skinned. But, Madisyn healed well and found it extremely funny to gross me out with her peeling skin. YACK!

Derek is being blessed with lots of work. I can tell he is so grateful for having work but I see the stress in his eyes. I'm trying my best to help out but the last two weeks I can barely muster up the strength to shower. So Derek has had to pick up after my slack lately. Derek and I finally decided we needed to find some extra help. We hired our friends oldest daughter Adrianna to come over three times a week to help bathe, feed and put the kids to bed. That way Derek has time to go to the gym for a little downtime and come home and make dinner. Yes, Derek is the chef in our house. I burn jello. Hiring Adrianna has worked out very well and especially today since I crashed out at 3pm and there was no getting me out of bed. My body is desperately trying to give up and I'm fighting it just to keep the house together and chores done. My Mom's group at church has started bringing us meals and will for a few weeks. This has all been such a blessing and I can't even express how thankful we are for eveyone's help.

Two weeks ago the family was driving around with Derek while he ran some work errands. We wanted to spend some time with him so we figured since he was driving all over San Diego we would hang out with him and just enjoy the nice day. We happened to be in Encinitas near the office of Dr. Biter. He is the wonderful angel that delivered Maelynn. He had not seen Maelynn since she was 6 weeks old so Derek and I agreed it would be cool for the family to drop by and surprise him. Unfortunately he was at the hospital delivering a baby. I was in the process of leaving him a note when I starting talking about Maelynn's birth and how bummed I was that Dr. Biter couldn't deliver this baby because he doesn't take our current insurance. The receptionist was like, "Wait! You are a pre-existing patient right? We take your insurance for pre-existing!" I instantly started bawling my eyes out. I was so overwhelmed and was able to set up an appointment right away. So at 37 weeks I transferred to Dr. Biter. Just like I did with Maelynn at 37 weeks. To top it off I was put in the same room we first met and the first time there was police action going on outside the window. This time.....there was police action going on outside the window. It was hilarious how ironic it all was. I'm so very excited that Dr. Biter will be with us again and that we will be delivering at Scripps Encinitas. We really love that hospital and the nurses are fabulous! Maybe we will be even more lucky and have Nurse Jillian again.

Madilynn is doing well. She is head down and in perfect position. She is also big. I was kinda hoping for a smaller baby this time so I know I could deliver her well but it looks like we have another 8+ pounder. I'm mostly belly this time and I have only gained 37 pounds. That's a huge difference from Madisyn's pregnancy at 60 pounds and close to Maelynn's at 40 pounds. I don't have much of an appetite this pregnancy. Unless you count Starburst and ice a food group.
I have been seeing the Chiropractor three times a week which has been a God send. My pelvis is trying to separate a lot and it is extraordinarily painful to walk and well just move in general. So Dr. Marggie has been working very hard to stabilize my pelvis and bring me some relief from the back pain. I'm a bit anemic as well so I'm taking some extra supplements. There really isn't much else to report on the pregnancy. Madilynn is just way too comfy and doesn't seem to want to join us yet. It feels like I'm going to be pregnant forever. This pregnancy has gone by super fast but it has also been the hardest by far. I've been told it's because the last two are so close together and I totally believe that.

Well, I better log off. Madisyn is laughing hysterically trying to yank out her loose tooth at this very moment and I think I need to hide in the closet before I up-chuck my dinner. I hope this find everyone well.

Lots of love from Amy, Derek, Madisyn, Maelynn & Madilynn