We go to our adoption orientation next week.
things are officially getting real
I mean, I know that the timeline of adoption can vary greatly, but seeing it; ohmygosh. I'm praying a lot so I don't freak out over the funding.
Brady and I are doing well considering everything, but it wouldn't be possible without constant prayer. Also, researching fundraisers-LOL.
He called us to do this, so I know He will provide!
In the meantime, please pray for us!
~Kristen
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Juggling with no hands
Do you ever have a day (or, let's be real here, multiple days, weeks, or even months) that feel like you're too stressed out and life is just all about survival? Getting from one moment to the next and not truly enjoying the moments you have?
Yeah, it sucks.
But you know what? You can't control everything. You can control some things though.
Just yesterday I was doing the dishes and my daughter crawls up to me and stands up at the back of my legs bawling like the world had ended. She was hungry. I could have finished the dishes and had a clean kitchen while there were little girl wails, or I could have stopped and fed the hungry and subsequently hungry baby.
I chose the latter of the two. The dishes and the kitchen could wait. The time with my daughter is much more important than a constantly clean kitchen in my household.
We need to realize that these little moments are going to fly by. We never know how much time we will have with our kids, and we need to enjoy every second we can have with them.
Will my daughter remember this one instance? No. Will I? Yes.
Remember,
This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24
Rejoice in every time you have with your child. Your husband. Your family. Be thankful for all you have, because it is all a blessing from Him.
💛 Kristen
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Enough
I watched a movie the other day.
Moms' Night Out.
And you know what's? It's really good. There is no way a mother with young children will not be able to relate to it. Watching it taught me something.
I am enough.
I'm enough for my daughter. I'm enough for my husband. I'm enough to everyone else. I had never thought I was "enough" to me.
I am enough in God's eyes, so why did I not believe that I was enough in my own eyes?
I put stupid societal expectations on myself. But those expectations are just that; stupid.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we try to meet unrealistic expectations? They're called "unrealistic" for a reason. We don't control life. God does. If we lean on Him, all that stress we put on ourselves will suddenly be lighter.
Be you.
Don't stress over anything and everything.
Enjoy life.
Enjoy the small things.
Have fun.
You only get this life once, so be happy with the mother you are, the life you have, and the time you have with your children.
💜
Friday, December 5, 2014
Savannah René's Birth Story
Judging by the title, you can guess what this post is going to be about. How our baby girl made her appearance into the world! <3
I have to go into a bit of the backstory in order to get to the "fun" stuff.
Overall, I had a pretty easy pregnancy, but things seemed to change toward the end. My blood pressure had started to rise at about 20 weeks. They kept an eye on it, but I had no swelling or any other symptoms of preeclampsia, so yay for that! When we went for our 36 week appointment, I was measuring small, so the doctor scheduled an ultrasound to check things out. Doc did the ultrasound, and all was well. She was just so low that he said she was "locked and loaded". Oh, and I had a lot of amniotic fluid. Not too much, just more than average. At our 37 week appointment, Monday, November 3rd, my BP was quite high, so Doc took us over to Labor and Delivery to have a Non Stress Test. We were in there for a few hours being monitored to see how everything was going. My BP kept going up and down, and turns out, I had been contracting about every 5 minutes and didn't realize it. When Doc decided it was ok for us to leave, he had me do a 24 hour urine test to see if I had pre-e or if I just had gestational hypertension. Doc said that, basically, I would be induced soon to keep both Savannah and I safe.
So, I do the 24 hour urine test, and Doc calls me on Thursday, November 6th (my 38 week mark), around 12:30 saying that the lab did the test the wrong way, but that it really would be safest for me to be induced since my BP had been so unpredictable and I was already contracting and whatnot. He asked if we could come in at 5pm to start the process. Luckily, Brady was home for lunch so he went back to work and got as much done as he could without freaking out for what was about to come.
We get up to the hospital at 5 and got admitted. Doc checks me and I was completely effaced and dilated to a 3. Oh, and Savannah's head was basically right there. I got an IV, they took blood for tests to make sure I could get an epidural (I originally did not want one, but with the high BP, I changed my mind in order to hopefully keep the pain down so my BP would stay down as well). Brady and I hung out in the hospital and at about 7pm is when I got my pitocin. Savannah was doing great, and I was starting to feel the contractions a bit more, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. Suddenly I felt sick to my stomach (in hindsight, I should have realized that I was going into active labor at this point, but hey, I had never done this before, and I was kind of concentrating at one thing at the time). My nurse (who was awesome!) got me some Zofran and the nausea disappeared. I had been on a external monitor the whole time, and the monitor decided to not be reading my contractions.
Now, I am not a vocal person. I pretty much internalize pain and use the pain to push harder (thanks, Crossfit for giving me a nice outlet for this ;) ) but at about 9pm I started contracting really hard. Brady felt horrible because he had never seen me in that kind of pain before and wanted to help me, but couldn't--other than the counter-pressure he was applying on my lower back, which felt amazing. Anyway, at this point, I felt like the only thing that would relieve what I was feeling was to push, so I told Awesome Nurse and she went to check and see how I was doing. She was checking me, and she couldn't tell how dilated I was because my bag of waters was bulging out so much. She called the on-call doc, and he came in to check me and told me I'm good to push if I want because I was fully dilated. He didn't want to break my water, so he told me to push with the contractions, when it felt right.
On-call doc told the nurses to call my Doc to tell him to turn around and come back to the hospital because he wanted to be there for Savannah's birth. So, he turned around.
I was pushing (loudly) for about 5 to 10 minutes, waters intact (and all 4 nurses and on-call doc in the room with us), until it broke. Little Miss Savannah was almost born En Caul, which would have been a first for many in the room! With my waters broken, I felt so relieved of pressure. It felt so stinking good! Finally my doc got in the room (he had to get someone from another department to let him in because he left his badge in the car and no one was at the desk because everyone was in our room!) and Savannah was crowning. Doc got in there, helped coax Savannah out with my very loud pushes, and she was screaming on my chest at 9:20pm. Brady watched the entire thing; me giving birth without medication!
Now, I did have second degree tearing and some tearing inside on my right side from Savannah, and Doc had to sew all that up, but he took his time. I did hemorrhage due to tearing in some hidden places, but I got to hold my daughter on my chest the entire time I was being sewn up, until her cord stopped pulsing, and longer. She wasn't taken to be weighed, measured, and tested until over an hour of her on my chest and feeding. She was constantly making little noises and making her presence known.
So, my first birthing experience was not one that I had expected. I got original my wish (which we had prayed for for so long) to birth Savannah with no medication, but I was in awe that my experience was really only a couple of hours, with minimal pushing! God gave us the healthy and (very) strong baby girl we had been praying for as well as the "natural" experience we had been praying for also.
We've both been blessed by Jesus with a beautiful baby girl, and now I can't imagine life without her.
I have to go into a bit of the backstory in order to get to the "fun" stuff.
Overall, I had a pretty easy pregnancy, but things seemed to change toward the end. My blood pressure had started to rise at about 20 weeks. They kept an eye on it, but I had no swelling or any other symptoms of preeclampsia, so yay for that! When we went for our 36 week appointment, I was measuring small, so the doctor scheduled an ultrasound to check things out. Doc did the ultrasound, and all was well. She was just so low that he said she was "locked and loaded". Oh, and I had a lot of amniotic fluid. Not too much, just more than average. At our 37 week appointment, Monday, November 3rd, my BP was quite high, so Doc took us over to Labor and Delivery to have a Non Stress Test. We were in there for a few hours being monitored to see how everything was going. My BP kept going up and down, and turns out, I had been contracting about every 5 minutes and didn't realize it. When Doc decided it was ok for us to leave, he had me do a 24 hour urine test to see if I had pre-e or if I just had gestational hypertension. Doc said that, basically, I would be induced soon to keep both Savannah and I safe.
So, I do the 24 hour urine test, and Doc calls me on Thursday, November 6th (my 38 week mark), around 12:30 saying that the lab did the test the wrong way, but that it really would be safest for me to be induced since my BP had been so unpredictable and I was already contracting and whatnot. He asked if we could come in at 5pm to start the process. Luckily, Brady was home for lunch so he went back to work and got as much done as he could without freaking out for what was about to come.
We get up to the hospital at 5 and got admitted. Doc checks me and I was completely effaced and dilated to a 3. Oh, and Savannah's head was basically right there. I got an IV, they took blood for tests to make sure I could get an epidural (I originally did not want one, but with the high BP, I changed my mind in order to hopefully keep the pain down so my BP would stay down as well). Brady and I hung out in the hospital and at about 7pm is when I got my pitocin. Savannah was doing great, and I was starting to feel the contractions a bit more, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. Suddenly I felt sick to my stomach (in hindsight, I should have realized that I was going into active labor at this point, but hey, I had never done this before, and I was kind of concentrating at one thing at the time). My nurse (who was awesome!) got me some Zofran and the nausea disappeared. I had been on a external monitor the whole time, and the monitor decided to not be reading my contractions.
Now, I am not a vocal person. I pretty much internalize pain and use the pain to push harder (thanks, Crossfit for giving me a nice outlet for this ;) ) but at about 9pm I started contracting really hard. Brady felt horrible because he had never seen me in that kind of pain before and wanted to help me, but couldn't--other than the counter-pressure he was applying on my lower back, which felt amazing. Anyway, at this point, I felt like the only thing that would relieve what I was feeling was to push, so I told Awesome Nurse and she went to check and see how I was doing. She was checking me, and she couldn't tell how dilated I was because my bag of waters was bulging out so much. She called the on-call doc, and he came in to check me and told me I'm good to push if I want because I was fully dilated. He didn't want to break my water, so he told me to push with the contractions, when it felt right.
Side note--Right before on-call doc came in, I asked about the epidural. I didn't know how much I had progressed, and the pain was finally bad enough that I thought an epidural would help to ease the pain. They called the nurse anesthetist, but when on-call doc checked me, they told him to turn around. He did.
On-call doc told the nurses to call my Doc to tell him to turn around and come back to the hospital because he wanted to be there for Savannah's birth. So, he turned around.
I was pushing (loudly) for about 5 to 10 minutes, waters intact (and all 4 nurses and on-call doc in the room with us), until it broke. Little Miss Savannah was almost born En Caul, which would have been a first for many in the room! With my waters broken, I felt so relieved of pressure. It felt so stinking good! Finally my doc got in the room (he had to get someone from another department to let him in because he left his badge in the car and no one was at the desk because everyone was in our room!) and Savannah was crowning. Doc got in there, helped coax Savannah out with my very loud pushes, and she was screaming on my chest at 9:20pm. Brady watched the entire thing; me giving birth without medication!
Now, I did have second degree tearing and some tearing inside on my right side from Savannah, and Doc had to sew all that up, but he took his time. I did hemorrhage due to tearing in some hidden places, but I got to hold my daughter on my chest the entire time I was being sewn up, until her cord stopped pulsing, and longer. She wasn't taken to be weighed, measured, and tested until over an hour of her on my chest and feeding. She was constantly making little noises and making her presence known.
So, my first birthing experience was not one that I had expected. I got original my wish (which we had prayed for for so long) to birth Savannah with no medication, but I was in awe that my experience was really only a couple of hours, with minimal pushing! God gave us the healthy and (very) strong baby girl we had been praying for as well as the "natural" experience we had been praying for also.
We've both been blessed by Jesus with a beautiful baby girl, and now I can't imagine life without her.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Life :)
Life is short, you guys. I feel like I just found out I was pregnant and now I am almost 9 months pregnant. My husband and I have been in California for 2 years, and I feel like we made that road trip from Texas a few months ago. If we're lucky, we might be making a road trip back to Texas (for good) sooner than we originally realized.
Life just keeps on truckin' and sometimes I wonder if I am living each day to its fullest. I wonder if I am pleasing God with my actions. Do I sometimes fail? Heck yes, I do. I'm not about to say I am perfect, I am far from it. But, I try to learn from my previous actions. I'm trying to take each day as it comes and live life in the correct order.
God first, Husband second, Kid(s) (hey, dogs count to me!) third.
It is something I am constantly working on. I hope it is something you can work on, too. Life can get away from us rather quickly, and if we just go through the motions, we'll be on a path that we don't recognize.
Don't let that happen. Don't be selfish, either. As much as we need to care for our children, remember to care for your spouse as well. Love him, be there for him, talk with him, be intimate with him. I'm not talking just about the bedroom, I'm saying be intimate and personal with him.
I don't have everything figured out, but I know that my husband needs my love and affection, too. Am I going to mess things up and not give him as much attention as he deserves? I'm sure I will. But, I can constantly work on it. That's part of life, isn't it?
Spend quality time with your family. That includes God. It is just something I've learned through the years, and I'm sure I will continue to learn as time goes on. Have an intimate relationship with God.
Hit up The Bible and start a reading plan. I really enjoy Joyce Meyer's devotional plans. Am I telling you what to do? No, I'm just telling you what I do; you can make your own decisions. I also like Thrive Moms, which sends you a weekly devotional, and Proverbs 31 Ministries, which can send you a daily devotional. These are just some resources I use, and if they work for you, Yay! If not, to each their own. :)
Remember, life is what you make it!
<3
Life just keeps on truckin' and sometimes I wonder if I am living each day to its fullest. I wonder if I am pleasing God with my actions. Do I sometimes fail? Heck yes, I do. I'm not about to say I am perfect, I am far from it. But, I try to learn from my previous actions. I'm trying to take each day as it comes and live life in the correct order.
God first, Husband second, Kid(s) (hey, dogs count to me!) third.
It is something I am constantly working on. I hope it is something you can work on, too. Life can get away from us rather quickly, and if we just go through the motions, we'll be on a path that we don't recognize.
Don't let that happen. Don't be selfish, either. As much as we need to care for our children, remember to care for your spouse as well. Love him, be there for him, talk with him, be intimate with him. I'm not talking just about the bedroom, I'm saying be intimate and personal with him.
I don't have everything figured out, but I know that my husband needs my love and affection, too. Am I going to mess things up and not give him as much attention as he deserves? I'm sure I will. But, I can constantly work on it. That's part of life, isn't it?
Spend quality time with your family. That includes God. It is just something I've learned through the years, and I'm sure I will continue to learn as time goes on. Have an intimate relationship with God.
Hit up The Bible and start a reading plan. I really enjoy Joyce Meyer's devotional plans. Am I telling you what to do? No, I'm just telling you what I do; you can make your own decisions. I also like Thrive Moms, which sends you a weekly devotional, and Proverbs 31 Ministries, which can send you a daily devotional. These are just some resources I use, and if they work for you, Yay! If not, to each their own. :)
Remember, life is what you make it!
<3
Monday, October 6, 2014
True Strength
Life isn't easy. No matter what we do. We might think we have the strength to get through things, but in reality we don't. That "God doesn't give me more that I can handle" thing is a lie. He does give us more than we can handle, we just have to choose to use His strength to get through it, whatever it may be. Our own strength is nothing compared to what we have and can use with God.
We live in a world of selfies. We live in a world of selfishness that can easily take over. We do things for us; we believe that we can do it all. We live in a world that attempts to make us believe we need to be the elusive SuperMom. We have to appear perfect, because, why would anyone expect anything else? Well you know what, we're all imperfect. Our imperfections make us unique.
We have to be strong in our faith. That is what makes us strong. If we believe that we can do anything with Him, we can do it. Not on our own, but with God. He makes us strong.
Life is about to change for me. Bigtime. I wouldn't have it any other way. Lately I have been thinking about giving birth to our baby girl. I have had doubts about my belief in what strength I really do have.
But last night, my husband convinced me that I am strong because I have God's strength too.
He reassured me that I can do it. I can do it with God. And that's something we need to remember; we can do things that seem incredibly tough as long as we have God's strength.
God is stronger than we will ever be, and as long as we put our complete faith in Him, we can do anything.
<3
We live in a world of selfies. We live in a world of selfishness that can easily take over. We do things for us; we believe that we can do it all. We live in a world that attempts to make us believe we need to be the elusive SuperMom. We have to appear perfect, because, why would anyone expect anything else? Well you know what, we're all imperfect. Our imperfections make us unique.
We have to be strong in our faith. That is what makes us strong. If we believe that we can do anything with Him, we can do it. Not on our own, but with God. He makes us strong.
Life is about to change for me. Bigtime. I wouldn't have it any other way. Lately I have been thinking about giving birth to our baby girl. I have had doubts about my belief in what strength I really do have.
But last night, my husband convinced me that I am strong because I have God's strength too.
He reassured me that I can do it. I can do it with God. And that's something we need to remember; we can do things that seem incredibly tough as long as we have God's strength.
God is stronger than we will ever be, and as long as we put our complete faith in Him, we can do anything.
<3
Thursday, August 7, 2014
No witty title today!
Whew. The hubby is gone for some Army training for 3 weeks and baby girl, the dogs, and I are keeping busy as much as possible. When we can, at least! I DIY'd a picture frame the other day and it turned out so cute! We've been cleaning and organizing and I can't wait to get to one of my big projects to tackle while hubby is gone.
This is what the project includes!
I recently got a new seeing machine, so I'm going to try and make some sheets, a changing pad cover, and a pillow for Baby Girl. I guess we will see how it goes!
Also, this verse. Just, yes.
❤️ Kristen
This is what the project includes!
Also, this verse. Just, yes.
Psalm 46:5(a) "God is within her, she will not fall"So beautiful! I think it is something that Christian women need to remember. God is within us and we won't fall with our faith in him.
❤️ Kristen
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