Contentment

I feel like every blog I'm going to write for the next 7ish months will start with 'THIS DEPLOYMENT' so if your sick of hearing about it then just stop reading now my friend cause here it goes...
THIS DEPLOYMENT has made me go through soo many different emotions. In the almost 5 months Jordon has been gone we have gone through so much stinkin crap then I ever expected us to go through. I have defiantly had days where I feel like I hit rock bottom and I have no idea how I am going to keep moving forward.
Now let me just add this in, its not just about my husband being away from home for a year and I just miss him. Like I said it has brought up so many emotions about so many things. My husband is my best friend. I know that if I am having a bad day I can always go to him and he would make it better, or if I'm just simply having an "I'm a hideous monster" day I could go to him and he would make me feel beautiful again. He was my band aide for everything. Now with him gone I don't have that anymore, and him telling me everything is going to be ok over the internet just isn't the same as him giving me a kiss and saying, "babe your gorgeous, don't stress over the little things, you got this." in person. My security blanket is gone I guess you could say. So when I start to be hard on myself I have to work through it on my own.
Does this make sense? This wasn't even what I wanted to blog about but whatever I'm going with it...
Anyways deployments are poopy for more reasons than just having to miss your husband.

But deployment aside, I am so happy with where my life is right now. Nope nothing in our lives is going perfect, we get pooped on a lot but  I KNOW that this is where we are suppose to be at right now, and that feels SO good. I like to tell myself that Jordon has to be deployed right now cause if he wasn't things just might actually be perfect and nothing is perfect right?
I try really hard to avoid blogging when I am having a bad day cause I would sit here and just complain complain complain and that can get annoying pretty quick.  I don't want to go back and read about my bad days I want to read about the days where I remembered to count my blessings. Maybe thats why I haven't blogged very much... HA.

But today I am feeling blessed so today I blogged.


OH yes to actually update on things that have happened in our lives.... I turned the big 22 on Thursday and it was a surprisingly awesome birthday. I was absolutely dreading it but I ended up really enjoying it.
Also my always amazing husband was promoted to Specialist. He works SO hard and it makes me unbelievably happy to see him get rewarded for his hard work. I am such a proud wife.

Long Time

Oh Hey
Its been awhile and I'm sad that I have neglected my blog so much. But let me be honest, I'm taking care of 2 crazy girls completely on my own. No No I am DEFIANTLY not looking for sympathy.

It gets pretty difficult to do anything that requires more than one hand. I could type up a blog with one hand but that would most likely take all day. Oooh I have so much to talk about but that would take about 3239875 blog posts to fully catch up so I am just gonna start with where I'm at today and what's on my mind now.

First thing, OH how I love my girls. I will sit and watch them and basically burst out in tears cause I love them SO much I don't even know what to do with it all.

Ellie is such a little adult. She recently started preschool and loves it so much. She goes 2 days a week for 2 hours. Oh those 2 hours are so heavenly.

 Ellie is such a smarty pants it sort of grosses me out.. haha Teasin I'm totally jealous of how dang fast she picks up on things.

Nolah. OH my goodness she is getting so big. She is now 4 months old. She is rolling all over the place and scoots around.

She is getting 2 teeth and they are kicking our trash. I can't have anything within arms reach of her or its GONE. She is pretty quick at the grabbing.

Nolah is so infatuated with Ellie. She could sit and watch her all day. It is the best thing in the world to watch them together. Nolah is just DYING to get up and run around with her big sissy.

When we found out we were pregnant with Nolah and would be having her around the same time Jordon was deploying, I was devastated and angry. I didn't want to have a baby then. I had a hard time accepting it at first. But now oh my gosh it is such a blessing that I had her when I did. She has kept me so busy and between her and Ellie's snuggles I hardly ever get a chance to sit and feel sorry for myself.

But of course I defiantly still have my hard times. I will get in a really good spot, have an awesome routine going, making good choices and for the most part really really happy with everything. And then I hit a wall and everything falls apart. Everything will just feel super yucky and it just feels like I'm drowning really and I have to pick up the pieces and start over again. I hit a pretty big wall recently but I'm getting myself back on track. Trying to anyways. The thing that has defiantly helped me the most through this is church.. Oh my goodness there are soo many amazing people in my ward. I have found myself really CRAVING the gospel. Like I haven't been able to get enough of it and I just wish I could go to church ever day. I know that is how I should always feel but I dont know it's just different now.. I like it though and I hope it stays this way.

We have had a lot of challenges through this deployment that I never ever expected that we would have. Its been tough for sure. But we are making it. Sometimes I don't even understand how I'm staying afloat but we are totally doing it.

Thanksgiving/ My Big 4 Year Old!

This year my cutsie Ellie's birthday was on Thanksgiving. My girl turned FOUR YEARS OLD! Eeeek a whole 48 months! teehee

Makes me feel so old. A 4 year old and an almost 2 month old. What the?! When did this happen? Me? All growed up.

I really wanted to make this birthday special for Ellie. I felt like it was so unfair for her to celebrate her birthday without all her cousins and ANOTHER birthday without her dad. So I wanted to do everything I could to make it extra fun.
I blew up tons of balloons and put them in her room while she was sleeping. I bought like 3 bags of balloons thinking I could totally blow them all up and really fill up her room. Ah geeze. Seriously? What was I thinking? I think I blew up MAYBE 20 out of the 150 balloons and called it a night with a massive headache. Ellie of course snuck into my bed in the middle of the night. The next morning when we went in her room to get her dressed for the day she said, "Mom why did you put all these balloons in my room?"
I told her, "Well your the birthday girl so I thought you would love all the balloons to wake up to."
"Well they scared me."
FAIL. hahaha
When I asked Ellie what she wanted for her birthday she said she wanted a make over. Oh my goodness what 4 year old asks for a make over? She said she wanted to get her hair done and put on make up and then go get her nails painted.
So I let her pick out her outfit and did her hair all fancy. No make up though. She's really killing me with that. We still need to get our nails did. All day Ellie referred to herself as 'the birthday girl'.

After she got all prettied up we got on 'skype' so daddy could watch her open some presents. We got her the Leap Pad Explorer. She LOOOOOVES it. I had to hunt that thing down. Bad thing about your kids birthday being so close to christmas. When we first decided to get it for her I saw it at Target and they had like 20 so I went home planning on buying it for her the next day when I could have her stay at a friends house while I bought it. Went to the store the very next day, COMPLETELY gone. Went to TWO walmarts, and kmart, while Jordon looked on the internet. GONE. Everywhere even on the internet. A guy at target told me they were expecting to get more the next day so I went to Target first thing in the morning and there were only 2 left. Goodness. The things we do for our kids. ha. It makes me feel less guilty when she plays on it all the time cause she is actually learning something.
Then we had our Thanksgiving with another wife whose husband is deployed and her little boy.
That night I asked her if she had a good birthday and she said she loved it because we played together as a family. Such a stinkin cutie.

1 Month Nolah

Nolah turned 1 month on the 9th. I can't believe it has already been a whole month. She has kept me pretty dang busy.
We are still breastfeeding, probably about every hour. I honestly don't even attempt to keep a schedule. If she acts hungry I'm gonna feed the poor girl. At night time Nolah likes to eat like she is getting ready for hibernation so I nurse her on both sides and then feed her about 4 oz of formula. Seriously is that normal for a 1 month old? She eats SOO dang much. She was weighed at the doctors about 2 weeks ago and was at 10lbs 5oz and I guarantee she has gained at least another pound since then. She's a big gal and I freakin love it. She got thrush a couple weeks ago and passed it on to me and we almost gave up on the breastfeeding cause that crap hurts. She and I got some medicine for it and it cleared up but its making its comeback on the both us. :/ yay. She wears mostly 3 month clothing.  I can squeeze her chub in some newborn onesies without them being skin tight.

She loves:

Staring at Daddy when we 'skype'

Listening to her big sis sing to her

The sound of the shower running

Having her momma hold her with her head laying on my shoulder and walking around. all. day.

When momma eats her toesies. She wants to giggle so bad. Cutest thing. EVER.

The boppy pillow.

Bath Time.

Kisses

&

Mommas boobs. Lets be honest they are basically #1

She Hates:

The Car.

Going Shopping.

Binkys. Whenever I put one in her mouth she looks at me like OMG mom really? Gimme the real thing!

Getting her bum changed.

But I think she hates sitting in a poopy/wet diaper more. 

Changing her clothes.

&

Being cold.

Nolah is ridiculously cute and I don't think I will ever be able to get over just how cute she is. She is very temper-mental though. But dangit I just can never say no to her.

Someday when I have time I will put up some more pictures. But for now you get this silly one cause it makes me giggle.

Never Enough

I get swept up in the moment of things. I never think to stop and take pictures. My mind is fully into what is happening around me, and with that I end up with zero pictures to bring me back to that moment later on down the road.
I tried my hardest to remember to take lots of pictures after I had Nolah. Especially pictures of Jordon with his girls. But again I got swept up in the moment and just spent every second I had soaking up my family being together for the short time we had.
All the pictures I did happen to get were all cell phone pictures and a majority of them blurry. But I still love them and I will cherish them especially during the months ahead. I am kicking myself now that I didn't get more.

The days after I had Nolah and before Jordon deployed were amazing. Everything just felt so perfect. We had a beautiful and healthy new baby girl. Nolah was a champ at breastfeeding. I was healing perfectly. Ellie loved her new role as big sister. We had no worries besides that one thing that we just kept pushing to the back of our minds and promising each other to not bring it up.
But of course that dreaded day came to fast, and we had to say good bye to Jordon. By far one of the hardest things I have ever done.  It makes my stomach physically sick to know that he wont be around for a whole year. Its been over 3 weeks since he has left and I'm starting to do a little better. Your brain really does switch to survival mode and you kind of just become numb. Its always the hardest at dinner time, or whenever I hear the neighbors garage door open. But Ellie and Nolah have been keeping me pretty busy. We have been working on sort of getting a routine together. Nolah just wants to eat and eat and eat so its hard splitting my attention between her and Ellie. Im worried that Ellie will feel pushed aside. But we will eventually get the hang of things I'm sure. We have a lot of adjusting to do. For now we are just taking one day at a time.

Then Came Nolah

 *If you don't want to read all the delish details or see extremely cute pictures of me then please do not read*

8 long days over due and we finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel.


I was scheduled to be induced October 8th. Of course I thought FOR SURE baby girl would decide to come before then. I did not want to be induced and Jordon and I tried everything we could to get this labor going on its own. Seriously everything. I had my membranes stripped 4 times, I did everything while bouncing on an exercise ball. We went on long walks everyday and Ellie and I would see who could skip the farthest. (Ellie won every time.) I drank red raspberry leaf tea all the time. I even tried castor oil, all it did was make me throw up. The list goes on and on.


October 8th came and no sign of labor. I took advantage of knowing ahead of time of when we would have the baby so I made sure my legs were nice and shaven, the house sparkly clean, and got all prettied up before hand. I was to call the hospital first thing in the morning to make sure there was room available.
Gave the hospital a phone call. NO beds available. Apparently it was 'everyone have a baby all at once' week. They were to busy to get me in at the moment and said they would give me a call when things calmed down.
Jordon and I were beyond devastated. I cried all day just awaiting that phone call. At 4:00 pm they finally called! I was to be at the hospital by 6:00. I couldn't believe that we were actually going to have our baby!!

We got to the hospital and the nurse took us to our room to get us all settled. Our first nurse was very talkative.  First she was talking about tv shows and the actors she loves. Then somehow the subject got switched to Obama and how she likes him. Ohh noo. I kept looking over at Jordon trying to tell him with my eyes to just TRY and not get into a big argument. He made sure she knew how he felt about him without getting to crazy and everything was good. PHEW. She was an awesome nurse though and Jordon and I both really liked her.
My doctor and nurse that would be with me throughout the labor came in to check me and get things started. I was 3 cm dilated. Progress from my 2cm I was stuck at forever. We discussed about how I wanted to keep things as natural as possible. Apparently the doctor I had hasn't done many un-medicated births and kinda looked at me like I was a tad bit crazy. My nurse was awesome though. She told him that when I was dilated to a 4 or 5 she wanted to turn off the pitocin and possibly break my water so my body could keep progressing on its own and that way I could get in the bath tub to manage the pain. Then the doctor looked at the nurse like she was crazy. He told us he would only let me get in the tub if I promised I wouldn't deliver in the tub because that just weirded him out. The nurse told him to just leave and she had everything handled. It was hilarious. I loved that my nurse was willing to do everything she could so I could have the birth I wanted. It made things a lot easier.


They started the pitocin around 7pm and gradually increased it about every hour for 3 hours. I could feel the contractions but defiantly weren't painful. Jordon and I watched some TV and tried to get some sleep while we still could. At around 1am my nurse came in to see if I progressed any. I was still at a 3. So I slept some more and around 3am the contractions woke me up. My nurse gave me a birthing ball to sit on and work through the contractions. We turned on the music and Jordon sat on the edge of the bed while I bounced on the ball and held his hands. The contractions were starting to get intense and it was getting extremely hard to work through them. I do think the ball and the music helped a lot.
When I would read about other unmedicated birth stories I would always read about how they would hit this wall where they just wanted to give in. I defiantly hit that wall.


I started crying and telling Jordon that I didn't want to do this anymore and how I missed Ellie. Jordon was so amazing the whole time. I defiantly wouldn't have been able to do it without him. At 4am I gave in and asked them to come check my progress. I was soo terrified that I didn't progress any and wouldn't be able to get in the tub. The nurse checked me and said Holy cow you flew! Your already 7 cm!
Halle-freakin-llujah
She turned off the pitocin and started the tub. I had to wait 15 minutes before I could get in the tub to make sure I was still contracting on my own.

My contractions kept up and I was finally able to get in. INSTANT relief. I'm not even kidding you. It felt soo amazing. Jordon kept cracking up seeing how happy I was after I got in the tub.
I went from bawling my eyes out and being completely hysterical to laughing and joking around.
They turned off all the lights besides one and for the next hour or so I relaxed in the tub while Jordon sat beside it and continued holding my hand and putting cool washcloths on my forehead. It was perfect. The contractions were still painful of course but being in the tub made them so much more manageable. My nurse made me promise that when I started feeling like I needed to push that I would get out of the tub. I really didn't want to get out of the tub but when the urge to push became completely unbearable I finally gave in and got out. 

My nurse checked me and said I just had a little lip of cervix left but I would probably just push past it. My water still didn't break which helped with the pain of the contractions.
I hated being on the bed. It made everything so much worse.
I was super loud. hahahaha. Apparently there was a first time momma in the room next to me that could hear everything and I was totally freakin her out.
Sorry lady!

Pushing scared the hell out of me. It was by far the hardest part. I could feel EVERY THING. I just remember thinking oh my gosh I'm not going to be able to push this baby out and she is just going to be stuck there forever! So it took me a couple pushes to get myself to give it my all. While I was pushing only my nurse was in there because my doctor was delivering a baby at the same time. I told you it was have your babies all at once week. So the nurse thought for sure she would have to deliver this baby on her own. But he came in just in time. 
Ah pushing was seriously insane,  I started bawling every time I could feel a contraction starting cause I knew I would have to push again. Just thinking about it makes me want to start crying all over again and never ever ever have another baby. But of course I know that someday I will. Thankfully my nurse and my AMAZING husband were the best supporters ever in the world and helped me get through it. It felt like I was pushing forever but it was only about 15 minutes. 
The nurse kept saying she had so much dark hair and that was defiantly a motivator to push harder cause i defiantly didn't believe her. Then her head started coming out and I reached down to touch her, oh my goodness what a weird weird feeling. 
The doctor and the nurse said Nolah was moving around all over the place. She kept twisting side to side and totally trying to go back inside! Everyone was cracking up. Besides me of course. They said they have never seen a baby do that before. (Nolah really didn't want to come out and she fought it to the bitter end) Then on October 9th at 6:19am we finally got that little stinker out and they laid her on my tummy. She was absolutely perfect! and she really did have tons of dark hair! Jordon and I cried and cried. I can't even describe how amazing that moment was. 

Jordon got to cut the umbilical cord which totally shocked me cause he swore up and down he would never do that. It was all soo perfect. 

 *I got nice and shweaty*

They took Nolah to weigh her and clean her up a bit while they stitched me up. My doctor was saying I probably wouldn't have torn if I didn't get an episiotomy when I had Ellie. 


When they were weighing Nolah the nurse asked what our guesses were on how much she weighed. I said 7lbs and Jordon said 7lbs 6oz. The nurse started laughing, little did we know I just gave birth to a 9lb 2oz baby girl! We were shocked!

Everyone left us alone for awhile and let us spend sometime with our sweet new baby girl. I was still in shock that this little chubba just came out of me. 

 

 Jordon had another little girl steal his heart.

He said he watched everything and was so glad that he did.

He was so amazing throughout the entire thing.

I love him so much!

The nurse that helped me through the birth came in to say bye to us cause her shift was long over. She stayed later than she was suppose to to be there with me. After she left another nurse came in and told us we made facebook. haha She said our nurse posted on her profile how she just had the best delivery and this is why she loved her job. I thought it was so sweet of her. 
All the sweet stuff came to a pause for bit when the nurse came back in to check on my bleeding since I had a previous hemorrhage with Ellie. She started pushing on my stomach and blood gushed out everywhere. Yummy. I was starting to hemorrhage again. But thankfully they caught it soon enough and put me on pitocin to get my uterus contracting again. They also gave me a nice shot in the booty. The nurse had to keep coming back in to beat the crap out of me. Seriously I would much rather push a baby out again then have them push on your stomach like they do. I screamed every time she did it and I'm pretty sure I made her start crying cause she felt so bad. 
But they eventually got my bleeding under control. 
I still felt a million times better than I did when I had Ellie. I was able to get up and walk around on my own and I never got dizzy or light headed. 
We were able to leave the hospital the next day. I'm so amazed by how good I felt. I only had to take the ibuprofen a couple times. 
Comparing this birth and recovery to my first one they are complete opposites. The fact that with my first delivery I had a 6lb 9oz baby and had the hardest time recovering and my second was a 9lb 2oz baby and I feel amazing afterwards just proves to me that having an unmedicated birth is how my body was meant to give birth. 
I couldn't have asked for a better birth experience.
I feel so blessed that everything went so well. It was the perfect experience to share with Jordon before he left to Afghanistan. It brought us so much closer as a family. 
We were able to spend 5 short days together as a family before Jordon left on his deployment. 

Nolah Laree Kinsman

She is finally here!

Nolah Laree Kinsman

October 9, 2011

at 6:19 am

9lbs 2oz

22 inches long

She is perfect.

Everything went amazing. I couldn't have asked for a better labor delivery and recovery.

We are absolutely in love with this girl.