I should be sleeping, but....

I thought I would update everyone and put this blur of a time in my life in words so I can read back and thank God for what He brought me through, because this I am confident in, He will give me strength and bring me through. So what I'm doing lately is.....

I'm sick of asking "why is this happening? why is it taking so long for me to recover? why did I have to go through this again and it not turn out at least half as good as it did before?" I'm tired, very tired of asking God these questions, so now I'm asking Him "ok, my feelings are hurt that you didn't let me have Calvin my way, that the healing is going to take a lot longer than I ever dreamed or planned...so now what? What do you want me to learn from this?" Are you confused? I guess you would be since I haven't had the energy to keep you up to date. Guess I should explain a little, BUT before I do, let me have a disclaimer. I'm in no way whining or complaining. I am so blessed to be facing this problem as a result of having just given birth and am thankful for that, this is just my outlet and or update on the Kinley family deleima.

Calvin did come right on the Dr's scheduled time and the reason the Dr wanted wanted him to come on the 8th is because of some issues I/Calvin was having, which was the amniotic fluid was getting extremely low and since the Dr wouldn't allow me to go past my due date I had the choice of having Calvin on the 8th or the 13th (I was due the 12th). You see it's a whole new set of rules you have to play by when you are trying to have a successful V-BAC, because all the risk is on the baby. There is chance for rupture in the uterine wall from the previous c-section scar and if this were to happen then the baby has about 3 mins before he suffocates and the larger you get the more pressure is put on that scar. Since the fluid was getting low, the Dr thought it was ideal to go ahead and do it earlier instead of later. I on the other hand was still thinking that God would make a miracle happen and get my labor started on my own.

My wonderful Mother-in-law, Sandy, drove over 1200 miles, 2 days, to get here on Tuesday the 6th so that she could be here to take care of her adorable grandson, Jackson, while we were at the hospital. She spent Wed with me tying up some last minute things, getting my blood drawn at the hospital for "pre-op" and even bought me the prettiest pink dress at Target (I love the she gets me all the pink things in life) the day before little Calvin came into our life. We had a delicious kid-free lunch at Jason's Deli on the patio, which included a mini-thunderstorm and the smell of spring....it was a great finish to my 1 child life.

Potting some marigold seeds with Gramie, which ended up sprouting and being put into pots before Gramie left. He loved growing them with her

He does EVERYTHING right along side his daddy

Dancing with his mommy the night before

Thursday am, Travis and I got up at 4:30 am, gathered up our belongings and headed to Harris SW at 5 am. Travis snapped this right before we left for the hospital

We arrived there shortly after 5:3o am where my room was already waiting for me with my name on the door (ah, how kind). The nurse had me change to a gown and hop into bed. It was pretty un-eventful, no water breaking, no dialating....just hooked me up to an IV and strapped the belt on my belly to monitor the soon-to-be-born-baby-boy. I had 3 contractions in an hour and a half that I was there before the surgery. I was so set on trying to have this baby naturally that I even had the nerve to ask my very patient Dr when he came in to check on my before surgery if it would be possible to break my water and just see what happens today. Fat chance....he smiled ever so kindly and said even more politely "Crissy, we talked about this, and the safest route for the baby at this point is a repeat c-section. I'm only interested in keeping you and the baby safe." Well how could you argue with a man who's been doing this for 25+ years and says that to you. So off he went to scrub up and meet me in the OR. This is the part I found the funniest....the nurse grabbed the IV bag, flung it over her shoulder and said "OK, we're going to walk around down the hall now." WHAT?! Um, I have to walk the walk of death to the OR? You're not going to wheel me down in a chair or better yet a bed? Where's the heated sheets? You see this was my 6th surgery, yes you read that right.... SIXTH! I know the drill, I look forward to the nice warm sheets to take the shakes of nervousness off...and now she expected me to walk down, 9 months pregnant to boot, to the OR! I did with a nervous smile on my face, but let me tell ya, it was weird!

They had to stick me a few times in the back because I wouldn't loosen up, then the numbing was going slow...the anasteologist said that I have nerves of steal cause they were having a hard time getting them to go to sleep. Once the meds starting working, of course I started to get VERY nauseous and started vomiting on the OR table. The nurses were wonderful helping me and I could hear one actually starting to pray over me. Then suddenly, well what felt like forever, I had this soft, gentle hand on my head. I suddenly felt a sense of peace and when I turned my head to look, it was my sweet hubby. I don't know how long he had been sitting there, because he didn't get to walk with me, but I love the fact that I calmed at his touch and didn't even know it was his....something special I always want to remember. He later told me it was killing him to watch me be so upset and vomit and he couldn't do a thing for me.

Finally after all the "Crissy, your going to feel some pressure....lots of pressure, now some tugging" I heard the Dr say "he's peeing on me, he's peeing on me!" and I suddenly felt a weight lifted off of me on that table. It wasn't just because of the obvious reason that the baby was out, but also that Calvin was here safely and just as planned by the One who knitted him together in my womb. He didn't cry right away, which at first I remember saying "why isn't he crying?" over and over, but later I realized that that was his calm and gentle spirit shinning through from the moment he was born. Oh, and he peed on the the nurses who were cleaning him up twice as well....he's also a heavy wetter...something else that came shinning through the moment he was born :-).

The Dr kept saying..."he's blonde" and from this pic I can tell where he might have thought that, but after the bath his hair turned out to be a dark blonde/light brown. Course it's changed a lot since then too

Make no mistake, while I did pray for a calm and gentle spirit but not because I don't like my vibrant, take charge Jackson....I can't not like it because he's adorable, smart, funny and most of all not a follower. I just wanted a little variety in the house, that's all.

A little side bar: One thing I don't think I ever did was describe Jackson's birth in detail, mostly because I didn't remember a lot of it considering by the time he was delivered by c-section it had become a very huge emergency. BUT what I do remember was what the Dr who delivered Jackson said when he first saw him.....Jackson was coming out full face presentation, which would have snapped his neck or cause permanent brain damage and since I was dialating really fast they had to do a c-section quickly.....like with in 10 mins from the time they got me from my room to him being out of me quickly....so because Jackson was coming out by his face (I say he was curious where he was going, ha! ha!) it had swelled his adorable facial features horribly....like he'd been in a fight! So back to what the Dr said..."hey, he look at that nose and those lips, he looks like a little black baby"....racial? yes, but so Dr name-less to protect him from hate mail. Travis and I have a pretty good sense of humor so before Dr name-less lifted him over the fort for us to see we just looked at each other and laughed. But when we did get a glimpse of him a few seconds later, I have to admit that we both went "ew". He looked horrible, poor little guy.

OK, back to Calvin. So he was born at 8:08 am on April 8, 2010. He weighed 7 lbs 8 oz and was 21 inches long. The nurses were also impressed with all his hair, but Jackson had hair too so I didn't expect anything less. I was wheeled back to my room with fresh warm blankets...about time is what I was thinking.....and ended up back where I was an hour earlier with a new baby boy in my arms.

So why am I asking "what do you want me to learn from this God?" To make a long story short, before checking out on Saturday the Dr's discovered from my blood draws that I had lost A LOT of blood during surgery and from old records that my body never reproduced the blood I had lost from having Jackson 2 1/2 years ago. So I'm now on heavy duty prescription Iron 4 times a day to keep me from hitting the floor, being sick and help get my blood counts back up. My incision is healing but very s-l-o-w-l-y. All my needs have been provided for since the baby has been born, and even today as I fly solo with both boys by myself for the 1st time, I have enough energy to sustain me. It's the stabbing pain in my lower abdomen that I could do with out. Travis is wonderful and last night told me that without pain, we would think that we could do it all on our own and not ever turn to God for help. Even though we don't understand it at the time, God allows it to turn us to Him for help and not rely on our own. Wow, does that ring true! I don't think I've ever spent so much time in prayer for myself....ever woken up each and everyday praying to God and thanking Him that I was able to make it through the night. I'm also learning to ask for help, which is so hard for me. I always like to think "well I don't want to bother people" and that is just plain and simple pride....pride that God is breaking me of....blah!

So that's the latest....I'm sure reading out my random thoughts is hard to navigate through, but it's not like it's mandatory or that you'll be graded on it so I hope that you skipped over it if it bored you. :-)

Jealousy is not an issue at all...it's actually a problem of wanting to help too much. He loves, loves loves baby brother.

Life returned to normal quickly here at the Kinley house. Jackson loved making daddy follow him with his "four leel-ler"

And because daddy has had to cut a lot of tree branches on our property, well Jackson needed his own chain saw too. Gramie supplied him with the newest mini tool.

testing it out on the couch

Patting baby brother and telling him "it's otay, you're otay Talvin" He's so sweet to his brother

I have to admit, I was a little of a baby hog. Poor Gramie didn't get too many moments with this little one...BUT Jackson was all over her too, so it wasn't all my fault

Finally had our bon fire and ended up burning up a snake in it....good thing, this would have turned into a snake pit in the next few weeks

Can you see the shovel Jackson has too....EVERYTHING daddy does

He loves his brother...one of my prayers is that they will be good friends

Jackson and Calvin Meeting

Here's the cutest video of Jackson holding his new baby brother for the 1st time

Baby Calvin!

Calvin came right on the Dr's schedule by c-section on Thursday, April 8 at 8:08 am. He weighed in at a healthy 7 lbs 8 oz and was 21 inches long.

Here are some cute pics of my adorable new baby boy. By the way, Jackson is in LOVE with his brother.

More details to come later, my energy level is a little low right now. Gee I wonder why? :-)

Proud big brother

Taking to make Calvin take his paci

Jackson trying to get Calvin to play trucks with him

This is the truck his big brother gave him to play with

Fleeting moments

We've been really busy enjoying the last few days as a family of 3 because if Baby Calvin doesn't arrive on his own by Thursday, April 8 then we will be going to the hospital around 5:30 am for a scheduled repeat cesarean section at 7:30 am. As everyone knows, I am not a fan of this, but putting the baby at risk is also not my 1st choice, so I will "buck up" and accept that this is the way God intended for Calvin to come. Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths"

Here's some great pictures from the past month:

He loves holding an umbrella and stomping in the puddles with his rain boots

My thoughtful friends threw me a baby shower, despite my ungratefulness in having one. I'm having another boy and just didn't see the reason for it, but they still did it and after getting some things that were too adorable to pass up I'm glad they did. This is the diaper cake that my friend Julia made.

They also indulged me in my new hobby....cloth diapering. These ain't your mama's cloth diapers let me tell ya! Much more convenient, a little nicer to the environment and in the long run will save us a whole lotta $$$$$. Hello Mexico-that's my goal, to save enough in diapers to feel like we earned a free trip to Mexico from my labor of cloth diapering for our anniversary next year.

One of my good friends Tia got me a few of these burp cloths with Calvin's name on them...it was the 1st time I had seen his name written on something other than my blog. Plus I never had anything monogrammed with Jackson's name on it, so it was super special to get these

Oh and my little blue eyed tasmanian angel. He's a workaholic for sure! See that wood stack behind him....he did that! Daddy was cutting up some of this brush pile and would toss the bigger pieces out, so then Jackson would run around picking them up and stacking them. He's extremely helpful and willing when it comes to working out side....which is actually a blessing. I bought him a pair of little work gloves that fit his hands and you would've thought I'd bought him a pound of candy. Yesterday he was out driving his little John Deere Gator around the yard picking up little limbs and stacking them in the back of the Gator....yes, he thinks that is fun times

Driving his Gator up the road to feed our neighbors horses

You'll notice in this video the horrible stutter that he's developed the past few weeks and it's really bad when he's excited. I talked with one of my friends that's a speech pathologist and she said that it is COMPLETELY normal for 2 year olds to do this and that I should not draw attention to it in any way. He doesn't get frustrated or anything, but I sure do feel sorry for him sometimes cause he was such a great communicator before. He'll grow out of it, I'm sure of it.

Travis says that he looks like Sanford and Sons going down the road. He refuses to let the back of that thing be empty so when he's not using it to haul branches or limbs he's got all sorts of random junk back there. Here's his dump truck, lawn mower and a few blocks of wood you can't see.

Our Sunday School class does an Easter Egg hunt together every year and since our weather was so crazy the weekend we did it (it snowed, again, in Ft Worth....augh) we had to have it inside. Here's Jackson getting excited to hunt down his eggs.

I love this picture

I have no idea what he was doing to his daddy, but once Travis laid down all the kids ambushed him....It was pretty funny!

On the hunt...it took him a few minutes to figure out what to do, but after that it was on! He's a little competitive

All the hunters! It was a small crowd this year because of the weather (we did it outside last year) but I kind of preferred it that way

Sugar high!

His little pre-school had Super Chapel last week, so daddy & I got to go and watch him at his finest. The kid loves music and loves to be a little monster 2 year old when Mommy and daddy are there :-) Here he is with his friend Benjamin getting ready to jump during a certain part of his favorite song.

Olivia, JT's friend from church/school. I'm friend with Olivia's mom, Carly, and apparently the only way they can get Olivia to go to sleep at night sometimes is to tell her that she'll get to see JT at school tomorrow. She loves following him around and laughing at everything he does. I think he's going to have to marry a personality like hers, because a take-charge-kind-of-girl would equal disaster with JT's personality

Praying at the end of chapel. I secretly love that he doesn't just go with the flow. He's very inquisitive and usually wants to know why things are happening. I have the same personality and am glad that he will search and find instead of just going with the crowd because everyone else is. I pray his walk with Christ will be the same way, digging for answers in God's word for why he believes what he does and not just going with the flow.

Last Saturday was finally BEAUTIFUL here so we went fishing together one last time. Jackson does an excellent job driving this year (I think learning on his Gator has helped a lot) he doesn't jerk the wheel now and Travis can actually get up and fish off the back while we troll. Course he still has a hard time dodging other boats but if you tell him "head that way" he'll get us turned and going in the right direction.

reeling in his first Sand Bass. I was driving so I couldn't get a good pic, but Travis is just holding the rod for him while he reeled. He could feel the tension on the line and was really excited

But of course when we got the fish in the boat and it was moving on it's own he wanted no part of that. He kept saying "no, it moving!" Little bit of a control freak!