2 Weeks Old

Justace is 2 weeks old today. Right now I just finished feeding him and put him down to sleep until Josh gets home. We have to go back to the hospital because they called and said his newborn screening test got messed up somehow and we have to redo it.

How am I doing? I'm exhausted! I try to sleep when Justace sleeps as much as possible but only sleeping for 2 hour increments at a time round the clock really takes a lot out of you. My days pretty much consist of feeding Justace, changing Justace, rocking Justace to sleep then either sleeping myself or eating something before he wakes up to do it all over again.

Our friend, Christine, has been a lifesaver. The first day I had Justace to myself all day because Josh had gone back to work I hadn't slept in 12 hours and could not get him to calm down and stop crying. I called Josh in tears telling him I just couldn't do this anymore and the baby wouldn't stop crying no matter what I did and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Christine, who lives an hour away, came over right away to take over baby duty and give me a chance to sleep. I handed him over and as soon as I did he quieted down and stayed quiet for her while I slept for the next 4 hours. I felt so much better after getting some sleep. Her mom and her husband's mom, who both live here in Ashton, both told me to call them anytime I needed help and they'll be happy to come over and watch him for a few hours while I sleep if I need it. I have never been so grateful. I also try to shower every morning, even if he's crying. Of course I feed and change him but if he's still crying I put him down and go take a hot shower. It really relaxes me and then I can come back to him and hold him until he calms down again.

Thankfully, right now, Justace spends most of his time sleeping, even if he does wake every couple hours for food. He's growing quickly. He was born at 6lbs8oz and was 6lbs4oz when we left the hospital, which is normal. Two days later he had already gained back all his weight and was back up to 6lbs8oz again. I'm not sure how much he weighs now but he's eating a ton so I'm sure he's growing fast.

As far as looking for work, I still have a few more months of unemployment so I'm not planning on even really looking for another month or so. I want to wait until things have calmed down a bit and I've started to get the hang of taking care of a newborn. Plus, I'm told, once he hits around 3 months or so, he should hopefully start to sleep through the night...or at least for 5 or 6 hours straight anyways so I should be slightly less exhausted.

I'm not allowed to work out at all for at least another month but I started taking Justace out in his stroller to go for walks with me in the afternoon on nice days and I often walk with him around the house while trying to soothe him back to sleep. Not sure how much I weigh now but I am able to fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans...at least the ones I wore when I was bloated on my period. So that's a start. I can fit into my regular jeans but I can't zip or button them up just yet so need to lose a bit more for that. But I'm eating healthy and trying to avoid sweets and bad foods as much as possible. Though I do let myself have the occasional bit of ice cream still sometimes. But I've given up coffee temporarily. I want to be able to go to sleep whenever I can during the day so I don't want caffeine keeping me up during those precious hours when I could be napping.

Honestly, my relationship with Josh is unsure at the moment. On the one hand, I love him more than ever now. He's the father of my child and he's been so incredibly wonderful to me through the labor and the surgery and since then with helping around the house and with Justace whenever he isn't at work. But between him having to work constantly and me being constantly with Justace or exhausted there hasn't been any time for the two of us to be together. I try to stay awake to watch TV with him for a couple hours at night but I just can't seem to keep my eyes open through a show. Hopefully we get some couple time in a couple months. I miss my husband!

As far as getting out of debt goes I think we are screwed. The hospital wants $18,000 from us and they are saying they want min payments of $600 a month. There's just no way that's going to happen and I'm not sure how we will ever pay off this debt.

Baby Photos

 Justace hates hats but he loos so frickin' cute in them I can't help but put them on anyways.

 Josh took this photo the other night. The only way Justace will sleep, and therefore the only way I can ever sleep, is if I let him fall asleep with me.

 Justace on his very first walk. Almost killed me...didn't realize how much surgery takes out of you but he seemed to love it...not a peep out of him the whole 30 minutes.

 He keeps pulling his blankets up over his head. We think he's trying to kill himself.

 Justace watches his first Astros game while Daddy feeds him.

 Pip seemed curious about the screaming tiny creature we brought home but now pretty much ignores the baby.

 Bella still sleeps in the crib. Haven't kicked her out yet since we haven't yet transitioned him to the crib just yet.

Justace sleeping in his little rabbit bassinet great-grandma and great-grandpa bought him with a little puppy a friend gave us for him.

Justace Drake Jackson

 First family photo. I look awful. This was taken the night after I gave birth and I hadn't gotten to shower and couldn't stand up and was sick as a dog but seeing my baby for the first time was the most amazing feeling I've ever had even if I was mostly out of it.

 Justace gets his first bath before leaving the hospital. He HATES baths with a passion. He cries and gets really mad.

 Justace sleeping like a baby in the bassinet/cradle great-grandma and great-grandpa bought for him. He sleeps in here all the time unless he wakes up to be fed or changed.

 Very first photo of Justace after he was born. Everyone got to see him before mommy did.

 Before we took him home from the hospital and after he got unhooked from all the machines we found him all bundled up burrito style in this little swing. So cute.

 Mommy gets to hold baby for the first time after a harrowing ordeal for both of them. Again, even being sick and out of it, most amazing feeling in the world. I couldn't stop crying but they were tears of happiness for sure.

 My hospital room after I delivered. I loved that bed. Getting up was really hard and painful at first so it helped having something to hold on to.

 Justace all bundled up in the NICU.

 Me sitting with Justace in the NICU being silly while Uncle Robert takes photos of us.

 Me and Justace a few days later waiting for them to ok his release from the hospital.

Great-grandma gets to hold Justace on his first day home from the hospital.

Waiting on Baby

My unemployment runs out by the end of the summer and the baby is due any day now. I had a job interview at the juvenile correctional facility this past week. I should know by the end of the week if I get it. I have to go through 140 hours of training and then I'm basically put on a reserve on call list so they will call me to come in when they need someone. After I've done that a while and gotten on the job training I can apply for a part time position there and then if a full time position opens up I can apply for that. It'll take a while to work my way up to full time but if I can it's a really good job at $15 an hour and possible overtime with really good benefits as well as 12 paid days vacation time and 12 paid sick days. If I could get this position and work up to full time Josh could quit his job at Wal-Mart to stay home to take care of the baby. Same for if Josh could get hired on there full time but that is less likely since they are more in need of females.

I haven't been able to go on my daily walks for about a week because the weather has been bad here. First we had a really bad wind storm and now it's freezing and raining and even snowing outside a little. Plus, I'm not sure if it's the extra weight or what, but I hurt my left leg/hip and every time I stand on it it's excruciatingly painful. So I've mostly just been stretching my legs a lot and taking a lot of hot baths in the hopes my leg will get better soon but so far it's not. Maybe the baby is lying on a nerve or something. But hopefully I will have the baby very soon and the weather will get nice again and I can take him for walks around the block in his stroller.

Josh has been so good and patient with me lately. I whine a lot about not feeling well and being in pain and the other day he even caught me crying when I had a particularly painful contraction in the car and he just rubbed my back and said nice things and bought me ice cream and took me home. I'm so glad I have him right now. There's no way I could do this without him. I hope he can just hang in there a little while longer with me. Soon he will have his baby boy and hopefully I will start feeling better and stop whining so much.

Photo Blog

A bird sitting in our cherry tree. Still waiting on those delicious cherries to get here so I can gorge.

 I made a wish on this dandelion but I can't tell what it was since it hasn't come true yet.

 This past week we had a wind storm with 53mph winds! Can you see the trees blowing?

 Some damage from that wind storm in our neighborhood.

Randall, our neighbor, pastures his cows in our back yard during the summer. Don't they seem like they really hate me?

Goals and Dreams

My sister recently posted a blog on her goals/bucket list for the year. While I loved hers my life goals right now are very different. But I like her idea of posting them here for all to see. Right now my life is nowhere near any kind of order or how I want it to be. I have both goals I want just to change my current situation as well as dreams for one day far in the future that I am not as focused on just yet. So here are some of mine.

1. Get a job. My dream is one day to again work as a journalist because I love doing that. I also dream of one day writing fiction again like I used to and becoming a best selling author. I have another dream of teaching young children. Obviously I can't do all of these things so I would need to decide and work toward one as a goal. But for right now, being unemployed, I just want any job even if it means working as a waitress or at a local grocery store for a while until I can get a better job. Of course I am so close to giving birth to our baby boy I can't do much to even look for a small job right now. I plan on waiting until about 2 weeks after he is born and once I have gotten used to being a mom and hopefully healed a little bit from child birth I will begin seriously applying for jobs...even a part time job here would be better than nothing at all.

2. I want to get back in shape again. Obviously, right now, I am huge because of my pregnancy. I weigh 145lbs and am just waiting for our son to be born to hopefully lose at least a majority of that. Right now I can't do much in the way of working out other than walk but I do walk a mile and a half every day. After the baby is born I will probably continue to walk for about 5 or 6 weeks and just take him around the block with me in his stroller to spend some mommy and baby time together. But in the next 2 or 3 months, once my body has fully healed, I would like to start going to the gym again or set up a running routine to start getting back in shape again. The only problem is the gym here in Ashton is only open early in the morning and I am not a morning person so I may have to figure something else out or just suck it up and wake up early anyway.

3. I want to be a better wife and mother. This is an ongoing one. Always wanting to be better. Right now I spend most of my time when Josh is home complaining. I never feel good and everything is all about me all the time. Since I'm pregnant and about to go through the worst pain of my life, which is half his fault, I feel entitled to this at the moment. But once the little man gets here and I'm done being all achy and feeling horrible I really need to begin to focus back on Josh again and what I can do for him and how I can be a better wife to him and support him more. For one, as long as I'm not working, I can cook him meals so he can eat well and not have to do that. I can make him drinks and spend more time in the evenings with him watching movies or playing games.

4. I want to become better at the things I used to enjoy. These include writing and playing the guitar and photography and scrapbooking and more recently baking. I don't write at all anymore. I'm not sure if it's just because I don't have the passion for it I used to or because I don't believe in myself anymore and my ability to write well. But, even if it's the worst writing ever, if I force myself to write again I'm sure I'll get back into it again. If I make myself practice the guitar daily or as often as I can I will be able to play again. If I practice taking photos of everything I will get better at it. I just need to practice and stop doubting myself so much.

5. I need to get closer to God again. I have not gone to church in months and do not pray or read my Bible very often at all. So once baby comes and I've established a semblance of routine in my life I need to start going to church again and I want to pray every day and read the Bible to little James. Even if he can't understand it yet it'll be good for me to read to him anyway and that's a good book to read.

6. I want money. We are always broke. We can barely afford to pay for the things we need. We get paid on Wednesdays and by Thursday, after we've paid all our bills and gone grocery shopping, we usually are back to being completely broke until the following week. I hate living like this. Between the two of us we have about $20,000 total in debts. So...my dream...is one day to completely debt free. Now I realize this is not a short term goal by any means and is going to take a long time to accomplish. Right now we just need to focus on getting jobs and moving out of this house. But, in addition to being debt free, I want to have enough income that we can afford to put away 10 percent in savings each pay check and give 10 percent to either the church or an organization like St. Jude's. I want to have at least 6 months income sitting in a savings account just in case.

7. Even though I want a job I don't want to be married to my job. I don't want it to be the most important thing in my life. Even if I return to journalism again I still want my family to be the number one most important thing in my life. I want to have weekend and vacation and evening time to spend with my son and Josh. I want time to volunteer in the community and at church. My job, no matter what it is, should always be second place to my life outside of work.

Mother's Day

I've been scolded for not blogging more. This is mostly due to the fact that I am pretty much 9 months pregnant at this point and don't do much all day other than read and watch movies or TV, waiting for the little guy to be born. Therefore I have very little to blog about. But I have collected a few photos to hold you over until after the baby comes when I am sure I will have a ton of baby photos and stories to post on here.

 This first photo is of the cherry blossoms on the cherry tree in our front yard. They are finally blooming and I can not wait for them to turn into cherries. The cherries on this tree are delicious!

 This is little Logan. He's 16 months here. He's our friend Christine and Scott's little boy and wanted to drive our car away while the adults chit chatted in the parking lot on Mother's Day. We all went to Chuck A Rama to eat and it was majorly delicious. It was very strange to be wished a Happy Mother's Day by everyone though.

 My swollen pregnant feet. I weigh 145 lbs now and the circulation in my body doesn't always reach my feet that well. Icky.

 Josh took me to Yellowstone Bear World for Mother's Day. This bear walked right up to our car and put his nose on it before we decided to keep driving. Almost gave me a heart attack.

This timber wolf at Bear World was just chilling in the sunshine on the road. Guess he thought it was too hot to bother with us.