Meet the Family

MEET MOM AND DAD

Mom’s name:  Karrie

Dad’s name:  Jay

The quick version:  We met through a bible study at our church.  We became fast friends and stayed that way for some time.  For anyone who knows me (mom) you know that I flat out refused to date Jay… for anyone who knows Jay, you know that he refused to give up!  He won and I am grateful!  We began “officially” dating in October, 2007 (and by “officially” I mean “Karrie’s admittance to the fact that we were already dating”, Jay would tell you April, 2007 but hey, who’s counting).  Jay proposed to me in June, 2008, we got married in March, 2009.  Finally, we had our first little boy in February, 2010!  Mom currently works as a legal assistant at the Charlotte office of a large law firm out of Birmingham, Alabama.  Dad is a self employed contractor who is currently in a 10 year project of building gas stations for a wonderful company out of Oklahoma. 

MEET NOAH

Noah was born on February 22, 2010.  8lbs 2oz.  My entire pregnancy went pretty smooth, but it ended up a little rough.  After a few hours of labor my blood pressure shot up and so did Noah’s heart rate.  We were rushed in for an emergency c-section.  I was put to sleep and when I woke up Jay handed me the cutest little baby!  Awesome way to have a baby if you ask me! 

Turns out I developed preeclampsia after giving birth.  My blood pressure was through the roof and they gave me some medication to bring it down.  They brought it down all right, they almost killed me.  Thank God Jay was watching over me and caught it in time to get the nurses in there to fix me back up!  We were in the hospital for about a week and finally got to go home.

Noah is an amazing little guy!  He is about to turn two now!  He began walking around 9 months.  He started talking around 1 – 1 ½ years.  Like most new moms, I was worried he wasn’t talking enough, but let me tell you… he hasn’t shut up since!  (something I am loving every minute of)!  Noah likes Veggie Tales, Thomas the Train, Toy Story, and recently he’s decided he likes Yo Gabba Gabba and Annie!  His favorite foods are cheese balls, pizza, beefaroni and popsicles!  He hates vegetables just like his daddy!  Noah has recently started talking a LOT and some of what he has to say is getting pretty funny… even when he’s being scolded he somehow makes us laugh!

I wish I’d started this blog when he was born so that you could watch him grow these first two years, but I didn’t.  He has his baby book to look back at for his infant moments and he’ll have this for his toddler and childhood years!  The twins will have this as their baby book!! 

YES I SAID TWINS!

MEET PAIGE AND CARTER (THE TWINS)

Paige and Carter were born on November 4, 2011.  Jay and I decided to try for our second and last child.  We made jokes that if God wanted us to have more than two children, he’d send a miracle… and boy did He!  We were a little shocked the day we found out, but accepted it the best we could.  We were happy, surprised, but happy!  The day we found out it was a girl and a boy we were stoked!  We expected all boys so we were a bit apprehensive about a little girl… after all, we had Noah, what did we know about baby girls?!

My pregnancy started out smooth.  I never thought I’d make it to the end.  Honestly, I figured I’d lose them somewhere along the way, so you can imagine my surprise when we got to the day of our scheduled delivery!  Around 7 months pregnant I developed gestational diabetes and had to change EVERYTHING good in my life… bye bye chocolate, bread, potatoes, pasta, fruit… hello lettuce!  For anyone who has ever had to do this, I am truly sorry and I feel your pain (and I don’t just mean pricking your finger and testing the blood four times a day).  It was extremely hard, but we got through.  Around 8 months I developed “on again – off again” preeclampsia.  I went to the hospital a few times for dehydration (turns out that Diet Cherry Pepsi over ice is NOT considered water intake).  I had contractions starting around six months or so, and I demanded to have another c-section because “why in the world would anyone want to go through that”?!  (keep in mind, I did labor and deliver Ethan, the son I lost years ago, and I did labor some with Noah, so please don’t send me comments about not knowing how it feels)!  The doctors finally said we had to schedule our c-section for 36 weeks!

At this point I could not stand up.  My legs and feet were so swollen.  You couldn’t touch ANYTHING below my waist or I’d holler in unbearable pain.  It was horrible… but I ate my lettuce and got through it! 

I was awake for this c-section, it was AWESOME!  With Noah we had an emergency situation and when they went to cut, I felt it all… so they had to put me under.  I thought this was a fabulous way to have babies, up until I had the twins!  Now, I am happy to report that I have had children all three ways possible and being awake during a c-section is the best way to go!  Recovery sucks, but it’s better than labor!  The reason I say this is that when Noah was born I saw him while I was waking up… I honestly don’t remember much of those minutes because of the anesthesia.  When they delivered Paige and I heard her cry it was the most amazing moment.  I immediately began to cry.  I am sure you can all think back to when you heard your baby cry for the very first time… and if you can even try to image them holding a second baby out to you, Carter, and having that overwhelming feeling all over again when you hear another one cry… it was insanely awesome!  I didn’t think I’d react that way until it happened, but I’m glad it did.  I’m glad I got to experience that first moment without anything to block my memory of it.  I wish I’d had that moment with Noah, but I’m okay with it… heck, until I had it with the twins, I didn’t know it existed, and we made it this far without it!

Paige and Carter arrived at 36 weeks and 2 days!  Paige weighed in at 5lbs 4oz, and Carter came in at only 4lbs 12oz.  Carter is my preemie!  According to the nurses, anything under five pounds is considered a preemie, so I get to say I had twins, and one was a preemie!  Cute, huh?!  The babies did fabulous!  They held good temperature, held good weights, had good color and pooped enough for us to consider buying stock in diapers!  We were about to go home… when everything changed again!

There must be something about me and delivering babies because once again… I almost died!  Everything was going fine until this nurse, who was around when Noah was born and annoyed us thoroughly during that stay, walked into the room!  My blood pressure shot through the roof.  She started telling me all these things I needed to do, that I physically couldn’t do, (like lay on my left side when I couldn’t breathe laying down).  At one point Jay told her “you might want to leave before my wife goes all wolverine on you”… needless to say, she was banned from our room by the head of the nursing staff!  The doctors thought I had pneumonia due to my need to cough while laying down and not being able to breathe.  After a CT scan, 3 EKGs, Constant monitoring on an ECG monitor, pulse/oxygen monitor, oxygen breathing tubes, echocardiogram, 4 chest x-rays and being registered to three hospital rooms all at one time (one of which was the ECU; yeah, where they keep those with TB, MRSA, and other highly infectious diseases)… they realized they were wrong.  My doctor was fabulous and realized that I had cardiomyopathy, or heart muscle disease, a rare side effect of giving birth to multiples.  My doctor said he’d seen only three cases of it since he started practicing years ago… I was number three.  Most people recover fine from this in anywhere from three months to two years.  I was lucky and there was improvement in three months!  I’m currently on numerous pills, including blood pressure meds, and will continue on them for at least a year, and I’ll be visiting the cardiologist for the same amount of time.  The good news is that I only gained twenty pounds with the twins and lost it the minute they were born… Thank you gestational diabetes and heart problems!  Gotta look on the bright side!

Back to the babies… we went home after about a week and life has been insane ever since. 

God really gave us something to be thankful for.  Not only did He teach me a valuable lesson about loss with my first son, he gave us an incredibly awesome little boy, a perfect little girl, a miracle baby boy… and he took an EXTRA twenty pounds off before we left the hospital… for a total weight loss of 40 pounds!  Halleluiah!