Pumping in Pumps

I am starting a new job next week. Many of you might ask why in the heck I would leave a work from home job (as an RN no less).... But really I am ready for a new start. Only this new start includes pumping milk for my 12 week old. I am determined to not give up. For the past few weeks since I returned from my maternity leave, I have been pumping milk at home for Miss A and sending it to her Granny's house.

No one, but my snorting co-worker Pyka, hears the swish-swish-swish of the pump every 3 hours.

But today I was pumping in pumps. Okay, so they were wedges. 3.5in heels.

It was sort of comical actually. I hooked everything up, turned on the pump, fastened my seat belt and drove home from Houston. I made sure to cover myself up so passing truckers didn't start honking at me. And I made sure not to speed. Those things look like guns you know....

Swish....swish.....swish.....all the way home

Normally I would be excited that they are going to feed us 2 free meals in orientation but, my plan was to slip away and produce Miss A's meal on my lunch break. Eat a crunchy bar of some type and chase it with some water.  Not sure how that's gonna work now. The swish...swish...swish ... might annoy my fellow new hires.

Maybe I should tell them I smoke. Smokers get to leave every 3 hours, no questions asked! I know this to be true... I used to smoke. 

My friend Carri reminded me of a Faith Whittlesey quote: “Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.”

Except try all that, backwards, in high heels AND pumping milk. 

Either way, today reminds me of how much harder it is to be a women sometimes. I can't pee off the side of the boat easily. I can't wash my face and just go out. I can't pick up really big pieces of furniture...

But I can have babies.... and I can make their milk.... that's way cooler than all that other stuff....

Our lives changed forever on Janurary 10th 2007

On April 7th, 2006... D and I welcomed a perfect little boy. He was 5 weeks early. Born via c-section after a very eventful pregnancy and birth. 6lbs 8oz, 19 1/2 inches long. Healthy and Handsome.

I knew we had Hemophilia in our family but no one had been diagnosed with it for years. Many years. Like since my great grandfather. When I was pregnant, my OBGYN asked me if I wanted an amnio done and to abort the baby if he had Hemophilia. I said no, absolutely not.

And that was that....

We didn't know anything else until January 10th 2007.

Looking back I blamed myself for not knowing. I am a nurse after all. After Caiden's diagnosis, I looked in my nursing books to see what it said about Hemophilia. To my credit, it was a small paragraph. A very small paragraph.

I could not have known...

In November of 2006, D and I took a short vacation to Eureka Springs. Caiden was 6 months old and just had his shots. On our way home my MIL called. She said his leg stopped working.

Ummm, excuse me? Stopped working (???)

She said his leg was limp and he had a hard knot where his shot had been given. I told her to take him to doctor. After a pediatrician and urgent care visit, we were told his leg might be broken.

It wasn't.

I remember seeing my MIL carrying Caiden down the side walk when we finally arrived home. He was so fussy and in pain she had to carry him around outside to get him to sleep. I had D pull over so I could assess him right away. I will never forget how his leg looked as it swung lifelessly as we carried him back home.

My baby, my sweet baby boy.

Doctors visits, ER visits. No one would listen. Could it be the Hemophilia? No they would say. No. Massage the leg and it will heal soon.

So that's what we did. Massaged the BLEED. He had bleed so much into his muscle that it compressed his nerve. Thus making his leg limp and lifeless.

Looking back, I'm glad we stopped quickly. After massaging his leg for only a few seconds, Caiden was inconsolable. Excruciating pain. It was written all over his tiny sweet face. For the love of sweet baby Jesus, leave my leg alone. And I held his tiny body while he whimpered and shook. Mommy is very sorry.

I took him back to his pediatrician and again requested he be tested for hemophilia. His doc looked me square in the face and said "this baby does not have hemophilia." really? Wanna bet your sweet medical licence on that? Another doc tried to scare me and told me the blood test was very involved and required a lot of blood. Like an entire 5ml. A teaspoon people. A freaking teaspoon of blood. That's about equal to the amount of blood that we donate to the mosquitoes here on the Gulf Coast in a few minutes. I tried calling the hematologist. They wouldn't see him unless we went to the ER or had a referral. By then his bleed had resolved (prayer works people) and as they say... Keep calm and carry on.

Fast forward a few months to January 2007. Caiden gets tubes put in his ears. He oozes blood for 10 days. There were small blood stains every where that boy laid. His crib, the couch, our bed. U name it... It was stained. Finally the ENT agreed to see us. He didn't believe what I was telling him... Until he pulled a blood clot the size of a pencil eraser out of the little man's ears. Needless to say, we got the referral.... And the diagnosis.

They don't tell you that there is a grieving process. The loss of the idea of having a "normal" child. Initially I felt dirty. Like I had given him a nasty disease. It did, after all, come from my gene pool. My husband never blamed me and that helped. But I felt like a defective mom. One that gave him Hemophilia. I remember waiting until he went to sleep then I would hold him and sob. The kind of snotty, heart broken cry I assume most moms cry after learning of their child's disorder.

January 10th 2007 our family joined a club I never wanted to be a part of. A club of parents who shove needles into their kids chest without blinking..a club of members who wake to blood spots on their sheets. A club of amazing people that realize at some point that things could be much worse.

If I could take away his hemophilia, I would. But I wouldn't trade it for another disorder or disease. All it takes is one trip to the Hematology/Oncology floor to make you realize how good you have it. The bald kids hooked up to chemotherapy will change your attitude quick.

It's taken me 4 years to put this story into words. But I felt it was important to do so. Things are much easier now. I have made some amazing life long friends because of his diagnosis and things are very manageable. Hemophilia doesn't define who he is or will be. It's an inconvenience and a pain in the ass. But for the most part, it is very manageable. We have our bad days. But most of the time, it's only a faint program running in the back of my mind. We have a plan and that's all we need. An ice pack and factor infusion usually go a long way. I thank God often that he survived his circumcision, scalp clips, traumatic birth, and surgery without one major complication.

I used to dwell on how Caiden's future would be affected and didn't take the time to enjoy the present. We teach him that, yes, he has Hemophilia, but so what. We allow him to take small risks and test his boundaries. We allow him to be a boy. Bruizes and all....

A Roach the Size of A Child

Picture this.... It's 4 am. Miss A just finished her early morning feed. I quietly put her back to sleep and walk into the bathroom. And there IT is.... A roach the size of a small child. One of those mutant Dow Chemical tree roaches. There, on the floor I just cleaned, heading toward my closet. For a few seconds I am frozen... my fight or flight is conflicted. I run to the kitchen and get a handful of paper towels and return to the bathroom. And I'm frozen. I can't kill it.

He scurries toward my closet. Holy OCD!! Do you know how many clothes I will have to wash if he sets one little leg in there?

Quick! Wake the husband!

D wakes up and says "Are you kidding me???" And like an Irishman on St Patrick's day, he stumbles to the bathroom. Uses MY (!!!!) house shoe and creates a crime scene worthy of CSI  and leaves... He goes back to sleep and I am left to clean the mess.

After disposing of the evidence of the gruesome murder scene I lay in bed thinking...

If a bear was after one of my kids, I would tell them to play dead while I distract him. Like a big walking T-bone steak and allow him to eat me instead of my offspring.

If Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock came speeding down the road in a runaway bus, I would push my children to the curb and sacrifice myself.

If Troy was screaming "Choot em! Choot em!" and the gator pulled me in, instead of one of my babies. I would gladly become gator food. As long as they live.

So why am I unable to kill the roach? How is it that I become frozen? Is it the splat and crunch of the kill? Is it my female DNA that says "Bug! Run!" This I will never know.

Just know this Miss A and Mr. C.... if I see a roided-out jersey shore looking roach....

You are on your own.

RockStar?

Some of my earliest memories are singing on stage. I began performing when I was 3 years old. My parents picked out the song "Crazy" by Patsy Cline for me to learn. And boy did I... I can remember singing that song like it was MY heart that was broken. Even at that young age I knew how to incorporate emotions into my singing as if the lyrics were my own. As if I was the one... lonely, heartbroken, and alone.

Sometimes I think people under estimate how much emotion a child can have. My parents divorced when I was in 1st grade...heartbroken.  My neighbor assaulting me...heartbroken. My Dad moving to another city and starting a new life... heartbroken. All in the first grade. When I sang that song, it was like I drew from those experiences. Each note and word floating through the air dripping with my pain and sorrow. Then when it was over, a feeling of relief and catharsis. Therapy. Cheap therapy. No insurance claims necessary.

Over the years, singing became my identity. It's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It was who I was. The singer. The performer.

As I grew older, that's how people knew me. As the girl who sings. I am not complaining, just the facts. Just laying the ground work to explain how I named the "Rock Star" portion of this bloggy blog.

At the age of 16, my dad answered an ad in the paper for a rock/alternative cover band looking for a singer. I auditioned and started singing for them. Singing in bars, clubs, events. It took special permission just to get me in to sing since I was under age. It was like a dream come true. I could pay my bills with my voice (OK I had only a few at that time, but still, it counts). Needless to say, it ended badly. My heart got broken, but hind sight is 20/20 folks. I got out at the perfect time.

It's hard when your entire memory of your life includes the plan to become a rock star. And you don't....

When you see old friends, they want to know where you are singing next... club, bar, the fair? Nope.

Now, my answer includes... My next show is in my 11 week old baby girls' nursery. An audience of one. Funny enough, my son has never liked my singing. Since he learned how to say "stop!" he has told me to stop singing. He hates when I sing. Oh the irony... But my baby girl stops everything and listens. She looks straight at me and takes it all in.

After all these years of wanting to be a rock star, that girl inside of me has finally stopped being so pushy and critical. Yelling at me that I really never made it like some thought I would. Like I dreamed I would.  That girl, inside me who thought that singing was my destiny... can finally move on. I'm not saying that one day I might not try to sing professionally. I am just saying that for now.... those little tiny eyes staring at me like I am the sun, the moon, and the stars is the only ticket in town. And Miss A gladly attends my concerts. My little audience of one....

I may not be a famous rock star. I may not be doing the job, that for so many years of my life, I thought was my God given path. But finally I am okay with that. And for now, I am Miss A's RockStar and in my book, that counts for something everything.

Where to begin?

I officially created a blog today.... KarateChopRockStar..... fitting, no? Now...Where to start....