So far, as a mommy of three; things have not been nearly as hard as I originally thought they would be. For now, I would say the hardest thing about life with a new baby is thinking about SIDS. That kind of thing scares me and its something I catch myself worrying about every. single. night. until about 4am. I Google, I do everything I'm supposed to do and I just can't kick the thoughts. I went through this with Addison and Maliah and I got around it and eventually was able to sleep. Things are different with Nolan, he sleeps with us from the moment we go to bed, to the moment we wake up so I feel safer with him there. I'm not sure how long this will last because.... I'm healed and things happen when you're healed ;)!
Nolan is a great little guy, I just love him. He spends a few hours a day with his beautiful blue eyes staring up at me wondering who I am, it's adorable. Last night Ryan was talking to him and Nolan just sat there, he didn't move - he didn't even blink. So I came over and started talking and there he went, wiggling around and looking for my face. I think this was a moment for Ryan where he realized that Nolan didn't really know who he was yet. So this morning I'm awakened by "See this is all he wanted" I look over with one eye and see the man I love cuddling with our perfect little son, Nolan was all swaddled and happy, sleeping like.. well, a baby. It was one of the most beautiful images that will forever be in my mind.
I feel like our family is almost complete, Maliah, Addison and Nolan are just perfect. I wouldn't have it any other way. The only reason I say almost perfect is because we need a dog, these girls - they just can't control themselves when it comes to dogs! They chase them and cuddle them no matter how big and scary they seem to me.. they just can't stay away. We have some big changes happening here... we've planned to list the house in February and plan to move to a much colder climate soon after. Arizona has been home to me for the last six years. I've been given opportunities to live back in California but I realize that.. I'm from there but that's not where I belong. I have risen above the poverty and hand holding which California seems to be known for these days. I love Arizona and always will but I feel like from a business stand point, I could do better given a different atmosphere and client market. Ryan and I were in a very wonderful place when we lived in Oregon, we had no stress. We weren't pressured to come visit.. we had no issues with his ex and I just feel like our current lifestyle can be even better with a new place.
Though life as I see it now is amazing, I wake up with smiles each day.. I have had the roughest couple of weeks. Prior to Nolan's grand entrance my parents came to visit and basically opened our eyes to the fact that they really do not have respect for our success. It seems like when they came to visit that they felt like I was bossing them around with the guidelines that I set for my home. I live a specific way and I expect my guests to adhere to the way that I live especially when there is a hotel down the street for $29 a night. So, when they left a small detail came up and confrontation arose. My mother has not spoken to me since two days before Nolan arrived. This wasn't a choice on my part but unfortunately, I cannot make a person speak to me about an issue. Thankfully, I had my mother - in - law here to help out with everything, someone to talk to, someone to help with the girls, just someone to be there for me when I needed it. Since, it has made our bond much stronger as she is now a big part of my day.
Another situation arose just last week with my best friend. This is a girl that I have known since I was 9 and has recently gone down a terrible path. Not really with addictions or anything but more like using people who actually care about her. I told Ryan that we all had planned on going out and he expressed that he was not okay with that because my friend is a "whore" Of course I rebuked his statement and felt it was harsh. Soon, I would find out why he felt that way. Clearly, he is a much better judge of character than I, even after 16 years of friendship. Friday came and went without a text or a call, she was in Arizona and never came around to visit. Saturday morning came where I got a text ";-(" I clearly knew what was happening here. She slept with some random guy and spent all of her time with him instead of coming to meet the baby. All these years, I spent defending a person not just with Ryan but with the whole town. I felt like a fool. I got played. Never again this will happen to me. I look back at the last few months of the relationship I shared with her and it all became clear that I wanted to believe that she wasn't as bad of a person as she was but I was dead wrong. Soon, a world of lies unraveled, none that really pertained to me or my life but there were faked pregnancies, her asking guys to pay her bills when she would just blow her money going to see other guys asking them to pay their bills.. it was just a mess. I've never been promiscuous in my life. The lifestyle has never been appealing to me so I don't get it. So in short. That was the end of that, I lost my parents and my best friend in a matter of weeks. I was feeling utterly alone, I was kind of putting myself in a box and shoving myself under the bed. One day, I started acting like a total brat to Ryan, I couldn't control it.. I was losing my last set of marbles. Finally he took me and basically shook some sense into me telling me that he was trying to be there, trying to be enough person for the three that I had lost. I couldn't have felt more grateful for my relationship at that moment. I think the last few weeks will be a turning point in our love, I can't really appreciate him more than I do at this moment.
Another part of the past few weeks that I can't bring myself to talk much about is the delivery. Things were really scary, I can't really even describe how I felt - it was almost like I had died for a few hours and woke up with a baby in my arms. Those monitors, you know the ones they put on your stomach to hear the baby's heartbeat and monitor your contractions... I hate them. I know, most mothers love hearing their baby's heartbeat... but when it stops... how do you feel? How are you supposed to do? Do you get up and run for a nurse when you have an IV stuck in you? No. All you can do is hope that an alarm somewhere is going off for someone to come help you. This happened to me.. to us. Nolan's monitor all of a sudden went dead, his heartbeat dropped from 140 to 54 and then was gone. I know this feeling all too well, it brought me back to our ultrasound with our first angel baby. The heartbeat was there and then it went away. Lost forever and never to be found again. Anytime the nurses said anything about the cord I couldn't help but burst into tears. The whole delivery was stressful, I went in for blood results coming back with a risk for preeclampsia, and ended up having to have a biophysical profile done to ensure that he was completely fine. The next thing I knew I was being induced even though the ultrasound was perfect. The whole time I sat there with intermittent crying thinking that my perfect baby was not going to come out so perfect. I didn't know what to expect. The second he came out and he was perfect I literally burst into tears it was like an explosion of happiness. I couldn't believe it.
Nolan's birth was more special to me in a way not because he is a boy, but because our family became complete on August 2, 2013.
