I’m DARN proud

From the time that Kennady was conceived my body has been keeping her alive. First via pregnancy and now through breastfeeding. I look at her in awe. I look at my body in awe. The things that the human body can do are amazing. I feel so blessed to even be able to nurse my child. So many women would love to be able to breastfeed their child and I am blessed enough to be able to. I pray that I am able to reach my breastfeeding goal with my tiny princess.  When Kennady was in the NICU she had trouble latching on at first. It took all the power I had to not just sit there and cry. They had me using a nipple shield and everything. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to nurse. I thought I’d be an exclusive pumper. After she was discharged we took her to the doctor for her well baby check up. I took her into one of the patient rooms and sat down. She started to cry. My first instinct was to put her to my breast and try to feed her. She latched right on and started eating and that’s where she’s been ever since.
I delayed solid foods until she was six months old. I’ve made every food my daughter has eaten from scratch. Everything from her purees to her meatloaf. I make sure everything is fresh , soy free, dairy free, nut free, fish free and gluten free. She STILL wont take a bottle but that’s ok with me. She wants her mommy milk directly from the mommy and her mommy would have it no other way.
As I sit in my glider holding the most amazing person I know how lucky I am and I thank the Lord for blessing me with this child.

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Inza

Christmas 2014

Well Christmas started off quite annoying. I normally cook the full meal the night before/early morning on Christmas. Since Kennady has been born I’ve been overly tired. SO I made the stuffing Christmas eve. The kitchen looked like a hurricane hit it so my mom said she’d clean the kitchen and wash the dishes before I got up the next morning to cook the full meal. I wake up at 7am , go down stairs  and see that the kitchen was in the same state it was when I went to bed. I grabbed Kennady and went back up stairs and went back to sleep. A few hours later I came back down stairs and magically the kitchen was clean. I cooked two chickens , sweet potato pie and greens. We had dinner around 8:30pm. Then we were off to see the Christmas lights at the speed way. it was so beautiful.
All in all Kennady had a great first Christmas. I’m trying to cherish every moment with Kennady. Lord knows where we will be or what will happen next year. I must admit that I love being Kennady’s only parent. I get to experience all of her firsts. Just she and I :)
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Inza

So we went to court


On the 15th of December we had our child support hearing. I appeared via the phone due to being a breastfeeding mom. It’s funny during the hearing my daughter was in fact nursing. I knew I couldn’t leave her for hours to go to court. That and her donor dad scares the shit out of me. So yeah I was awarded child support. The exact number isn’t really important but it was well over what he wanted to pay. They asked if I agreed with a lower payment, I didn’t. He claims he pays his daughter’s mother X amount a month. This MIGHT be true but he also provides , clothes , shoes , schooling, co-pays for her medical visits and a whole lot more for her. He provides NOTHING to Kennady. I told the judge I had received nothing. Donor dad asked for leniency in terms of what he has to pay. I said no as did the judge. Then he stood there and LIED to the court. He LIED and said he had no idea how to see Kennady. I have had the same number since I was 19 years old. This is the same person who called said number a week ago. I was trying to FaceTime with my friend Danielle and it called Donor Dad by accident. So he called back and literally said “did you call me on accident?” Not ONCE did he ask how Kennady was. Not once did he ask to see her. THEN to get up in court and LIE like that?! Tho I’m not sure why that shocked me. I wish I could say the amount makes me happy but it doesn’t. Now I have to worry about this lunatic trying to take my child because he wants to pay less child support. 
I don’t think he fully understands how much he fucked himself. I NEVER once asked for cash in hand. I know how he talks/talked about his daughter’s mother behind her back when it came to child support. I wanted to avoid that. I said “Buy some diapers and wipes.” He asked what kind and size. I told him and he never did anything. I said pay off your half of her furniture. He never did that either. Not ONCE did I say give me money. He made the choice to do nothing.
He’s going to try to make me out to be the bad one but the fact remains he walked away from his sick child. He left her in the NICU and never came back. He didn’t even bother to call the entire time she was there. Hell the day I gave birth he didn’t even bother to have his phone with him just in case. He has never cared about her. WHO can look at pictures of their child in the NICU with tubes, IVs and O2 and just never come back? What kind of human being does that?
Oh and he lied about saying he’d quit his job if the payments were over a certain amount. HE SAID IT!!! HE SAID IT TO ME!!! HE’S A LIAR!!!! Again not sure why I’m shocked. Now to wait and see what happens. At this point I don’t even want the child support. I’d agree to hand it right back to him if he just went away and never came back. *sigh*
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How do you see these pictures of YOUR child, leave and never come back? I remember the feel of the plastic of her isolette, the sound it made when they opened it to get her out. The wires and how I couldn't move too much without pulling them. The roughness of the tape on her arm then on her foot. The tape that held her IVs in place. The feeling of my heart dropping when the alarm on the machine would go off and the red light on top would flash. That was a bad sign. She could have died.
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* Sorry if this post is all over the place. I’m pretty upset over the whole thing*
*~Inza~*

Ho Ho Ho


I finally got a chance to take Kennady to see Santa. We made a whole day of it. We went to Town Square for the Mrs. Claus event. At 2:30pm we got to make a stocking with Mrs. Claus. There were cookies and hot chocolate for everyone. Of course Kennady didn’t have any of that but maybe next year. After we were done with that we dropped the stocking off at the drying station and headed for the mall’s train. After waiting in line for about 10 minutes it was our turn. Kennady wasn’t too fond of the train when we first got on. She was a bit hungry and tried nursing ON THE TRAIN!!! I figured I wouldn’t “offend” the others in the train car by whipping out my boob in the middle of a kiddie train ride so I waited. The train started to move and Kennady’s face lit up. It was awesome to see. Half way through the ride she started waving at people as the train passed them. Like she was the queen of England or something. She’s such a ham. I love it! After the train ride we went to The Sugar Factory for lunch. I had a Garbage Salad and a s'mores hot chocolate. Kennady sat in a big girl high chair all by herself. It was bitter sweet. She’s getting so big so fast. She’s 9 months old already. During lunch I got a text message saying it was our turn to come to Santa’s house for pictures. Santa is quite high tech now. You sign in via mobile device and they text you when it’s your turn to go. Off to Santa’s house we went. She did really good with Santa. She didn’t cry or anything. I even got to be in a picture with her. It was a fun mommy and daughter day. The Mrs. Claus event only cost $10. For $10 we got to make the stocking, ride the train ,take pictures with Santa and got a free 5x7 photo.
Mrs. Claus experience $10
Lunch : $22
Seeing your baby with Santa for the first time: PRICELESS!


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Inza

Monitors

Since Kennady is sleeping in her own bed now (most of the time. I still have the co sleeper up) I finally broke down and got the motion monitor.  Kennady is almost 9 months old. I understand the risk of SIDS drops with age but still it worries me. When you have a baby that was born having a hard time breathing and was hooked to machines in the NICU due to her breathing you end up being very paranoid. More so than the average mom. I don’t think I’ve slept more than 20 minutes at a time since Kennady was born. After sitting and watching a machine track her breathing I want to do everything possible to make sure she’s ok.
So far it seems to work pretty well. One thing that freaked me out was I turned on the monitor then went to change the baby. DON’T DO THAT!!!  It lets off this screeching alarm which is a good thing if your baby stops breathing but a bad one if you’re just changing her diaper. Now when I take her out of her bed I make sure to turn the monitor OFF of sound and motion and just leave it on sound. Leaving it on sound is easier than powering the whole thing off. To power it off you have to hold the power button for a second and at 3am with a crying baby it’s just easier to flick the switch to sound only to avoid the alarm going off. The nursery unit also has a really cool night light on it that has come in very handy. The parent handset is nice.  It has lights on it that indicate power and sound. You also have 3 separate channels to pick from for your signal. The motion part of the monitor beeps to show that the baby is still breathing. If the baby stops breathing the alarm sounds through the parent handset and the nursery base. Having the alarm sound in two different locations is great. The parent handset runs on 3 AAA batteries. It came with  rechargeable batteries so that’s always good. I already have a battery charging unit so it all worked out. I’m a huge believer in rechargeable batteries when you have kids.
For less than $100 it was well worth it for a bit of piece of mind.



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I also went ahead and bought a video monitor. It was on sale at Babies R Us for $49.99. I figured for $50 I’d try it out and see how it worked. It works good. The picture quality isn’t that great but it does what it needs to do. You have to put it pretty far away from the baby to get a nice shot. The cord is also quite short so if where you want to place the monitor isn’t right on top of the outlet you’ll have to get an extension cord which I’m not sure would even be safe. I would suggest against that. The battery in the parent unit is quite weak. The longest I’ve gotten it to last before it died was an hour and a half at the most. The cord for the parent unit is also very short. Seeing that it has to be plugged in for extended use a short cord isn’t always a good thing. Overall this is a good monitor. The sound is clear and doesn’t tend to cut out even with my AngelCare monitor plugged in next to it. For the price it’s not a bad deal.
It seems I have traded staring at a machine in the NICU for listening to the beeping sounds coming from Kennady’s monitor telling me she’s still breathing. It’s hard to not be worried about her all the time.

Inza <3