Hello Blog World!!!

Wow! My last post was on October 12th...that was 2 weeks before my little Brycen was born. There has been many things to happen in the last 2 months: #1: Brycen Conner McArdle was born and I had an AMAZING delivery #2 "Worst Week Ever" #3 Returning to work 4 weeks early #4 Parties, Parties, and Parties #5 Pinterest was born #6 Halloween & Thanksgiving Activities

Brycen's delivery was so awesome! I loved the nurses and my doctor was so great. No complications at all...much different than Bailey's delivery. One thing that did not go as planned was nursing. Day 4 I realized that I was making hardly anything and we had to start supplementing with formula because Brycen was dehydrated. I nursed for 30 minutes, fed the baby formula, pumped for 30 minutes every time...day 5, day 6, day 7, day 8...nothing. On day 8 I looked up Synthroid side effects and there it was - if your thyroid is really messed up while you are pregnant and they have to give you a lot of thyroid medication it can mess up your metabolism and cause the milk to never come in. So day 8 I washed up all the pump and packed it away and gave away all the stuff I bought for nursing. It was heart breaking. I think I cried from day 4 to day 10 constantly and it still hurts when people see the baby and ask "Are you nursing?". All I can say is "no" because I can't explain it. He is a healthy baby and is doing just great on formula so we are blessed. So one of my new year's resolutions is to find a new thyroid doctor. I wrote this out because it helped when I googled "nursing and thyroid" and found a girl that went through the same thing I did - it helps to know that it isn't your fault and you did everything you could.

So onto the "Worst Week EVER"...It all started the day Blake left for a 2 week trip to Puerto Rico - it was the same day as the Iron Bowl. Bama was beating Auburn by a huge margin and in the 4th quarter my mother went to take the Turkey leftovers to the outside frig and misstepped and landed on her leg causing it to BRAKE! Sheesh! What a nightmare! So dad and the neighbor help mom get into the van, turkey bones and grease are all over the ground, kids are crying, and mom is screaming from pain. Well her leg was definitely broken and she needed help during the day while dad was working. I thought this is so great that I'm on maternity leave because I can come over and help. I had lots of plans for us to do - I've wanted to help her go through all the pictures and categorize them as well as put them in albums and picture frames. Well on Friday I was on my way to pick up Bailey from school after spending the day with my mom and I received a phone call from my neighbor...our house had been burglarized. All I could think of was my dog, work laptop, and camera. She found Meiko locked up in the baby's room scared to death and they left my new camera on the kitchen counter, but everything else was gone. I had been working 5-10 hours a week from home on maternity leave so I had my work laptop on the kitchen table - it has everything on it but it also has a government issued password so there is no way in the world they will figure it out so my files will stay confidential. I miss those files so much and all the pictures I saved on it as well as the new picture CD we just got from having our family pictures done the week before...thank goodness I already uploaded them on facebook! They stole a few big things and went through our bedroom but in the end we are fine - it was overwhelming because I had no time to do anything and I wanted to be with my mom and I didn't have a computer to work on and to find quotes for. They stole my maternity leave from me because instead of being with my baby I had to deal with insurance stuff which was very time consuming. I was very mad that they took my security away, time from work, and time from my new baby...those things will never be replaced.

So life is getting back to normal now that I am back at work but one thing that is very different is that Blake is a stay at home dad. He is off orders with no orders in sight which means he is looking for a civilian job at the moment and the job pool is very shallow at the moment :( Life takes some really weird turns sometimes and hopefully he will find something in January.

Have a fabulous Christmas and I hope to update back soon with new projects!! My next post will be my New Year's Resolution List for 2012!! I love NY's resolutions.