The UnWorthey Blogger…

I feel like I shouldn’t even be on this page – not sure I even recognize it.  Boy, has life ever “gotten in the way”, and I don’t really mean that in a bad way.  I know it happens to everyone.  

My wife and I have been chasing a toddler, taking care of an infant – now mobile little girl -we have moved to another state and are trying to find some time in between all that to exhale.

Needless to say that my blog here has been sorely neglected in all that time, and I really want to get back to keeping it up to date.  So I guess more than anything this is an apologetic, hopefully rebirth of my blog here.  I definitely have some things to talk about!

So to all my regulars – thanks for sticking around.  For all the new ones I gain, thanks for stopping by!

Life After Miscarriage

People look at me odd sometimes when I say that my daughter is actually our sixth child and that we have our seventh child on the way.  They look at me funny because they do not see 6 little children running around our house or do not see a 15-passenger van parked in the driveway.

If you’ve read much of my blog here, you know that my wife and I have experienced 4 miscarriages, losing 5 children.  Okay, so I know, I didn’t have the miscarriages – my wife is the one that had to physically go through this.  I did what I could to be there, ease her pain and walk her through the days, weeks and months that would come.

Because of my faith, and well, actually other reasons, I believe that each miscarriage my wife had – no matter how early – we lost a child – that we now have 5 children waiting for us in heaven.  Our human minds think of the children we have lost up there being taken care of by our grandparents.  I suppose it helps with the loss in our minds.

So what did we do after the miscarriages – how did life go on afterwards?  Well, in one regard, that was just it – life goes on.  Now, I don’t mean that you shouldn’t take time to grieve, etc.  You should.  You need time to deal with the loss you have experienced.  And honestly, you have to decide what that is gonna look like.

Husbands – your job is to just be there for your wife.  You aren’t going to know how to fix the hurt she is feeling.  Your job is to just be there for her.  She is going to be hurting emotionally and probably physically.  Take care of her.  Get through it together.

Some people say that they name the babies they’ve lost.  We never did that, just because that wasn’t us and we weren’t that far along in the pregnancies either.  Not saying it’s a bad thing, it is just something we never did.  Some will have more permanent reminders as well – a stocking at Christmas, their names painted somewhere, reminders on what should have been their birthdays, etc.

I guess we were bad in this regard as I don’t remember when each birthday should have been.  I guess my point in all of this is you have to work through it however is best for you, but never forget that child that you lost.  My wife and I think about our children all the time – what they would have looked like, what their personalities would have been, what they would have grown up to be.

Don’t forget.  What you went through was real.  Talk about them.  Love them.  Cling to your spouse and family and work your way through it how you see best because only you know to do it and know what is best!

 

What to do before you're a parent

Reblogged from Instinctive Parenting:

I remember when I was pregnant with my first baby being bombarded with these lists of baby essentials that I just had to have.  Every list had different ideas on what was essential, and wanting to be the best mother and believing I needed all this "stuff" I bought it all.

And some of it was very handy.  She loved her bouncer and her play mat. 

Read more… 640 more words

Great advice! Every parent needs to read this!

Second Child Syndrome

It is a little over 7 1/2 weeks until we will be welcoming DD #2 into our family.  If you had told me that my family would double in size in less than 2  years, I’d say you were crazy!  But yet, here we are only 50-something days before going into the hospital again for the birth of a child.

The emotions are definitely different for a second child – well, they are for us.  I don’t know how it is for other folks.  When it took almost 10 years before my wife got pregnant and well, stayed pregnant, and then finding out she is pregnant just 11 months later we were in a state of shock.  We have been for quite a while now!

There are days that I already feel like I have shorted or slighted Olivia.  We haven’t taken pictures of putting together all the furniture for her room, or taken near as many pictures of a pregnant belly, or really half the things we did for the first one!  Now, I understand, as many people have pointed out, we are busy taken care of a toddler – so our brain is there.  Honestly, I think we didn’t think we would have another child, much less so easily.  So that’s what went into all the pictures and everything!

Don’t get me wrong – we don’t love our second one any less as I’m sure no parent does, but I think going in the relationship is different.  Maybe I’m just still in shock.  To get Maddy here, took work I guess you could say – Olivia was a total surprise so the reactions are different.  Maybe that should be my word of choice instead of relationship – reaction, our reaction to the idea of another child.

Any one else feel this way?

Then there were two…

How many times have I started a blog off this way – It’s been too long since my last post.  Boy, has it really been too long this time!  Maddy is now 17 months old and is definitely in high gear.  She is too smart for her own good, or maybe too smart for my own good!  I do have some catching up to do on posts, for sure, but it has been one crazy year since my last post.  What’s funny is I’m realizing that my last post was on January 30, 2012.  I need to back up about 2 weeks from that post!

There are a couple of things I won’t forget after beginning the new year.  We were looking forward to/planning Maddy’s first birthday party – which was awesome – and we were just settling in to having a toddler to deal with now.  Maddy started walking on January 8th and hasn’t slowed down since!

Somewhere around that time, we were all sitting at the table for breakfast and I was cutting up a banana to feed to Maddy.  Liz looks up for her breakfast and says, “man, that banana smells good!”.  Doesn’t seem that unusual on the surface, but trust me, this is unusual for Liz.  There was another “sign” if you will around that time that was just unusual for Liz.  I don’t remember what it is now, but it was like bells going off in my head.  I told Liz – “are you sure you aren’t pregnant?”  At the time we honestly laughed it off.  Liz has NEVER, I repeat, NEVER gotten pregnant on her own – not that we know of anyway.

Apparently Liz, began to take my statement a little more seriously.

January 17th, 2012 – Liz had already been home for lunch, so when I heard the front door opening and see her walking back in the house I was wondering what she had forgotten.  This wasn’t necessarily unusual, but I noticed she was carrying a little white paper sack.  The look on her face was priceless as I watched her reach into that little bag and say – LOOK AT THIS!?

It was a positive pregnancy test!!!!!  She was in total shock.  My brain immediately went to – call the doctor, we need to get medicine in you if this is for real!  We hugged and then started calling the doctor!

It was then confirmed – Liz was pregnant.  We’d be welcoming a second child into our family.  We’d have  2 under 2!  What in the world?!?

Things have been good this pregnancy.  We found out that we were having another little girl – Olivia Grace (Livvy) and she’ll be coming into this world on September 13th!

And no, that isn’t a picture of Maddy – that’s Livvy’s 4-D pictures.  We think they are gonna look a lot alike!

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What I’ve Learned in My First Year Being a Dad

Image via Wikipedia

I can’t believe that it has already been almost a year since our little 5lb 2oz. bundle of joy was born!  Looking back over this past year, I realized that I have learned some things, as I’m sure any parent (new or old) would.  Of course, I thought I would share those with the world, so here goes – in no particular order:

1. Your sleep will never be the same.  I may have a pattern here as a couple of these might have to do with sleep!  Regardless of how your baby sleeps, sleep won’t be the same – and actually this goes both ways.  I have gotten full nights of sleep on occasion only to wake up feeling worse than I did before.  On other occasions, I’ve gotten a 10 minute nape in the recliner and felt the best I ever have!  On those occasions that your baby does sleep through the night, you will still wake up wondering when your baby is going to wake up!
2. Your house will never be the same.  Just like your sleep will never be the same, your house will never be the same.  There will be baby stuff everywhere – in every room!  Then as they get older, there will be toys everywhere – all the time! If you like your sleep and like a clean house, maybe having a baby isn’t the thing for you!  Just something to consider!
3. Everyone has an opinion.  Now, I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing.  I will say I have heard so many variations on how to get your baby to sleep, what and when you should feed baby, how you should bathe her, and how you should burp her that it’s a wonder that any of us made it past infancy.  Bottom line – every baby is different; what works for someone else, may or may not work for your baby.  You have to find what works for you.
4. Babies are not logical.  I like to think that I’m a rather logical person.  If it’s raining, you get out of the rain.  If something hurts, you don’t do that again. If you are hungry, you eat.  If you are sleepy,  you sleep.  Babies are not like this.  Obviously, there are things they have to learn and be taught and I understand that.  However, I quickly learned there are things such as “overstimulated” and “overtired”.  If you are a parent, you understand this.  I guess it essentially equates to a baby not being able to turn her brain off.  I think if a baby is sleepy she should sleep – hungry, they should eat.  Not always so!
5. Changing diapers does NOT get easier.  This may be something known to everyone else.  I’ll admit had I thought about this logically, I would have seen this coming.  Before our daughter was born, I had never changed a diaper – ever.  After the first, oh, ten or so, I thought I was a pro.  Then, she started squirming and rolling over!  Yeah, things just got interesting.
6. Don’t get used to anything.  I realize that seems vague.  Lemme put it this way – just when you think you got the little boogers figured out – they go and change!  Just when you think you’ve fallen into a pattern of baby taking a nap for an hour and a half, she wakes up after 45 minutes or decides to sleep for 3 hours that day.  Constantly changing – so stay on  your toes!
7. There are things you were probably told you needed that you find out you really didn’t!  We thought we just had to have Dreft detergent – it smelled good, it was recommended for the baby’s clothes – yeah, clothes didn’t come out smelling like the detergent!  We went and got us some good old free & clear ALL.  Or just use your favorite free & clear detergent.  This could even include certain pacifiers or butt creams – whatever it may be – you are gonna have to figure out what it is  you like/want and go with it.  So don’t buy cases of anything until you know your little one likes it!
8. Forget your own expectations.  I never will forget as soon as we got home with our daughter, I went and wheeled the bassinet we had just bought, I had just put together, into the living room for her to sleep in.  Every baby needs a bassinet right?  Well, we quickly found out that she did not like sleeping in it.  Then, learned she did not like being flat of her back.  She didn’t sleep in the bassinet till she was probably 3 months old.  Where did she sleep the rest of the time?  Her swing.  We’d move that thing all over the house and into our bedroom at night.  So just because you bought it, put it together and put the frilliest comforter in it – she  may not sleep in it for a while – or ever.
9. Enjoy the ride; it will all be over soon enough.  I realize this is similar to #5, but when you are going through having to wake your little one up every 2 hours to feed her or she’s not sleeping because of teething – or better yet you aren’t sleeping because she’s teething, an expression comes to mind – this too shall pass.  It’s gonna seem horrible while you are going through it, but pretty soon you are gonna look back and it’s over.  You may be on to something else new and more challenging, but hey, at least the other thing is gone, right?  Liz and I don’t really remember feeding Maddy every 2 hours for the first month or so – talk about sleep deprived, but we made it through it.
10. It is absolutely the best thing I’ve ever done.  I realize that I did not do much.  My wife is the one that went through 9 months of carrying her, taking shots twice a day and countless other meds and procedures just to get her here, not to mention the c-section – but of all the things I’ve done in my jobs, schooling, or personal life – being a dad is honestly the best thing I’ve ever done.  There are days you want to pull your hair out, throw your hands up and run around the house screaming – but then that little baby will laugh or smile at you and you instantly forget how tired and how frustrated you are! I have found that I love my wife more than ever and she never ceases to amaze me with her strength.  It has truly brought us closer has husband and wife.  Neither of us thought we could love something or someone like we do our little girl.  Definitely, the best thing I’ve ever done!

So, there you have it.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 33 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.