Aaron's Prescription Saga

The story that I am about to tell you is real. The names of the characters have NOT been changed, as they have caused me so much mental anguish over the last two weeks that I am going to out them like a snotty five year old who didn’t get her way at recess. And so it goes a little something like this…

A week and four days ago, I scheduled Aaron to see his pediatrician to discuss the fact that he is still having throat issues and sometimes his voice gets really hoarse. I love his pediatrician. There is no one out there like this guy. I would believe that monkeys can fly if he told me that they could because he knows THAT much about EVERYTHING. He’s awesome.

Anyway…

He agreed that this has been going on for too long now and that we need to treat it. His best guess is that Aaron has reflux and he wasn’t surprised that the barium swallow test that he had done back in March didn’t show this because it isn’t something that happens every time that a person eats and so the chance of actually catching it during the test is rare. He prescribed Prevacid, told me to give it two months, and then take him off of it. If it goes away then yippee, and if not then he may just have to be on the antacid for a while, no biggie. We walked out of the office, prescription in hand, happy with another successful visit with Dr. All-Knowing.

This was a Wednesday.

Now here’s where things start to go downhill. The next day I took the prescription down to our local Wal Mart pharmacy to have it filled. We dropped it off at the drive-thru and went across the street to have an ice cream cone while we waited. A half an hour later, we used about half a pack of baby wipes to get Elyse to a state that I could actually put her back in the van without getting ice cream all over the place and we skipped back over to Wal Mart to get the prescription.

Me: (Pushed the little call button in the drive-thru)
Pharmacy Lady: Can I help you?
Me: Yeah, I’m picking up a prescription for Aaron.
Pharmacy Lady: Birth date?
Me: 1/11/05
Pharmacy Lady: Ok, that’ll be one hundred and something or other dollars.
Me: Um, oh no it won’t.

Our insurance doesn’t cover name brands, so I asked if there was a generic available. Pharmacy Lady went to check and when she came back she said that there was a generic, but it was a pill that Aaron would have to swallow. It doesn’t dissolve like the Prevacid would have. So I told her to disregard that prescription and that I would have to call the doctor’s office for something else.

And so I did.

At the end of the day on Friday, I got a call from the pediatrician’s office and the girl told me that she called in a new prescription. Everything was taken care of. Great! We were super busy that Saturday, so we didn’t make it to Wal Mart until Sunday, Father’s Day. The fact that it was Father’s Day has absolutely no significance to the story, but I thought I would mention it anyhow. Mike and Aaron went to get the prescription while I took Elyse to pick out bedding for her big girl bed. Yes, we finally made the transition to put Elyse into a toddler bed, but that is a whole other story in itself.

So Mike and Aaron found Elyse and me and said that the pharmacy didn’t have anything for Aaron. Well what the crap? The girl said on Friday that everything was taken care of. I guess I am going to have to call the doctor…AGAIN!

But I didn’t call on Monday because we had an out of town trip to the zoo planned. So first thing Tuesday morning I made the call…again…because calling the doctor every other day is my idea of a good time. I nicely explained that there must be some kind of miscommunication because the pharmacy doesn’t have the prescription. She was super nice and said that she would take care of it and call me right back. I took the kids to bible camp and waited for the call.

Right at 10:00 AM I got the call that all was right with the world and Wal Mart now had the prescription. I stood up and shouted, “Halleluiah!!” and since I was at bible camp, I got a rousing, “Amen!!”

Now, even though the nice lady said that Wal Mart had the prescription and everything was taken care of, I was a bit skeptical. So before I made yet another trek for medication that wasn’t there I called Wal Mart to confirm that there was in fact something there with Aaron’s name on it waiting to be picked up.

Me: Hi, I just wanted to check to see if you had a prescription for my son Aaron. His doctor’s office was supposed to have called it in this morning.
Pharmacy Lady #2: Birth date?
Me: 1/11/05
Pharmacy Lady #2: Yes, we have it. You can come down to pick it up.
Me: Praise be to God! (I was apparently still over-flowing with the Spirit from bible camp.)

So we journeyed back down to Wal Mart AGAIN to get the medication. FYI: At this point a whole week has passed since the initial doctor’s appointment where we were given the illusive prescription. We pulled into the drive thru…

Me: (Pushed the little call button in the drive-thru)
Pharmacy Lady #3: Can I help you?
Me: Yeah, I’m picking up a prescription for Aaron.
Pharmacy Lady#3: Birth date?
Me: -SIGH- 1/11/05
Pharmacy Lady #3: I’m sorry, but we don’t have anything for him.
Me: You have GOT to be kidding me. I JUST spoke with someone here not twenty minutes ago who said that it was ready and in the words of my beloved Bob Barker, I could “come on down.”
Pharmacy Lady #3: Well, what’s the birth date again?
Me: Son of a…1/11/05
Pharmacy Lady #3: No, I’m sorry.

Now I know that she is just screwing with me and that she DOES have a prescription with Aaron’s name on it, but the birth date must have been called in wrong. So I asked if by some chance the office gave Elyse’s birth date by mistake and I gave her that date, but she acted like I was requesting top secret military plans for an alien research facility in Roswell, New Mexico, and refused to say anything except that she didn’t have anything for Aaron.

So now it is sweltering outside and I had shut the van off so that I wouldn’t waste gas while dealing with this lady. We were sitting there with no air conditioning and I am just about to loose my marbles. Sweat is starting to drip down my back and the kids are torturing each other with another swell edition of Not Touching, Can’t Get Mad and Here, Hold My Booger. I calmly explained to Pharmacy Lady #3 that she could go do whatever she had to do, but that I was going to sit in that drive-thru to call the doctor and get everything worked out.

Again, the girl at the pediatrician’s office was very nice and said that she would get Wal Mart right on the line while I was on hold to straighten everything out once and for all.

And so I’m holding…

Then she comes back on the line and says that the birth date was wrong (Um, yeah!) and now everything is good. Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it.

Me: (Pushed the little call button in the drive-thru)
Pharmacy Lady #3: Can I help you?
Me: Yeah, I’m picking up a prescription for Aaron.
Pharmacy Lady #3: Birth date?
Me: (shaking from the amount of force it is taking to not reach through that little speaker and choke the ever living crap out of this lady) 1…..11….05.
Pharmacy Lady #3: Ok, well did you just call it in cause it takes a half an hour for drive-thru orders?
Me: You JUST talked to the doctor’s office. Everything is supposed to be taken care of and….
Pharmacy Lady #3: Ok Honey, let me go see. (long pause) Ok, well like I said, it takes a half an hour for drive-thru orders and you can’t wait in the drive-thru because someone else might need to get a prescription.
Me: (deep cleansing breath. In with the good, out with the bad…) I will have my husband get it on his way home.

You would think that that was the end of the story. You would think that Mike went to get the prescription and that the world was all rainbows and sunshine again, but I’m not done yet. On the drive home, I started wondering if the new prescription was something that would dissolve or if it was another pill and we would have to go through the dance of the insane prescription ordeal all over again. So, with a deep breath, I called Wal Mart.

This time I got some guy who I had never spoken to which was odd because I was pretty sure that over the course of the last week that I had had some kind of contact with just about everyone employed at the Wal Mart pharmacy. When I asked him if this new medication was something that would dissolve he said…Can you guess what he said? Come on, guess. No really, this will be fun.

He said that it does NOT dissolve and that the only thing that does dissolve is the Prevacid…which was the first prescription that we tried to get…which costs over a hundred dollars…because our insurance sucks AND the universe hates me.

Long story short (too late) after another call to the pediatrician, Aaron was prescribed a new medication in liquid form. There is a liquid antacid available. Tee hee, hee… we could have avoided this entire mess… Ha, ha, ha, if Dr. All-Knowing had just prescribed this liquid from the start. Hah, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh, that’s a good one. Oh that’s rich. Hold on, I can’t breath. Wait. Give me a second to compose myself….

Here Kitty, Kitty

I made this kitty for my friend Leslie's daughter for her 6th birthday.  Isn't she cute!  This was another pattern from Barbara Prime's Fuzzy Mitten book and as always, I thought it turned out better than I expected.  Aaron has put in a request for a turtle so I guess I better get to work on my next project.

Don’t Mess with Me Kid. I Know How to Get Rid of the Body.

This week, the kids are taking part in the bible camp at our church. They have been having a blast and are coming home completely exhausted (Yippee). At the last minute I even decided to let Elyse give it a try despite the fact that she is typically a complete maniac at these kinds of things; under the condition that I would stay with her to monitor her behavior. She has been fantastic for the most part, but there is this kid who I think could benefit from having one of his family members sticking around to keep an eye on him.


I noticed this kid on Tuesday. Almost as soon as he walked in the door he zeroed in on Elyse and came after the baby doll that she was carrying around. When she wouldn’t let it go, he smacked her on the arm and ran away. Later on when ever he was around her, he would either push her, or elbow her, or even just touch her because he knew that it was making her mad.

Today, I had a very difficult time restraining myself from taking that little pain in the ass sweet little scamp and having a nice long chat about how every time you are mean to someone, you kill Santa just a little bit. If he was anywhere near Elyse, he was pushing her. When we were in music class he was all in her face and elbowed her every time that he ran by. Elyse’s little buddy was also a target for this bully and he was constantly pulling her ponytail and grabbing her around the neck. I told the kid nicely several times to knock it the hell off, not in so many words of course, but he just glared at me with his evil little, “I don’t give two craps about what you have to say,” kind of sneer and ran off to torture someone else until he thought that I wasn’t looking again.

I am not sure that I will have so much restraint tomorrow. If one of my kids were acting like this I would want to know immediately so that I could inflict a punishment so swift and severe that they would never think to lay a hand on another child ever again. It appears that it is his grandmother who drops him off every morning and I would just LOVE to mention to her that this kid seems to have some difficulty keeping his hands to himself, but I can tell that her response would be along the lines of, “Not my precious shnookums.”

Granted, this kid is probably about three and a half. Yes he is young. I get that, but that doesn’t mean that he should be allowed to terrorized the entire bible camp because he is a little on the young side. It is definitely not my job or even my place to correct this child, but when you mess with my kid, you mess with me and Homey don’t play that.

I just think that if your child has trouble behaving then you should make an effort to be there to monitor their behavior. If you can’t stay with them, then maybe they don’t belong there. I wanted Elyse to have the opportunity to participate in this camp, but not at the expense of the other kids or the adults who are running the show. I don’t expect anyone to have to chase after Elyse because she is a little on the young side. That is why I am sticking around everyday.

Whew, I feel better. Maybe that will give me the strength to hold back for anther two days. If not, I will post the story of what happened from my jail cell. Prison has Wi-Fi right?

The Quiet Before the Storm?

There is something strange going on in our home at the moment. It’s a phenomenon that I would have to describe as having somewhat of a calming effect, but not the kind that washes over you after a soothing hour long massage and sticks with you for the rest of the day. No, it’s more of a, Golly, George is telling me that swell story about the rabbits again. “Tell me about the rabbits, Geor...,” BOOM! I am in constant fear of what is going to happen next.


So what could possibly induce such a strange combination of hopeful serenity and overwhelming dread all at the same time? The kids, of course. More specifically, it’s Aaron and his sudden desire to help and be useful and even eat. You heard me…EAT. He even made us stop at McDonalds for chicken nuggets on the way home from the zoo today because he said that he, “needed to eat meat.” I know, I know, chicken nuggets aren’t really meat, but for a kid who once thought that a cow shaped animal cracker was all the protein that he needed in a day, this is huge.

It’s been going on for a few weeks off and on now. We will have a few days of absolute horror where he is so difficult that I keep looking outside to see if a couple of hell hounds have shown up to guard the son of darkness. Then, out of no where, he will barricade himself in the tornado of the family room until every last toy has been picked up and put in its place. I’m talking up to my standards kind of clean here people which, ok, have gone down hill a bit since becoming a mom, but nevertheless, they are still pretty high. He doesn’t even have to be asked which is the spookiest part about it. It’s like, I don’t know, he is growing up or something and all of the begging and pleading to help mommy or holy hell I am going to unleash a world of hurt, is finally sinking in. Weird.

The eating thing has me completely baffled because the last time that he was a good eater I was still pouring his meals out of a jar labeled Gerber. We have fought with him for years to “just try it” with no success. Then yesterday he spied some corn on the cob left on the dinner table and asked if he could eat some. I was like, “Uh, yeah,” but thinking, “Yeah, right.” And then …..he…. ATE IT! He ate the whole freaking thing.

I am guardedly optimistic that he is turning over a new leaf and becoming a little man rather than a fussy preschooler. Maybe it’s the fact that he is five and a half and well on his way to being six years old. I’ve heard that something magical happens at six and your tiny little multiple personality maniac becomes a rational little human child thing. If this is about as likely as having pixies and fairy diddles peacefully gathering daisies every spring in your backyard, please don’t tell me. Holding on to this little shred of hope is just about all I have left.

A Tale of Two Reactions

Kids are different, it’s a given. They have their own personalities and quirks, and they are their own little people. Even brothers and sisters who seem so much alike in so many ways are actually very different when you take the time to observe them in action. Never has this been more obvious to Mike and I than last night.


A little background information to help this all make sense; I have been sick with a stomach flu since Sunday and only started feeling human again this past Thursday. My appetite has been hit or miss and I haven’t really been eating much. Friday, my sister Angie came up to hang out and we took the kids out on a very stressful, challenging, “I swear I will leave you here in this parking lot if you don’t hold my freaking hand,” kind of shopping trip. That evening, I didn’t eat dinner, but I ran a fast 5K on the treadmill.

When I went into the family room to stretch, I found that the cats had been locked in there without their litter box and in protest Hailey crapped a load in the corner and heaved two landing strips of disgusting cat vomit in front of the rocking chair.

What I’m saying is, yesterday was stressful dude.

So after I finally disinfected the family room and went to get a shower, I felt a little dizzy and my ears were ringing. After the shower, I went to the kitchen to clean up some dishes and I really started to not feel well. Long story short; too late, right? I started having a panic attack. Mike had been putting Elyse to bed, but he came out of her room to get something and noticed that I wasn’t feeling well and immediately swung into action. Even though I was having trouble breathing and my heart was racing like it was competing in its own 5K, I was still able to observe how the kids reacted.

Elyse very quietly and calmly walked over to where I was sitting and grabbed my arm. She was talking to me, but in a very low little voice. She didn’t move from my side until I started feeling better and went to sit in the recliner. After I was sitting down, she brought me a piece of the cereal bar that I had been eating and again took up position next to me until she was sure that her mommy was just fine.

Aaron handled things a teensy bit different. As soon as he was aware that something was amiss, he kept asking from across the room, “What’s wrong? What’s happening? Is Mommy going to throw up? Hey Mommy, are you going to throw up? What’s wrong? She’s gonna throw up Dad, right?” He heard Mike ask if he should call my Mom, and Aaron was all, “Let’s call Grandma! Maybe we should call Grandma! Let’s call the police. Hey Mom, are you gonna throw up?” While Mike was getting me a cold cloth for my head, Aaron was pacing in front of the phone saying, “We need a plan. I’m gonna go draw a plan.” Once I was in the recliner, Aaron started to relax, but still kept his distance and sat across the room on the couch. Before he settled back in to watch Little Bear he looked over at me and was like, “You thought you were gonna throw up, right?”

So for future reference, if you are going to have some kind of an emergency, it’s Elyse that you are going to want by your side. Otherwise, Aaron will call the police after he draws up a plan, and is confident in the odds of whether or not you may vomit.

Bibbidi, Bobbidi, Boo! Elyse's Party, Take Two. (Wow is that Lame)

So, you know how you have an idea and you visualize it and it’s all great and wonderful until Mother Nature decides to take an enormous leak all over your well laid plans in the form of never ending thunderstorms that would inspire some very skilled arc building? That is what happened to Elyse’s super fantastic outdoor birthday party that was going to have an evening campfire and everything.


When we planned our baby girl’s second birthday party, I wanted to have it at home just like last year with all of her friends running around the yard and all of the other guests hanging out on our back porch chatting about this and that and other relevant stuff. But as we closely watched the weather all this week it seemed that we had no hope of actually pulling off an outdoor party. Friday morning I decided to wave my little white flag and switch into full-on panic mode to transform my beautiful vision of an outdoor party into an acceptable version that could be held indoors. Thank goodness we booked my Mom’s church hall just in case of such a tragedy or else we would have been screwed with a capital screw.

Elyse loves Cinderella and that was the theme of this party. It had nothing to do with the fact that I also love me some Cinderella. Really! Nothing! Ok, maybe a little, but she does like Cinderella and I decided to capitalize on that for all it was worth. When we had to move the party inside though, it meant that the kids who were supposed to be running a muck all around our yard with chalk, and bubbles, and all things of the outdoor persuasion, would have nothing to do but sit around in a church hall and stare at each other. There had to be an activity. Well, maybe there didn’t HAVE to be one, but I’ll take just about any excuse to devise some super cute craft that I’ll, um, I mean the kids will totally love. But after a little Googling I realized that Cinderella is just about the worst Disney princess to have if you are trying to make a craft. She had two things that I found over and over again; mice and a magic wand. If it was fall I could have done some cute stuff with pumpkins, but it’s not fall. It’s June and holy crap what am I going to do with these kids?

I’ll tell you what I did. I did this…

That my friends is Fairy Godmother Dust; magic powder that will turn any mouse into a horse, any pumpkin into a carriage, and any sad, worn out gown into the hottest little number at the ball.

I was so in love with this idea that I made an extra one for myself to keep. Each kid got a jar and filled it with two scoops of “magic powder,” two scoops of “sparkle sand,” and one scoop of “pixie dust.”

A little glue on the lid and a pretty purple bow, and viola, Fairy Godmother Dust!

Awesome craft idea or not, the kids had a blast chasing each other all around the hall and that was even before they had a load of cake and ice cream in their little bellies.

Elyse had a fantastic time opening all of her gifts and she yelled, “Surprise,” before opening every single one. It didn’t matter that things had to be inside, she was just happy to see her buddies and her family.

I still can’t believe that she is two. I don’t know where the time goes. Happy Birthday Princess! I hope you had a great party.

Aaron's Preschool Graduation

Well, it’s official; Aaron is a preschool graduate! I have been so emotional about this day for so many reasons, but more than anything I am just so proud of how this little guy turned things around throughout the year. If you remember, when we first started the school year, things were rough to say the least. To say a little more, they were emotionally draining, soul-crushing, mind-numbing, second guessing, pulling my hair out kind of ridiculous, make me want to take a nap with my head in the microwave difficult. Yeah, it was like that. But today was such a wonderful celebration of how far Aaron has come and just how much he has grown up over the last nine months.

When we first walked into the gym, they had a slide show playing of all of the kids through out the year and Only Time by Enya was playing in the background. That song is so hauntingly beautiful that I would have sobbed if that was the only thing playing. Add the pictures of the kids and forget about it.

Then, the curtains on the stage pulled back and all of the kids were standing there in their caps and gowns and they starting singing their own graduation version of Here Comes the Sun. They did one more song and the curtains closed for another slide show. There were several songs that played in the background of this show, but the one that got me the most was You’re Gonna Miss This by Trace Adkins. Up until then I thought that I was holding it together pretty well, but when that song started, I was done.   Thank gooness I remembered the tissues.

Next it was diploma time and all of the kids got to walk across the stage to receive their diplomas.

After everyone received their diplomas there was one more little slide show that was called When I Grow Up. This was such a sweet video. Each kid had their pictures taken in their cap and gown and one at a time, a child’s picture would come up and an audio clip would play of the child saying what he or she wanted to be when they grow up. Aaron said he wants to be a baseball player.

They closed with one more graduation song and then we were free to take our little graduate home.

Aaron, I can’t even begin to tell you how proud we are of you. At the beginning of this year when things were so difficult, I wasn’t sure that you were ready to take this step. You seemed so little and I hated leaving you everyday when you seemed so unsure. But watching you over the last nine months and seeing you on that stage today I have no doubt that you were ready. You have done such an amazing job and you have learned so much. Congratulations my little graduate! Next stop…kindergarten.

The Day That Elyse was Born

In October of 2007, at roughly 4:00 AM I found out that Mike and I were expecting another baby. Aaron was just a few months shy of his third birthday and we had wanted to make him a big brother for quite some time. To say that I was elated would be putting it mildly.

I had known that Aaron was a boy from the minute that I found out that I was pregnant, and this time around was no different; this was a girl, no question. I was completely confident in that conclusion until Aaron started telling everyone that I was carrying a boy. He was so sure that I actually started thinking that maybe he was right. So when we went in for the twenty-week ultrasound, I had decided that I was going to be the mother of two boys and may God help me. But when the technician started moving the wand over my belly, looking around for what would have made this a little boy, she found nothing, and announced that I was in fact carrying a little baby girl. I was so shocked, and happy, and excited that I saw everything in hues of pink for the rest of the day.

The months that followed went smoothly, except for the fact that I had some contractions off and on at least a few times a week. When people asked how far along I was, they always seemed surprised that I wasn’t closer to my due date, and everyone was always commenting that I would never make it to June 9th which was when my c-section was scheduled. I had even spent the night in the hospital one weekend around thirty-five weeks with contractions that didn’t want to stop.

By the end I was completely miserable. I was huge, I never slept, and I was chasing a three and a half year old all day long. I almost always ended up sleeping on the couch at night because it was the only place that was remotely comfortable for my whale-like frame. Then one early Sunday morning at 3:45 AM, I was nearly thrown off of the couch with an unbelievable contraction. I sat straight up and thought, “Well that one was different.” It was as strong as the contractions that are seared into my brain on the day that I was induced with Aaron, but this was all natural.

I sat in the dark in shock for a few seconds and when nothing seemed to happen, I tried to lie back down. As soon as I did, I was slammed with another one and every time after that if I tried to lie down, I was bombarded again. I turned on the lights and started watching the clock. I knew that if it was false labor moving around could sometimes get things to calm down, so I started pacing, but things just kept getting more regular and more painful. I did this until just after 5:00 AM with both cats starring at me like I was insane and very rude for disturbing their peaceful slumber. I decided that I better just hop in the shower and get ready since I was almost positive that we would be meeting our baby girl soon.

Mike heard the shower running and came in to see if I had lost my mind. Every time that I tried to fill him in on the details of the last hour an a half, I was hit with another contraction which told him everything that he needed to know. At 6:15AM we called my mom to come watch Aaron while we went to the hospital. It was a gorgeous morning. The sun was shining so bright and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Just two days before, we had lost my grandmother and I believe without a doubt that she was watching over us and requested that this be a spectacular day for her new great-granddaughter to come into this world.

I can see us walking down the side walk into the hospital like I am still living the moment; I was wearing a red maternity top and grey pants. There was something noticeably different about that day. Something amazing was going to happen; I could feel it.

We got situated in a room and when the nurse examined me, she said that I was three centimeters dilated. Now remember, this was supposed to be a scheduled c-section a week from now. I wasn’t supposed to be in labor and I definitely wasn’t supposed to be huffing and puffing through mind numbing contractions. Not even born yet and this girl was trouble.

No one seemed quite sure what to do. I was just a day shy of thirty-eight weeks, my doctor wasn’t on call, and I wasn’t supposed to be in labor. They decided that they would just watch me to see what the contractions did and if things progressed any farther. I was finally given some pain meds and I tried to rest.

Around lunch time, Mike went back home to check in on Aaron, and it was just about then that the medication started to wear off. I wasn’t dilating any more, but the contractions were not letting up either. I was crying through the pain, completely alone, when the nurse came in and asked if I wanted to go ahead with the c-section. She needed to know what I wanted to do because the on-call doctor was on the phone and she said that she would come back in to do the surgery if I wanted to go through with it. I was panicked. What was I supposed to say? I couldn’t decide this on my own, and Mike had just stepped out. Plus, everyone from the nurse, to the doctor, to the janitor reminded me that there was a chance that the baby’s lungs weren’t ready yet which would mean that she could have complications when she was born. This wasn’t even my doctor, and I wanted the advice of the woman who had seen me through the last nine months. I told the nurse no and then sobbed after she left. Not long after that, though, she came back in with a beautiful vile of pain meds and a cold cloth for my head; I asked her to be my new BFF. A few minutes later, I was feeling some relief and started to drift off to sleep.

Mike got back about an hour later and we started to discuss what we should do. We didn’t want to go through with the c-section if the baby wasn’t ready, but every fiber in my body told me that she was going to be fine. We still just weren’t sure. A few hours later, when the meds were wearing off again, the on-call doctor showed up in my room to see if we had changed our minds. She explained that it was completely up to us and that if we wanted to wait for my regular doctor, she would be in first thing in the morning. However, there was one little catch. It was just before 6:00 PM and the nurse would only be able to give me one more shot of pain medication for the rest of the night. Once that wore off, I was on my own until my doctor came in the next morning. For a baby that was supposed to be a scheduled c-section, I had labored for fourteen hours with only mild pain relief and I was exhausted. So we gave her the go ahead to get things set up and we prepared ourselves to become parents for the second time.

Our nurse explained that there was a surgery ahead of us that would take a while and that it was probably going to be close to 11:00 PM before we saw the OR. So Mike decided to run down to the cafeteria to grab some dinner. Less than twenty minutes later, the doctor and two nurses showed up to get me prepped and said that we would be getting started in twenty minutes. Um, excuse me? WHAT?!?! You said 11:00 PM; it’s only 6:30 PM. My husband is MIA and I am freaking out! Luckily, my friend Wendy had stopped by earlier that evening and she ran out on the mission to find Mike and bring him back.

Not long after that, Mike was back and I was being wheeled into the OR. They placed the epidural, got Mike all comfy and cozy in the daddy seat, and got things started. I had developed a lot of scar tissue after Aaron's c-section, and it took the doctor a long time to get through it to the baby. All I wanted was to see my baby girl. I wanted to know that she was healthy, and that we hadn’t made a mistake by going through with the c-section.

Then, at 7:10 PM, just like three and a half years before, the room was filled with the amazing sound of my daughter’s first cries which were so strong that there was no question that she was ready to be born.. Elyse Rose was here and she was unbelievably gorgeous; 8 lbs, 5 oz, and 20 inches long.

Seeing her for the first time, I couldn’t believe that we were blessed again with another perfect, healthy baby. She had a full head of jet black hair with tiny little curls, and she looked like a perfect little bundle wrapped up in her daddy’s arms.

It seems impossible that that has been two years ago already. I am really not sure where the time went. In two short years she has gone from a tiny little bundle of baby, to a beautiful, brilliant, energetic little girl. My heart melts every time I look into her big, blue eyes, and when she calls me mommy, my heart feels like it could burst.

Happy second birthday baby girl! I hope that you have a wonderful day and that you always know what an incredible gift you are to our little family. We love you!