I'm back!
And do I have a story to tell. I'll likely word vomit my way through the next month or so trying to get it all written out. I've had other blogs but deleted them for various reasons. This one, I hope, is here to stay permanently.
I suppose there is no better time than the present so I will start there.
It's October. And it's fricken hot outside and I hate that about the "South." I put "South" in quotes because we're not really that southern. Maybe to New Yorkers, but Mississippians surely would laugh in our faces if we tried to claim southern roots. I'm ready for the chill in the air. I'm ready for pants and hoodies. I'm ready for the changing season to be upon us. Instead I am a sniffling, sweating hot box who fights an urge every other day or so to jump on my "climate change is REAL" soap box. I'll spare you all that level of drama so early into our relationship.
So how about some introductions? I'm Jenna, I am the mother of two perfectly spectacular human specimens by the name of Bug and Feens. (Of course they have real names but for now, we'll just stick with nicknames for the underage). I am expecting my third daughter this winter. Or maybe in about twenty minutes seeing as how she is violently trying to break out through my belly button. Chill out, kid, I need more time.
I live with a caring, goofy, somewhat annoying man whom I have been madly in love with since about two or three weeks after our first date. Our story is tumultuous and dramatic and downright entertaining and slowly, I'll start unearthing the very windy road that led us to where we are today. It's both heartbreaking and inspiring, I assure you. We had been together off and on for 3 years before we decided to get married. I was 9.5 months pregnant and I wore an ugly black pant suit and pink Crocs and giggled through the ceremony at the Justice of the Peace's office at our local courthouse. Three years later, we welcomed our second daughter. When she was five weeks old, I asked for a divorce and just shy of her turning five months old, I left him. Our divorce was finalized on December 12, 2011. We spent two and a half years apart but almost always wanting to be together. I rocked single motherhood in the meantime and I vowed to never let my girls see me as a weak, co-dependent fool. We talked for months about reconciliation. I made him a list. He disappointed me time and time again. Then one day, he grew up. No, really. Okay, so he's not perfect. But no one would ever be. But he's perfect for me and for our girls. And somewhere along the line, I grew up too.
Just weeks after our decision to reconcile, we almost lost our youngest daughter. We all four caught the flu but Feens didn't get better. Two ER trips and a visit to her pediatrician later, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and was in severe diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA).
She was hours from death. Her initial metabolic screens were bleak and she was in and out of consciousness. I held my breath all night waiting for her PICU nurse to say she'd made a turn for the better. She was discharged two days later with hundreds of dollars worth of insulin, syringes, ketone strips, alcohol swabs, test strips and a couple meters. We were loaded up with pamphlets, booklets, worksheets, homework and stress.
Moral of this story: I was wrong, I will use algebra again after college.
We are now 10 months out from her diagnosis and I wouldn't exactly say we've got it all figured out as T1 is ever changing, but we're confident in our ability to keep her alive now. She is on a fancy insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor that helps keep her blood sugar numbers level. There is no such thing as a perfect science as it pertains to T1, but we're doing the best we can for her.
In the midst of all the newness of Feens' illness, I managed to get myself knocked up. Not exactly a perfect plan but everything happens for a reason, right?! We are about six months into this new adventure and we're all nothing short of stoked. The girls are excited to be expecting a baby sister and Anton and I are excited to bring our family full circle. This could very well be the last baby, who knows.
Like so many other bloggers, this is therapeutic to me. I've always written to feel a sense of content in my soul. This blog will mostly be about my life with my family. I will talk about the first 7 years of our relationship, each of our babies, being a stepparent, my slow progression from the average conventional American mother to a semi-"crunchy", attached parent who boasts about nursing well into preschool-hood and gets giddy at the idea of making my own elderberry syrup.
It's been a very windy road to get to where I am now, but it's going to be a blast sharing it with all the crazy interwebs!
