Heavy Heart

I've had a lot of things going on the last couple of days. I have some things weighing heavy on my heart. Looking for a little guidance.

March

March is going to be an outstanding month We have so much going on. First on the months agenda occurs next weekend. Friday the 11th of March we are driving down to Temple. We will be staying in Belton Friday night so Mr. Landry can see his uncle Duke. Uncle Duke loves his little buddy Landry. Saturday morning Landry and I will be in Temple for the St Patrick's Fun run to help raise money for Scott & Whites new children's hospital. But most importantly we get to finally meet Holly in person and be apart of Landry's Legacy team. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. This weekend means the world to me. I will also get to see Kara, Sarah, and Charys. I haven't seen them since January and I need my fix!!! Landry has special kisses and hugs for all of them. We had a team goal of $4300.00. As of today we have surpassed the goal.

Sunday the 13th is me and Landon's 1 year anniversary! Landon will be leaving that Sunday with his uncle Duke to go fishing for the week. So we will be spending our 1st anniversary apart but we have decided to celebrate early. For our anniversary we will not be buying each other gifts being that we are fixing to close on a new house and just got a new car. Those are our gifts to each other! =)

March 22, Landon and I will close on our new house. I'm super excited about this! The new house is bigger and nicer and I can't wait til we get to move in!

And finally at the end of the month my sister and her family will be in from Ohio. Jen hasn't been down since October when Landry was only 2 months old! He has gotten SO big since the last time she saw him. Ive missed them all so I'm so excited to see them. I don't get to see them enough.

So that this is going to be our month. Great month!

Holden

Happy 6 months in Glory Holden. You are so LOVED and MISSED. I am so proud of your parents. They are doing some amazing things........all because of your sweet life. Today have tears of both JOY and sorrow. I am happy because you are safe and HAPPY but I am also sad because you are not here with us. I wish I could have known you, kissed those sweet chunky cheeks. You are one SPECIAL little boy. Love you and your sweet parents.

Crystal

Busy Month

We have had such a busy month. Landry has been sick for the majority of the month. We have been looking at houses to buy and FINALLY found one. Landon also got a promotion at work so we are super proud of him. But Landry has been on steroids for the last week so he has been bouncing off the walls which has been very entertaining!!! He likes to lay in the floor just kicking and screaming, all in a playing manor, but man that kid has had some energy! He also has decided that he wants to eat a lot.
1 jar if food is not enough for him. I put him in a brand new 6 month sleeper the other night and yeah it doesn't fit. I take him back to the doctor this afternoon, so hopefully his ears have cleared up. But the cute little sticker has mastered the art of the tummyto back roll over. He gets pretty pleased with himself when he does it too. Soon he will have down the back to tummy roll. He can get to his side but hasn't figured out how to get the arm out of the way. He's so cute. Man I make pretty babies!!! Too bad he is going to be an only child!!! Landry turned 6 months old this last Sunday. I can't believe he has been with us for half a year already. Landry turning 6 months old has made me think of his "cousin" Holden who is in heaven a lot this week. And oh how I wish he were here. There are several moms that I think about everynight when I am rocking him to sleep, wishing they were doing the same. Gives me joy knowing so much good is coming from his sweet life. But still miss him. It amazes me how much you can miss and love someone you've never met. Well back to my busy month...... February has been a good month, and March is looking like it will be just as busy but that's a whole different post. Hope everyone is having a good day.

BLOG

Hello all, I have been meaning to post a blog but this has just been a bad week. Landry has been supper sick and I'm just in a weird space. I need to finish Landrys story and I will try to tomorrow. Good night.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day!   I hope everyone had a great day!  I also have to say Happy 6th Birthday to my niece Adelynn, she is our little valentines baby!  We didn't do anything special tonight.  I would prefer not to go out on Valentines day and wait 2 plus hours to eat dinner.  So instead I made a cake, bought a cookie cake, and made some garlic chicken pasta!  Landry got a bath and I have noticed that he is starting to pull at his ears again.  We have barely gotten over the last ear infection!  But I did get some great news today, one of my friends that I work with had her baby boy on Saturday.  At 40 weeks he decided to make his debut!  He was 8lbs 1oz and 20 3/4 inches long, welcome to the world Caleb Burks!  Poor Christy had 2 epidurals... neither worked and needless to say she got a ton of stitches!!  Happy Valentines Day from The Hammonds.

Landry- Part 1

This is the story of Landry's early arrival.  Not everyone knows the whole story of Landry's start.

It was Wednesday August 18th, 2010 and I was 34 1/2 weeks pregnant.  I was scheduled to go to the doctor that Friday, the 20th.  But I got a call from the doctor's office early that Wednesday afternoon asking me to re schedule my appt.  They asked me to come in late next week, I asked to see if they could see me that afternoon, and knowing what I know now, I'm so glad I asked for that.  So I went to the doctor late that afternoon and the nurse took my blood pressure once....then again, and then took a urine sample, as they always did, to check the protein level.  I waited in the exam room for what seemed forever.  Finally the doctor came in with his nurse, and my husband.  This is weird because my husband did not come to my appt with me.  Dr Ward then checked my blood pressure 2 more times.  He then informed me that my protein levels were "off the chart" and my blood pressure was extremely high.  He believed that I was developing pregnancy toxemia (pre eclampsia), and that I was going to be admitted to the hospital for 24 hour testing.  I was told that I would not be leaving the hospital pregnant.  I was in total denial, I wasn't 35 weeks pregnant yet.... that was too early.  It's weird because I always had this feeling that "something wasn't right" or something was going to go wrong.  I always kept that feeling to myself.  So I'm in the hospital on left sided bed rest, I did not sleep a wink Wednesday night.  When I was admitted they checked me and I was dilated to a 2 and 80% effaced.  The sonogram they performed showed that little Landry was as far down as he could possibly go.  All day Thursday....same routine.  Dr Ward finally came to see me sometime Thursday evening.  The game plan was that if my test results came back and only put me in a "mild" form of toxemia he would send me home on strict bed rest and try to get me to 36 weeks but no more.  But the high risk doctor that I was turned over to wanted me to stay in the hospital on bed rest and try to make it to 36 weeks.  But if my results came back as high then we would be inducing right then!  Everything had not sunk in at this point.  Well a few minutes later my results put me as severe toxemia.  At this point everything starts to become a blur, everything happened so fast.  They broke my water and started the IV's.  I got an IV with Magnesium (for the blood pressure, so I wouldn't start having seizures), antibiotics because I am a group B carrier, pitosin, and other fluids.  This is were things start to go blank in my memory and you'll see why.  A little past midnight they gave me a shot of Stadol, a pain killer.  I have had stadol before for my migraines.  1 shot is enough to knock me out for a day.  Ive always had weird reactions to pain killers.   About an hour after the first shot of Stadol...... they gave me another.  Not good to do when I had gone over 24 hours of no sleep. About an hour later they came in to give me my epidural, I don't remember asking for one but Landon says I did.  First epidural did not take, so I got another.  And when I got the 2nd, everything went black.  The next few hours for me I don't really remember.  Have you ever seen a movie or tv show that is taken from the patients perspective??  At one point I would wake up to a nurse putting an oxygen mask on my face... then blackness... then waking up again to a different scene and not knowing how much time had passed.  The nurse was supposed to check me every hour, well that didn't happen.  Landon says she checked me during the middle of the night and didn't come back for nearly 3 hours.  She came back to check me about 6am and I was fully dilated plus 2!!!  PLUS 2..... did you know you can go pass fully dilated????  Landon says the nurse checked me and says "Oh Crap" and leaves the room real quick.  At this point I kind of wake up, it's time to push.

I vaguely remember this part.  The doctor came in and let me try to push for about 45 minutes.  Apparently your epidural strength can be changed, the strength can be lowered or raised according to what the patient needs.  Well mine was left turned on high the entire night and Ward made his displeasure known.  I remember I kept telling them that I couldn't feel anything, couldn't tell if I was pushing.....nothing.  He let me "try' to push for 45 minutes before he used the suction to get Landry out.  Landry was born at 7:14 am on August 20th, right at 35 weeks. 5lbs 2oz which is bigger than expected.  I remember the doctor holding him and rubbing his chest explaining that he wasn't crying due to some fluid in his lungs.  He finally cried a little and they cleaned him up, let Landon take a picture and showed him to me for a second then took him to NICU.  Now I didn't remember most of this, most is what Landon had to tell me.  They also sent off my placenta for testing after birth.  There was 3 large spots that were abnormal. This becomes my nightmare later.

They took Landry away and things go fuzzy again.  Friday was a blur, fuzzy, I remember bits and pieces and I couldn't tell you the times I was awake or people coming in my room.  I do know that I was told with pre eclampsia the mother is supposed to "turn around' with in 3 hours of birth.  I did not, I stayed just as bad and it worried the doctors and nurses.  The epidural was removed at some point.... don't' remember when.  Every time the nurse came in to check my reflexes she would tell me that me reflexes were not coming back like they should, I couldn't move my legs like I should have been able.  She also told us that the leads for the IV's were not done correctly and that the nurse who did the IV's "Needed a talking too".  That's a great thing to tell a patient.  Friday night they finally called in an internalist to try to figure out why I wasn't getting better, keep in mind that I have still not seen Landry at this point.  It was determined that I had been over medicated and my body did not have a good reaction to the all the painkillers and medicines.  They said my body had been in shock because of all the different medicines, my body was fighting with itself internally.  I finally started to "turn the corner" as they say Friday night.  My body just needed a lot of time to set itself straight. I remembered bits a pieces but the order was jumbled.  I ended up asking Landon on Sunday to put things together for me.

There are more details that I am leaving out, if I put in everything, this blog would be forever long.  I will write more tomorrow.  I think this is long enough for 1 reading.

Frustrated

I am frustrated today.  Landon and I have been spending the last couple of weeks looking at houses to buy.  One thing I have learned is some people really don't take care of their houses and expect to sell them.  We went into one house that had been vacant for a while and there was dead bugs on the floor. a very nice house but you are immediately turned off from it.  A little bit of cleaning would do wonders.  We did find 1 house that was in great shape, just needs new paint.  We made an offer and they accepted but they don't want to move out until after June 1st!!  I want to ask them why they put their house on the market back in September 2010 if they are going to refuse to move out until June??  Finding a house to buy is frustrating!  My must haves for a house is that it has to have a fireplace and a decent size kitchen.... wood floors are preferable!  Another frustrating thing today is Landry started running a 101 fever this morning.  We are still trying to get over RSV, which is a nasty virus.  It's been very hard on Landry, we are going on 1 1/2 weeks with it.  But another fever, what could he be getting now??? Poor kid has had a rough 5 1/2 months.  He's been to the doctor at least once a month for some kind of sickness.  Anyway, there is my gripe fest for today.  Tomorrow Landon is going to play golf so I'm trying to decide what me and chunky monkey are going to do!  Hopefully Landry will be feeling better!

New

So I am new to this whole blogging thing, and I have to admit I think it will be a hard thing for me to do.  Anyone who really knows me, knows that I am a pretty private person.  I've never been an open sharer.  I'm the type of person who keeps things, good or bad, to themselves.  So I think being open about things and sharing will be difficult, but I am willing to give it a shot.  Oh and on a major note..... I hated English in high school, so please don't expect my postings to always be grammatically correct  =)  I would like to write more but Landry is ready for his dinner.  I think we will try green beans again.  Wish me luck!

March for Babies

First Financial Bank (Landon's employer) is putting out a cook book to help raise money for their March for Babies Campaign.  Landry and another little baby boy, both born premature, will be on the cover!  We are super excited that they asked to put Landry on the cover.  March of Dimes is a great organization that provides families with  great support and the research they provide is priceless.  The cookbooks are now available for pre order.  They are $15.00 and will be available by March 1st!  If you would like one let me know.  There are 700 recipes in the cookbooks!

New

So I read a lot of friends blogs, and I love them.  So I thought to myself, it would be a great way to share photos and stories about my little family to my family and friends.  So I'm gonna give this blogging thing a try. Bare with me as I learn to navigate this!