I'm not supermom

I'm not the supermom I thought I would be...

 I've learned a few things in the last 6months- and maybe new moms, or those who aren't so new at this mom thing can relate to me, maybe not..either way- it's ok. 

I wanted to be a perfect mom- I had big plans- Nixon would be exclusively breastfed for at least his first year of life, I would NEVER co- sleep, I would make all of his baby food, diaper rash ointment and sanitizer wipes. My house would always be straight, I would shower everyday, and cook a healthy dinner several nights a week- I mean how hard can it be?! Yes- I'm  laughing at myself over some of those big plans I had. So far, the only one I've completely stuck to- is giving Nixon only Momma's milk- and that has not been easy friends. 

You see life happened- Nixon stopped sleeping perfectly in his own bed and momma and daddy both work full time and need a few hours of sleep, so I can admit I've given in to a few hours of sleeping with him in the early morning to buy myself a little rest- I'm not completely proud of that.   

Nixon's little bum broke out from the wipes we were using when he was itty bitty so my homemade diaper ointment wasn't cutting it anymore- we used Desitin- and although his little bum thanks me for it, I felt like a bad mom. The most recent slap in the face came when I opened up a can of store bought baby food and Nixon ate it better than the foods I had been making for him. I've pushed him for weeks to eat different puréed food I've prepared for him- he wasn't a fan of any of it. Tonight, against my better judgement I opened up a container of Gerber store bought(hoping my husband and mom would be wrong)  and he grinned and took another bite. I felt defeated! 

Why are moms so hard on ourselves? Why is there such a stereotype for what a "good mom" is supposed to be? My precious baby is healthy, being raised by a momma and daddy who adore him, he is meeting and excelling past his developmental milestones, and he is sooo crazy loved- that's really all that matters.  The fact that sometimes he needs to snuggle in our bed, and prefers store bought baby food over my homemade, doesn't make me any less of a mom. The fact that sometimes I start my dishwasher again just to avoid having to unload it, that laundry waits to be folded for more days than I care to admit and my hair gets washed about half as much as it used to- doesn't make me any less of a mom. 

In my 6 months of being Nixon's mommy I've learned that what works for one kid, doesn't always work for yours, and that's ok! I've learned that your plan for being parent will more that likely go exactly opposite from how you planned it- if you know our journey to becoming parents, and the day of Nixon's birth- you'll see what I mean. 

I'm saying this all as a reminder to myself, friends. Currently I'm holding my baby boy while he naps and my kitchen is still not cleaned up from dinner and the laundry I was supposed to get done today is still waiting on me- but we had dinner and I took a shower so the day is a win! I'm still struggling with the fact that it's impossible to be a perfect mom, keep a perfect house, look fresh and put together at all times, and be the image of a perfect wife- I'm trying to learn that sometimes I just have to be OK at those things. The boys in my house won't love me any less when they find out I'm not supermom. 

How we are doing...

How are we doing?
  A question we are asked almost daily. My answer seems to always be, "Ok, we are doing ok." That's just the simplest answer I can give. While some days I could answer with "today has been a good day, no tears, some laughs," some days I would also have to say- "today has been rough, I had to make myself stay off of social media, Evan found me sobbing in my closet, and every song on the radio has brought me to tears," I decide to spare the sob story and stick with "Ok." That's just what we are right now. The good days do seem to be outnumbering the bad, but to say "Oh we are great," I just can't. I hope one day we can, but not now.

  Our lives are back to normal, as much as they can be. Evan has been back to work for awhile now, and is staying busy during his peak season for photography. I am back to work full time as well. If you follow me on Facebook, you know I've switched jobs. I now work in the pediatric emergency room at our local children's hospital. And I loove it. I know what your thinking- you just lost your son, and you spend 12hrs a day taking care if children. Yes, I do. It's a "God thing", this is where I am supposed to be right now and I'm so thankful for such a peace about it. I'm motherly, I'm a care-taker, I'm a lover of children- this job gives me an opportunity to love on babies and children all day long, it's helping to heal my broken heart so much. I also work with amazing people, that helps.

    October has been a trying time in our healing process, Chandler's due date was the 13th, our anniversary the 15th, and Evan's birthday the 20th- all of these things were supposed to be exciting celebrations. We decided a trip out of town would help take our mind off of what we had anticipated during this month and help us to focus on this season on our lives. We spent several days in Savannah, GA and loved it. It's been so nice, and very much needed to be surrounded by our family and friends over the last few months, but it was so lovely to take time alone, just the two of us. I know I brag on my husband a lot, but I just can't say enough about how amazing he is. I never imagined in our fourth year of marriage and tenth year together, we would face this, but I can't imagine facing it with anyone else by my side. I thank God daily for my husband, he's such a blessing.
 
    With the changes in our lives, we have met new people, many who don't know our story. I knew the question would come, but I wasn't sure if I would ever be prepared. "Do you have any kids?" How do I answer that? Of course I do, I have Chandler, but am I prepared to go in to details every time I'm asked? It's something I'm still not prepared for, I take it as it comes, I don't have a rehearsed answer. It's usually something like, " I do, I have a son, he's just not here with me. We lost him at birth." It's a common question, a conversation starter, and I don't take offense at all to being asked, it's something I would normally ask people I'm just meeting, too. It's just hard, some days I can answer it and go on, others I have to let it sink in, regroup and eventually go on with my day. So many things I never imagined would be so hard, make the days so tough sometimes, Facebook, it's a wonderful place to share pieces of our lives with those we call friends, I love Facebook. But Facebook can be so harsh to hurting people. My Facebook is filled with new life and pregnant mommas right now. It's wonderful, but I'm going to be honest- some days I have to tune out. Some days the new life surrounding me is nothing but a constant reminder that we weren't lucky enough to hold our precious baby while he was still full of life. Please don't take this as me saying- stop sharing pictures in Facebook, or leave me out of your life if it includes a new baby- not at all. I don't want anyone to think I'm being harsh at all, just being honest with my feelings. I'm very thankful for all the new life around us, and those lucky enough to carry healthy babies, it's such a blessing. But, my mommy heart hurts so much, sometimes I have to turn away from those things that make it hurt even more on days when I'm struggling, I hope that makes sense. There are certain days when I know I can't go in the nursery, I can't listen to certain songs, and I need to hold it together, the same for social media- I know when I just need to avoid it.

    So that's my update on our lives right now. Again, I want to thank all of you who continue to reach out to us often, we still need constant prayers. I can honestly say that this experience has shown me how kind people can be, and that there are truly many people who "practice what they preach." I would be lying if I said everyone has, there is always going to be a few who disappoint you- but that's life. So many people have been there for us, and you will never know how much you mean to us. I pray God allows us to reach out to those who are hurting, just like we have been blessed.

I am a planner...

    I shared a song by Selah on my Facebook last night. If you are familiar with the group, or the story of Angie and Todd Smith's daughter Audrey, you may have heard it. I had heard it in the past when reading their story, but the words are soo much sweeter to me now that we have lost our sweet baby and experienced a similar pain. It talks about plans that she had for her daughter, that she never got to enjoy with her, and the love she thought only a mother would know, but how our Heavenly Father loves her sweet baby even more. I can relate soo much to the words.
    If you know me, you know what a planner I am. I plan my outfits the night before, plan out our meals, my grocery store list, the day I'm going to clean my house so it's fresh for whatever we have going on during the week- and the list goes on. I plan everything, and write most of it down in my  life planner. I don't like my plans changed, I like a schedule and routine. Evan and I started dating in high school, so I had our lives for the next several years planned out when I realized he was the boy I was going to marry. We would get married after college, work hard to save money and enjoy our married life, buy a house and start a family. That all went pretty much as planned, until July 15.
    So naturally, I already had lots of plans for Chandler. We would have him  in October and I would take as much time off of work as we could possibly afford, I knew it would be worth it.  We would spend our days doing whatever he wanted and working in some time cleaning and preparing dinner- I was going to have it all together, or at least pretend I did. I just knew Friday nights we would snuggle him and listen to his uncle and cousins high school football game on the radio. I could picture drinking my favorite fall drinks, with my pumpkin candles lit, rocking my baby- perfect! This would be the best Christmas EVER, lots of presents for our boy, our own family traditions to start, and showing him off at all the family Christmas gatherings. He would have extravagant birthday parties, and one day, we would take him to Disney world. He would probably be good at golf and basketball like his daddy, and I could imagine we would have to discourage him from climbing the trees in our back yard when he was older. I'm telling you I had it all planned- down to small details of what our new life would be like.
     On July 15th, I lost all control of my plans for our lives. That day, God tapped me on the shoulder, no- let me rephrase that, he shook me to the core when He showed me that He had a different plan for us and our Chandler. I can admit I always prayed for God's will in our lives, but in my mind I liked to add something like, "But now Lord, I've already got this all planned out, so if you could just make it happen this way that would be great- ok? Thanks," I'm certain He was shaking His head at me and thinking "O ye of little faith."
   “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
‭‭                      Jeremiah‬ ‭29:11‬ ‭NIV‬‬
     I thought I had it all figured out, my plan was to be Chandler's mommy and everything from the moment we found I was pregnant revolved around our lives as his mommy and daddy.  I thought my plans were best for our lives, but I was wrong. God has been in control the whole time. I just realized that I have to stop trying to direct His path. That is not easy to admit, or to follow through. I'm not writing this to tell you I have got it all figured out now, because I most certainly do not. I am struggling with what His plan is for my life now more than I ever have, but I know if I let Him, He will show me the plan He has- I just have to trust Him and His timing.
     Although you may not be able to relate to my story, if you are struggling with your purpose in life or your plans aren't going like you thought- I am here to tell you, cry out to Jesus. As the song and saying goes, " I may not know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow." I am living proof that we can try as hard, and for as long as we want, but ultimately we are not in control- He is! Thank you all so much for your continued prayers, we appreciate them more than you will ever know!

   With love,
   Haley

The story of Chandler Nixon...

    I've always wanted to start a blog, I used to joke that my life was too boring and I had nothing good to write about. I didn't think sharing pictures of food I cook, trips we've taken, or experiences we've had would be enough to keep the attention of anyone but our immediate families. One month ago, our lives were forever changed in a way that we could never imagine. In one of the most difficult times of our lives, several people were able to reach out to us and share their stories. Many were similar to what we are going through and it brought us soo much comfort, we want to do the same with our story. We hope that Chandler and his story can help others, just as so many have reached out to help us.
 This is the story of Chandler Nixon Sturgill. I will be sharing the story of my pregnancy and pieces of our lives prior in several parts, but this is the story of his birth....

   
 For several days leading up to Chandler's arrival, I noticed he wasn't as active as he had been. We had watched him turn flips on ultrasounds and I had been feeling his kicks for about 7 weeks leading up to the week of his birth. I had worked several busy nights, had a busy weekend and contributed him being less active to a "growth spurt" and assumed he was sleeping while I was on my feet working. I didn't really get concerned until Tuesday(July 14) when I had made a point to pay close attention and count his movement throughout the day. I had worked the night before and sneaked a little peek at Chandler on ultrasound(perks of being a nurse) and saw a strong heartbeat and my sweet one all curled up in a ball, so I felt reassured that he was just sleeping more this week. On Tuesday, I sat down more than normal and felt no movement during the day, which wasn't unusual, Chandler was a night owl (like mommy and daddy) and did most of his moving after 11pm. That night,  Evan and I laid in bed and tried everything from  playing music on and nudging my belly hoping for a kick from him, nothing. We decided to give him through the night and if I hadn't felt him move the next morning, we would call the dr. Around 8am the next morning, we called my doctor's office, spoke with a nurse and were told to "go to labor and delivery to be monitored." I questioned if that was really necessary, couldn't we just make an appointment to come to the office today? They insisted they would send me for monitoring anyway for decreased fetal movement, so I should just go there first. So we got ready and headed to the hospital. I still felt like maybe we were overreacting and even insisted my mom not meet us there,  because I felt certain we would be sent home after reassurance that our little one was just fine and nothing but stubborn like his daddy(and mommy).
      Once we arrived on the L&D floor, I explained that my doctor sent me here, but I felt like we were just worrying for no reason and needed then to tell us everything was ok, send us home and hope not to see us again for at least 10weeks. They took us in a room and placed me on the monitor. I should mention for those reading who don't know me well, I am a nurse, but not a labor and delivery nurse, I'm an ER nurse. So some of the things they do on L&D is foreign to me, I did learn about the basics in nursing school, but I'm far from an expert at anything that goes on in that world.  But, I know that at 27weeks they should have been able to immediately pick up Chandler's heartbeat with their fetal monitor, and when they could not, my heart sank. That's when they fear sat in for me. I grabbed my husbands hand and the tears started flowing, I knew something was wrong. By this time, several nurses were in the room with us, and they calmly sent one of them out to get their ultrasound machine. Once the ultrasound screen came up, the room got quite, the tears began to pour and I began to question. They tried to protect me for just a few more minutes, to delay the news no one ever wants to hear. They explained they wanted to call my doctor and get the ultrasound tech to bring in her machine to confirm, but they could not find a heartbeat. I will never forget that feeling. Like I couldn't breathe, like if I tried to stand up, my feet wouldn't hold me up- a desperate desire to wake up from this nightmare. This can't be happening to us! We've done everything right, he had been perfect at out last ultrasound, I saw his heartbeat on Monday night, please tell us this isn't happening. But it was, the ultrasound tech confirmed the same thing, she couldn't detect a heartbeat, and our doctor assured us of the same when he came in- our baby wasn't living. I felt out whole world fall apart in that room, our hearts were broken. Our doctor explained what would happen next, we would need to induce labor and go through  delivery. He would be out of town, but his partner would be with us for however long the process took. We decided to go home for awhile, get our things, be with our families and come back later in the day.
        We checked back into the hospital later that afternoon and started the induction process at 8pm. Surrounded by our families and close friends over the next hours, we continued the long process. By around 4pm on Thursday, approx. 20hours later, I was not making much progress. There were times, I wanted to give up. Not because of pain- until this point I had received nothing but the induction meds. But, because labor in itself is exhausting-being in a bed for 20hours when I am used to only sitting down a few hours before bed and on my feet non-stop most days, was wearing on me, and I was emotionally exhausted. I feel like I would have had more strength if I knew at the end of this process, I would have my sweet baby- it would all be worth it, but that wasn't happening to us. We had made the decision to hold our baby, show him off to family and friends at the hospital with us, and take pictures with him. But we knew our time with him would be short, and we wouldn't get to take him home with us.
       We sat down with our doctor around 4pm on Thursday and made the decision that we would continue the same course of induction we had been using, but he highly  recommended an epidural at this point. He felt like I couldn't relax enough to make progress and that an epidural would best step to help move along. I was very reluctant, I didn't want to give in to not being able to get out of bed when I wanted to stretch my legs, I wasn't in uncontrollable pain, and I was scared. Like I said, I know just enough about the world of medicine and labor and delivery to be anxious and cautious about everything going on. I felt like I was giving up all control I had of the situation, and my doctor quickly caught on to the fact that I like to be in control. After much discussion with Evan and our doctor and nurses, I gave in. I received an epidural a couple hours later.
    I want to mention our nurses and how I know without a doubt that the fact that they took care of me through the whole process after both of them had went through very similar heartache was a "God thing." They were amazing. I can't even begin to describe how much they comforted us and went far above and beyond just providing care to me during the labor and delivery. We could never thank them enough for how wonderful they were. Two of the most compassionate human beings I have ever met, and they passed me on to each other over the whole process, that was a blessing. So we knew that we would be facing a shift change, in which neither of our beloved nurses were scheduled to be working if Chandler was not born, so we began praying that he would arrive before night shift was over.
     Around 1215am, things started to change. I felt a lot more pain in my back than I had even before the epidural, and I knew something just wasn't right. My dear friend, a fellow nurse, knew something was going on and brought my nurse in. My nurse said she felt like she should bring another nurse with her to my room, based in the symptoms my friend told her I was having. Another "God thing," for sure. Once they came in, they told me it was time. When I realized what was happening, I began to sob, I told my husband "I wasn't ready for this." He assured me we were ready and this was an answer to our prayers. I knew delivery meant we would get to meet our precious boy, but it also meant our time with him was limited, and after carrying him for almost 7months, he would no longer be a physical part of me. Chandler Nixon Sturgill arrived at 1234am on Friday, July 17, 2015.
    We spent lots of alone time with him, just the 3 of us, our little family. We studied his every feature, told him how loved he was, and how proud we were to be his mommy and daddy. But, we also proudly showed him off to our family and close friends who had been going through this journey day and night, with us. Chandler had a head full of dark hair, so much that it had already started to extend down his little neck. He had long fingers and toes(like both mommy and daddy), but he looked just like his daddy, I had always hoped he would. He was a perfect tiny bundle, 1lb 12.4oz and 13inches long.
    We had planned a perfect life for him, his nursery was painted and crib up, his bedding was being handmade, his closet already full of clothes and diapers, 3 showers already being planned, and numerous people were making him blankets for the cold fall and winter months we had anticipated snuggling him. This is not how we had planned his arrival, or the rest of our lives as his mommy and daddy. For 7 months I carried him, felt his sweet kicks, saw him on ultrasound, and heard his heartbeat often, and now he was gone. No longer with us, but with our Heavenly Father, such a bittersweet thought.
  Ours hearts are broken. We know that God's plan for our lives are so much greater than any plans we could ever make, and we are trying to cling to the promise of His plan. But as Chandler's mommy I want him here with us. On my darkest days, I find comfort in the thought that our sweet boy did not have to face any of the evil things in this world. He knew nothing but warmth and love from so many and went straight from his mommy to Jesus' arms. Although his daddy and I had big plans for the life we wanted to give him, I know his Heavenly Father is taking care of him and he has lots of grandparents snuggling him as well.
     We are slowly figuring out our new path and plan to share pieces of our journey in this blog. We desire your prayers and are certain they are what has kept us going this far.

      With love,
        Haley