The Rundown

I've been wanting to get back to this blog for a while now. And right now as I lay in bed next to my sick little two year old boy that you have no clue even exists, seems like as good a time as any.

It has been three years since I posted anything on here. No real reason that I can think of, or remember as to why I stopped posting. I just did. *shrug*

In the past three years a lot has happened. I got pregnant with my little guy a monthish after my last post (which was nov' 16), things were going good until April of '17 half way through my pregnancy when my husband suddenly lost his job, and my dad got layed off around the same time. We ended up moving back in with my parents a few months later to help eachother out. My husband did quickly get another job but it doesn't pay as well so the best place for us to be has been here.

My son CL was born in August of '17. At 3 weeks old he was hospitalized for a week for a UTI. While in the hospital he was also diagnosed with unilateral grade 4 VUR, and a small PFO. He spent the first year of his life on a daily prophylactic antibiotic to prevent more UTIs that could damage his kidney. At a year he was retested to check on his VUR and luckily it showed that he out grew it. We check up on his PFO in about a year to see if it might have closed, but his cardiologist didn't seem too think that it would need to be surgically closed even if it doesnt close on its own, due to it's apparently small size.

In February of '18 my husband started to really struggle with his PTSD that we didn't realize he had until this point. He pretty much spiralled for three months, almost ending our marriage and had RR pretty convinced that we hated eachother. Explaining to her that daddy had just been really sick was not something I had planned on doing but it was the best most truthful explanation for his behavior that I had to give her. WL struggled with all the stress of that time in her own way mostly internalizing it, she still sometimes struggles with arguing and yelling, which I'm not sure is a reaction of all the crap that went on when she was three or if it is just who she was always going to be. CL luckily was too little to be too bothered by what was going on around him. He just knew that everyone loved him.

As it turned out my husband's PTSD was triggered by CL's birth. He was doing okay until CL got sick then he just started sliding tell he started to really lose touch with reality by the time he seemed to "snap out of it". Looking back I can see him struggling and starting to fall, before he really lost it but at the time it felt like it came out of no where.

My husband's PTSD is rooted in the murder of his girlfriend and their 8 month old son that he had as a teenager (that I had known nothing about). He witnessed the murder but no one was ever caught as it was gang related. He holds a lot a guilt and still feels like he could have/should have done more to protect them. Which is 'just' survivors guilt, but something he has lived with for almost two decades. He even admitted that he always felt that our losses were his punishment for his 'failure' to them. He now wears a locket with their pictures in it.

In March of '18 I started back to school with a major of cardiovascular technology. I ended up adding Music as a double major in January of '19 and buying a Bassoon for 500 off FB market so that I can actually do the performance part of the major.

In June of '19 we had a yard sale and sold/ donated almost all of the stuff that CL was too big for as we had decided we were done having kids due to the physical and mental effects pregnancy has on me. And I had completely come to terms with not having my dream family when my marriage almost went up in flames.

In July of '19 to my great suprise I got a positive pregnancy test. I don't even know why I bought it, I was just in the isle and thought "why not" and tossed the 88 cent test in my cart. I took it that night and it was immediately positive. I was on the phone with the hubby at the time and I just about died, I was speechless, and ended up texting him a photo of it while on the phone with him. "Oh" was all he really managed to say. So we have spent the past few months getting ready for this suprise baby. Mostly rebuying things that we got rid of while I was actually pregnant it turns out.

In November of '19 I caught the flu, that turned into pneumonia and had to take incompletes in most of my classes because I wasn't well enough to make it into classes for the last two weeks and exams. I will be taking off tell August 2020 or possibly January 2021, just depends on how things go with the baby.

Right now, I sleep only after taking tylenol for my hip pain and walk with a cane. I have a handicap parking pass due to all the pain I'm in and how much it limits my ability to walk. The new baby, girl number 3, who we're naming LS is due in five weeks. RR is 6 in first grade at a year round school and in cub scouts. WL is turning 5 this month, starting Kindergarten in July, and hoping to join girl scouts, not cub scouts. And CL is 2 struggling to understand why mommy's big tummy is the only big tummy with a baby in it, and is excited to have a little sister soon who he wont have to share his cars with; but he has no real idea of what this means.

And that is pretty much the last three years in a nutshell.

-Cathrin