BECKY

Not To Little To Start Teething

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:08:35 -0500

My Baby is now almost 17 weeks old and I CAN NOT believe how time has flown by. Hunter and I are obsessed with our little man. Not only does he bring such joy to our lives, but he is just the sweetest most amazing boy that God blessed us with. There is no love like a love that a mother has for her child. I can not begin to put words to it, but those of you moms who are reading this can just understand what I mean.
About 2 weeks ago, Car started being a little drool monster. As time progressed and his hands started being continuously in his mouth if his “binky” was not we began to realize that he was teething. Not only are 2 bottom teeth trying to come on up, but 4 are. I have researched teething so much now and no all signs of teething. Carson has pretty much all the signs that there are--a rash under his neck, wanting to constantly gnaw on something, hard time sleeping, etc. My baby is SO mature:). I just love when he wakes up in the night though even though it would be best for him to sleep all night, cause it gives me more time to cuddle him. I hate seeing him hurt though--it makes me very sad.
My life will never be the same again. I am in love with this precious boy and pray that the Lord continues to prepare me to be the godly mom that he desires me to be. I know that this is not the last time that he is going to be hurting and for sure not the worst that he will ever hurt, but the Lord is already teaching me to take everything about my baby to Him and leave it in his hands.
Hunter and I are still living with his parents. We are praying that our home will sell quickly, but are thankful for the hospitality that has been shown to us by his family. Our foundation as some of you know is severely cracked and has been the cause so far of our home not selling. But just recently we got word that our entire foundation as well as the cracks in our home will be repaired completely within the next couple of months. We are SO thankful for God’s sovereign hand that caused the home warranty company to see our home’s cracks as a legit claim. So for anyone looking to buy an adorable little home in Dallas, know that ours will be in perfect condition within a couple of months--we would love for you to take a look--www.6136lakevista.com.
Happy Fall and don’t dress too scary on Halloween!

My boys and changes

Fri, 3 Oct 2008 14:11:46 -0500

WOW--all i have to say is it has been WAY too long since I have posted a new blog. I have been pretty good about keeping our pics up to date, but I will be better about writing as well. My boys--the most amazing joys in my life--we have been having a blast together. From July 14 through September 30 Hunter worked from home doing freelance design work for different people. This time was so sweet to spend together. What a blessing for Hunter to be able to spend some quality time with our boy before he had to go back to work every day. As of October 1 though, Hunter is now the director of Worship Arts at Hunters Glen Baptist Church in Plano, TX. We are staying with Hunt’s parents for a couple of months while we wait for our house to sell. After our house down in Grand Prairie sells, we will begin looking to buy another house in McKinney, TX--more than likely.
Carson, the most amazing little boy in this world, is growing bigger each day. I told him the other day that he was already growing up too fast. He is SO much fun. He and I sing, play, laugh, smile, talk, clean, run errands etc every day. I have never known the joys of being a mother could be SO great. I never want to put him down, I never want to be away from him just because I enjoy every minute with my baby. Don’t get me wrong, I do put him down --he sleeps in his bed and spends some time swinging, but I do hold him and cuddle him a whole lot too!!! I am SO thankful to the Lord and to Hunter for providing so that I have the greatest privilege I could think of to stay home with Car Bear (AKA Carson). He turned 3 months old this past Tuesday--we celebrated by singing “Happy Birthday” all day and Mommy got a Starbuck’s. Carson started sleeping through the night at 12 weeks old. He would go down at 9 and sleep until 6:30am. Poor buddy is now in a new place and unsure of his surroundings still so he is waking up often through the night, but he just needs a little adjustment time and I am sure he will be back to his regular sleep patterns. Of course I don’t mind him needing to cuddle during the night--i LOVE it!!!
Well I will be better about keeping you’ll up to date on what is happening in our lives. My prayer recently has been that the Lord would grow me more like him self each and every day regardless of circumstances and that our joy would be made full and complete because of Him. I hope that you find your joy satisfied in Him as well.

Close Call at Week 34

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:33:57 -0500

During my 34th week of pregnancy, my friend Kellie called up and said “Hey, why don’t we go take some pictures of your pregnant belly so that you will always have them to look back on”. I really wanted to have my pictures taken while pregnant but did not want to pay the money to have them taken professionally so I was pumped about going the Dallas arboretum to have Kellie take some pics. We woke up early on June 24th and were going to head over to the arboretum to beat the heat of the day when Kellie realized that her really nice camera was broken. We went to best buy to have them take a look at it and it turned out that it had to be sent in to be fixed...she would not get it back for a couple of weeks. I was like “Kellie, we don’t have to go and take pictures with your little camera. We can just wait for your other camera to get fixed and then go.” I reminded her that we still had five weeks before Carson came. She insisted that we still go. She said “Becky, I would feel SO bad if he came early and we never got any pictures of you”. Little did I know that I was less than a week away from having Carson and had Kellie not insisted that we go that day then I would have very few pictures of me pregnant--just a sweet keep-sake. Anyway, this blog is just to explain why i just added a ton of pictures to “Bec’s Journey” today. I just recently uploaded them and wanted to be able to share them as I would have if Carson had not come early...hehe! No pressure to look at them...it’s WAY more fun and enjoyable to look at pictures of my boy--trust me, I know!

3 weeks old?

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:24:56 -0500

I can hardly believe that it has already been 3 weeks since Carson has been here with us. What a blessing this baby has been to our lives. Hunter and I are forever changed. It’s not a weird thing to find us just sitting in the living room, looking at Carson and saying “How amazing is he?” We have been having a blast with him so far. Yea, I know he doesn’t do much yet other than eat and sleep but he adds so much joy to the life of our family. Even Beans is beginning to get used to him. Any movements or noises that come from Carson send Beans into his watchdog mode--ears raised, eyes focussed in on Carson and ready to protect. Of course we do understand that Beans is a dog, so we would never just leave Carson in a place that Beans could access him without either Hunt or me in the room standing guard.
Carson and I are home most of the time which i love. I am not wanting to leave the house much until he is around 6 weeks old or so. We have left twice to go to see Dr. Karam--Carson’s doctor--for a weight check and then we have left twice for showers that were given for Carson. We got so many sweet gifts. We came home after the shower on Saturday and Hunter and I just found ourselves going through all the gifts asking how we could ever really say thank you to all of our family and friends for blessing us with so many gifts for Carson Bear. Of course, you all will be getting thank you notes, but please know that our thanks goes much deeper than what I can put into words on a small card.
Hunter and I have been talking quite a bit about God’s perfect timing. If you really stop and think about it--in your life, my life, the lives or people around us--God has such perfect timing even if we can’t see it at that moment. Carson was brought into the world 5 weeks early--not our timing because we didn’t even have everything done for him at home--but it was God’s faithful timing that brought him to us even in the midst of some hard times that we were facing at the moment in time. Even though we did not have everything for him, the Lord faithfully has provided tons of premie clothes, diapers, wipes, etc--the basics which was all that we needed--AGAIN, God’s perfect timing. I do challenge you to look at each moment and the things that it brings your way as an act of God’s faithful timing. We, we human beings, are only able to see but a small part of the whole picture--I am thankful that there is ONE who sees the entire picture.

In closing, the Lord has used this verse to be of great encouragement to me these past couple of weeks and I hope that it will be a sweet word of encouragement to all of your regardless of where you are.

Psalm 127:2
“It is vain to rise up early, to go to bed late, to eat the bread of painful labors, for the Lord gives to His beloved even in her sleep.”

Baby Blessing

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 11:22:25 -0500

Wow...what an incredible past week and a half or so. The Lord has done so much without us even knowing anything was around the corner. As most of you know, Carson was not due to be here with us until August 1. Hunter and I went to Arkansas for a couple of days on June 24. We headed back down to Dallas on June 27 and brought my mom and brother back with us to hang out for a week or so. We had so many plans...going to the zoo, going on a picnic, swimming, etc. On Sunday, June 29, we all got up, got ready, went to church, ate lunch, and then Hunt and I headed to the final birthing class that we had signed up to take at the hospital. I recall waking up that morning and telling Hunter that I had weird cramping in my stomach. I didn’t think much about since I was 35 weeks pregnant and braxton hicks contractions are quite common towards the end of pregnancy. These slight contractions consistently were coming every 45-50 minutes throughout the day, so Hunter started timing them and keeping track of exactly when and for how long they would show up. We headed to the hospital for our birthing class at 2:00pm that afternoon. We continued to time the contractions during the class. I talked with the instructor, she said that I probably should just go home and put my feet up and go to my doctor’s appointment the next day and see what she had to say. That remained the plan until around 4:15pm, I felt a lot of fluid come out. I wasn’t sure what was happening in my body, but I did know that I didn’t want to overreact. I was sure it was nothing, but a freak accident and I didn’t want to be the woman who headed to the hospital only to find out it was false labor. Hunt and I headed home around 5:15pm, we ate and then he had me call the doctor that was on call because the fluid continued to leak out--hopefully this is not grossing anyone out--it’s just facts and the reality of having a baby...haha! ANYWAY, the doctor on call told me to head back to the hospital just to be on the safe side. He didn’t think that it sounded like my water had broken but you can never know until you go get checked out. We got to the hospital around 7:28pm. They got me to a delivery room and did the test to see whether or not it was amniotic fluid leaking. The test came back stating that my water had not broken. I was beginning to feel embarrassed. The nurse said not to feel bad it happens all the time, but before she let us go she wanted to just do a cervical exam to make sure. She had literally not even been checking for one minute when she looked at me and said “Girl, you’re in labor. You are 4 cm dilated and 100 effaced.” I could not believe what she was saying. They still did not know why the fluid test was coming back negative, but that was to deal with later at this point, she wanted to get me on bed rest in the hospital and give me a sleeping pill to get a good night’s rest. Hunter and I were filled with emotions. We were obviously SO excited that our child was on his was we were scared, didn’t know what to expect, etc. For now, we just had to wait and take it a step at a time. I slept well that night, continuing to contract only about every 15-20 minutes. Poor Hunt had to sleep on this little couch next to me. Needless to say, he didn’t sleep much, but he got the playlists on our ipod ready for my labor and delivery --something that we had on the to-do list for the following week since we thought we still had approximately 5 more weeks before our precious guy entered the world. The next morning, my doctor came in and said that she was pretty sure that my amniotic sac just had a slight tear in it at the top which is why there was not ALOT of fluid but just a continuous trickle. She really didn’t want me to have Carson at 35 weeks, she would rather just send me home on bed rest and see if we could hold him off from coming a bit longer. BUT, the answer was clear as to what should happen when Carson’s heart rate began to take some dives. The amniotic fluid level was lessoning therefore the cord was beginning to get in his way. SO, Dr. McClintock said that she would like to begin my labor process. I had progressed to being 5-6 cm dilated. She started me on a petocine drip at 11:49am and she came in and broke my sac of water all the way at 1:20pm. Hunter and I were told to expect about a 15 hour labor and delivery process so we could expect our precious angel to be there sometime that evening. Little did we know that at 2:05pm, I had to start pushing--there was NO holding back...I HAD TO PUSH! The nurse told me that I shouldn’t push she was pretty sure that I was not fully dilated--especially since this was my first child--nothing goes that fast. They checked me and sure enough I was fully dilated and I began pushing as soon as my doctor ran in the door and the nurses from the NICU were present. Everything became like a dream at that point. All these people were running into the room, they were getting the heater out, calling my doctor to get over there immediately and here I was trying with everything I had to not push. Hunter was the most incredible support. He went through each step with me. He would count me through contractions, he would rub on me, he would pray over me, etc. I am SO blessed to have a man like him. SO, 2:05pm is when I began pushing. I pushed for 6 sets of 3 rounds with the support of Hunter, my doctor and the two nurses who were coaching me and at 2:20pm, little Carson was born. I had prayed that I would be able to have a natural delivery with NO meds--no epidural , no episiotomy, no nothing. I had been able to do it with the Lord’s strength and the help of Hunter. Carson was born at 35 weeks, did not have to go to the NICU--which was a HUGE blesssing--he was 5 lbs 9 oz and 18 inches long. He was healthy in every way. I had to stay in the hospital so that I could go in round the clock to feed him one extra night because he had to be under photo therapy for about 16 hours to help with his jaundice and the Lord used that to heal him of that issue as well. On Thursday, July 3, we were able to bring him home with us and have been LOVING every minute of it since. Feeding has been going great. I am SO thankful that the Lord designed a woman’s body to provide health and nourishment for her baby. Even having to get up and feed every 2-3 hours has been SO sweet. I would not trade that time for anything. Thank you for all of your prayers and support in welcoming Carson Everett Hall into this world. Please continue to pray that he grows strong and healthy. He dropped down to 4 lbs 15 oz, but sooner than they thought he had already started gaining, so he was back up to 5 lbs 2 oz on Monday and we will go in for another weight check on Monday, but he is starting to get a little chub on him which is the most precious thing to see happen to my boy.