Leonard Patrick

This is Leonards birth story. If you wish,to read this continue one. I wrote this trying to remember everything that was going on that day amongst the chaos.

Read on if you wanna know how we progressed through the process of his birth.

On Thanksgiving we started to have contractions around the time dinner was served. This happened for about 2 hours then stopped. I was thankful but disappointed at the same time. We finished our Thanksgiving dinner and we're home at around 7pm that night. I was so exhausted from the day I decided to go straight to bed. The contractions began again around 9pm and we're steady. By midnight I was miserable in so much pain I was thankful to have a friend up and chatting with me in between contractions(thanks Kayce). By 2 am on Friday the 27th they were consistent and 20 mins apart. By 3pm I wanted to tap out and be done with the pain. At 4 am in the morning I was fed up and trying to wake Russ up. He wasn't moving. 4:46 I told my friend if Russ didn't budge I was going to leave without him. That point russ woke up. I grabbed the diaper bag we had prepacked, also my breast pump and my overnight bag that was ready from Wednesday when I had hoped my ob would have just done the surgery. We all hopped in the car as I was trying to find a sitter for my daughter I called my dad thankfully he woke up cause I also texted my mom and sister to see if anyone was up. I knew my parents had enough of lucys stuff I knew dropping her off with them I wouldn't need to pack anything. Makes for situations like this much easier.

6am  I was in the labor and delivery ward of community medical hospital all hooked up to their machines and waiting for already planned c-sections. They called my ob Dr Harvey but unfortunately he was already on his way out of town on a hunting trip we had already known about. His partner Dr Wyman was in doing a surgery.

The first nurse we saw was brief and we only saw her for a short time due to a shift change. She however confirmed we would be having the baby that day it would just be a while because I wasn't emergent. They had one scheduled and then a second mom was there that was laboring but they were on the fence if we would be second or third in the surgery order. Dr Wyman came in in the morning and introduced himself and told us the plan of what was going to happen. Still having contractions every 2 to 5 mins apart at this point. I could not stay comfortable. When shift change happened we had a new nurse who was very nice and pleasant. She helped to accommodate us as much as she could and frequently checked in on us. By 8am I was hooked up to an iv and was given fluids. This helped because I couldn't eat or drink anything due to a surgery happening. The fluids made it helpful for me because I was dehydrated. The nurse we were switched to was just about to put the iv in but I explained how much we I was poked last time with Lucy she decided to get the anesthesiologist(Wendy) to help or they were going to get an ultrasound from the er to put on in either way they poked me 3 times and finally got the iv in my forearm. I requested this option then her idea of doing it in my elbow.

From that point on it was a waiting game. It was at about 8 or 9 am when Dr Wyman was done and we were waiting for confirmation to tell us if we were second or third. This did not take long. By 10 we were told we were third and that the other dr was on his way to do the surgery for this patient. I was disappointed, I was still contracting and miserable. From then till about noon we waited. Watched tv, played cards, got up walked around, dozed off (not long due to either a nurse to interrupt or a contraction). By noon we were preparing for surgery, they gave me iv antibiotic doses, and that nasty shot you have to take before surgery that is just the worst tasting thing in the world. I was getting anxious for what was going to happen in the surgery room. I kept remembering what had happened during Lucy's surgery and didn't want a repeat of this. We found out when the second nurse was helping prepare tell us that she was not going to follow us into surgery and that the same nurse team that was in the first surgery will help with mine. I was a tad disappointed with this but just wanted to have this day over.

At 1:15 we were walking into the surgery room. (much different then with Lucy's since I was wheeled into the room) The anesthesiologist was there ready to get the spinal in, she explained everything she was doing. As with Lucy's I jumped when the first poke of the numbing stuff went in, I was told to relax, this was very difficult since I was raised up on the surgery bed and my feet were dangling, I did my best.
1:32pm I was all hooked up, the ekg machine hooked up to monitor my heart, and I had a tube around my nose to help me breath. At this point the dr was already to get to the surgery. I reminded the nurse we want the placenta as the surgery progressed. It was helpful to have the anesthesiologist  (wendy) there to help calm me and to talk to me. It seemed like the room was way more talkative then when we had Lucy it was so quiet and we had a tall male anesthesiologist.
1:38pm Leonard Patrick Arnold is born and all I could tell Russ was to check and make sure it's a boy. I had to tell them I wanted this confirmation because my niece was supposed to be a boy or so the tech said it was a boy when my sister had her ultrasound in cut bank montana.  We had a joke that if it was a girl then Dr Harvey would have gotten some crap for it since he does ultrasounds at every visit. Of course since we joked about that then Dr Wyman as he was stitching me up said and here comes the girl, he joked. 
1:47 I was able to see Leon, I was choked up seeing him. Wendy had to remind me to calm down and breath as I was borderline not breathing good. They were able to let me have a few minutes of skin to skin with the baby before we were sent to recovery.
2:45 we were in recovery. At this time I was able to breastfeed, and this is where the nurses pissed me off, because I made sure to let my admitting nurse I want to breastfeed on my own and I did not want any of the nurses to be groping my breasts to help me like they had done with Lucy. She still wanted to make sure he was latches, which I had told he was or I'd had told her he wasn't. We got about 3 or 4 minutes of a good latch. In recovery we had some ice chips and the nurse offered jello which for a girl who had not ate for almost 24 hours took this gladly didn't think it was a problem. When the two nurses that were helping transition me from surgery to recover to my room were ready to move me I threw up the jello. A bit of a hiccup that was quickly fixed.

When we were finally taken to our room we had Lucy with my parents waiting to come see us and the baby. I was so excited to see my baby girl I had her get right up next to me in the bed. We had few visitors that first night. My sister and her children were there I believe I may have seen my brother in laws face pop in but wasn't sure, we also had my aunt and her daughter come as well. We asked her to grab a few things for us real quick so we would be prepared.
All night I had been dealing with nausea, which was annoying due to the fact I had thought I was through with this after Leon was born.
I went home the following day from the hospital. I was up walking, did a lap around the ward with leon then without while he got some rest and people held him. The one thing we didn't anticipate was having a rib out of place, which was miserable to deal with right after surgery. Thankfully my chiropractor was able to help get it back into place and it slowly healed the strained muscles around the bone from being out of place.

time to catch up

Well it sure has been awhile since I have written one of these. I wanna update everyone how things are going and what we have been doing so far.

Lets start off with lucy she is easy. She is now 4 years old. Had one of her tubes fall out and it looks like when the other one falls out we are outta that. Which means no more specialist and no more surgery for her. She is also in pre-K at Valley Christian School. We decided that this is what we will need to do in order for lucy to get use to a classroom setting depending on if we keep her at Valley or a different school will be up to what they teach and where we live. Lucy will also be starting her first season of soccer that is offered at the YMCA.

Russell had a fun summer. He was offered a way better job in a different department on campus, as well as offered a level 3 where he is now. Definitely used the leverage of having 2 people wanting him was nice. He is still in the same department, higher pay, more stress, more work but it's a job, and who can say they have a career like Russ does at the age of 26. Russ has cut back on his soda intake which I believe has been helping his heart burn problems. This is an instance of "I told him so" because he went through a surgery(kinda) microscope down his throat to tell him he has a bad stomach. They wanted it repeated but we really couldn't afford it. I told him "I bet it is all the soda you drink". And needless to say he is doing better. He was recently installed as an officer at the lodge he is a Mason at this last month as well. Makes me proud to be his wife and support him in this since he has been wanting to go back and be more of a member. Well now he is stuck and has to go. We hope to get me back in the star chapter I was apart of soon.

I myself am still with Northwest homecare. I am planning on staying with them until baby #2 is born. 3 more months, then I have to decide if I wanna continue with NW or look for a new job. We will see what life has in store. I have also started to finish my bachelor's, since I did a semester at the mountain campus and would not be able to do this semester we decided to do online schooling for myself. It sure is a learning experience but one I hope to overcome.

We are expecting our 2nd child if you haven't read the other post made in April please do. This child is a work of God's grace for sure. We found out about a month ago we are having a boy. This will be the first grandson for my parents and Russell's parents. As well as the first great grandson from my father's (Shane) mother's side (Nyla). There hasn't been a boy on her side since my cousin Clark was born in the 90s. My mother's(April) mom (Pat) it is the first great grandson as well, also a fun fact we haven't had a boy on her side since my brother was born in 1986. So needless to say this boy sure does have a lot going for him. Leonard (Leon) Patrick Arnold.

My recent God story.

I am nearly 9 weeks pregnant. I'd like to tell you how this happened, and why God has an impact in this story.

Really the back story is short and sweet. We started actively trying to get pregnant September 2013. Before that time we came to the realization to get off birth control and put our faith in God on how many children we should have.

We had tried so many different things to get pregnant. We even started to get blood work done to figure out why? And we had tried 3 different doctors before one actually did a hormone work up on me per my request. (This was the 4th doctor). After finding out that I am healthy in a sense of my blood workup he had done. I gave up on actively trying. The stress from trying was taking a toll on my life. My husband however still had baby on the brain.

After awhile we start to pray and listen to some testimonies of how other were in a similar situation. And at this time my husband finally put faith in god on when we would have a baby. This was about 3 months ago.

Also around the same time we planned to take a trip to see a nascar race in September. And some other things.

It was March a few days before my birthday I was a few days late. I used a pregnancy test my friend had given me a long time ago. It was the first thing I did on that monday. And it came back positive. This was the best birthday present I have ever gotten.

I called russ when he was at work and told him I had news he was the first to know. Then we went down the list.

I do believe this is God's will. We got pregnant after finally tell him we were both done and ready when he wanted to bless us. This also puts a wrench in our plans for September, it may also mess up my plans for seeing the second mockingjay premier.

This makes sense that once you have a definitive plan to do certain things and are not planning to add any children God always plans on a different plan then we plan on.

Some may say that it was the fact we stopped stressing about getting pregnant, others may agree with me that it is God's plan. Either way both me and my husband Russ are happy about this and so excited to add a new baby to our family.

My husband.

Well it's been 6 years with my wonderful husband. We are nearing our 5 year wedding anniversary in September. This day makes the day we first me. I remember this meeting like it was yesterday.

I was working at mcdonalds on reserve street, with Marina and Dave. I had told marina I was texting this guy I have talked to online. She thought I was crazy. And finally I told her he was meeting me where we worked. I was doing something in the kitchen when he walked in. Marina took his order for a soda, he told me that's all a broke college student could afford. I had to finish up some cleaning and then I was off for the night.

Ordered what was my dinner since I hadn't had anything all day.

Selects and fries no salt.

We talked, and he watched me eat which is awkward. After I was done I suggested to go to play pool st Westside lanes cause mcdonalds was eh not my favorite place to hang out.

We went to Westside got a few drinks and hung out for a couple hours. Got done at nearly 1am.

My man has been through a lot. Life, death,  happiness,  sadness, accomplishments, through the tough, and easy. We are still together. And I love him with all my heart I can give him. We have a beautiful daughter and waiting patiently for God to bless us with more.

I love you Russ.

Life Change

What will my life be after all that time spent reading text books, writing papers, and attending classes. I am honestly not sure. As I write this I am really unsure what I wanna do? Who I wanna be?

The last semester of college some programs require you to do an internship somewhere. I decided to do mine at the University of Montana Printing and Graphics. I started in mid January put in over a 100 hours of unpaid internship hours and was hired on till the end of the semester classified as a student worker. I have learned so much from a job I only had for a short while. The people I have met and come to enjoy the company was well worth putting in more hours then needed for my internship class. I was very grateful they wanted to keep me for more then what we had originally planned. I have more job skills then I would have had coming outta just my college career.

By the end of July my contract is ending. And I am honestly glad to be able to say this chapter in my life will come to a close and that I will be able to find my career path I want to take.

My advice as I am leaving college is this.
1. Don't take out more than you need. If you can talk someone into letting you sleep on their couch or a floor somewhere do it.
2. Eat cheep, Ramen noodles and tv dinners are easy and cheep. Save as much as you can.
3. Talk to a student or an alumni that was recently graduated and ask them for help making an academic plan. This will save you time and money on tuition so you are not taking extra semesters and classees you don't need.
4. If you can find a good student job on campus, take it. The campus is a big employer of student employees and they work around your class schedule.
5. Don't take on too much.

Shoe's

Most girls like to buy shoes cause they look cute..

Or some buy them cause they are the latest fashion...

Others buy for dependability...

When you buy shoes what do you look for?

I look for style and comfort also for dependability. When I look for a shoe I thoroughly research them. Not because I am a penny pincher, but because I want to get my moneys worth. When I was in high school I had 4 pairs of shoes. That was it. Dress shoes for youth group, flip flops for summer, safety step shoes for work and vans for regular walking. As time goes by the amount of shoes went from 4 to a lot more. I purchased shoes left and right just as much a man would buy car parts or a child would want to have their parent buy them a toy. I had 20 pairs of shoes at one time. That is a lot of shoes....


Now I have 5 pairs of shoes I wear regularly. 10 shoes if you count ones I hardly wear. Recently I have found a pair that I wear 12 hours a day. They fit the build. They are stylish, and they are perfect. What shoe am I talking about? Want to know? B.O.C. I heard they were the best and that they were compared to Dansko. Which are really expensive but also very GOOD. I have been through 3 different types of shoes to find ones that I would like. One of which was air walk ones that were the ones that worked well but sadly fell apart after a few short months. The second one I have tried we Doc Martens, They were huge worked ok. But by the end of the day my feet hurt so bad. I hardly could walk once I got home. I dreaded putting on those shoes again.

I labeled them the "Zombie Killers". Sadly I used these for a month and was ready for a different pair of shoes. So I started to ask my friends what shoe they liked. Well after asking Amy, A friend I went on the serach for the perfect shoe. I have found them. I love them. I want another pair.

Absolutely love them. B.O.C. I hope by them time you are done reading this that you will go to famous footwear and buy a pair. I swear by these shoes.









What are you doing still reading my blog... go now buy them your feet will thank you. 

Change

I have found myself lately stretching myself too thin with the people I love and the things I am doing.

With my final semester upon me, and helping more at my church I have found I am not giving my family the time the deserve, or my studies. I have found myself spending too much time on the dreaded evil social media aspect of things.  Seeing that I was constantly checking to see what people were doing with their lives.  What not on Facebook or just talking to random people for hours on end. 

After a night of thinking and praying.  I looked at myself and wondered why I was always stretched so thin? Why my family was not close as they could be? What can I do to change this. 

I started by uninstalling all my social media apps I had on my phone.  One of which is Facebook.

Friday I would catch myself looking through the news feeds on Facebook.  Or chatting with people on Facebook.  Instead of doing much needed research for a paper due in a few weeks I scrolled through Facebook. 

On Saturday I found myself checking through the news feeds a few time not near as many time as I would.  And I have used a lot less of my phones battery. So instead of using my phone as a way to get who's doing what on Facebook today I successfully used it less then I normally do. I have k Intel a scarf, cleaned a bit did some clothes,  and spent time with my husband and daughter.

So I have seen how one day has changed just by not being on Facebook and scrolling through countless times.  How much time I have on my hand when I am not constantly on my phone. I had so much time.

So my question goes out to all who read this.  Do you really have the time to do things? Do you make the excuse that you don't have time?  Ever wonder how much time you spend playing on Facebook, candy crush, Flappy birds, or browsing other social media? 

I personally spent way too much time on Facebook and decided I needed to change my ways.  Change how much time I spend on the app and how much time I spend with family.