Dear Younger Version of Me,

Dear 15 year old me,
  For gods sake, do not lite that cigarette. You will cough, your eyes will water and you will look like a fool. It's not worth it. Stop now. If you don't you will be a smoker for 9 years. That's right, 9 years. That enough time to have 7 or 8 children, to get a PHD, or enough time to get yellow teeth, multiple cavities, and not be able to walk a mile without wheezing and almost passing out.
   That boyfriend you love so much? The one you want to have kids with and marry and live happily ever after with? Lands hims self multiple times in jail. Drinks early in the day, uses, and ruins your friends lives. Sure he may eventually clean up his act, but why wait?
   That little girl your sister has when she is 19 years old will be the beginning for the career you will eventually have an immense passion for. She wont ruin your life, or take attention away from you that you thought you deserved. You will love her like your own, miss her like crazy when shes gone and she will repair a long broken relationship you had with your sister. Let it happen, don't fight it.
   High school is hard, I am glad you finally stopped wearing all the black and hiding behind something you weren't. You do need a relationship with god, and one day you will see that. But for now, grow your hair back out, trash the all screaming music, smile a little.

Dear 17 year old me,

  Stop Smoking! Pull your shirt up and your skirt down. You are so much better than this. You exercise to much and you eat way to little. Your new boyfriend, the one you love so much and have put 2 years into? He's cheating on you. A lot. You may think he is good looking and confident, but really he is egotistical and immature. He makes you feel inadequate. You finally come to terms with this in a few months. But why wait. Senior year will seem so freeing being single, and you will finally find out that having friends rather then a boyfriend, is so much more fulfilling.
   Your going to start drinking soon. I don't just mean here and there trying a beer your friend stole from their parents. I mean really drinking. Drinking to get drunk. Drinking to forget and drinking to get noticed. You are to young. You will drink so much after high school that you will get put on academic probation at a community college. A student with a 4.0 GPA, and you wont even be able to get up in the morning for your 9am class. You will mix pills with liquor, and have what you think is a great time, followed by a very scary episode that you probably should have died or at the vary least spent time in a hospital for. Thank god your sister is a nurse, and will rescue you. Your parents will love you harder then they ever have that night, Your mom will hold you while you sleep in her bed for hours and hours and hours,and you will move back home, away from the anxiety and ultimately to much freedom that comes with being 18. You are not a failure. But I am pleading with you, just stop drinking now.
   Oh yeah, when you go outside and see the nerdy guy across the street washing his car, smile and say hi, EVERY TIME. He ends up being your husband.

Dear 19 year old me,

   Your still smoking I see... You're family will move away from you. 800 miles away. Remember, you chose not to go with them, They didn't abandon you. So quit using that as en excuse for falling back into your old ways. Stop smoking, and i mean everything, and drinking. You curse like a sailor but I can live with that. Remember your friends that are always there for you at this age? 6 years later they still are. So cling to them, love them. Because you start to lose people you know. Really, it seems young, but people start to die. It won't make sense, but it will happen.
  Don't go to school for cosmetology, your good at it, but you ruin your feet and you and I both know it's not your passion. You're scared and you think you need a quick fix. Get your bachelors degree, So I don't have to be getting it while I'm writing this.
 Please don't keep dating these men who have addictions and no real love for you. You have curves and blond hair, that's what they like about you. Stop treating  all the nice guys like friends. Your only hurting yourself. The assholes will forget you, and the nice guys will marry someone more deserving. You will end up with a nice guy, so stop giving so much of your heart away to the jerks.

Dear 21 year old me,
   I am going to shove that cigarette so far up your...Isn't it funny that now you can drink, you don't want to? At least not recklessly. Guess you had to learn that on your own.I'm glad you made it out to Colorado to live with your family. But now you  have to cut ties. Go out and live on your own, without the social pressures of your old town. Its a new start. You are relying on your parents to much.
  When you meet your husband, try new things. He is full of great ideas and you are to stubborn to try them. Please realize, you ARE going to marry him, so stop treating him like shit for the first 3 months of your relationship. All he ever did was love you. Get over yourself. He will leave you, he almost does.
  Also, You accidentally head butt him with your tooth, which leaves a scar on his forehead. Try to avoid that. It's a funny story but any harder and he might have looked like harry potter.

   Stop looking for the next best thing. Let life happen, you waste so much time trying to get whats bigger, better, and the grass will always be greener on the other side. Do not make a rash decision to move. You do it to many times. You will regret it , and you will never know what life would have been like.
   The DJ will show up for your wedding. 1 hour late. This is when you are given permission to drink. Have fun, and embrace the day. The moment you say I DO will fly by, try to remember it.


Dear 23 Year old me,
  It will take you until the day you find out you are pregnant to fully quit smoking, 9 years. I cannot help but dread the repercussions of your decisions.
  Your brother will have a baby girl, your sister will marry the man she had been waiting for for 10 years, and your oldest sister will have her 2nd child. Life will cycle over again. You will have a son. Pregnancy sucks, lets be honest, Childbirth? I can see why people have died from it.You go back to school for your bachelors degree. Better late then never. In the end, your still alive, you could have done things a lot differently though. But now you know how it turns out. And its good.


Yours Truely,
  The 25 year old version of me.

 

Hi Sleep! I remember you...

Asher (my son) is four months old. His sleeping habits up until this point have been less the ideal. I spent countless hours rocking, singing, nursing, and walking him back to sleep every night. It was exhausting.I for some reason have an overwhelming fear that I will kill my child by starving him to death and it will happen instantly if I don't feed him when he cried. The fear mostly comes from my inability to recognize his hunger cues and all the things I read say not to wait until he is crying to feed him, that means its to late, I am to feed him when he is showing early signs of hunger with his hunger cues. So naturally I fed him every 2 hours. And when the dr said he could now sleep through the night without being woken to eat my obsession with making sure he ate enough meant feed him whenever he wakes on his own crying at night. This, in time, was going to kill me. One night I got the notion to pray. Don't get me wrong I pray a lot over Asher. But this time it was for sleep. Which for some reason I had never thought to do. He was whining and moaning in his crib, eyes closed but obviously about to wake up. Hitting himself with his crazy flying hands, flinging his feet in the air. My normal instinct would have said ok pick him up before he wakes up screaming and rock him back to sleep. if he wakes up. feed him. But this time as I was praying I got an overwhelming sense of peace about the idea of simply Putting the pacifier in his mouth in the darkness and waiting patiently for him to "work it out". Never before have I felt ok with not feeding him or comforting him in my arms. I felt like such a bad mother not picking him up. Within 10 minutes he was back to sleep. I did this 3 more times that night until finally feeding him at 5 am. Since that night he has been able to put himself back to sleep instead if waking all the way up crying. He just moans and wiggles,and I just wait clinging to the monitor until I hear that sweet sound of baby sleepy breaths. Don't get me wrong, we have bad nights still. We aren't perfect. But I think that was one of gods first lessons in parenting. I have learned that as a parent my job is to teach my child. No matter how much it hurts or makes me feel like a failure. Right down to teaching my son how to fall back asleep. Teaching isn't all fun, the rewards seem distant and futile. But all of my worrying proved to be for nothing. Asher is still alive and on good nights sleeps 6 or 7 hours straight. I don't even notice the moans and wiggles most of the time anymore. the monitor volume level is at half strength now.
Our next step? Crying it out. He cannot initially put himself to sleep at bed time or nap time. I still nurse or rock him to sleep. I'm dreading it but I know god will hold my hand and give me the tools to teach my child a valuable skill. I often forget that god is in control and I need to let go of my worrying ways. It amazes me and forever will that god is in everything we do, even down to our desperate cries for sleep. He hears them and he helps. Not just for a moment but he wants to help solve the whole problem. We just need to stop being so full of pride thinking we got this thing down. Cuz come on, it's parenting, no one has it down.

Asher's Story

Sometime in April 2010 me and my husband had made the long awaited decision to try to have a child. We had spoke on the subject even before we were married. We waited the typical year or two, which I would not have traded for anything. Having time with just my spouse, and two stupid dogs, is something many people don't get anymore, especially women. I can't imagine being a single parent, but thats for another blog. Anyways, 2 great years later we decided it was baby time. And apparently god agreed because a month or so later I was pregnant.
I had just finished work around 3pm it was a beautiful day in July. I wanted to sit out on the deck and indulge in a cocktail while waiting for Matt to come home and something told me to just check and make sure I wasn't "with child". Three pregnancy tests later I found myself staring in the bathroom mirror trying to recognize my own face. Did it look different? My face that is. Did I look pregnant, like a mom? No. I looked like me, without the cocktail I wanted. Without a cocktail for 9 months, or a cigarette. Like me but ever so slowly getting fatter. like me, only not knowing what the hell I am doing.
I text Matt at work simply telling him he needed to get home because I was having a meltdown. In hindsight I can see why that would freak him out and make him think someone tragic had happened. In the meantime I started pacing the house, jumping for joy, and trying not to cry hysterically. I was happy, but scared. I thought when Matt got home everything would be fine. Not the case. He ran into the house and I pulled out the test and showed him it. He was silent until he said "Megan, I thought someone died!" for the next 3 days he barley spoke about it. Not the reaction I was looking for, but it was probably not the way he wanted to be told either. We did call and see a lot of people to let them know we were expecting, so I suppose there was some initial excitement.
After Matt got over his shock he began to talk about it. About the sametime I started barfing. If morning sickness doesn't make you wish you would have waited longer to get pregnant I don't know what would. I threw up brushing my teeth, driving, mid sentence, pretty much whenever my body felt like it until around 16 weeks. Then magically it stopped. With a blissfully easy 2nd trimester came the ultrasound telling us our baby was a healthy boy chewing on his feet. 3rd trimester followed with back pain, nerve pain, exhaustion,a freezing cold snowy winter and 35 lbs heavier then last summer. My belly size was a constant 4-5 weeks bigger then it should have been. Really no explanation for it but it sure made me miserable.so if you wanted to know what a pregnant lady looks like If the baby was to be in her belly for 44 weeks you should have seen me at 39 weeks right before I had him. Every time baby would stretch out he would almost crack my rib. We were sure he would come out a 25lb toddler.

The morning of...
5am on march 20th I woke up having to pee. This being nothing out of the ordinary Matt slept through it. Until I came back into the room to tell him ( in an effort to keep this less graphic) that I needed to call the hospital because I think we are having the baby. The hospital advised us to go walk to start contractions so we went to walmart and the mall. We found out that if you get to the mall before it opens the mall walkers are there and they set up cones like a track. They lapped us, a lot. I had to stop every three minutes to breathe through a contraction. I am sure everyone was looking at me thinking, my god why won't someone take that poor woman to the hospital? Eventually, after I ate some subway from the food court, we did go to the hospital. At 11 am I was 3 centimeters and having major back labor. Baby boy was coming out sunny side up ( facing upwards) which is less then ideal. We tried everything they said to get him to flip, nothing worked. By 3pm they had talked me into taking numorphin. it helped me relax and eventually made my contrations stop. I wanted so badly to have this baby so contrations flat out stopping was not an option. At one point I prayed to let them start again so they wouldnt send me home. A half our later and about 20 laps around the birth center later the contractions were back, and they hit like a mack truck. I cried through most of them, forgot to breathe, and was begging for relief. My birth plan was to wait until i was 6 centimeters before an epidural. Why six? I have no idea.I wanted to prove to myself I wasn't a wuss, but when it comes to labor, I found, with the help of the nurses and my husband, that it was ok to be a wuss. Its ok to have a baby with less pain. I would never have surgery without getting knocked out, so why try and be a super hero while pushing a human being out of my body.
The nerdy doctor with the epidural was a little OCD about telling me step by step what he was doing. Sure I wanna know whats going on but damn, just do it already. He yelled at matt for touching the top of my shoulder blade and had to resteralize my back, if I wasn't having a baby I would have laughed at that. Poor Matt, just trying to be a good coach. When he finally finished he pushed the magic button and said he would be back in 20 min to check on me. 20 min later and 20 contractions worth of pain nerdy doctor made his way back to my room. "can you feel this" "yes" i said. "can you lift your leg?" umm yes I thought and I nearly did a high kick.
UH Ohh.. turns out the epidural isnt working. As if having a long needle jabbed into your spine isn't bad enough try sitting still for it while going through horrific contractions, TWICE. Long story short, he hit 2 nerves sending me flying uncontrollably almost off the bed, thank god for matt keeping me off the floor, the make up that I insisted on wearing to the hospital that morning (i had to look nice for pictures, right..) was now black streaks down my face that matt tried tirelessly to wipe off because he knew how ugly it made me feel having it there. the epidural was in, 6 inches worth, which apparently is really deep, but hey, it worked.
My doctor, who i had never met, came in once i was relaxed, broke my water, i was at 6 centimeters, and she told us to get some sleep. It was around 11 pm when we both fell asleep. I don't remember sleeping, but all of a sudden i opened my eyes still in the hospital feeling a lot,and i mean a lot, of pressue. I yelled at matt that something was wrong and to go get the nurse. He did, she checked me and I was at a 10. i had gone from a 6 to a 10 in 1 hour and i slept through it. Everyone says thats great, i say imagine waking up from a nap with someone telling you to push out a baby.
I pushed on my back and on my sides, I was constantly moving. the worst part? the epidural didnt work for the pushing, i felt everything. With every push matt would tell me that it was the last one. We joke about it now, but at the time his words, wether they were a lie or not,were the only thing getting me through the pain. Many times i had made peace with the idea of just not pushing anymore, part of me wanted to tell the nurse, "you cant make me". Instead I just listened to Matt. They say pushing is relieving,not for me, i was perfectly content with him staying in my belly and avoiding this pain. but as human nature would have it eventually his head came out, which to me meant my work was done. I layed back and relaxed just taking in my efforts for a second until Matt yelled that i wasn't done, i had to get his shoulders out. well crap, ok one more, and thats all it took. Asher had made his arrival. He even at the last minute flipped the right way. They placed my screaming, gooey, little boy on my chest and started cleaning him off. A feeling of complete helplessness and joy overwhelmed me. I was a mommy, Matt was a daddy, we were parents. All i managed to repeatedly say through my sobbing was "look at him, look at him" Matt had his moment with Asher when he was brought over to the warmer. Asher grasped onto Matts finger, and he was in love.
Asher Jonas had 10 fingers and 10 toes, a head full of hair, and a life of possibility. Born after an hour and a half of pushing and 22 hours of labor at 2:03 am 3-21-11. 7lbs 13 oz. As i sat in the hospital, still in pain, anxious and scared, i waited for that moment, that feeling of unconditional love to set in. I waited and waited, until that next night, in the silence and darkness of the sterile hospital room I stared at my son. Swaddled in a blanket sleeping. I started sobbing. Apologizing for all the things I didn't do right, all of the things I cant give him, and promising him, with the deepest part of me, that I would do my absolute best to love him, take care of him, and show him the grace of god. I held his tiny hand knowing that my motherhood moment wasn't born out of sheer joy, but out of an animalistic instinct to protect and nurture my son. I had already loved him long before he was born, I was a mother the minute that test said positive. I just needed to tell Asher that.

Decision to start

I am a writer, or so I chose to believe. I type grammatically incorrect and probably way to fast. I write with correct punctuation and a lot of eraser marks. Im not sure which is worse. Either way I chose to tell you, the reader, this In hopes that you don't judge my misuse of punctuation and spelling errors and chose to see what I am writing rather then how. My blog probably won't make sense as it will be a random jumble of thoughts, stories, and questions.
Here goes...