I try to plan out our dinner menu a month at a time and I love it when I make Sunday pot roast. Here's why.
Saturday night. 4-5 pound shoulder pork roast rubbed with whatever seasoning is handy. I like using onion soup mix with mushroom. Put it in the crock pot on warm around 8pm. Cut up carrots, celery and whatever veggies I want and put them in a bowl in the fridge. Cut up twice as many veggies as you'll need.
Sunday morning around 7-8am. Add the veggies to the crock pot and 1 &1/2 of chicken stock or apple juice. Turn crock pot up to low.
Sunday afternoon around 1pm. Take out roast and veggies put on plate. Take leftover juices from crockpot and put in a jar or cup. Place in fridge. Eat roast!! But save about 3 pounds of it.
Monday night. Enchiladas! Take about a pound of pork and shred it. (Two forks is the easiest way) Cook with a packet of enchilada seasoning according to directions. Place 2-3 large spoonfuls in flour tortillas, roll up and place seam side down. Pour on enchilada sauce, top with cheese, cover with foil and bake at 350 for 30 mins.
Tuesday night Pot pie!! Cube up 1 pound of the pork. cut up left over veggies. ( You should have some leftover from Sunday) Take the leftover juices and spoon off fat that has floated to the top. Put in a small sauce pan and heat up until it's a liquid. Meanwhile mix 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of water. Mix quickly so it's combines. Put meat, veggies and gravy in 9x9 pan. Top with either biscut dough (bisquick or biscuts ina tube) or frozen puff pastry ( thaw it out for 40 minutes first) Bake for 30-40 minutes at 350.
Wedsenday night BBG pulled pork sandwiches! Shred the last of the pork, Put in small suacepan with lots of the favorite bbq sauce. Cook till heated through. Put meat in buns.
That's why I love Sunday roast. Makes my week so much easier.
Emily loves Henry. She LOVES Henry. Most of the time Henry would like a little less attention. Like when Emily asks her daddy to put Henry in her baby doll stroller. And Daddy does because he thinks it's funny. Emily thought it was funny. And since you can see Doug's leg in the background I did too. At least long enough to snap a picture before saving him. Doesn't he look big?
I love Henry's hair. While he doesn't have nearly as much as Emily did when she was born , he did have alot for a micro-premie. plus it sticks up like a mohawk. :)
I've been catching Emily Grace in the funniest ways to sleep lately. This one was the best so far. She had been sleeping sitting up. Then she flopped forward.
An amazing mom that I met in Denver posted this on her facebook. I and another amazing mom commented on it. It's the best way to get an idea of what goes through a mom in the NICU ( Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ) head everyday.
Imagine being told you have the perfect pregnancy, a healthy fetus growing inside of you and no problems from day one… You eat right, you give up ANYTHING that could possibly harm the growing baby (including caffeine, any pain killers, and even deli meat)… You religiously take your vitamins every single day and stay so hydrated you have to pee every 10 minutes. You go to all doc appointments, you take it easy and try not to stress out about anything……..then imagine contractions starting out of the blue with no warning on your 26th week of pregnancy……3 months before your babies time.
Imagine the doctors telling you everything will be fine, that they can stop the labor, and then imagine, just a few hours later, them telling you that you that even with the drug therapies they have you you to try and stop the labor your body has dilated to 5cm and there is nothing they can do. You could not hold back your tears your baby is coming, there is nothing you can do to stop it,,,,,she may not survive the day……just one week ago this day was just supposed to be a normal unventful day. Your whole life is turning upside right in front of you.
Imagine finding out the sex of your baby and being thankful because you have read statistically preemie girls develop faster than boys.
Imagine being told by your doctor that getting to 34 weeks is great, 32 weeks is good, 30 weeks is okay and anything before you need to pray……imagine how many prayers we sent to God for our 26 weeker.
Imagine being told that your baby has an 85% of survival.
Imagine being told your baby won't cry when born.
Imagine hearing that baby cry and believing everything you have been told was wrong.
Imagine watching your baby lying there so helpless, so still, and on life support and blaming yourself, digging through everything you might have done to cause this to your baby…..imagine how hard it is to actually believe that it was not something you did, that it was completely out of your control, that you did everything right and as best you could….and still you feel that it is all your fault. Nothing the doctors or nurses say can console you.
Imagine wondering If your husband is secretly resentful or blames you. When he looks at you with tears in his eyes you worry that is what he is thinking
Imagine being scared to ask to hold your baby because mentally you can't handle the possibility of a no so you wait patiently for 16 days for a nurse to offer the opportunity. So until then you hold her hand every day all day long and firmly place your hand on her head….and there you sit praying & questioning God.
Imagine holding your baby for the first time while on life support with tubes, hoses, and wires everywhere keeping her alive, wondering if this was allowed because her situation was getting more critical and it may be the only time you get to hold her while she is alive. The looks in the doctor’s eyes were not encouraging and holding her was so hard…not knowing if it was the first and last time holding her was so damn hard
Imagine sitting next to her and knowing something just isn't right, telling the nurses and being assured by them everything is fine...then hearing the alarms as her stats start to drop and her color starts to fade, you stand up to get out of the way as nurses and doctors come running in. There you are in the corner watching them resuscitate your baby, panicked that there is nothing you can do and to scared to move. Please God dont take her from me is all you can think, I cant do this, God I want to run away. Imagine her pulling through and how thankful you are.....then Imagine doing this on several occasions, wondering each time if she will pull through, and asking God why he is doing this to you.
Imagine the conflicting feelings when the doctors are telling you that everything will be ok with tears in their eyes……..
Imagine watching a machine help your baby survive everyday for 2 months because she can not breathe on her own.
Imagine every time your phone rang, your heart drops and you get choked up because it could be life or death.
Imagine having a baby but going home without one.
Imagine having to plea with your baby that if she can hold on you will make all her dreams come true.
Imagine seeing other parents losing their babies around you and having your heart ripped out, for you see them living the thing that you fear the most….when they lost a baby a peace of you dies too and you become even more scared and nervous to leave your babies side. You learn quickly that nothing but the moment you are in is promised and that one day they can be fine and thriving, and the next day taken from you. Imagine how many tears were cried for babies that weren’t even yours. The NICU world is so hard.
Imagine feeling like three months of your first pregnancy was stolen from you and her. Imagine mourning the loss of those three months
Imagine feeling jealous of women that you would see who were pregnant and about as far along as you would be during the months that you were supposed to be pregnant.
Imagine hanging on to the dream of being able to breast feed someday. So you stay dedicated to pumping every 2 hours day and night to keep up milk supply (even though leaving your very very critical babies side is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do in your entire life). Imagine sitting in the pump room tears pouring down while pumping because you only wanted to be with her, but you so badly wanted to breastfeed like a normal mom when you got home and so you were torn between the hopes that she would make it and the fears that she would not……questioning if you are losing precious time with her). Imagine holding one of her blankets while you pumped a dreaming it was her (nurses told you to do this to also help with milk supply). As your baby has set backs the stress slows milk and the fear of leaving your babies side takes over your desire breastfeeding in the future, you start to wonder if there is a future for her or if this is where it ends. You just can’t leave her side anymore to pump for 30min at a time to only get a few ml, you feel that you cant leave for anything, not for anything, not even to take care of yourself. You have your hopes to hang on to but your fears are taking over and you would rather be safe than sorry so you give up your dream of breastfeeding and tell yourself….as long as she makes it home then that’s really what matters. At least she got three months worth of breast milk. At least I tried until I just had nothing left. Then you remind yourself that nothing about this pregnancy was normal and you somehow try to find peace in that.
Imagine hearing critical beeps in the room and secretly thanking God it was not your baby, then feeling guilty because you would never really want that for anyone else’s baby either.
Imagine pleading with God, that if he had to take your baby, that he would please take you instead. Imagine doing this every day from the moment you wake up until the moment you fall asleep.
Imagine being told by the nurses to get out and do something that it’s no healthy being in the hospital that much and then thinking to yourself, “If I had a full term baby and just walked out for a few hours what kind of mom would I be?”, “my baby is not full term, each day is not promised, every single minute is a gift, I will not leave her side for anything, this is all borrowed time, she needs me there by her side, she needs her mommy, I need her, I need to be sure she is taken care of, I need to make sure she is safe, I want her to feel love, to feel something besides the hospital, I don’t want her to ever feel alone, I don’t want her to feel like she has to go through this by herself, my job was to be by her side she was everything to me, my life, my dreams, my hopes,,,there is no where else I would rather be than by her side WHEREVER that may be”
Imagine being to exhausted and too in shock to cry……… for days and days and days. When it finally catches up you lay on the shower floor crying until you just can’t breathe, wishing the water would wash you down the drain.
Imagine waking up each and every day and for one second wondering, is this really happening? Was that just a bad dream? Am I still pregnant? looking down with your hands on your tummy……….. you do not feel her kicking around inside of you…..crushed and holding back your tears you pull your bootstraps up and you get ready for another day at the hospital cheering her on…believing in your heart that she just has to be one of the ones that makes it,,, even when the doctors aren’t looking so hopeful.
Imagine wanting to show off your proudest accomplishment and not being able to because her immune system could not handle it.
Imagine waiting till you reached your car for the tears to fall because your baby needs you to keep it together for them.
Imagine thinking that life will be normal once your baby is home to find out this was just the beginning of the journey.
Imagine having a micro preemie?
Can you imagine?
Our comments
An amazing mom I met wrote this Imagine going in at 34 weeks for a regular check up and being told you arnt going home.
Imagine haveing a perfect 4lb 11oz baby girl then you go to lunch and the doc come and get you from the caferteria to tell you your baby is sick and will need sugery.
Imagine just being released form the hospital after 4 days of bedrest (after the baby) and being told you baby is bing flown to Denver.... See More
Imagine bening moved up to the Grad. NICU and told you will be home in less then a week and the next day be told that your baby has to have heart sugery the next day.
Imagine a 4lb 11oz baby being a BIG baby!!
Imagine being told once again that you will be home in 2 weeks and that same day going back down to level 3 NICU.
Imagine haveing a baby with only leads before sugery and then never comming off 3lt. Vapo.
Imagine a surgeon so kind to have you over to his house for Thanksgiving with his wife and kids that he olny gets to see a few times a year.
Imagine seeing your baby start to hold toys and play a few days before she goes in for open heart sugery.
Imagine being told her sugery will take 4-6hrs and sitting in the waiting room for 12hrs.
Iamgine a surgeron of 20 years telling you that he never would have thought your baby would need ECMO (a portable heart lung machine that demands someone 24/7 to run it)
Imagine a sugeron saying he wont even say whet he thinks she will do in front of her because every time he did she did the oppisite.
Imagine being told there is a 40% chance of makeing it off of ECMO.
Imagine being happy that you baby is only on 11 different drugs.
Imagine your baby comming off ECMO!!!!
Imagine at 8:00am being told how well your baby is and how they are gong to remove some tubes and wires, "everything today is a step in the right direction" and you go pump, eat and come back to destats and yelling. Then a sugeron huging you and saying "Go call Jeffrey" (baby daddy)
Imagine stepping out to call and hearing code bule for your baby.
Imagine seeing all they nurses and Docs you have come to know running to save your baby.
Imagine seeing nurses taking turn doing chest compressions on your baby.
Imagine seeing the sugeron that yohave seen every day, that you have gorwn to love comming in with tears in his eyes to tell you that your baby has passed.
Imagine sending home the father of your child on Saturday saying that everything is going to be fine the next time you see her she will be all smiles and coos, and then have the sugeron answer his call to tell him she is gone.
Imagine holding your child for the first time with no cords or tube when she is ice cold.
Imagine comming home to all her stuff ready her the day she passed.
Imagine trying to continue on after the one thing you prayed and wished for your whole life was taken from you.
Imagine doing everything you can to make sure you have a healthy baby just to lose her after 3 short months.
Imagine getting up and ready to go to your own babies funeral.
Imagine metting some of the best people in such a scarry place.
My comments
Imagine having to send your daughter away to relitives in another state so you can sit with your baby in a hospital
Imagine tears running down your face during the day as you watch your baby boy struggle and crying at night for the daughter you can't kiss goonight
Imagine having a healthy preguant women tell you she knows how you feel because she's pregaunt and it's excatly the same... See More
Imagine having everyone ask you "what went wrong?" several times a day and thinking " I wish I knew."
Imagine having the "healthy" preemie and feeling guilty for celebrating when the baby next to you barely hanging on
Imagine sitting a hard chair for hours just staring at your child trying to figure out if he looks a little blue
Imagine being in a NICU long enough you know what the alarms mean and know which baby isn't going to make it
Imagine sitting next to a baby everyday for a month and never seeing a parent come in and it struggles
Imagine holding your baby for the first time when he 3 weeks old and being overjoyed and terrifed at the same time becuase you told God "just let me hold him once before you take him if your going to" and wondering if this is the only time your hold him.
Imagine taking your baby to another angel's funeral and holding your baby close as you cry for another mother
Imagine being ready to pass out one minute and laughing the next because your baby pulled out a blood transfusion tube and covered himself in your sister-in-law's blood.
Imagine saying goodbye to your baby and not being able to kiss him as the lifelfight crew takes him away to a hospital in another state and you have to stay behind in a different hospital
I hope this give some insight into the NICU, so when you hear of someone having a baby in the NICU you can understand a little better what their going through.
Henry's smiling! He's been letting out huge toothless grins for about 2 days now. I love his smile. His whole face lights up and makes my day. I cried the first time he did it. Hee's been here for almost 5 months now and I'm just starting to see him smile. I havn't been able to capture that elusive smile on camera yet so no pics of it. :(
I love dressing Emily Grace up. She's my favorite doll. Of course cute outifts only last till the car when the shoes comes off , the bows come out. Here's some of my favorite outfits from the past 2 months. Before church on Valentines day.
Emily chose this one herself. She likes sweaters and hats
First Sunday Emily was home after being at Doug's parents while I was in Denver.
Btw moms, the pink bows in Emily's hair are from Build-A-Bear. Up at the counter the have little bows on elastic that are ment for the bears ears for free. yes, FREE. After you put the ponytail in your daughters hair just put this one on top of the hair thing you did the pony with. I love these little bows. So much faster then trying to tie a bow and when it gets pulled out in the car it's quick to put back in.
The life flight team was contacting Denver trying to get a special ambulance to carry Henry to Casper to have him life flighted out from there. Denver had already sent an ambulance up to Wheatland above Casper to pick up another baby. Once it dropped them off it would come down to Riverton. All the equipment they needed for Henry wouldn't fit in my hospital room so they put him in the room next to me. I asked a nurse if she could help me into Henry's room. She told me that I had major surgrey and needed to rest. I imformed her that she could bring me a wheelchair or I would get myself over there without her help. She brought me the wheelchair. I spent the day sitting next to Henry and getting the least amount of rest I could to keep nurses happy. Cindy and my sisters-in-law (Alicia & Jenny) brought Emily Grace to the hospital to see Henry. She pointed at him and just said "Baby". She didn't understand why she couldn't touch him. Henry was..indescribable. He was the smallest, scariest baby I'd ever seen. He was covered in a bruise from his head to his toes. I could see every bone in his body. I could see through his skin. But he was there. He was alive, when he shouldn't be. Henry was amazing. He was there fighting to stay alive. The ambulance got there around 5pm. Once again I kissed Henry and Doug goodbye. The normal 2 hour ride to Casper took 3 hours because of the storm. They got to Casper around 8 and took the life flight jet to Denver. The life flight team came into check on Henry a week later and told me it was the worst flight they have ever been on. The plane would drop 10-15 feet at a time. The crew was smacking their heads on the roof of plane. Doug told me later he was on the plane watching Henry and was thinking " Great we kept Henry alive for this long just for him to die in a plane crash. " Doug has decided he never wants to be on a lear jet again. Henry made it to Denver. He made it home. It was a ...I don't know if there's a word to describe the terror I felt down there. But also the hope. A NICU is an amazing place. You go through every range of emotions. Terror, joy, weary, energy, hope and dispear. I'll get more NICU moments written down. My amazing strong boy is home. I'm now the mom of two beautiful kids who amaze me everyday. And I have to say this, the first time Henry does something stupid when he's a teenager he's grounded for 3 months and will spend it volunteering at the Ronald McDonald house.
So I'm back to blogging again. So much has happened that trying to update everything then do the present won't work for me. I'll blog the present with things that have already happened mixed in. First thing first Henry is here! My amazing strong miracle came on October 4, 2009 at 6:10am. His due date was Jan. 15th 2010. I blogged about Emily's birth so here's Henry's. And it's bit of a cliffhanger but I have two kids to chase after now so lots of things are done in pieces.
Saturday Oct 3, 2009 started off to be a great day. Cindy, Alica and Jenny had come down for the weekend. It was sunny and a little chilly out. Emily was playing with Alica and Jenny outside with the puppies. Cindy was teaching me how to make plum syrup, jelly and butter. I started having a Braxton hicks. I didn’t think much of it, I was about as far along as I had been with Emily when I started having them. I had to stop to catch my breath a couple times, that’s about it. We had huge taco salads for dinner. Pudding for dessert. Afterwards I had a couple cramps and went to the bathroom. What I thought was a blood clot the size of my pinky came out. I called Doug into the bathroom to look at it and he asked his mom what she thought. She wasn’t sure and we decided for me to call the doctor. They told us little bleeding during pregnancy is normal but if I wanted to come in to the E.R or I could wait till Monday. We decided to wait since I was feeling fine and they told me to rest and put my feet up. Doug and I watched a Wovlerine Originions X-Men. We went to bed right afterwards. At about 2am I woke up feeling (and I still claim hearing) this pop. My water broke. I jumped up and went to the bathroom while waking up Doug. I never wished so badly in my life that I peed in bed. We woke up Cindy to let her know what was going on and that we were leaving for the hospital. We called labor and delivery to let them know we were coming in. We got to the hospital at about 2:30am. The took us back to a room and the nurse confirmed that my water had broke. She went to call my OB Dr. Mercyer. Doug and I sat there not saying much of anything. I don’t know how long till Dr. Mercyer got there. Maybe 20-30 minutes. He came in checked me and told us I was at 7 cm and that Henry had grabbed his hand. He walked out of the room. We just stared at each other. He came back in and said he placed a call to St. Lukes in Denver Co. They were sending a neonatel life flight team to Riverton. Since Henry had his hands above his head he was breach and so they needed to do a c-section. He said they would try to delay doing the c-section until the team from Denver got there. We called Doug’s mom to let her know what was going on and we called my dad. We also called our branch president. He came to the hospital and helped Doug give me a blessing. They gave me a shot of magsium to help slow it down and a shot of streiods to help Henry’s lungs mature quickly. My hospital bed was also tilted downward with my feet in the air to take presure off my cervic. From all this ment I got a catheter. I know I probley make jokes at the wrong times, but we needed to find something to laugh at. A nurse was in the room with Doug and I. I told her I needed to pee and she told me to relax that it would just happen. 3-5 minutes later she said “ look you peed. “I looked over at Doug and said “ Ha! You can pee standing up but I can pee upside down!” Doug claimed he could too and I told him maybe but he’d pee all over himself in the process. Around 5am the life flight team got to Riverton airport and so they started to take me down to the O.R. Between the team of doctors and nurse for the c-section and the team from Denver there wasn’t room for Doug to come in. So Doug was saying bye to me, when the nurse said hold on. She needed to empty my catheter bag. I had already filled it up with a pint or so of fulid. Doug and Dr.Mercyer were laughing about how much I’d peed and I told them “ I’m pregnant. It’s what I do!” Doug kissed me bye and they took me in. I’m terrified. Of needles. There’s a reason I did natural child birth with Emily. Not because I’m brave but because I’m that scared of needles. The first part of getting me prepped for my c-section was the epidural. The nurese helped me sit up on the operating table and has me curl up with my knees against my chest and my head tucked down. First was the numbing shot. Which you need a numbing shot for the numbing shot. Then the epidural. I didn’t feel the epidural go in. They laid me down on the table and started draping me and setting up equipment. I hated the epidural. I tried wiggling my toes and I couldn’t. The anesthesiologist asked me if everything was ok and I told her I couldn’t tell if my toes were moving or not. She looked down and said they weren’t which was a good sign, that it ment the epi took. I could feel or move anything from my ribcage down. I hate that very helpless feeling. The life flight team came in and introduced themselves to me. Then it all started. A nurse was by my head and her job was to keep me calm. I couldn’t feel any pain but I could feel lots of pressure. I could tell when they ripped my stomach apart. Gross detail, they just make a slit along your stomach muscles then take hold of each side and rip it apart. The muscle heals together better which jagged edges then with a clean cut. I could feel all the pressure and pulling. The anesthesiologist kept asking me if I felt nauseous. I didn’t and then all of a sudden I did. I told her so and she grabbed one of those pink little buckets and told the doctors while I threw up. I don’t know how I could throw up or that I even could with the epi. I just turned my head to the side and did. I remember thinking what it looks like watching my stomach throw up and that everyone in the room could see me throwing up from the inside and the outside. Then I heard a cat. Or I thought it was a cat. I heard this little mew. The nurse that was keeping me calm said” Did you hear him? He cried when they took him out.” Me “ I though I was hearing a cat” Nurse” That’s a good sign. He’s strong. I’ve never heard a baby this young cry before when they’ve come out. “ I didn’t see him. He was handed over to the life flight crew right away. The finished up my c-section which took about another 30 minutes. Then I was taken to recovery. Doug came and saw me there. After I was back in my room, Doug quickly went home to get a change of clothes to go with the life flight crew and Henry to Denver. Once he got back the life flight crew brought Henry in his incubator into my room so I could see him before he left. He was so small. So tiny. Henry looked like a skeleton. I could see every bone. I could see through his skin. There’s no way to describe the terror I felt seeing him. Not knowing if I would ever see him alive again. By this point Cindy was there. Our branch president was still there with us. Doug and our branch president gave Henry a name. It was importain to us that Henry was given his name before he left. I held Cindy’s hand while they did it and cried. Then I kissed Doug bye. He and the life flight crew took Henry and left for the airport to fly Henry down to Denver. About 45 minutes later Doug walked back in the door. The plane couldn’t land again to pick them up. They had to stay at the hospital till they figured out how to get Henry to Denver.
