Hi again. So blogging for me has always been more for therapeutic purposes than actual talent. Its been about getting the thoughts that are racing around in my half melted mommy brain out into the universe. Recently, my life has been through some very radical changes. I moved away from home to a place halfway across the country, where Dreams Come True (Disney). Well no, we didn't actually move to Disney, we moved to Kissimmee Florida. But in our hearts and minds it might as well have been Disney. But to back it up a smidge. Brad and I started planning our move to Florida about 6 years ago. After the first couple of years that we vacationed and even more after we had children of our own, we wanted to give them the Magic that was Disney and I wanted to give them the opportunity to grow up in tropical weather near the beach. So in February of 2017 I started applying for jobs and to my surprise it did not take long for me to get several calls for interviews. I found one specific hospital that was portrayed to be Christian and would allow me to share my faith in my practice. I was so stoked I could barely keep the smile off my face. I accepted a full time day job at Florida Hospital in Kissimmee. From this point on, it felt like the pieces just fell into place. Mom helped find a home for us, we purchased a new vehicles, no kinks with getting our medical licenses down there. Then we discovered a surprise awaited us 9 months in the future. I started getting very ill at the end of April and by May my mother was sure I was in denial and was pregnant. "No Mom its just a stomach flu, or my body being wonky again...." I casually said in major denial. "You're pregnant Sarah, go take a damn test..." So I did.... and it was POSITIVE. So I had my little, ok big, mental breakdown. My pregnancy with Lucas was horrendous. I was ready to tear all my shit out and have a burn my ovaries kinda party, but God had other plans. Even in the start before I knew I was pregnant, I was experiencing life altering nausea and vomiting. I was not used to this and struggled and fought to the death with my insurance company to cover more than nine zofran a month. NINE! I Could've taken nine pills in a day easy. Sylvia tried to help as best as she could but did diagnose me with hyperemesis gravidarum. So, miserable and all, we packed up our ever growing family and moved. The drive down was about as expected, long and exhausting but we made it. The weather was somewhat less than gorgeous, and when I say less than gorgeous what I really mean is it rained every freaking day for a MONTH. We unloaded in the rain, played in the rain, cried in the rain. The first week we were there the car wouldn't start, the battery died. So right off the bat we are starting out on the weak side of happy. I had Memorial insurance through the end if June but none of the physicians in Florida were covered, and I hadn't started my Florida hospital insurance yet, so needless to say that this pregnant momma didn't get seen until past 20 weeks. Having hyperemesis, this sucked big time. Luckily for me a friend had given me a stock of dissolvable tablets and Sylvia refilled me from cross country. I love her. So moving on, I started work at the end of June and Brad tried fervently to find a job, with no success I might add until almost the end of August. So, moving down we have effectively doubled what we pay for housing, utilities and added tolls. Brad finally found a job and what do we do? We go out and buy annual Disney passes with his first paycheck and my relocation bonus. Great in the moment but horrible for the future. Although in retrospect I wouldn't change that decision for anything. It was truly one of the three positives that came out of living there for the short time we did. Well get to the other two. Several weeks after Brad started working, the air conditioning and heat in the car went out. Might I add, that prior to packing up all our house and moving we dropped $500 to fix that knowing we were moving into a tropical climate. Yea, life gave us another expensive screw you. One we couldn't afford at the time so our vehicle remains to this day without air and heat. Ok so we drive with the windows down and sweat a little, we dealt. Moving on, later the next week the air in the van went out. We had three kids and a pregnant mom who had to drive over 35 minutes to her twice weekly OB appointments. No this was not going to work. So luckily we found a little local place called AJ's Auto Repair, charged us $60 and had it fixed same day. Finally something going our way. So the week after this happens we are watching the news and finding that Mother Nature wanted to welcome us to Florida first hand and we would soon be experiencing our first hurricane. Hurricane Irma hit us dead on. Not only was the hurricane itself terrifying but as a weekend worker I was chosen as Team A. Meaning that my 6 month pregnant ass with hyperemesis and chronic and exacerbated pain got to spend three full 12 hours shifts at work and got to sleep in the luxury of hard floors and an air mattress. After this week my nerves and body were shot and my vomiting picked up immensely. And when I say immensely I mean I went from a fluffy 3-4 pukes a day to upwards of 25 pukes on a bad day. I was so dehydrated and malnourished I couldn't stand in the shower with my arms above my head long enough to wash my hair so I went to work with unwashed hair for nine days. Because of this on the day of one of my annoying and time consuming NST appointments I was admitted for an entire week to Florida Hospital in Celebration. It took nurses witnessing my vomit fest 24hours a day for the physicians there to believe that I was not in fact exaggerating and was in real danger. I was set up with a home health nurse and a subcutaneous Zofran infusion pump. It sucked but worked great. I kept this for the remainder of my pregnancy. Then when I got home I got to deal with my landlords "fixing" our windows damaged by the hurricane by literally just screwing them shut. Mom flew down the rescue a few days later and helped while I got the hang of the pump. Fast forward, in fact this might have happened before the admission. One day I go out to take Samantha to school to find a bright orange sticker on my van window saying I am illegally parked because my tags are expired and I have 24 hours to comply or be towed. HAHAHA 24 hours. Ridiculous. Didn't have a company name or anything, could've been some random jackass walking around putting neon stickers on peoples cars. Besides, who besides the police have the authority to tow because of expired tags, I was in MY PARKING SPACE. So either way, we did not want to deal with it, worked out with HOA to keep them at bay until the end of the month. Took lots of stress on my end and I finally handed it over to my mother after many mental breakdowns who was able to have it paid for and shipped less than 24 hours after our conversation. My brain cells just didn't work, I had the wrong registration the entire time. So last day of the month is here, sticker FINALLY came in the mail and its pouring down rain so Brad decided it wasn't going to stick so we did not apply the stickers. 1:30am Samantha scared the living shit out of me and says there's beeping by our van. I figured maybe it was just the car alarm going off because someone was trying to steal it, who knows. I ran to the window and then downstairs as fast as I could when I realized the assholes came back literally right after midnight to fulfill their end of the deal. I had no pants to Brad went after them but they wouldn't release it to us. We ended up forking out almost $200 to get it back and after we did we realized they broke in to tow it and DAMAGED the door! I was furious, I emailed lawyers and ranted every day. We reached out to USAA and found a repair shop to fix the damage so were in a rental for almost TWO weeks. The shop didn't really keep us in the loop as far as the repairs went but eventually we did get my van back. In all this time, I had applied for food stamps and TANF and was denied because apparently my soul income is adequate to support my family. NOT. So this was also the month that my dear sweet daughter with a sensory processing disorder and cannot keep anything OUT of her mouth, decided to swallow a flat penny from Disney Springs. Here I am a billion years pregnant and faced with taking my 6 year old penny eater to the ER. Luckily Daddy ponied up on this one and took her. Thank goodness. Poor thing had to experience a rectal exam way to early in life. We thought she would have to have surgery but after two xrays and a few doctors appointments we found out we were in the clear. Along with the penny issues we had discovered a mysterious puddle appearing in the girls room every few days. I would clean it and dry it with a fan and a few days later it showed up again. We were in the middle of potty training Cailin so I was sure she was sleep walking and thinking her closet was a bathroom. Either that or there was a ghost cat peeing everywhere. Ew. But this turned out not to be true. In fact, we had a large leak in the hallway bathroom that our landlord let go for over a month due to not returning my maintenance requests or contacting me. It wasn't until a bulge in the ceiling downstairs did someone actually come take a look. The ripped apart the carpet and tore two giant holes in the wall. After a few days, someone finally returned to clean the carpets after I threaten due to it being the kids room and Cailin having asthma with mold in her room. Next fun event for life to throw at us was in November when my doctor decided that my sugars were to high and baby's heart rate was too high so we got another admission to start insulin and get IV fluids for dehydration. Fun times. This is when I stopped working. Little did I know it was the last time I would've worked at Florida Hospital. So now with me not working and brad having a job that is refusing overtime, we are basically screwed money wise. Our finances have been completely depleted, I don't even know how our bills got paid to be honest. I didn't know I could pinch pennies that well. I applied for food stamps again and this time started to receive them just in time for baby girl to be born. Boy oh boy is that another story all together. See baby journey for that one. The pregnancy was miserable, the labor and delivery wasn't any less miserable. Especially since id been suffering quite a bit more toward the end. But in the end she was born, we were both alive and we both went home. She did require monitoring daily for her jaundice levels but I didn't have to deal with people making me feel like a druggie and the nurses were nice. Mom, Dad and Rachel came down for the delivery and stayed for Thanksgiving. it was wonderful, then they had to leave. It was that morning that I realized I was 1000% over this Florida thing and ready to come home. I mean I kinda felt that way from day one that things went wrong but tried to give it my best shot. So here we are, a broke family of 6 a few days before Christmas. We are no where near snow or fun Christmas lights. All I wanted was to try and give the kids a fun time. I found out that the Firefrogs were hosting a SnowFest and it was FREE. I was all over this. So here we are a few weeks PP WALKING a few miles to the stadium. Me still bleeding with a giant pad between my legs and an aching vagina. So we arrive, walk around, do a few arts and crafts. Then we meet up with Paola and the family. We let the kids jump in the bounce house. And then one of the most terrifying things of my life happens. My 3 year old daughter completely disappears. She is missing for at least 20 minutes. In this 20 minutes every scenario of every scary movie and news article pops into my head and I cant stop running. I ran around the inside of the stadium, the outside of the stadium, I am sure I looked quite frantic. Imagine a disheveled PP woman running around having a nervous breakdown. I was TERRIFEID, the first thing that went through my head is with my luck I will never see her again. this is it. the end of my happy existence, if that's what its been. I have lost babies before, the heartbreak is real. But nothing could have compared to me losing my child like this. I was not the same, I am not the same woman today since that event. Luckily, Praise be to GOD, Brad found her. She was sitting with the gentleman at the front gate. As soon as I saw her I broke. Into pieces, I was a puddle on the floor of a baseball stadium. Brad had told her to put her shoes on and go find mom. Well mom was sitting on the ground behind a stroller so she must've ran straight past me. I cant even fathom my life without this baby girl. We get home, settled and sleep. The next day my vomiting picks up again. I throw out her clothes from the night before. I realize what a nightmare living in Florida had become. I had a few postpartum complications like symptoms of PTSD from the severe nausea and vomiting, I had a postpartum hemorrhage that I had to take methergine for and ended up being treated for PPD. Which now at 11 weeks I am still struggling very much with. So, Mom and Robin conspired and figured a way to get us home. We enjoyed our last few days at Disney, tried to enjoy the lingering company at Christmas. We found out Jenn died just a few days before we were supposed to leave and thank Heavens Steph and Alex cam to help. So Home it was. We are home. I am home. The other two things that came out of Florida are my precious baby girl and a deeper appreciate and love for my family. I always knew that I loved them and relied on them but never knew the extent of that love. But now, I don't have to worry about not having that. I am home. Home is where the heart is, only have to have courage and grace to find it.
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