Category Archives: Blog

Blog

Third baby, third hospital

This is a blog post I’ve been meaning to write for a good month now. I feel like I can write from a more solid point-of-view now that Elliott is officially a month old this week, and will be five weeks old on Monday. He just had his month-old visit, and the pediatrician said he’s doing great — Elliott is on the cusp of 6 pounds, gaining at a rate of more than an ounce a day. Plus, he’s already turning his head and raising it, so he’s got that neck strength going on. As for sleeping, he’s doing better than I would have predicted — he goes down without too much protest at about 11 p.m. or midnight, and I generally have to wake up to feed him at 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Speaking as a third-time mom, that’s pretty damn good four weeks in, y’all.

What I am writing about specifically is how my birthing and hospital experience went this third go-round. And it’s definitely a mixed review.

Continue reading →

An Elliott photo gallery

Elliott is three weeks old today, so I figured it was time to get on the computer and share some photos of the little guy. I’ve had to soften on my policy of keeping Elliott’s photos off social media for the first six months because Trinity has totally blown it to smithereens. However, this is still the best place to see photos of the little guy’s face.

One of the first things folks ask me when talking about Elliott is, “how are Mike and Chris doing with the baby?” They are absolutely fascinated with their new baby brother. Michael is constantly asking to see him, and lately has been frequently declaring, “aw, he’s so cute!” and “he loves you!” (to me), in his adorable preschooler’s lisp. Chris also likes to try and see his baby brother, but I have to shield Elliott away from him a little more because Chris is like an oversized puppy — doesn’t know where his limbs are half the time and is totally unaware of his own strength. These past couple of days, however, I’ve had to keep the boys from kissing their baby brother because they’ve had the sniffles.

This photo is a bit fuzzy, but is basically our first photo as a whole family. This is it, people. This is IT.

We got this little preemie-sized outfit as a gift for Michael, who only got to wear it once. So Elliott sported it for Easter last week.

I’m still mostly barred from lifting heavy things (Chris is seriously weighty these days, plus he kicks) so Trinity is still handling bath and toothbrushing duties on his own. So one night, as each big kid was getting his teeth brushed, I took pictures of the other kid hanging with Elliott. And I got lucky with an in-focus photo of all three of them together — its a perfect illustration of their fascination with Elliott.

Elliott seems to be taking it all in stride. Maybe he got used to the chaos while he was still in the womb.

Elliott rounds out the Powells 5

It occurred to me this morning that many good things come in fives — five fingers, five toes, five senses, counting in fives. You know what else comes in five now? The Powells family, which welcomed Elliott, its fifth (and final) member yesterday.

Elliott Jeremiah Powells arrived at 4:58 p.m. yesterday, weighing in at an even four pounds and measuring in at about 16 inches.

(And generally, this would have been the only place you could see pictures of newborn Elliott, but Trinity completely beat me to that punch. But it makes sense since he had all the pictures yesterday, and I was simply numb most of the night, literally.)

As for how everyone is doing, I may be going home as soon as tomorrow. I actually got to eat today, whereas during previous hospital stays, it took up to 48 hours for me to get actual food. Elliott is another story though — because he is only four pounds (which, to me, is not that small, considering Chris went home right away at just 5 ounces heavier) — he’ll be staying in the NICU for maybe another week. We doubt it will be longer than that, though, since in most respects, he’s doing fine — he’s eating well, sucking well, even latched on for a while today. It drives me a little nuts that I can’t have him with me, because I feel that having him close to me would help him get bigger faster.

Anyway, it is what it is. Enjoy these pics of my new little cutie.

Wrapping up 2013

I wrote this two weeks ago and sat on it, wondering if maybe my feelings would change as I got closer to the new year. Nope not so much, but this is why New Year’s has always been so special to me. Here’s to a fresh start, new experiences and more joy with my growing family!

I am not in the habit about blogging about bad times, which is why I haven’t done a lot of blogging this year. Is it the year — 2013? — or was it just a series of unfortunate events? I don’t believe in giving a mere number such power, so I’m going to believe that this is just life — up and down.

When we started 2013, we were still in the middle of Trinity’s layoff. He was hired, thankfully, by the Orange County Register in March and is doing well there, but the glow of that small victory didn’t last long. In June, we were given 30-days notice to vacate our place in Ventura County (60 days in advance, but details). We had been looking for a new place since Trinity started at the Reg, but were not certain on where we should be — we looked from Burbank to Rosemead to Montebello, a large swath, if you’re familiar with Southern California geography. While the 30-day notice was not ideal, it did light a fire under us, and we finally decided to focus on the San Fernando Valley, to keep the boys near their daycare and cut down on the number of things we had to find that summer. We moved into our new place in August, and a month later, I discovered we were expecting our third baby.

I was an emotional wreck over this, I hate to admit. I had been so certain we were done having kids, that I’d given away all my early baby gear — clothes, playpen with changing table, bassinet, Boppy pillow — donated my maternity clothes and sold my breast pump. The little bit of money we’d save when Chris went from infant to toddler status at his daycare was going to be earmarked for a new used car for Trinity, who has been running his car ragged on hard commutes, first to West LA and now into the heart of Orange County. Public school — and the end of paying daycare tuition — seemed close enough to touch. And then not one, but two pregnancy tests confirmed we were expecting a third. Gut check.

It occurred to me this morning that this is life. Life has its good times and bad times, its hard parts and easy parts, but in the end, even a life that was mostly hard is usually remembered as a good life overall. Life also doesn’t always go as planned, and as I grappled with the idea of having a third baby, I purposely avoided my favorite Scripture, Proverbs 16:9 — “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”

But my kids have been an inspiration, now that I’ve settled down and have come to terms with this pregnancy. Michael, especially. As they say, a little child shall lead them. I coached Mike in telling my family about the new baby, I fully admit it. At the time, I don’t think he really understood what he was saying, but as the pregnancy has progressed, we have been talking to him about his new baby brother more and more and I think it has been sinking in. He got truly excited when we showed him our latest ultrasound pictures and the DVD at my 20-week appointment. He is now asking me to take out his new baby brother and that he wants to see him NOW. I tell him that his new baby brother is still growing, so now, if asked about where his new baby brother is, Mike says, “he’s still growing.”

It is so inspiring to me. Mike isn’t worried at all about the thought of a new baby brother — he’s not worrying about money, or time, or stuff; not worried about any loss of love, or toys or food, or whatever. He’s just thrilled at the idea of another brother, with no concern for provision. It’s been a lesson to me, to stop worrying and to trust that God will provide. Jesus did say, after all, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)

So, to summarize 2013 — it’s been a tough year, but I’ll mostly remember the good times, God planned this baby, so God will provide for him and for our family. Happy new year!

Blue Saturday

I’m not generally one to participate in Black Friday shopping. I once stumbled into the Black Friday shopping hole at the Glendale Galleria because I wanted to buy my younger siblings some new church clothes and heard there were going to be sales….and then realized (because of the parking nightmare) it was because of Black Friday. Doh! But, for a few months, I’d been stalking a new iPhone 5c for several reasons — 1) my current 4S had had a bum screen for months; the touch screen had a dead zone that was growing from the right edge all the way into the middle by the time its end had come; and 2) its so cheap, and apparently, I can’t be trusted with an expensive cell phone. So when I saw that Walmart was offering the iPhone 5c at the doorbuster price of $45 plus a $75 gift card, I was sold. But I still didn’t want to go out on Black Friday.

I spent Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving happily planning to go out for dinner at my kids grandparents’ place, and shaking my head in disapproval as I saw so many people heading out on Thursday to shop. Sheesh, I know I was planning to go out to shop myself that weekend but at least it was for me! But by Friday night, I began to have doubts. Doorbusters typically sell out, would they still have the phone? Crap. I began calling around and one by one, each harried Walmart confirmed my worst fear — that cheap, pretty phone was sold out. I was so bummed.

I had still been planning to take advantage of Famous Footwear’s BOGO +20 percent off sale this weekend, so I headed out there Saturday with my church mom and sister to try on the shoes I’d scoped out. It was next door to Porter Ranch’s Walmart, and even though we didn’t plan to go in, they said they needed to buy milk, so in we went. And I made a detour to check out Walmart’s wireless center — and didn’t come out for another three hours.

Because Porter Ranch hadn’t sold out of the iPhone 5c or 5s! I was shocked. I called Trinity right away to make sure it was still OK, and he told me to just buy it so he could stop hearing about it. Then I got in line and waited…and waited…and waited… And waited. Wow, it was a long wait. Seriously, with Walmart’s whole process of making sure each person upgraded/opened a new account, I’m actually surprised those other stores sold out. Or maybe they just said they did when people called? Who knows. But Porter Ranch had so many phones, I think I could have come in on Sunday and still gotten one.

But the wait was killer. Seriously, I couldn’t have gone by myself and done it; I would have had to leave the line at some point to go to the bathroom. It felt a little like one of those radio station contests in which whoever can keep a hand on the grand prize car for the longest time wins. At one point, I felt like a jury duty crowd and wondered if I should start a Facebook support group for all of us sitting in line. There was one couple in front of me who had gone to this Walmart the night before, saw the ridiculous line and decided to come back. They waited another three hours in line in front of me (possibly four), then it turned out they couldn’t get their 5cs because they had a business account. Wow, if that would have been me, I think there would have been spluttering tears and a major scene.

Anyway, I finally got to the counter and the lady helping me was quite nice and cheerful, which I was so glad about, I made a point to tell her manager that she made the process so much more pleasant.

So, yeah. I sort of did Black Friday, but in my head, I’m calling it Blue Saturday. In honor of my new phone. Let’s all hope I won’t drop this one.

darleeneisms

Blogging Tenaciously Since 1998