Find out what you're afraid of, and go live there.

I never would have thought so much would unfold in the last month since I've posted. It's amazing how in hindsight, I can look back on things and see how I thought THAT was all nothing in stress compared to what we have going on now. While there's no need to ever downplay any of the stressors in life, I can truly say I wasn't prepared for the most recent of those, which I will get into later in this post. I'll start by rewinding and exploring some of the good. To be honest, I need to be reminding myself of the good right now!

At the beginning of the summer, I'd reserved as three-day slot for Silas to take swim lessons with a private instructor who came highly recommended. I was honestly on the fence about taking him at all, as I'd heard it could be a little emotional and scary for kids. But as many of you know, Silas has a bit of a daredevil side to him, and I'd prefer him to be equipped with lifesaving skills than to be in a situation where we regret that he didn't have them at all.

As to be expected, there was plenty of crying and fighting the process, but he made it through 4 lessons total and did REALLY well for himself! Silas can now "swim" under the water while holding his nose, get to the side of the pool and climb out, and he can also float on his back. I'm beyond pleased with the instructor and how both firm and loving she was with Silas, as well as his progress!

Just a few days later, we had the weekend of our lives! We started off with taking the boys to their first NASCAR race ever! Pete and I have wanted to take Silas to something like this for over a year, but this was our first real opportunity. While it might seem asinine to bring a baby to something like this (which it is), we truly could not pass up the opportunity. It was about an hour drive out to the track in Lebanon, not including having to stop for headphones for the boys on the way. When we arrived, we were blown away by the size of the event. As Pete recalled, it was like going to Bonnaroo without there being Bonnaroo!

Silas seemed to understand where we were almost immediately and waited impatiently for things to begin. Khai, on the other hand was less than thrilled. It was hot and about as loud as a jet engine beside your ears, even with headphones on!

We weren't sure how long we'd last at the event, but we stayed for just over an hour and a half. I have to admit though, Khai was borderline traumatized by the fear of race cars whooshing by. Even with headphones on, a fan giving him a constant breeze, and enough shade to protect him, I knew our time was limited with his patience. The race itself was truly entertaining, and I'm eager to go to another one in the future!! There's definitely something to be said about seeing these events in person versus watching videos on TV.

At one point, I couldn't care for his cries, so I snatched him up, took him under the bleacher where the concessions and bathrooms were, and fed him right there on the ground in front of everyone!

Shortly after, we told Silas we needed to go. After snatching up a die-cast car souvenir on our way out, I'd say he was more than pleased with the experience and didn't even fuss about leaving!

The following day, we hopped over the the Opryland Hotel to celebrate Father's Day in style. We've never stayed overnight with Silas since he was a baby, and we've NEVER stayed overnight with Khai. As crazy as it was yet again, we opted for the risk of all things going wrong and tried our hand at a family "stay-cation." The Opryland Hotel offers access to their waterpark, Soundwaves, but only if you stay at night. All Davidson county residents get a pretty great discount, and since we weren't going on a real vacation for a second year in a row, we thought now was as good a time as any to take a break as family.

I was beyond pleased with our time spent there! Upon arrival, we immediately took up access to the waterpark, complete with comfort food and alcohol-free beverages for sipping.

Silas had a blast practicing his new swim skills, but he spent most of his time running around the splash pad. As always, Khai was just along for the ride and managed to have quick and painless naps throughout the day after me nursing him under towels wherever I could.

As for the park itself, it was a really awesome experience, even as a family of four. For the sake of our sanity, we didn't even attempt naps for the two days we were there. We wanted to fully maximize our time away from the house and all the responsibilities that fall under it!

We met up with some good friends of ours while we were staying there and attempted to grab dinner that evening, which proved to be a horrible idea. Most restaurants still aren't open to full capacity or hours, and the ones that were open showed wait times of an hour and a half. Our boys' bedtime is usually around 7pm, although we've stretched Silas' bedtime pretty often recently. Well by 8:30pm, we'd officially given up attempting to grab a convenient dinner and resorted to ordering room service instead.

The rest of our two-day trip was as expected. Neither of the boys slept well in a room shared with the four of us. At one point, Silas even managed to fall out of the bed altogether and was disoriented upon waking up. The following morning, we enjoyed breakfast from our room before enjoying our second day of playing in the water.

During this whole time, I'd been battling a seemingly minor problem under the skin of it all...literally. Upon attempting to workout from home for the first time since giving birth (yoga, no less), I noticed an immediate spot in my belly button that radiated of pain and tenderness. I'd never experienced the feeling before and was alarmed so much that I scheduled an apt with my doctor.

After inspection, it was confirmed that there was likely an umbilical hernia that had resulted from the exercise. While my doctor told me many people go on and continue on with their lives even with hernias, he did confirm that it wasn't just going to go away on its own. We decided to wait a week before consulting with a general surgeon. Not only did he confirm the hernia, but he said I also had diastasis recti and that the whole problem was a result of carrying a second (and much heavier) baby.

I was panicked. Surgery was on the table, but I still had a world of things to complete before doing anything that would put me out of commission for several weeks. Of those tasks, one of my largest was setting up my new classroom.

As mentioned before, I'm hopping over to teach at the high school this year. As excited and eager as I've been to jump back into work, I've hated having my old classroom packed away in boxes in our garage. Thankfully, my principal was more than willing to get me in as soon as possible, so I could at least get my stuff in the room.

After two days and the help of both Gracie and Pete, I was able to get SOME work done on my room....enough to make me feel good ab out it if I wasn't able to return right away. Having this partially marked off my mental checklist made me feel a little more prepared for surgery, as the rest of my pre-work load was all something I could do from the couch.

Initially, I'd planned on bringing Silas with me to work on all this, because we were desperately trying to get Khai to learn how to take a bottle and thought it would be better if he stayed with Pete. To our disgust, Silas woke up with a gnarly cough, and literally days away from my surgery! So we divided and conquered a different way, bringing Khai to work with me.

As always, Khai was a trooper and managed to nap just long enough for me to feel good about where things were left. I also couldn't complain about the extra time with him, since in less than a week I'd be unable to even hold him.

The next week was pretty much the same as any other, but I was getting increasingly nervous, sad, anxious, and even fearful of the impending surgery. In the afternoons, I tried to take a little extra time loving on the animals and tending to their needs. I spent time on the ground playing and reading books and tried to be present every time I got to hold and snuggle up with Khai.

This year, we opted out of planting a garden outside and in the basement. We knew that having a newborn in the house would make gardening a bit more difficult to tend to and would end up not enjoying the daily work needed to maintain one. Instead, I threw a bunch of wild flower seeds into the two raised beds that weren't being taken over with herbs.

One of the last big tasks we needed to get done had been looming over us for literally months. Back before Silas was ever born, I spent A LOT of time outside with our animals. I'd rest in the grass with them, give out lots of belly rubs, and brush everyone's coats for the upcoming seasonal changes. One of the hardest tasks was always trimming the pigs' hooves.

Trimming a pig's hoof is no joke. Many people resort to just grabbing their back legs and flipping them on their side or back. The reaction is a screaming/squealing pig which is quite frankly one of the worst cries there is. While the pig is not in any pain, their response is normal but can sometimes damage the trust in the relationship with the owner. For that reason, I was able to build up enough trust with my pigs over the years to where I could scratch their bellies long enough and get them calm enough to be able to clip them WILLINGLY while they rested on their side. It took quite a bit of time, and sometimes clipping it wrong or making a fast motion would destroy the whole process, but most times I was able to get done in 45 min.

Once Silas was born, I stopped working on their hooves as much, and with not spending as much one-on-one time with them, it was more of a battle for them to even let me. That first year post birth, we ended up giving up completely and took both pigs into the vet to have them do it for us. To be honest, this whole approach seemed more traumatic than having one of of just flip them and hold them down. Fast forward another year, and we threw some washed rock down on the ground of the barn hoping to help naturally file their hooves down for us. This did help, but not completely.

Out of our three pigs, one of them tends to avoid walking on any hard surface, which is why her hooves tend to grow out longer, causing pain and walking problems for her. Pete and I knew we were going to have to deal with the issue prior to surgery. So one day, we decided to bite the bullet and just get it done. This entailed Pete chasing the pig around the property for about 10 minutes before he was able to grab ahold of her back leg. From there, you have to fight with a bucking pig until you can get them safely and securely pinned on their side. This requires strength (Pete) and trimming (me), all of which took about 45 min. All in all, we are VERY glad we got it done when we did!

When it's necessary to trim a pigs' hooves, it really all depends on the pig itself. We have one pig who will gladly roll over for anyone and even accept a hoof trimming any day....naturally, this would be the one pig who never needs a trimming, because she files herself down by walking up and down our driveway. 😆 But most trimmings will last a half a year or more, depending on circumstance.

Making sure we were covering all our bases, we went ahead and also had our farrier out to trim the donkeys for us. I'd been cleaning them out weekly, but there's nothing better than a good trim for them, especially when their old growth starts to chip away.

Last, but not least, I checked on our blackberry patch. They said the best time to pick blackberries is annually around the 4th of July. Our patch is in our back field, and I swear the past few years I've missed the perfect window for picking before all my animals and birds got to them. This year, I went down about a week early and collected what I could, which was enough for the family to snack on for a couple days. I know the prime picking time would be when I'd be in recovery, so I simply accepted that yet another year would be for the wildlife, and that's ok! 😊

In the meantime, Silas' cough was getting realllllllly bad. With an uptick of RSV circulating, we were concerned and definitely didn't want Khai or myself to be getting sick. Out of an abundance of caution, Pete drove Silas to a walk-in clinic that Sunday to get him tested, as the results would determine if we would need to reschedule surgery or not.

This was the first time ever that Pete took one of our kids to the doctor without me. I was still trying to stay distant from Silas in an attempt to not catch what he had. Unfortunately, the clinic we went to ended up being a horrible experience, and even two days later, we still didn't have his results! Just one day away from surgery, Pete took him to his regular doctor. We were pleased that not only did Silas seem to be on the mend, but his test results came back negative for RSV!

That afternoon, we awkwardly entertained the boys in separate parts of the house to continue the distance for safe measures. At one point, we realized how frustrated we both were with not doing anything fun on my last "normal" day, so we drove the boys in separate cars to the park just up the road for some play time in the creek.

I insisted on holding the baby, as I wasn't sure how things would be post-op. Pete and I didn't really have much to say this day, because I think we were both very nervous about everything that was going to unfold, but I am really glad we got out for that chunk of time.

That evening, I tried to enjoy the feeling of moving my body normally. I tried to enjoy my last few nursing sessions with Khai. In the week leading up to this, we were able to successfully get him to take a bottle and even introduced formula into the mix, just in case something happened to my supply. As always, he was proving to be the most adaptable baby. That night, my mother showed up, as she'd be the one taking me to the hospital in the AM.

That next morning, I got up super early, because they have you wash twice with surgical cleanse. I also wanted a chance to breastfeed Khai once more! By 5:30am, my mom and I were out the door. I was pretty nervous the whole morning and expressed my fears to my mom while she waited alongside me. I was scared that I'd go under and they would find nothing of big importance to even fix. I also had grown increasingly worried about the use of mesh, which I'd tried to talk with my surgeon about but had been unable to get ahold of him in the days prior.

I was taken back for pre-op and felt a little sad I wasn't able to keep my mom by my side for this. The nurses and staff were all very friendly though. I was able to speak briefly with my surgeon about my concerns, but he reassured that the mesh would provide the best long-term solution. We agreed to have him tighten up my diastasis recti while he was in there, as I didn't want the separation to cause more hernias in the future.

Upon waking back up, I was in quite a bit of pain right away. I was surprised to find my surgery lasted just over two hours. They found not one but THREE hernias, all of which were repaired with mesh. My surgeon also told my mother that he tightened me up as well, referring to the inch and a half DR repair. Normally, they aren't letting visitors back in the recovery area, but I desperately needed to pump, so they allowed my mother back to assist.

My pain never went below a 10 out of 10 this whole day. Due to the array of pain medicine both in IV and pill form, I was going to have to dump everything I was pumping, which made me happy I'd provided a stash of milk the previous week and even happier that if it all that ran out, he was ok taking formula too. After a couple of hours, they wheeled me up to my room. Two women who were helping transfer me were more than rough when it came time to move me from one bed to the other....so much that they collectively grabbed my legs in an attempt to get me to "log roll" onto the bed (instead of just sitting it upright for me! 😡 ). As a result, I fell backwards onto the bed, resulting in the most awful pain all down my abdomen. I was beyond upset and fearful that I'd damaged some of the repairs that were just completed hours earlier.

My mother made her way up to my room soon after but couldn't stay long as she needed to get back to the house to help Pete with the kids. I'd never had to stay in a hospital all by myself, much less overnight, so I was beyond happy to see my best friend show up to be by my side! The rest of the day was spent getting various rounds of pain meds, attempting to get out of bed a couple times, trying to eat through the cotton mouth that wouldn't go away, and pumping when I could to maintain my supply. By 8pm or so, I said goodbye to Lauren, got a shot in my thigh, one last round of pain pills, and attempted to sleep.

The next day, my doctor cleared me to go home. I was wearing a compression binder around my waist which had provided much comfort. I was able to get a glimpse of my surgical wounds when they came to check me out, some of which you can see below. I was nervous about going home but also ready to rest in my own bed, which is exactly what I did for the rest of that day.

The next couple days were really difficult for me. Khai had come down with the same serious cough as Silas apparently while I was gone, and this terrified me (still does). The pain was still a 10, but they could only send me home with enough pain pills to last three days, which seemed ludicrous to me. I couldn't move much at all, but I was able to walk on my own. I needed help getting in/out of bed, pumping, and just about anything else that would require me to be up. I was told the first week would be the worst and would require me to virtually do nothing on my own, and they were right.

After the first couple days of being home, my pain went from a 10 to about a 5. I transitioned to alternating Tylenol and Motrin for the pain. Both my mother and my mother-in-law were helping us, which was a godsend, but it made me feel completely helpless. I hated not being able to hold and love all over my boys...especially Khai. I hated having to dump my milk down the drain each day. I hated not being able to just get up and do things like I normally would. And I hated being a victim to my own mind which was drowning me in anxiety, stress, and fear.

Thankfully, Silas was surprisingly sweet when he'd come around me. He understood something had happened to me and that he could not jump and climb on me. Occasionally, I'd go sit on the couch, and he'd come give me a pat on the leg and a kiss. Khai, although still very sick, seemed perfectly content with any of the available hands holding him and loving on him, even while he hacked into everyone's face but mine. I kept my distance, and still am, for fear of getting sick. I truly cannot fathom having to cough like either of them.

Penny was still laying around in the mix of things and often curled up in a tiny ball right in the center of my lap while I napped. One of the three of them took turns feeding the baby his bottles and dealing with him when he got upset ....something I struggled with watching other people do. The house was still alive and functioning. In fact, even with the tremendous hurdle, it was functioning just as good as ever, and I needed to LET GO and get out of my own head about things. It's been hard, ya'll.....like really fucking hard.

On Wednesday, I'll be one week post op. My pain is manageable, but still extremely uncomfortable and painful when I go to clear my lungs, laugh, or move certain ways. Thanks to a combination of reading, watching Netflix, and napping, I've managed to keep my mind about as good as it'll be right now. There's something really debilitating yet humbling when you have to resort to your husband bathing you because you can't even do that on your own.

And on that note, I'll leave you with this photo. I haven't even tried to be remotely decent looking since my surgery. For the first few days, I strutted around without pants on, and I sure as heck didn't do my makeup or hair. I know no one cares. but there's also something to be said for properly getting ready in terms of one's mental health. My biggest request today was to get my hair washed. It looked awful, even while pulled back, and it felt even worse. It was the equivalent of being sick in a dirty house. So this morning, Pete helped me fix that! Not only did he wait by my side to help me wash my own body with the shower door open, but he helped me dry my hair!

Since the surgery, he's stepped up so much and quite frankly has turned into the "mom" of the house as my temporary replacement. He's taken on caring for both (sick) kids, cooking, cleaning, farm chores, feeding Khai in the middle of the night, AND taking care of me...which even with help is still a lot to absorb. If there was ever a time where a man knows what it’s like to be a mom, THIS IS IT RIGHT HERE, and he’s doing a great job. Thanks, Pete.