Lack of compassion

I am sure by know that everyone knows that the Duggar family lost their last child. I do not watch the show or any reality television show but I do enough about the family to know this was a devastating loss to them.

I have to say over the last couple days I have seen comments about this subject that sicken me. I can not believe how many cruel and down right sick things I have seen people post. I think that the human race has lost compassion and honestly I think people get a sick sense of satisfaction over the cruel things they say about others.

This poor family is grieving the death of their child, they lost a baby and in this time of need they do not need to be ridiculed and belittled. I do not care what you think of how many kids they have, if you think they should stop having babies or anything else for that matter. This family deserves compassion and kindness. They deserve nothing but your sorrow for the loss of the child they will never get to know.

I lost a baby in 2010, mine was an early miscarriage so I did not have to actually deliver my child the way Mrs. Duggar did but I do know the pain of loss. The heartbreak that comes with the death of a baby. They ache you feel in your heart for the child you do not get to raise. All the what ifs and how comes that go through your mind. I was a wreck for months and to this day I can not talk about without sadness and often tears. I have other children but that does not stop me from hurting over the loss of that child.

My heart goes out to their family in there time of need and my prayers are with them

Life update

Wow I can not believe I have not added a new blog for so long. I have been really busy with the kids and working part time so I have been slipping on my blogging.

Well in the past month and a half since I updated a few things have gone on. Kairi had her appointment with the specialist at Blank Children's Hospital in Des Moines. Her lead level dropped and we are really thankful for that. We need to take her back in another could weeks just to make sure it has dropped to a normal level. We did have a lead inspector come to our house and we found areas with high amounts of lead. Right now we are working on getting rid of all the lead in the house. SO far we have already replaced the living room windows ( they had already been ordered when this was found out ) and we are removing lead paint in the basement. We still need to get rid of all the lead outside, on the front porch and replace four windows upstairs. We are hoping by this time next year all that will be taken care of.

Amelia is five months now. I can not believe how fast it has been going. She is getting so big! She has two teeth now, is rolling and want to sit on her own. She is currently sick with an ear infection and RSV. It has been a scary couple sleepless days for mama. I am up all night watching her breathing to make sure she is ok. She seems to be on the mend and I am really thankful for that.

We found out that my sister is having a boy! I will have a nephew coming in March and I am really excited to meet little Johnathon.

Alex and Destiny are doing really well with their school work. Alex is starting to read more and more and Destiny is not far behind.

Chris is still out of work. We are waiting to hear back on a couple jobs. I really want him to find something soon, while we are doing okay money wise it will be nice to be able to get back to being more then okay so we can do more house repairs.

Well that is all for now!

Update on Kairi

Kairi does have an elevated lead level. The blood draw said her lead level is 37.5, we will be taking her to Blank Children's Hospital in Des Moines soon to be seen by a hematologist. I am not sure what the want to do yet.

We are going through the whole house to check for anything that could have caused this. Our two best ideas so far are that it came from the outside of the house, we are in the middle of scrapping and painting. Our home is really old and while the inside has been remodeled, there may have been old paint underneath the top layers of paint. Otherwise it may be from old hot wheel toys that my son has.

I will update again when I know more.

Kairi might have lead poisoning

I found out yesterday that my two year old daughter might have lead poisoning. Her level from the finger prick was 40. I am taking her in for a blood draw tomorrow.

I am pretty worried right now. We are not sure where the lead poisoning is coming from. She does like to put things in her mouth still. I have gone through her toys and nothing was recalled that I have found so far. She does put dirt and things in her mouth outside and it could be from that. Especially since my husband is currently scrapping our house. The house is very old, remodeled on the inside but there could be left over lead paint on the outside still.

I will know more tomorrow when I take her in, in the mean time I am trying not to freak to much!

Back from our vacation

We got back Sunday night but I am just getting a chance to sit down and share a little bit.

The trip went so much easier then I expected and we had a great time. Amelia did amazing in the car. She only cried one time the whole way up there. We ended up taking about 7 hours to get there because we took out time, stopped and had lunch, let the kids run around and there was some road construction.

The day we got there we just hung out with my Grandma, let the kids play and relaxed a bit. The next morning we got up and went to a local animal rescue center called fawndoerosa, kids had a blast.

After that was the reunion. We had a good time visiting with family, I had not seen most of them in two years so it was nice to see everyone.

We headed back home the next morning. Kids were a little more wound up on the way home but over all everyone handled the trip very well!

Wish us luck!

We are taking our first long trip with all four kids tomorrow. We have a big family get together in MN, which is about a five hour drive from us. I am really looking forward to seeing all my family but dreading the trip a little bit.
We did get some snacks, have some car activities and a portable dvd player, hopefully this keeps things calm and everyone can relax in the car!

I will let everyone know how the trip goes when we get home and I will have lots of pictures to share. :)

Back into the swing of things

Now that Amelia is 11 wks ( hard to believe ). I am finally getting back into the swing of things.
Life has been crazy here at the Walter's home. I started working part time to bring in some extra money until Chris can find a new job. It was really hard leaving all the kids but it is only part time and they are home with dad so I have been okay with it. Amelia took to the bottle really well which made it easier.
Pumping and nursing had been very painful during the last couple weeks thanks to a nasty case of thrush but we are getting better now.
We have started school for the year. Right now we have Alex and Destiny on a day 1, day 2, day 3 schedule. Day one is reading/writing, day 2 is math and day 3 is arts/science. We have a lot of fun things planned for school this year and I am really excited to do them.
Next week we will be going to visit my extended family in the WI and MN area. I am sure the trip will be interesting since Amelia is not always so happy in the car seat. Here is to hoping she does ok!

Some pictures for your viewing pleasure-

Destiny recently had her first slumber party:


Kairi enjoying some ice cream:


So excited about the money they earned doing chores for me:


Amelia, cute like always:

Summer is almost gone

This has been a fun but busy summer for us and I can not believe that fall is almost here! Summer is my favorite time of year because we are always out doing something fun. We did spend a little more time indoors this year then normal but with the crazy weather we had that was expected. I was going through all my summer pictures from this year and wanted to share some of my favorites.

Vote for Amelia!!

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A full day of fluff

Amelia's birth story

Here is the wild and crazy story of Amelia's birth

Thursday, June 23rd I started itching like crazy, seriously it was horrible. I stayed up until early Friday morning scratching myself raw. The bottoms of my feet and palms of my hands were the worst. So as soon as my doctor was open Friday morning I called and they got me in to be checked out. After running some blood tests it was discovered that I had Cholestasis of Pregnancy , my doctor actually had never dealt with this condition before and had to call the high risk in Des Moines to find out what we needed to do next. He called me back about an hour later and said that he wanted me to come in that night to start the induction. Since I was already 37 weeks and the complications to the baby start at 38 weeks or after he wanted to get her out. We went in at 7 pm June 24th to start the induction. They broke my water at around 10:30, at this point I was only dilated to a 2 so I knew it was going to be awhile still. I had planned on going all natural but between the pain of the induction, the itching and pain from SPD I decided to go with the epidural. I tried to rest for awhile, the nurse came in and checked me at 3:30 am, I was barely a four, about an hour later I called her in because I really felt ready to push, she checked again and I was a 9 so they called the doctor in, after he got there it was only three contractions later I was holding Amelia. She was born at 4:51 am June 25th, 7lbs and 20 inches long.
They got her all checked out, got me cleaned up and stitched the one tiny tear I had and just when I thought we all were going to get some rest is when the madness started. I started bleeding heavily, the nurse was there with me and she was pressing on my stomach because she could feel something in there. At first she thought maybe it was a piece of the placenta but it turned out to be a very large clot ( weighed 1lb 6 oz and was the average size of a placenta ). After that is when she called the doctor back in, along with several other nurses. The bleeding and clotting just would not stop, they tried five or six different medications and finally had to call in the gynecologist to see if he could get it to stop. It took him a little while longer but he was finally able to get it to stop.
Later that afternoon I needed to use the rest room so the nurses came in to help me, I was holding onto Chris when I told them I was dizzy and that is when I passed out, had a seizure and actually stopped breathing for a few moments. I do not remember any of that, I remember waking up to about six different nurses asking me my name and if I knew what happened. Apparently due to the blood loss, my blood pressure crashed when I stood up causing the black out and seizure. It was decided at this point that I was going to be given blood after all, I had lost three units of blood and they were going to give me two units of blood. It took the rest of the day to get me back on track, we did have to stay in the hospital an extra day because of it all but I am doing a lot better now.
Amelia is nursing like a pro and is a pretty calm baby. We are adjusting to life with four children and things are going pretty well. It is going to take some time for me to get back to 100% but I am getting there slowly.

My labor and delivery was nothing like we planned which was disappointing but we are just happy that everyone is okay.