My nipples are so sore! they are cracked and bleeding as of today. My daughters latch was perfect in the hospital and then the pedi told me she was jaundice and needed formula which I only did for 2 days and now she isn't latching very well. I am going to the latch clinic on Wed since they are only there weds and thursdays. But until then what can I do to soothe this god awful pain? I am continuing to nurse her and every time I try to get her to latch properly and she looks like she is latching correctly to me but obviously she isn't if I am having these problems. I am using nipple creme after every feed and air drying my nipples as much as possible. I am going to go to babies r us tomorrow or sunday to pick up some nipple shields just to keep my nipples off of my clothing/nursing pads because the pain is so bad even when they touch anything. I am going to do cold compresses tonight and I have been taking nice warm showers which make my breasts feel so much better.

Please help me, omg this sucks so bad. I cannot wait to get past this, I dread nursing her because the pain is so bad, it gets better after she has latched on but that initial latch is so hard!

Oh also my daughter is only 7 days old :)

Here are some more pics of my adorable little girl :) She is now 6 days old and I am so in love!

Abigail Rose was born November 6th, 2009 at 6:51PM via emergency C-Section. Her cord was wrapped around her body and neck several times which prevented her from coming down the birth canal and actually started cutting off her oxygen so I did not get my VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) but I am very happy that Abby is okay and 100% healthy which is what really matters. She weighed in at 6lbs even and is 19 inches long which is pretty small considering she was born at 38 weeks gestation, average is around 7.5lbs at that stage in pregnancy. I have only been in the hospital for 2 days and I already get to go home today :) Normally they make you stay 3-4 days but I cannot get any rest around here when the nurses are coming in every few hours and usually it happens right when I finally get Abby settled down and asleep so they come in and wake her and I...grrrr! So ready to go home!

Anywas I am doing great, the surgery was much easier then it was with my son. I was up and walking around after only 8hrs, I wanted to get up sooner but the nurses wouldn't let me.

Here is my newest little addition :)



Her brother is staying with my dad 4.5 hours away for a week to give me time to recover and adjust to a newborn again but boy do I miss him already :(

Well that is all for now.

Birth Story to follow once I am a bit more rested.

Due November 17th is Abigail Rose :)

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa23/ajbousley/BABYABIGAIL_26.jpg
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http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa23/ajbousley/BABYABIGAIL_2.jpg

Positive test!

I tested at 5:00AM on 3/19/2009

So the hubby got a job with National Geographic as a Web Developer! I am soooo excited! He will be making even more than he did at his last job which is a huge plus. Fully benefits and everything :) He will be starting sometime next week.

We just got the final word today and I just had to post about it. He has been out of work for about 3 weeks now so this is a huge stress reliever!

Well my husband was laid off... not fired but laid off which is just as bad in my opinion. He has 2 weeks at that is it. I have no idea what we are gonna do.... first 2 of my ferrets are ill and now this! of all things! OMG!

*sigh*

Well on top of Baisley having adrenal disease and going in for surgery this month I am now dealing with Carrie having insulinoma. I woke up yesterday and Carrie was not acting herself at all. She was uncoordinated and weak. I took her to the vet and they did a full panel blood work up along with the glucose test and called me this morning letting me know she has insulinoma long with bowel disease. I have opted for medication therapy because the surgery for insulinoma is almost always useless since they usually never can remove 100% the cancerous tissue. The medication will control her glucose levels. I will just need to check her glucose regularly to be sure it remains at a normal level. The bowel disease can be maintained and treated with medication as well.

On top of all this the vet took a look in Carries ears and discovered ear mites!!! of all things! My ferrets never go outside or have been around other animals so I am unsure how they got them but all have been treated with ivermetcin. Another treatment will be done in 3 weeks.

I am so hoping nothing else pops up at least for a few months so I can get Baisley and Carrie squared away. I am going to take Apollo and Taz (my two older ferrets) in for a full blood work up in the next few months just to be sure they are completely healthy. They are both 6-6.5 years old. I'd rather catch an illness early if they have anything going on.

Well there is an update with my crew. I am off to pick up Carries medications tonight.

Baisley's adrenal surgery is scheduled for Jan 13th. I am a bit nervous because I did just lose my cat while under anesthesia a few months back but I am told that this vet is one of the best ferret vets in the U.S. his name is Dr. Kawasaki (sp?). I took her in last night for a check and to 100% confirm adrenal which she was confirmed and they did an exam and stool sample check on her. She looks good besides being nearly bald. She is pretty active and eats like a pig. One thing that worries me is I never got her to eat duck soup and she is 4 years old. I have tried and was never successful I may need to try a different recipe. I will make some this week to see how she does on it. If she won't eat it hopefully she will eat her kibble after surgery.

Well theres an update. I will post once the surgery is done :)

So I ended up taking in a total of 3 guinea pigs in the past 2 weeks. They all came from pretty awful conditions and none were on a proper diet. I have been researching guinea pigs for about 4-5 months now because I thought they were a pet that I could handle and provide for properly and besides there are so many homeless piggies and piggies that are in god awful living conditions that I wanted to help out. I took in Flower on November 8th, 2008. She is estimated to be 3 years old but the previous owner wasn't 100% on her age. She is a long coated piggie who has lived alone her entire life and was never given veggies except for the occasional grape here and there. Her nails were way over grown and her fur was matted and smelly. After a good bath and nail trimming she looks loads better. She is also currently in a small cage but it is all I have until this weekend when I can order a C&C cage (Cubes & Coroplast). Plus she is in quarantine right now away from the other two piggies. She is also overweight from lack of exercise and poor diet. She gets loads of out of cage time daily but she won't move around much if I am in the room. She is very shy but not aggressive. I named her Flower because she looks like a skunk (Black & White coat) and she is shy like the skunk off of Bambi :)

The newest piggies are 9 months old according to the previous owner. They are very frisky and full of energy I can definitely see a difference with them compared to Flower. They are a bit skittish but they are a bit more outgoing. They came with a huge cage which is a plus since they must remain in there for quarantine. Their coats and weight are good but their nails are way overgrown and they also were never given veggies. I prepare salads for everyone daily and they all chow down. They love their veggies and aren't picky yet. We are taking it slow with introducing veggies so not to upset their tummies. I drove an hour each way to pick up these two piggies on November 15th, 2008. One is an all black female who I named Twilight after one of my favorite books and the 2nd female is white and brown who I named Biscuit but I do not know if I will keep it that... I dunno yet.

All 3 piggies were given to me with all supplies (cages, food, hay, bedding, etc) for free. I refused to pay anything for them because it is going to cost me quit a bit of money for the large cage to one day house all 3, toys, high quality food & hay, good bedding, hidey houses, vet appointments, etc. None have toys and they each have a hidey house at least.

We are working on bonding right now and hopefully after everyone settles in we will all bond and after quarantine I hope I can introduce all 3 piggies together.

I cannot wait to get their cage! I am excited to see them in a large environment and to see how they will react.

I will put pics up tomorrow, I am so tired right now!

I am so glad Obama won! I have given so much money and time to his campaign. I am just so glad that it all worked out. I am beyond excited!

Just wanted to post that real quick before I head off to bed :)

In My Heart

I thought of you with love today, but that is nothing new.
I thought about you yesterday, and days before that too.
I think of you in silence. I often speak your name.
Now all I have is memories, and your picture in a frame.
Your memory is my keepsake, with which I'll never part.
God has you in his keeping.
I have you in my heart.


In Loving Memory of Thor
April 5th, 2004 - October 23, 2008

Why Thor... Why?!?!?! :(

I miss him so much, it is just not fair... when does the pain go away?

It is extremely difficult knowing that he is gone and I will never ever see him again.

I feel like a piece of my heart has just died. I was very close to Thor. He truly was my little buddy.

I cannot stop thinking about him and my heart aches something fierce :(

*Sigh*

Thor as a itty bitty guy.

Zoe my beautiful pittie is going to be 5 years old tomorrow on October 30th. I have had her since she was a mere 7 week old pup. Gosh where does the time go? So far she has been very healthy aside from some minor skin allergies every now and then. She is in perfect health :)

Here she is when she was a wittle pup :)





And my beautiful Zoe now at 5 years old

Thursday October 23, 2008 I lost my beloved feline friend Thor. Thor passed away while under anesthesia at the vet clinic due to complications with his heart. Here is the long story about what happened. Sunday evening when my husband and I returned from running errands I went about my usually duties by getting the pets their dinner. I thought it was unusual when Thor was not at my feet meowing for his dinner like he did ever night just like my other two cats. I then noticed him laying in my dogs bed with his mouth open and I immediately knew something was wrong and went to pick him up and noticed he could not close his mouth and that it was slightly misaligned. So we took him to the emergency vet that night who thought his jaw was dislocated but they of course wanted to charge us an arm and a leg so they gave us morphine-like pain medication to last him a few days along with an antibiotic because he had another UTI. So we took him home and the next morning I called around and found a vet. We took him in Wed and he had blood work ran along with IV fluids because he was slightly dehydrated. He was unable to eat or drink so I was syringe feeding several times a day. Thursday morning my husband brought him in to the vet to have his dislocated jaw placed back into the joint and he was going to have a feeding tube placed in his neck so his jaw could heal and I would just syringe feed him through this tube for a week. The vets noticed that Thor had a slight heart murmur but it didn't seem to bad but they took precautions when they put him under general anesthesia anywas just in case. They placed him under the least amount of anesthesia possible and even gave him more IV fluids for support. Well it wasn't enough. He crashed right as they were finishing up, they had even turned off the anesthesia and were done with the procedure which was a success. They gave him life saving medications and performed CPR and got him back for roughly 30 secs until he crashed again and after 10 mins they were unable to get him back and my beloved friend was gone. I miss him so much! I got to go in and see him one last time before he was sent away to be cremated. We will be picking up his ashes in about 2 weeks. Its just not fair, why did he have to die? Why did I have to lose my best friend? Thor was only 4.5 years old and I have had him since he was a little guy at only 4 weeks old. The vets think he had early stage heart disease. They did an xray after his passing and saw that his heart was 30% larger than normal. I miss him terribly. I have never lost a pet before and it is the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with. Every time its feeding time I feel a rush of sadness come over me when I notice my little Thor isn't there at my feet rubbing on me and meowing to be fed. He was my cuddle bug kitty and was just such a great cat. The vet even said that he was purring and head butting everyone up until they put him under anesthesia. They said with his jaw dislocated they would have thought he would be aggressive but he wasn't he was purring and being a love bug until the very end. Now I am dealing with two grieving cats. We got Loki the same day as Thor and so Loki is really missing him. Athena and Thor were play buddies and I have even found her laying next to the crate we took Thor to the vet in. Luckily both cats are still eating, but I can see that they are sad. Sometimes I see them wandering around and I wonder if they are looking for him. My husband took it pretty hard too. Thor was his buddy and companion. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be losing Thor so soon... I feel like I took him for granted. Words cannot express just how much I miss him and how heart broken I am :(

Thor - You will always be loved and never EVER forgotten.

R.I.P. little buddy

April 5th, 2004 - October 23, 2008

Well it is time to start regularly keeping up with my LJ. It is seriously lacking in updates. I have so much going on that I have no idea where to begin. I will start off by saying that we might be moving to Washington D.C. in a few months time due to a job change. Jai (hubby) is going to be flying out there next Thursday for a face to face job interview but from what he is telling me they really like him and his resume so they might make an offer right there and he is going to take it. They already said they have no problem paying him what he is asking and medical benefits will start asap which is important in my case. I really hate moving but this time we are going to have a moving company move all our stuff for us which will make things a bazillion times easier on us. The only good thing about moving to the east coast is that my dad and all his side of the family is out there and none of them have even met Alex yet so it will be nice to be near family again. Well thats enough of that. I will be sure to write an update when we hear something about it after the interview.

I am REALLY concerned about my sister. She has been having on going stomach pain for the past year now but just in the last month it has gotten 100x worse. She can barely keep food down, most of what she eats she immediately goes and throws it up because her stomach cannot handle it. She can keep down water luckily so she is staying hydrated. They already took out her appendix but obviously that wasn't the issue since the pain is still present. She just had an ultra sound and it looked normal. She goes in tomorrow to have an endoscopy done, I REALLY hope they find something so that they can correct the problem. She is just in so much pain and I feel awful for her.

My arthritis is really bothering me lately. I hate taking the prednisone it makes my fat all round and swollen looking and it is sooo hard to lose the rest of my pregnancy weight. I have given up all soda, junk food, fast food, etc and I have even been walking 1 hour every day and I am still fighting this weight grrrrr!!!! The prednisone is all I can take while breastfeeding so unfortunately I have to deal with it. I will just work extra hard to lose the weight. It is really bothering me. I feel fat and ugly :( It doesn't help that my husbands grandmother calls me fat as well... I mean I know I had alex 6 months ago but the medication on top of the birth control pills aren't exactly helping with my weight loss. I have just been getting into walking and the strict diet like a week ago so we shall see how it goes. I cannot do much exercise because of the RA. I can pretty much walk for up to 2 hrs at a time, bike ride, or swim. My arthritis really limits what I can do and some days it is very difficult to even walk.

Anywas hopefully I will be able to get on some different medications so that I can stop the steroids, I truly hate them with a passion!

Alexander is doing wonderfully. I am falling more and more in love with him every day. He is the light of my life :) Such a great baby.

All the fur kids are doing pretty great. Despite having a baby I have managed taking care of all 16 of them. The ferrets get out to play regularly and I still walk my dogs daily. All animals get played with and out of cage time on a regular basis. Not to mention all their daily regular care is taken care of and kept up on. And the important thing is I do not feel overwhelmed with any of it. I guess that is a plus about being a stay at home mom. The pets, baby, and house work are all my responsibility but I am able to manage with no issues.

Wow it is such a beautiful night out! I wish I could go walking but Alex is asleep next to me and I just feel so out of it today. Not to mention I need to shower.

Well that is all for now, there is so much more to say but the pets need to be fed, I need a shower, and laundry needs to be folded.

Zoe is 4 years old now and I have been thinking lately that I am going to miss her soooo much when she is gone :( I love her so much, she is my other baby! I try not to think about it because I know she still has ALONG time left with us.... but why do dogs have to live such short lives? grrrr It's just not fair.

Dante just turned 2 years old. I cannot believe I have already had him for 1.5 years, it sure does not feel like that long.

Alex is now 5 months old and I can hardly believe it! He has grown and changed so much from when I first brought him home. The time has literally flown by! I take pictures every day of him and I love going back and looking at all his pics and seeing how he has changed day to day.

He can now roll over from his back to his belly all by himself. He also holds his head up completely by himself. Now we are just waiting for him to learn to sit up without falling over hehe :)

I look forward to seeing him change over the years and to see what kind of person he will become but I am going to just sit back and cherish every moment with him while he is young. I am in now rush whatsoever for him to grow up.

Okay so I know my journal is lacking... so I am going to really put forth the effort to keep up with it and post on a regular basis. It is just hard to do with a new baby and lots of fur kids to take care of :)

Athena is now 5 months old! I have had her since she was 7 weeks.