The Wild Wild Wests

We proudly introduce to you our healthy and perfect  fourth son..... Talon Michael West Born November 4, 2013 @ 3:02 pm Weighing 7lbs 6 oz. and 18 inches long  We are so, SO in love and enjoying every delicious minute of him. His amazing birth story to come...for now I am relishing his newness and drowning myself in these most priceless moments with my boy. love and hugs ~j

i don't know where 38 weeks went... i literally can't wrap my head around that fact, but here we are about to have a baby.  i'm not gonna lie, i am a hot freakin' mess.  the emotions are in full swing and the tears even greater.  the combination of excited and scared is an incredibly powerful mix. i am a control freak and i am once again, not in control.  of this labor.  of this baby.  of my boys and their care in my absence or of my emotions (clearly).   i try to stay busy, no scratch that, i AM to busy most days to spend much time dwelling on it.  i am assuming that's how i made it to 38 weeks without losing my ever loving mind, but when the lights go down and i am snuggled next to my sick boy in bed or stroking masons cheek as he falls asleep i am overcome with emotion.  this journey is far different than the journeys prior. i know more now. i know to much now. i miss the innocence i had before paxton and yet i cherish every single momen...

( remember stream of consciousness posts are just that....random thoughts strung together with a bit of pregnancy hormones thrown in for good measure ;) today i celebrate 34 years of life... i feel as though i have lived double that some days..in experience, in learning and in loving.  none of which are easy.  they all three take work and experience can be the hardest because a lot of times we don't ask for the experience, it's forced upon us.  we fight it oh' do we fight it, but somehow always come out of it grateful just the same.  i had a long talk with a very near and dear friend this fine birthday morning.  she was there for austin, mason, tadem and then paxtons diagnosis, like literally right there and continues to follow us today. she just recently lost her mama. it was a long, incredibly hard battle much like paxtons and yet very different in so many ways. and yet we sat talking this morning about life. it's crystal clear clarity at times and its ever ...

i had this dream last night, that paxton was sick.  he came out of a heart cath and the doctor told me it was bad and he would need a heart transplant "within the year" i remember the entire dream so vividly. i remember feeling so guilty because i had this new baby coming that i would be absent for as i tended to paxton in the hospital. i remember fearing for paxtons life just as i have so many times before, only those times were reality.  it was so vivid that it still rocks me if i think about it. paxton is as healthy as an hlhs child can be...clearly.... but, i can say i do know where this inability to truly let go of the fear during this pregnancy comes from.... i guess maybe it's why i haven't written in months...i feel like it gets old to a lot of people to hear about it, so i stay silent...but those that have been there get that it never leaves you, this i know... i  am over 8 months pregnant now.  i can't say it's been a completely easy ride. ...

a lot of you have already heard the news...so if you aren't up for more gratitude, relief and baby talk i suggest you move along ;)  it's been a long 22 weeks.  a long 22 weeks of worrying, panicking, second guessing, flashbacking and crying.  today, however, there were a different kind of tears... today i feel like everything just might be all right.  i can still hear the devil on my shoulder whispering don't get to excited or you'll jinx yourself, but i try to push him away and remember that its a proven fact that thinking positive is better for you and provides better results. we had our perinatologist visit today. we got to see our baby up close and personal and i mean every vessel, vein, ductus, aorta, archway, valve and chamber there was to see. let me tell you all the ways i have never been so happy to see four, YES FOUR, little chambers.  time stopped for a moment as i laid down on that table. i remember nearly four years ago like it was minute...

you guys....it's started. shit is getting all kinds of drudged up.  we all know pregnancy can make for some crazy dreams, but these nightmares that are creeping in every night are horrid. paxton. it's all paxton. he codes. he dies. i can't wake him up. he's completely purple as i run him into an ER. he goes completely stiff in my arms.  they rock me to my core.  i think i have spent the last week in a heap of tears because i don't know how many more of these i can take.  paxton is of course, beautiful and perfect and as healthy as they come for a kid with half a heart. he's OK and i have to tell myself that over and over lately.  sometimes my husband has to grab my face and tell me he isn't going to die because i can't breathe through the tears.  and to top it all off i can't self medicate ; ) for the most part i am doing ok with this pregnancy thing again, quite frankly i don't have time to be anything but ok. i have three wild, and by wild i do...

there are moments in life when it hits me...i begin to wonder how i can have another child. have another part of my heart walking around outside my body.  i love my boys with such a fierce intensity that at times, it scares me. i never want them to hurt or feel pain, be sad or embarrassed, but that is not reality and yesterday through both mine and masons thick tears i was reminded that there is only so much i can do... i would say mason had his first encounter with true embarrassment yesterday.  his personality doesn't have a whole lot of room for that. he's my outgoing, funny, strong boy. he's like a duck, shit just rolls off his back.  i kind of envy that about him actually. but yesterday there came a moment when the world continued on while mason and i sat in the hallway at school, him clutching me, big alligator tears staining his cheeks and me unable to talk because if i uttered a single word my tears would match his.  my heart hurt for him. i wanted to c...

i was doing laundry today... you know carrying on in the aftermath of tragedy... listening to the news in the background as i went about.  feeling guilty, my heart hurting for all of those still rocked to their cores while i did menial, yet necessary things like grocery shop and laundry.  i have tried to write since last monday and never made it to completion because emotions overwhelmed me.  i have gone a little bat shit crazy making ADT come out to recheck every square inch of our home for safety and updating all of our pertinent information.  none of which will do any good if something is meant to happen and none of which will do any good if i am say  at a concert and someone else decides to do what they did last monday. the illusion of control, just as it is with paxton, is just that... an illusion. i hate it. God i hate it. i am such a control freak and yet the reality is i actually have very little.  i won't lie i am, just as so many of you ...

i wrote this post several months back.  today we stand on the other side of it.  NASA did some repair work.  went where no man has gone before and we can now add another been there, conquered that to our ever growing list in the recent years. sure doesn't mean we are done fighting the good fight because the work relationships require never ceases.  especially those that have been where we have.  but life knows what it's doing sometimes. i have learned this before and still manage to forget. but... in the words of the byrds there is always: A time to build up, a time to break down A time to dance, a time to mourn A time to cast away stones A time to gather stones together To everything - turn, turn, turn There is a season - turn, turn, turn And a time for every purpose under heaven A time of war, a time of peace A time of love, a time of hate A time you may embrace A time to refrain from embracing To everything - turn, turn, turn There is a season - turn, ...

no.... i am not talking about the salt on the rim of a big, ice cold margarita glass...although that sounds mighty fine right about now... i am talking about sweat and tears.  you see i was at crossfit the other day trying to do this lift. trying to get it right...perfect.  then getting frustrated with myself for not getting under the bar enough or keeping my elbows tight enough.  at the end of that workout the coach said "good job today guys, remember olympic lifters spend years trying to perfect that move."  those words stayed with me, and not because i have any intention of becoming an olympic lifter or even anything other than just a mom trying to stay out of the mom jeans. its just that when he said those words the light came on in my brain and i realized that wherever we are in this life we are all "spending years trying to perfect it".  how about letting go of the idea of perfect and just living...dear god that is so much easier said than done.  i ...

(for my new friend tecla~ here is a new post, as you requested ;) if you are my facebook friend then you know that i have been posting a picture a day since february began in honor of heart awareness month. as i posted today's picture i stopped to think....should i really use this one. you know the one with the fresh incision, iv's, lines and drains coming out all parts of my sons body.  i almost didn't post it, but then i did. you know why? because it's the truth. it's our life. its my sons life.  sure it may not be easy to look at. people may wonder why i would share pictures of my son in that condition. i say this....if he can endure it, you can look at it, learn about it and help raise awareness. if it were your baby you sure as hell would.  it's really easy to look at them and say man that really sucks then continue on with life, but behind the pictures are endless hours, days, months and years of fighting to live. he fights so goddamn hard friends.  ...