Forgive me... I'm a virgin blogger!

So here it goes....my first ever blog.  I'm hoping this all does good for me.  I feel like my life has been changed so drastically in the past few years (last 3 months especially) and my mind just feels so damn jumbled.  I need to sort through the  good and bad both internally and in my outside world....LISTS- that's how my mom dealt with things so I'm going to try something along those lines with this blog!  I'm literally going to just start typing and see where it goes....I apologize ahead of time for jumping around alot.  Like I said, my mind is jumbled and I'm most likely going to type in such a fashion that shows that jumbledness.  And I apologize if I abruptly come to an end in my blog and don't pick up with it in a timely manor.  I have a feeling that I'll be confronting emotions in typing this that may require me to get up and walk away from my computer for a while. I hope that I don't end up sounding like some always neagtive, gloomy, eternally sad Debbie Downer in this blog.  I promise you, I am usually the happy girl in the room and try to find the good in everything (my mama taught me that!)  However, I do have my days, and with what's happened recently, those days occur a little more frequently and I'm just trying to work through them.  Having said that, here we go....
    Let me preface this by saying my mom was my very first best friend and has remained that my entire life.  She and my husband have been the only 2 people in my life that I have ever felt completely comfortable being 100% myself with.  Hands down, my life has been better because of having both of them in it.

    If you know me, then you know that my life in the past 4years has been mainly circulating around caring for my mother (diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in Oct '07) and my 2 children (Nate and Brooke).  I didn't anticipate myself living this life at the age of 31....I mean, I saw kids and knew I'd have them and wanted more than anything to be a mother.  But I always pictured myself having the perfect balance between career and kids.  I tried the career- worked in the medical field- and decided to take my "break from it" when I first became pregnant with my "Nater-Tot".  I fell in love with that perfect little baby boy and knew that my plans/priorities were forever altered by his mere existence.  And  I was good with that.  Two and a half years and 1 heartbreaking/mind-f-ing miscarriage later, my life was blessed yet again with my beautiful "Boogielyn".  I was a mother and a wife and had my family just as I felt I was supposed to.  Work could wait as long as my incredible husband, Ben, could handle being the sole money-maker.  And he was good with that. 
   Ben and I have always felt that if you're blessed with kids, and your lifestyle allows for it, those kids should be able to bond and be with at least one of their parents at least until the age of 2.  Those first 2 years in a child's life are so amazing and wondrous- both for the child AND the parent.  And I say that as a mom, and also as someone who witnessed children in a daycare first hand.  My mom ran her own daycare out of our house for 13-14years ...she started it my freshman year at Mercy High School.  I don't think day care is bad, or parents that put their newborns/babies/children in daycare are bad....in fact, I feel like if you can find that one diamond of a center and angel of a provider, I think a daycare can benefit your child.  I would have gladly left my children to be taken care of by my mother at the age of 6weeks....she was a "mother teacher" to every single child that she watched.  She made sure that those fresh young minds learned and absorbed educational material and emotional balance.  I've recently touched base with some of her daycare parents and they have praised my mom's gentle hands and heart with the progression of their well-rounded, smart, happy , now teenagers.  "You're mother was amazing with with my kids and they STILL to this day talk about her and the fun memories she created with them!"
    My mom took her very last breath on this earth the morning of February 2 , 2011 at 9:53am.  I watched it. I heard it. I felt it. And I still can't believe it.  She is gone. That gentle hand, that loving heart, those forgiving eyes....gone.
    My mom moved in with Ben, Nate and myself when Nate was just about 1.5.  Her original plan was to take care of her mother for a while and  then eventually get a condo in Bel Air. So she sold the house that I was born and raised in.  The house that I made some fantastic memories as a kid and teen in!! It was the house where I had many many sleepovers with my girlfriends and stayed up all night talking, where I had my first kiss, where a million times I would jump on a pillow and slide down the steps with my brother until we crashed into the wall at the bottom. It was the house that held my surprise bridal shower, and where I went to "recover" after having my gall bladder out only 2 months after becoming a first time mom.  It was my home for 20+ years.  But it was ok to see it go because I knew it was becoming a lonely burden (emotionally and financialy) for my mom to bare on her own.  Besides, I had married and made a new home for my new family in Bel Air...lives were changing and it was all good.
   I've learned that life gets tricky when you get too cocky.  Once you think you have it figured out, life decides to send you a message that clearly says "We're gonna shake things up a bit since you seem to comfortable!"
    Things didn't work out for my mom the way it should have for her living and 100% caring for my grandmother.  That's an entirely different story that really i need not go into...all I have to say about that is that people that jump to conclusions without ever knowing all of the facts tend to leave scars on hearts that only try to love..... my mom was that scarred heart in the end.
    Anyway, mom moved in with us while she waited, and waited and waited and waited, for the perfect condo to become available in Bel Air for her to move into.  It was fine.  She was fun to be with- we shopped, played with Nate, had a built in babysitter....and anyone with kids can testify to how glorious a good babysitter can be!!  It was temporary and seemed to be the plan that would benefit everyone.  When a condo did finally become available, mom put a bid in on it but was out bid with cash.  She had a chance to counter offer but for whatever reason (and everyone will have their assumptions as to why) she didn't feel she wanted to offer any more money.  So she stayed with us and eventually moved with us again into our current home in Jarrettsville. 
      During that time, Ben and I suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage.  Our second child was due to be born on February 2 (date sound familiar?) 2006.  We were over the moon with excitement telling everyone our joyous news.  I still remember the day I wrote on one of Nate's onsies:  on the front it read "Just Call Me..." and on the back it said "BIG BROTHER".  That was my way of telling Ben that he was going to be a daddy again.  I vividly can remember the look on his face when he came home from work, went in to Nate's room to get Nate from his nap (which he would do pretty much do routinely) and after starring at his front for a few minutes, turned Nate around and then got the biggest grin on his face and started to laugh his "happy nervous" little chuckle.  Nate just stood completley oblivious as to why we were laughing  with his chubby little cheeks and toothy little grin squealing and jumping in his crib. (Ahh, the sweet innocence of that little babe! Now that he's a 7yr old that aparently knows everything, I look back to such days to remember that his horns that pop out every now and then were not present at birth! ;-)  ).  That moment in my life will forever be one of my most perfect moments that I will never ever forget.  Sadly, it wasn't long after that I went for my 12week sonogram only to learn that that sweet, already loved, joyous little gift that I was carrying "stopped it's progression at 11weeks"....my world changed and I was (and sometimes still am)consumed with guilt that I had somehow done something wrong that caused my child not to make it into this world.  That is a horrible feeling.  No answers as to why it happened. My health was supposedly fine.  I did everything my OBGYN told me to do, I was taking my vitamins.  The drs couldn't give me any solid reason as to why this happened....so my mind went to the thought that i must have done something wrong morally to deserve such a punishment.  I know what everyone told me: "Things all happen for a reason", "It's probably better it happened now, you wouldn't want a baby with birth defects", "You did nothing wrong, it is what it is and there's nothing you can do but focus on the child you already have"..... and I know everyone meant well in saying it, but all of it means crap to the mother that is going through the loss.  My mom repeatedly told me something that at the time I thought was so cold.  She told me "Niki, all of this too shall pass".  It wasn't until years later that she and I talked about what she meant and I understood what she was trying to tell me.  The only thing worse than losing a child is to have your child suffer so deeply and so raw right in front of you and you can't do a damned thing about it...."This too shall pass" was her way of trying to teach me that life will always have it's ups and downs.  The ups will seem to fly by fast and last for only minutes in comparison to the downs that will seem to drag on for an eternity....mom wanted me to remember that this down will pass and my up will be here before I know it. (Don't know if my explanation is as good as my mom's was....but hopefully you get the point!)
    As usual, mother knows best, and my up came almost 2 months after that lowest low.  I was pregnant with my daughter!  And better yet, my pregnancy was going beautifully!  Ben and I purchased our house in Jarrettsville complete with the swing set in the backyard ready to be played on by our perfect little munchkins.  We moved in on my father-in-laws birthday November18th (and he was a saint for helping us move on his birthday!!) and my mom and I went straight to work deciding on how to design the kids' bedrooms.  She still hadn't found her condo yet so she moved with us and continued to "couch it" in what was going to be the kid's playroom.  (Mom "LOVED" our This Ends Up couch because she said it was better for her back than any bed...personally I think it was all just BS she told us because she never wanted us to have to "go out of our way" to put up a bed for her even though we offered to millions of times.  That's just my personal opinion.)
     Brookelyn was born the end of May in 2006.  I couldn't have been more happy to have my mom living with us when I came home from the hospital.  Not only was she able to keep Nate and make him feel so special during the time Ben & I were actually in the hospital, but she was my second set of hands in handling a non_sleeping newborn and curious little 2.5yr old.  Ben even told me on occasion that he was glad to have her here to keep an eye on things while we attempted a nap every once in a while.  Life was good...literally.
     When Brooke was around 6 moths old, and after an incredibly scary 10day stay in the hospital for sepsis with a fever of 106, she was diagnosed with VasicoUreteralReflux (VUR).  Basically, the check valve between her ureter and her bladder was nonexistent and her urine would free flow back up into her kidney and cause infections and kidney damage. After loads of tests, labs,x-rays and ultrasounds the doctors were able to find the exact antibiotic that would treat my poor suffering little baby and get her back to her sweet bobble-headed self.  She was required to stay on a daily antibiotic everyday until her VUR either corrected itself or she had surgery.  3 surgeries later, at the age of 4, Brooke was finally able to discontinue that antibiotic
       September 29, 2007.  The day mom's life changed.  The day my life changed.  The day my entire family's life changed.  Mom came into my and Ben's bedroom, which she absolutely never did, and woke me up at 7am asking me to take her to the hospital.  My mom never saw doctors for anything and never wanted to take medicines for anything other than Advil.  So for her to ask to go to the hospital meant that something was severely wrong with her.  Apparently, she had been up the entire night before in excruciating pain.  My mom was a very private woman, and out of respect for her I will not go into detail about what was causing her pain...all you need to know was that it scared her, hurt her and had her thinking she was dying.  But even in those thoughts, she didn't want to "make a fuss at night while everyone was sleeping" to have me take her to the hospital.  I love her for always putting others first, but also despise her for never thinking she was important enough to take care of herself before others.
     The doctors were able to tell mom that they believed her "issue" that was casuing her pain was most likely the result of diverticulitis, but they wouldn't be completly sure until further testing.  Mom was kept in the hospital on antibiotics and pain meds and went for surgery on my birthday October 7 for a colostomy.  The drs wanted to give mom's bowel and bladder time to heal before they reversed the colostomy and "fixed the problem".  In the mean time, mom felt 100% better and coped with having a colostomy rather well.  For her, she focused on the fact that it was all going to be reversed and this was a minor hiccup that she had to temporarily deal with.
     A week or so later, I took mom to have a colonoscopy done to see just how bad her diverticulitis was.  I used to work for the GI dr that did her colonoscopy so I felt very comfortably with his knowledge and expertise.  But when he came out and spoke to me in the recovery holding room, I prayed that he was wrong.  "Niki, I'm not going to lie to you.  I believe your mother has colon cancer.  I took a few specimens and am sending them off to be tested for certain, but I know what cancer looks like.  There is a large tumor in your mother that I believe may also be in her bladder now. I am so sorry and I really hope that I am wrong."   I never said any of this to my mom.  Never told her about that conversation when she came to.  On the ride home and the next day, all I told her was "Dr Park will call us with the definitive results once he gets the biopsy report back.  Good or bad, we are going to get through this together mom, I promise."  Those last 11 words will forever haunt me.
  -----------and here is where I am going to stop for now....I feel some tears coming on, so I'm going to go up, sneak into my munchkins' rooms and smooch them and then curl up next to Ben and find my comfort once again.