Mar-Family

Although I try and keep things light and happy this is an "endure what you must" post and it is pretty lengthy.

David has what is called Marfan syndrome which effects the connective tissues in his body, mostly the heart and eyes. When I first found out about his condition while we were dating I didn't think much of it, but as things became more serious between us I had to figure out how this would effect our future together because it is a genetic disorder and all our children have a 50/50 chance of getting it. You can read a pretty good synopsis of my feelings HERE in a piece I wrote and was published in Marfan.org Connective Issues magazine.

Anyways, fast forward a few years and we catch up to the past couple of months. At David's last echo,sometime closer to the beginning of the year, his cardiologist was concerned with something and wanted a better look, so he scheduled a CT scan for David. The day before I had Andrew David went in for his CT scan and that was that. Just three short weeks after having Andrew David had a consult with his cardiologist. I decided to tag along as a way to get out of the house. Well one of my worst fears was confirmed: David was told he needed open heart surgery, an aortic root replacement to be specific. I still remember sitting there holding fussy/hungry Andrew just repeating in my head "don't cry till you get to the car, don't cry till you get to the car". To give myself some credit I did make it to the car but once there the waterworks started. I was sitting in the car feeding Andrew with tears rolling down my face. My life was flipping upside down. I had a new baby and now my husband needs open heart surgery. I had no idea how I was going to handle all of this emotionally as well as physically. I figured it would be like having two new babies in the house. The only thing we didn't have was a date for the surgery. I felt like this made things worse because until I had a date it felt like my life was completely up in the air. I didn't know if we would have to get the surgery done in the next week, month or when.

Well we now know. The surgery will take place on the morning of the 9th. As this time has been fast approaching there have been many different thoughts swirling in my mind. Before meeting with the specialist and getting all my questions answered my biggest fear was loosing David and him dying on the table. Most of this fear stems from the death of David's brother Andrew. He died at 27 and left a sweet wife all alone. Especially after just having a baby I was terrified that David would die and I would be left heartbroken and have to raise baby Andrew on my own. One night, after waking up to feed Andrew, I had this thought and had a mini freak out with lots of tears. Within a little over an hour I felt a cold sore coming on (a response that my body has to stress). Thankfully, after our conversation with the specialist this fear has been alleviated. It really helped to hear that David's chances of dying on the table are in the lower single digits. Phew.

Although this is a big trial in our lives I can say without a doubt that I know my Heavenly Father still loves me and my family. I know this because through this trial there have been many blessings. First our family. Since Marfan syndrome is a genetic gene mutation we have some of David's family members that have had the same surgery and we can talk about it and what to expect. Even better I can talk to spouses and parents  about their experiences and get an idea of how this will be for me. It is almost worse to watch someone go through a medical experience and feel helpless.  On top of these experienced surgery pros we have more love and support from our entire family.

Another huge blessing is that we have a great surgeon who is one of the best in the world at performing this surgery, and he is only 3 hours away. People fly in to have him operate on them and it was crazy to hear that some patients leave the hospital and head directly to the airport to fly home. No thanks. We are very blessed that he is so close and has even operated on David's brother Alex. Dr. Coselli is pretty great at what he does and I am glad that we are able to have he best working on David.

Not only do we have great family and doctors but we have amazing support from those around us. It has been almost overwhelming how many people have offered to help in one way or another. We feel your prayers, thoughts and good vibes. They truly do help through this whole situation.

Teach Them While They're Young

One thing I didn't want to happen after becoming a mom was that I would be tied down to my house and my kid would "limit" our excursions. Of course I don't deny that my life has drastically changed but I have been trying to continue being active and doing fun things. My philosophy is that if I start my kids young enough they can learn how to behave in public and I can learn how to teach them to behave so we can all enjoy our time out. One of the perks of starting them young is how much they sleep, food is easily accessible (either breastfeeding or bottle) and everyone thinks they are cute and may even give you some perks :)

In Andrew's short two month life so far he has been many places and we plan on taking him and our future children on many more adventures.

Just nine days after being born we went to Top Golf and I even played and won. Andrew did so well. Between the 5 adults present there were plenty of us to pass him around and the atmosphere at Top Golf is great because we had a couch booth and could relax while playing. For this adventure I was more worried about me overdoing it than how well Andrew would do.

GG holding Andrew at Top Golf

At one month old we had family in town and wanted to do something fun. We have Six Flags passes and they were having a special allowing us to get a friend in free, so we made the crazy decision to all go on Labor Day. According to my cousin who talked to a worker this was the busiest day in 10 years with over 30,000 people. CRAZY busy! Being Texas and still in the 90's I was worried that Andrew would get overheated. Thankfully I had the bright idea to use our camping towel as an evap cooler and it was heavenly. I lightly wet the towel in clean water and laid it over him in his stroller. He was kept comfortable and I was able to go on a few rides and enjoy my time there.

Here we are hanging out at the water park at Six flags. Oh and that is the green camping towel on my lap.

David and I love going to the races at Circuit of the Americas, this is actually where Andrew's middle name COTA came from, and were excited and a tad nervous to take Andrew to his first race. At just 7 weeks old we took him to the America Le Mans series. I was set on going because as an added bonus Patrick Dempsey (aka McDreamy) was driving in the race. Yes please! We planned ahead an bought Andrew a pair of baby earmuffs. Because of our planning and knowing the area we were able to successfully watch the entire six hour race. Andrew squirmed a bit at the beginning of the race but after getting use to the constant background noise he settled in nicely.

My sweet racing family. 

So cute with his earmuffs and racing jumper.

Because this race went late into the night they had fireworks! It was really windy because we are up on the observation deck (the tall red and white structure in the previous picture) 

And a few random pictures from other adventures:

San Antonio Aquarium (2 weeks old) Looking back he looks so little

San Antonio Doseum AKA kids museum (2 weeks old)

High school football game (7 weeks old)

Houston Museum of Natural Sciences (2 months old) 

We are very blessed and these are just a few of the fun things we have done but don't include all of our adventures thus far. I can guarantee that we will continue to do more fun and crazy things throughout Andrew's life.

The biggest things I have learned about taking a child out with me have come from trial and error, but here are my tips:

1. Plan ahead: If we didn't have earmuffs for the race we would not have gone. If we didn't have the camping towel we would not have lasted long at Six Flags. You get the idea. So if you are going to an activity or event you have done before you know what to expect and need to think of the situation in regards to your baby. If you are trying something completely new do your research.

2. Stay calm: Granted this is sometimes easier said than done because a crying baby can easily strike a nerve. Add that to nerves from trying something new and you have a recipe for a hot mess that you won't try again. I truly believe that a baby picks up on your vibes and the more stressed you are the more stressed and loud they become. Try and stay calm and if it starts going downhill, take a deep breath, evaluate, and make the best decision for you and your little one.

3. Listen to your little one: As you continue to bond with your child you learn to communicate with them by reading their emotions, cries, and eventually their baby talk . They will let you know what they can handle and if things are becoming too much for them.

Welcome to the World Little One

Disclaimer for parents: please do not hate me after describing the ease of my experience.

My hardest part with being pregnant was with how tired I was. Over the summer, after school was out, there were days that I felt like I slept more than I was awake. I am so grateful I didn't have to teach all the way up to my due date. Other than that I was blessed with an easy pregnancy: no vomiting, no heartburn, or any of those other "fun" pregnancy things. I did get some yummy cravings but they were all for normal things like Panda Express, bagels, and things of that nature.

The only worry about baby Andrew during the pregnancy was how big he was going to be. At my 30 week ultrasound he was measuring 2 weeks larger than the average baby. So we had another ultra sound at 38 weeks to make sure I wasn't going to be birthing a small giant. He was measuring a more normal size but my doctor still gave us the option of being induced almost a week before my due date (I was already dilated to a 2 and mostly effaced). Scheduled so both grandmas could be here, not having to worry about my water breaking somewhere, no having the baby in a car, I could be done being pregnant, etc... Ya we took the offer and went with it. 

I was induced the morning of the 29th and they started me on Pitocin at about 7:00 am. My Dr. came in to check on me and broke my water at around 8 and I was hanging in there with no drugs for a little bit. I had to wait until the pain was worse than my fear of the needle going into my back before I succumbed to the epidural. The epidural wasn't taking quite right so my left side was still feeling the contractions but after 3 adjustments and a little wiggle of the needle I was in heaven. I even napped for like 2 hours.  My nurse had to wake me up to check me and I was at 9. They started wheeling everything in and by the time everything was set up and ready to go I was ready to push. 2-3 pushes later, maybe 5 minutes after everything was set up  and the Dr. came in, our beautiful baby boy was here!

Introducing

 Andrew Cota White

Our little bundle of joy arrived on July 29th at 2:14 in the afternoon. He was a healthy baby boy weighing in at 8 pound 10 ounces and was 21.5 inches long.

 

Fun little side stories: 

Jayden overheard me telling Cindy a few weeks before my due date that I was dilated to a 2. His curious little 6 year old mind wanted to know what that meant... uhhhh.... after some hesitation about how in detail I wanted to explain a woman's body during pregnancy/labor I just decided to tell him that I had to get to a 10 before the baby could get here. To which Jayden responded, oh ok. Whew dodged that bullet.... for now. Jayden is slightly obsessed with any video game and equated my numbers to "levels" and would ask me after all my doctor appointments what level I was at. The day that Andrew arrived we were keeping people updated and Cindy told Jayden that I was at a level 9 and this was my conversation with  Cindy/Jayden :

At the hospital that I delivered at there are no children under the age of 12 allowed in the mother and baby rooms except if they are the baby's sibling. The boys (my nephews that live by us) were really bummed. Not only could they not visit us in the hospital but they were leaving for a 10 day trip before we got out of the hospital and wouldn't get to meet their cousin until after. Thankfully my mom arrived in town just as Andrew was being born and by the time she and her chauffeur (Cindy and her crew) got there I was just about to be wheeled up to the recovery rooms and baby was headed to the nursery (a part where the boys could at least see Andrew). We called them in and the boys and Ruby saw Andrew get his bath in the nursery and even saw and gave me hugs when I was wheeled past.

the boys looking in on Andrew in the nursery

We are so blessed with our sweet little family and are loving having Andrew in our life. MANY, MANY, MANY more posts to come about him and all of our adventures as he continues to grow into an awesome little man.

Changes

Every time I post I feel like I am trying to catch up. Well, today is no exception. I have YEARS of catching up to do. So I will try and make this quick and hit some of the highlights. I know I am missing a lot of fun things in here so slowly I will re-visit them in the future and will do complete blog posts on some of them and things not even mentioned.

From old to new: 

August 2013: A week before getting married I got a job offer to work for Brandeis High School here in San Antonio. I came into the game a little late and missed some of the teacher work days before the kids showed up because of Collette's wedding, but when I got back I jumped right in and did my best. Working at Brandeis was such a great blessing so I could be sugar momma while David finished up school and I gained some awesome teacher friends and invaluable experience as a teacher.

November 2013: We got a dog! She is our first born and is spoiled as such. Her name is Zoe and she is a beautiful chocolate Lab.

July 2014: As a last hurrah before having kids David and I decided  to make unforgettable memories and to do something for just the two of us that would be difficult to do with children in the future. Week took a 2 week long trip all over Italy and had a BLAST! This will have its own post later. 

Venice

July 2014: While in Italy we were in the process of closing on our house! It was a little crazy and I was worried about it but thankfully everything worked out and we closed on the house shortly after returning home. Before we moved in we decided to do something crazy... remove the popcorn off of the ceiling. (individual blog post to come) I am glad we did it and am happy with the results but it was a process and truth be told we still have a small section upstairs that needs one last coat of paint before we are officially finished with this project. 

the popcorn project. This is the kitchen and living room

December 2014-January 2015: For the holidays we decided to go for a long road trip and see both David and my parents. Partially because we wanted to spend time with them but mostly because we had some big news we wanted to share in person. We were going to have a baby. We  started out making the long trek to Arizona first with four of us and Zoe in our Toyota Tacoma. It was a bit squishy but we made it, and Zoe was a champ. We spent Christmas in AZ with David's family and had a blast just hanging out. Also in AZ was Alex (David's brother) and his family to baptize Kendall and we had the opportunity to go. We miss them since they have moved but enjoyed the short time we got to spend with them. Our journey then took us up to Utah to tell me parents the news and to see some of my siblings and to welcome home my cousin from her mission. Talk about a party whenever the Wilcox family gets together! We tried to enjoy the 24hr drive back with a few stops but man was I was glad to be home. 

Christmas Day 2014

April 2015: My baby sister Joy decided to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints so we saw this as an opportunity to get the whole family together before she left for a year and a half. It is difficult trying to coordinate getting 20+ people together from 4 different states and consider new babies and prego ladies (Collette had a baby a week before and there were two of us pregnant). Like I said earlier it is always a party when the Wilcox clan gets together and this was no exception. We also made sure to take family photos while there.

The entire Wilcox clan

May 2015: DAVID GRADUATED! This has been a long time coming but I am so proud of him for finishing and already having a great "big boy" job lined up after. Because of the job opportunity and me having the baby, I made the difficult decision to stay home with Andrew and not return to Brandeis. This was definitely one of the hardest decisions of my life. I am now slowly getting used to it as long as I find ways to get out of the house.

The rest of the summer was something we will never be able to do again. Neither of us were working and we had very few responsibilities and no kids, so we had a wonderful lazy summer. It was great because I was big and pregnant and needed to sleep a lot but we had a blast just being able to chill and do what we wanted, when we wanted to. 

Pictures

While out in California we had the opportunity to take pictures at the Arnold's Farm. We are so please with how they turned out! I'm just gonna let the pictures do most the talking. 

 My Hunk :) 

My sweet shoes and David's awesome socks. ( I surprised him with them the day before our wedding.)

our wedding...finally

Most people I know get married and start a blog. I apparently have a blog long before I get married and then never post on it once I am married. Good thing I can always try and catch up.

So I am married! wahoo. After all the craziness and having 22 people in a 4 bedroom home, it was pretty nice to escape on a honeymoon (but i'll talk about that later).

First off, it was such a nice sealing. I showed up with my mom early to get all the logistics with the temple figured out. Well apparently David was running a little late, (cue mini heart attack) but finally showed up with plenty of time to spare. we got everything figured out and then got sealed for time and all eternity. I am so grateful that he is stuck with me forever and that our family can be an eternal family.

Moving on. We came out of the temple to our welcoming party and most of our cute nieces and nephews ran up to us. (I think it is safe to say we are the favorites)

While taking pictures there were these ominous BLACK clouds looming and ready to dampen our fun so we were hurrying to take as many pictures as we could.

The whole gang that was there.

We are so grateful for all the love and support we received

Here are a couple of lovey-dovey pictures :) its not a wedding without lovey-dovey shots :)

Now remember those black clouds I was talking about well they caught up to us.... so why not take pictures in the rain :)

A Rainy Hemisphere Park

First: If any of you know my family you know how rambunctious we can get when we are all together. This time was no exception. Now my whole family doesn't get together much. Not because we don't like each other, but because we are spread out through 5 different states with schedules that don't line up very well.  Anyways, my wedding was the first time in almost 3 years that my family all got together. Some people were meeting new little ones for the first time, others were being introduced into the family (my sisters fiance) etc.  So we had a party all week.

One of the fun things we did was go to Hemisphere park.

Lilly having fun in the back yard

Cindy getting a baby girl fix and meeting Raelynn

walking on the river walk...such pretty vibrant colors

Pop Pop and Jayden 

Even the big kids played on the playground

Karys having a blast 

Lilly exploring the playground

By looking at all the pictures above you might be wondering why the title of the post talks about rain. Well in Texas when it wants to rain it will, and you don't get much warning. Beautiful day at the park turns into RUN FOR COVER!

Dallin and Asher caught in the rain. 

poor Raelynn 

Run Kassy and Cindy! 

Shelter! 

Splash

Flying Jayden!

Asher loving the rain

Jayden didn't want to leave 

The aftermath!