Chronic pain and a new baby.

About 4 years ago I was injured in a car accident. After years of therapy (physical therapy, chiropractors, alternative medicine, homeopathy, etc etc etc) I am still stuck with pretty intense headaches daily. For quite awhile I was over-medicating myself pretty heavily with pain medications. After that distroyed the rest of my world I realized they were not really helping the pain and I cleaned up my act.
I had about a year without the heachaces. I have no "worldly" explaination for this, the doctors could not tell me why I was feeling better because the injury had stayed the same. But this time off of the heachaches helped me get my act together and quit taking the pain medications altogether.
Soon after I stopped the pills, I found myself pregnant. I won't get into the details of how and why this was so shocking, but it was certainly not my plan. But I was overjoyed and just plain thrilled to be pregnant again but very worried about how this would affect my headaches.
I was surprised to go through the entire pregnancy without having them return. I thought for sure the stress of a big pregnant belly would bring them back. In the end, it was the stress of labor that brought them back.
So I have been living now for almost four months with a new baby and agonizingly bad headaches. When I was dealing with this pain before, it brought on great depression. It is very easy to get lost in thoughts of how I would ever survive a lifetime of this pain. That severe depression before led to a lot of bad choices while trying to find anything that might make me feel better, even for a short time. I spent (or wasted) so much time back then locked away in my room in the dark, stoned out of my head on pain pills and just wishing my life away. It was a dark place to be.
How do I stay out of that dark place this time? Especially without being able to get any therapy this time around and while having a little person in my life who takes all my energy and does not let me rest much?
Isaiah is at the same time the cause (lifting him etc) of the pain and the relief. His smiles light up the whole house. Solstice and Aiden shower me with so much compassion it is overwhelming to me sometimes. They are such sweet and kind children. And Andre has been so patient and caring. I know how scary it must have been for him to see me going through this again.
But this time around, I think I am doing much better. First, I don't disappear into the haze of pain killers. I don't run away from everyone. Sure, sometimes I have to get a break from the light and noise of life- but I don't hide anymore. So secondly, I am not trying to do this alone anymore. I am reaching out to my family and asking them to go through this with me and not just watch me go through it. But for me, the biggest way that I am not doing this alone anymore is that this time I have God with me. I know He gave me that year off to get myself back in order. I got sober, I got back with my family, I got my priorities right again finally. Why couldn't He have given me the freedom of pain forever? I don't know, but I'm certain there is a reason and in His time, I will know why.(Romans 8:28) But He has not left my side, not for a minute. And that has made all the differnce, you see, before I would get so lost in those thoughts about surviving the rest of my life like this. But now I know God gives me the strength to get through this one day like this,(Phil 4:13) and then tomorrow He'll do it again. So I just have to figure out how to do today. And with His help, that is something I can do. And now I can be a better mom to Isaiah and to Solstice and Aiden even with the chronic pain, because I have God now with me.

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand

breastfeeding and breast cancer

I've always known that breastfeeding can greatly decrease your risk of breast cancer but I never really knew why. I was reading the Motherwear Catalog Blog today and found this information very interesting:

There are several hypotheses about why breastfeeding provides protection against breast cancer but at this time we do not know which is/are correct. The simplest explanation is that for many women the longer they breastfeed the fewer menstrual cycles they experience. Since with every menstrual cycle cells in the breast grow and divide and could by chance accumulate mutations which might lead to cancer, reducing the total number of cycles a woman experiences in her lifetime should lead to a decreased risk of breast cancer. This is supported by data showing that younger age at time of first menstruation and older age at menopause (greater total number of years menstruating) is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. Another hypothesis is that breastfeeding results in a permanent change in either breast morphology or the expression of genes in the breast, and that this change provides protection against breast cancer. Finally it has been suggested that breastfeeding reduces the level of pollutants in the breast that may be associated

I also read that not only does it decrease your chances by 28%, but to have a baby and not breastfeed increases your rates by 39%!

Just some food for thought.

Blessed are the cheesemakers

yep, still the spit-up cheesemaker

Isaiah had his other two newborn shots today. So far he's not too grumpy. A little sore, a little warm. So he's nursing non-stop which is fine with me. Anything is better than last time he had shots.

what Isaiah wants for Christmas

Discover Ball w/ Clacker by Haba

Prorap diaper covers in large. He needs 6 or more.
(these can both be found at treecitydiapers.com)

Owls are his favorite animals. These are from oldnavy.com. He'll be in a 12month size by Christmas.

Owl babies by Martin Waddell

He knows it's early but thought you might want to know his list. :)

which side??

I just can't keep track of which side I fed Isaiah on last. I keep remembering wrong. And I keep forgetting to do all the tricks to remember!! I need to come up with a system. Any ideas?

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I'm sure anyone who'd be reading this knows that my Mom has been fighting breast cancer and that my family has been doing everything we can to raise money for research and spread awareness. I found a new way to help this morning. I was watching the Today show and saw Dr. Susan Love talking about her new mission to have a million women signed up to be research volunteers. They will contact me when there is a doctor looking for women in my area to donate blood or tissue. If I meet the qualifications for that study, I go in and they get what they need. The idea is to find the cause of breast cancer so that someday women won't have to live in fear of this terrible cancer.
I strongly urge every woman reading this to sign up. Dr. Love said tha main reason research isn't done is that they assume no one will volunteer tissues and blood for the research. Let's take this excuse away so a cure and prevention can be found.
Please join the Army of Women.