From Point A to Point B

From time to time, I will be re-posting some of the old stuff from my former blog.  Since this is only the beginning of my NaBloPoMo challenge, I figured this post was a good place to start....it's a little history of how we moved from Point A to Point B....and a significant part of how I ended up here, at Point C(H). 

Before and After 

Originally posted 2/19/10

We got our first digital camera after Sugar was born in 2003. It was a learning process, to say the least.  You put the pictures on the computer...and then what?  How do you access them?  And what if you want to hold one...examine it...and keep it close to you?

Like any new parents, we did take alot of pictures.  But, somehow, they got lost in the computer.


Until now.


Our old computer crashed and it had alot of pictures on it. After getting a new computer, we didn't know how to move them...so they've been sitting on an old hard drive for years.  Finally, with the help of a neighbor, Jason was able to access them earlier today.


There are a bunch!  I've spent an hour opening each file...and re-living those memories.  There were so many of them from our life...before...and after...

 Home sweet home.

Christmas with Spice (age 7 - the same age Sugar is now!), 2004

Sugar, 18 months - we had no idea how drastically life would change just 6 short months later.

Sugar on her 2nd birthday. 

Type 1 Diabetes was there...we just didn't know it yet.  She was diagnosed after slipping into Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA) and nearly dying 3 weeks later.

This is the last digital picture taken 10 days before her diabetes diagnosis.

I look at her skinny little legs...and how full that diaper was. I remember that I had just put a fresh diaper on her and put her in her room for a nap.  After about 15 minutes, I heard a noise and went in to check on her.  She was asleep on this little self made bed.I remember thinking that I wanted to wake her up to change her diaper again because it already looked so full...but I didn't want to wake a sleeping baby either.  Two hours later, I was washing that doll, the blanket, the pillow...everything...because it was all soaked with urine.  

The pictures stop there...on 7/15/05.  In the days that followed, we were busy with my step-daughter, Spice (she was 8 at the time).  I was approaching the middle of my second pregnancy with Tiara. We went on vacation to Williamsburg, VA for a week.  We took vacation pictures using a disposable camera because we forgot the digital camera.

Sugar was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on 7/25/05.

This is the next picture to surface - 8/5/05.

Sugar with her Grandpa (Jay's Dad)

Two months after Sugar's diagnosis, we were blessed with the opportunity to travel to Seattle for a reunion with Jason's family.  Until this trip, I had never met any of Jason's family.  Somehow we successfully managed to travel with Sugar through all of the time zones.  There was one suitcase devoted entirely to her diabetes supplies!  

This trip proved to be more than just a diabetes learning experience.  It was an opportunity for love, forgiveness, and hope to prevail.  For some reason I can't upload the pics from this file, but I'm happy to have this one.  Sugar lost a purple balloon before the trip and couldn't stop talking about it.  Her Grandpa got her another purple balloon and she was one incredibly happy little girl!

This was actually taken on her 2nd birthday

I was 20 weeks pregnant with Tiara when Sugar was diagnosed.  Life after T1D proved challenging.  I carried the health insurance, but used all the PTO time I had dealing with her diagnosis.  Because of this, we would be out of health insurance at the end of the month after the new baby came.

So, Jason began looking for a new job....ANYWHERE that would provide health insurance.  Let's face it.  There wasn't an abundance of positions available for a helicopter mechanic, post 9/11.  We were willing to travel ANYWHERE and even considered positions overseas.


On December 14, 2005, the official job offer came.  I went into labor later that day, and Tiara was born in the wee early hours the next morning.

If I look exhausted, it's because I was.  

Between Tiara nursing every hour, Sugar's frequent blood sugar checks, and preparing for a move across country, I really didn't know the difference between day or night.

Tiara, 10 days old

  

We had Christmas at my mom and grandmother's condos that year...they lived across the hall from each other. 

Our house was a disaster, between a new baby, diabetes, packing AND trying to keep it ready to be shown after putting it on the market...what a whirlwind!!!!!

The plan was for the girls and I to stay with my mom while Jason drove a U-Haul to get settled for our new life. We packed as much as we could get into the truck and the rest was sold to offset the cost of moving expenses or donated on Jay's final day in Maryland.  It really forced us to evaluate what was most important to us.

He left on January 14, 2006. The girls and I arrived 6 weeks later.

I had to laugh when I found this picture.  
There was no way I was going to pack up all my maternity clothes and move them.  There just wasn't enough room and, besides, 
WE. WERE. DONE!!!! 

Nine months later, I was still nursing Tiara FULL TIME *and* taking Micronor (the only birth control pill safe to take while breastfeeding).  

Even still, I had to make an unexpected trip back to E-bay to find someone else's lot of maternity clothes...

Tink
(16 months younger than Tiara)

Life sure is full of surprises!