My dear, sweet Madeline Rowe was born on the 19th of May. Yes, dear friends, she is a mere 24 days old. I can't believe I haven't posted earlier. Wait, I totally can. She is such a handful. Here I sit, at 3 a.m., watching her totally awake self squirm around in her Moses basket & shoving her little fist into her mouth. Little baby bear, why aren't you sleeping? You should cherish this time which you can sleep hours upon hours with nobody judging you. Some day, you'll be a mommy. Does anybody else miss nap-time?
Recovery has been hard. Almost too hard. Enough for me to want to give up completely. Sometimes I want to run away. Not from Maddie-Bear, no, but from myself. I'm still dealing with the pain of tearing ALL THE WAY TO MY BUTT. Yeah, she ripped right through that sucker. Well, with the help of forceps & a suction cup. The first night home I cried all night because I couldn't get lay down in bed, I couldn't sit on anything but a heap of pillows, peeing hurt, blah blah blah, and Madeline wanted to feed on my bleeding/peeling breasts literally every thirty minutes. My poor husband had to deal with both of our screaming for about a week. Oh, and my ankles/legs/thighs/fingers everything is still swollen. It's called "edema", and - wait, she just spit up on herself - it sucks. Does it seem like I'm complaining a whole lot? Good, because I am complaining a lot. We should be allowed to complain. Women push 8 pound babies out of their lady gardens for crying out loud! I will complain.

Now for the good stuff: even though she's COMPLETELY awake right now I cannot even be mad at her. I mean, God, she is so beautiful. I can't believe my ridiculous husband Christopher made this sweet little baby. Man, she's fiesty tonight. It must be boob-time, so I'll cut this short. Babies are good stuff.

Can I get an "amen"?

Here's today's word of the day: Hormones. I hate them. Christopher and I have been fighting like cats and dogs as of late. Well, to me we have. To him we're probably just having a normal conversation. Today, I cried for an hour and a half because Chris said I was distracting him from sleeping. Really. I ran to the other room, and cried like a child. Okay, Chris and I haven't REALLY been fighting. I just think too much. Women really light fighting, anyways. Every single relationship I was in during high school was awful--mostly because I LOVED picking fights. One of the guys even stuck around for over a year, and asked me to marry him. I don't really know why.

I went to the OBG/YN's office today. Again. I have to go every week for pelvic exams because I'm in my last four weeks. They hurt. They hurt really bad, actually. When you're pregnant, all of your lady junk gets really swollen, and they think it's really cool & totally okay to probe around down there with bits of metal. There HAS to be a better way to check my cervix, Doctor. I'm actually not okay with anything down there, at all. Even Madeline. She's going to have to find another way to come out. When I say "another way" I mean she's going to have to use magic, because I'm actually scared out of my right mind about child-birth. Maybe I should have thought about that before making a baby.

Baby Bundt is coming out in 29 days! :)

Sometimes I doubt that I'm actually pregnant, that I'll actually be a mother. Even still, when my entire body is evidence to that fact. I watch Madeline roll around beneath my skin and wonder how I deserve to be blessed like this. I was called by my Father in Heaven to be a mother. He thinks more of me than I could ever stand to think of myself.

Less than forty days, and I'll be able to cradle her in my arms. My uterus is getting tired, anyways.

Yesterday was wonderful. Sunday always brings light to the darkest of times. My husband and I are finally above the water in terms of finances. That was my greatest concern for the time being. Moving back to Plano was definitely costly, but we decided that we'd rather be broke and happy. Not fearing the future is such a refreshing feeling. Sure, I don't really know how I'm going to react to being a young mother, but I'm not quite "scared." I'm comfortable in my own skin. Each day I find a new flaw, but I know my Heavenly Father made me this way. There is someone beautiful looking back at me in the mirror, even if I forget.
There's something bittersweet in seeing off a good friend on their Mission. I've grown accustomed to saying goodbye to people in my life, mainly family that forgot what family meant, because it would be beneficial to me. It's a rare day when you watch somebody leave to pick up the fallen. I say "fallen" because I believe the words the Elders spoke to me literally lifted me out of my drunken stupor. If we were all humble as those Missionaries - who devote 2 solid years of nothing but sharing the Gospel to those who need to hear it - life wouldn't be such a hard walk. Daniel, I mean Elder Hyer, I wonder how you'll change. Will you still swing-dance with me? Don't forget me, okay?

Shiloah's really excited about being Madeline's Godmother. I cannot think of a more responsible and amazing woman than her. Sweet business.

The chores are stacking up, and I'm loving it. I haven't had this much energy since we first moved into our apartment. We renewed our lease yesterday much to my mother's disdain. She really wanted us to come stay with her until the baby was born. I couldn't really take much more of Lewisville. And besides, I'm happy just being with my husband. Whether we're in a higher-end apartment complex or not does not matter to me. I want our bodies to be entwined for as long as possible, if I were living back home this would not happen. We've been married for six months now. Our relationship is absolute paradise to me. If you can escape from the world in the eyes of another, you've found something real. Out of those six months we've been married, I've been carrying our baby for five and a half. We're told SO often that we should have at least waited a year, but you will NEVER hear me complain about Madeline coming quickly in our lives. So many people have trouble conceiving, and we got pregnant within about two weeks of being married. That is a sweet blessing to me. Though we are young, I will not act like she is a burden on my growth. She isn't. She is the biggest part of my progression. A love like this cannot be matched.

I am a woman.

My Oma gave me a whole thing of Oreos. Excuse me for a minute while I finish getting the crumbs all over my laptop.

Okay. This week I was pushed over the edge sanity-wise. Instead of throwing out hurtful nouns, verbs, and adjectives at innocent passersby, I decided to write my disappointments down on paper. I wrote for hours, I wrote until I thought my hand would detach itself from my body. I hoped to post those things that weighed me down, but as I read my five-page list of sorrow, I realized how silly I was. Sure, both of our vehicles were taken away due to unseen forces. Sure, somebody sent us a fraudulent check that cost us our funds for roughly a month. Most of the time, I feel like I'm in Purgatory, like I'm glued to this bed (which provides NO back support, and only angers me further). These things are trivial -ish. They have cost us dearly: namely my job, and my sweet husband's peace-of-mind. We don't have to wallow in guilt anymore. We have to stand up and be good and ready for our blessing in a tiny human package. I'm so tired of sitting, and waiting.
Now that I've "taken out the trash" so to speak, life has been so much better. The "trash" I speak of is other people's/my own doubts. If you think I'm too young to be a mother, don't tell me. I think there are women in their thirties that are too young. It's a state of mind, and I know that I'm ready. I'm not my mother, I'm not my mother's mother's mother. I've grown into my own. You will not find me asking my baby girl to pick me up from the bar because I'm too drunk to walk. You will not find me choking for air because I suck down two packs of cigarettes a day. I used to drink, and smoke in my mid-teens, but I am enlightened. That is not me anymore. I know that my life is not my own. It would be selfish to think that.


I say this a lot: I am a woman.
It means something to me. You're born a female, but you have to grow into a woman. It's an art.


I am a woman.

A day in this life.

Here I am: 20 years old, married to my wonderful Return Missionary, and I've been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for a year and one month. I have never known joy like I know joy now. Hand-in-hand with my husband, kneeling by the bed, in prayer. I know joy. I wake up to him on his days off and we count down the days until we can be sealed in the Temple. I tell him that I have never been this happy, this safe in my entire life. The night we got married we were laying in bed, crying. I in my wedding dress, and him in his suit. We were crying because of the joy we felt. Were we to die, we would still have eachother. Always. Families can be together forever. This I know. I've seen the bonds that our Heavenly Father made, and I know that they are unbreakable. I am thankful for my many blessings. I met my husband at my baptism, and I know that there are no coincidences. I am ever so thankful. I know that I fall down a lot, but I know my Elder Brother & Savior is always there to lend a hand.

Never have I been more happy.
Never have I felt so much love.