First and Foremost

Today I have been a parent for 70 days. My daughter was born two months early. She was born with a muscle condition called club feet. Club feet is when the Achilles tendon and interior muscles where the arch of your foot is does not grow correctly.  This week my daughter is going to be two months and one week old. She just got her third set of casts on. The casts go from her toes to her upper thighs. It is extremely hard seeing her in casts. Although she is getting used to casts I am not. Its difficult when my husband and I go out and people stare at her casts. I can just feel there eyes piercing though my heart. Most of the time I put pants over her casts or a blanket. I am not ashamed of my daughters appearance but don't want people asking questions.
 I am in no way a great writer. I suck at punctuation. So now that all of that is out of the way.. welcome to my blog. My blogs will be about my daughters adventures in growing up what she has to go through and the mile stones she has to over come being a preemie and having club feet. It will also be about my husband and I being first time parents and what we go through. Having a premature baby is not fun or easy. It is very scary and hard. My daughter had to stay in the neonatal intensive care unit ( NICU) for 22 days. In those 22 days I cried, laughed, screamed, and threatened to divorce my husband. Watching your baby have a feeding tube in her nose and i.v's and leads every where is a frightening sight. It's even worse when you have no idea what it's all for. I think the most horrible part of her room was her heart monitor. When he heart rate dropped an alarm went off and instant panic happened. You just sit there and watch her heart rate drop lower and lower and pray that it goes back up. Luckily every time it went down it came back up on it's own without any help from the nurses or doctors. It was especially hard because my husband had to work. His Fmla doesn't kick in until he has worked with his company for one year and it has only been 11 months. At the time our daughter was born it had only been 9 months. In the two months that my daughter has been alive her great grandmother and grandfather on my husbands side has only seen her once. Her grandparents on my husbands side have only seen her three times. The sad part is the great grandparents live ten minuets away and the grandparents live an hour away. The great grandmother is NOT allowed to see her for personal reasons the great grandpa could see her when ever he wants but chooses not to. The grandparents well they are in laws and I DON'T LIKE THEM for my own reasons. They never call to ask how she's doing or call to say " hey, can we come see the baby?" so in my opinion they just don't care. Now ALL of my family lives in Southern California except my step sister who lives in Northern California and my oldest sister who lives in Arizona. None of my family have met my daughter yet. But that's ok because gas is expensive and they all have jobs... so what's my husbands family's excuse???  they don't work except for my husbands dad. They all just sit at home and do nothing. See I guess I just think things should be the way I imagine it to be but my expectations are too high.. for example Don't force me or tell me to do something I don't want to do. If you even try ...well as my sisters and dad say "you have no idea who you are fucking with" Now I promise to try not to swear a lot.
  Being a first time parent is not easy. Its especially not easy when you have NO family to help you and your husband has to work every day. I do have support from my family which is great but God I could really use a day with no diaper changes and bottle cleaning just a day to waste sleeping. Having no family close to help you with that sucks! But.. I can honestly say the family that is close I wouldn't trust watching my daughter. So, with that being said I am extremely tired and stressed all the time. I am suffering from depression, but I am slowly getting better. One thing I hate the most is when people say "don't over work yourself"  yes I understand it's not good, but when your husband works all day you kinda don't have a choice. Yes I could ask for help when he gets home but I CAN'T wait until he gets home to get cleaning done. I hate a dirty home. Ever since my daughter was born I have still been doing my normal cleaning. I do all the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning. I could ask for help but it just seems like a hassle to ask and I feel bad asking my husband when he's worked all day. I feel like I spend more time cleaning than with my daughter although I know it's not true. I hate the apartments we live in not because it's not a nice apartment but because of the area and the way it was set up. All the kids play in the parking lot or the streets. The cops are always here and there are TOO many indoor/ outdoor and stray cats running around. I wish I could feel safe walking with my daughter to Wal-mart and back but I just don't. I do it any ways because I don't like being in the apartment all day but there's nothing else to do. Being inside all day does not help my depression, and it's been sunny all week. Living in Washington this is a miracle for us! When my daughter was in the nicu and the sun came out I kept telling my husband that I couldn't wait for her to feel the warmth of the sun on her. So now that she can I want her in it as much as possible.
  The rest of the year is going to be really exciting because of course it's our first "family" Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. They are also going to suck because it will just be my husband my daughter and I. I am a very family person. I NEED my family. I don't know what I would do without them. It really sucks living far away from them but I LOVE where I live. "Washington" not my actual apartment. LOL. My family is how I wish my husbands family would be like. Again... wishful thinking. I am the type of person who does not forget when some one has hurt me. I will forgive but NEVER forget and in some cases even though I have forgiven a person I will still not talk or be friends with those people. So it makes communicating with my husbands family difficult and stressful on our relationship. My husband has his views and I have mine. Now of course because I am female I think that mine should be put first and his shouldn't mean crap but that's just the way it is. I am in many ways selfish and spoiled but... I am also not married to a wealthy man. My husband is a GREAT FATHER and PROVIDER. sometimes and most recently he has been thinking he is not. He worries for our daughters future which I believe every parent does. I try to tell him no matter how much or little money we have, our daughter will have what she NEEDS, and right now she just needs mommy and daddy. Well for my first blog aka short story I think this is enough insight on me and my family for right now. Until next time  in the words of Ron Burgundy "Stay classy San Diego" but I am going to just say Stay classy my friends