I said I would never be one of those who did blog posts that tell about your life and experiences, but here I am. I’ve come to realize that mom’s need support and to hear each other’s experiences. We (moms) need to know that we aren’t the only ones going through struggles, and we are good moms at the end of the day. I realize that now more than ever! So…..here goes my very first blog post telling a little about me and my wonderful family.
I am the married to David, have 3 children, Jayden (6), Dakotah (2 almost 3), and DJ (1 almost 2). I became a stay at home mom almost 3 years ago, and I had no idea the struggle, adventure, chaos, love, excitement, and emotional roller coaster I would be taking. When my middle daughter, Dakotah, was born, the doctors told me she had a complete cleft palate; she was missing the entire roof of her mouth. She didn’t have the cleft lip like most kids and all of her issues were just inside her mouth.
I am not a real emotional person for the most part so finding out about Dakotah wasn’t upsetting, (it was shocking), but nothing to be upset over. She was a perfect beautiful baby in my eyes, and we just had a few bumps we were going to have to encounter to get the cleft palate corrected. Having a child born with a health issue gives you two options in my opinion….. you can embrace it, openly talk about it and share your story; or you can hide from it, not talk about it, and pretend it’s not there. We chose to be open about it. Talking about Dakotah’s cleft palate was easy because when we looked at her we saw a beautiful healthy baby. Other people always seemed to “tip toe” around us hesitating to ask us questions and had those nervous looks on their faces when they asked how she was doing. I guess they were scared if they asked it would offend us.
I’ll never forget the look on people’s faces when we would give Dakotah her bottle. It was called a Haberman, and looked quite different from a normal bottle. You couldn’t tell she had anything wrong with her so naturally no one knew and was curious if we had found a new, better type of bottle for her. When we would begin to tell them why she had that bottle…… the look of horror would come across their face all while we would just smile and tell them about her.
Dakotah having a cleft palate was never a negative thing for us. It’s hard to watch her go through a surgery and knowing there were still more ahead of us. Yea….that part was and is never easy. That’s what makes our family unique. We look at the positive aspects of it and just keep pushing forward. There’s no time for pity parties at the Rosier house.
We decided when Dakotah was very young, maybe 3 months old, that we wanted another baby for our family (crazy right?) but not for us because we knew this would complete our family. Shortly after, I became pregnant with our son, DJ. We had so many people think we were crazy. I mean…..I was 23 and pregnant with my third child. I was only 19 when we had my oldest and even though I was young, the best day of my life was when Jayden arrived. I knew my calling was to be a mother. Having a very active toddler and young baby to care for wasn’t easy while also being pregnant, but we did it and made it through!
When Dakotah was 11 months old she had her palate repair surgery. I was 34 weeks pregnant with DJ and my 4 year old insisted that she come with us to Birmingham to be with her sissy. Jayden was amazing with Dakotah. She would tell people about Dakotah’s “boo boo” in her mouth, show people how to feed her with her special bottle, and make sure no one fed her things she wasn’t able to eat.
Having Jayden there was the best decision we could have made. Dakotah would light up when Jayden walked into the room even though she was in pain and not feeling too great. The day after her surgery Dakotah was playing a little and didn’t want Jayden to leave her side. Seeing the bond they shared was one of the most amazing experiences I had ever experienced!
Dakotah recovered very quickly and smoothly from her surgery and just 4 short weeks later, we welcomed our son DJ into the world! Here I am with 3 beautiful children at the age of 24 which isn’t the typical 24 year old….but I’m not a typical person…so there ya go.
We knew that our family was complete and that life had become as full for us and it could be. Our children are our life, they are the breath in my lungs, and also the most beautiful things that sometimes drive me crazy. My life is nowhere near perfect. I’m not the mom you see out with my hair fixed to a tee, make up on, and nice looking clothes. I am the mom that looks sleep deprived, hair in a mess, t-shirt on, jeans, no makeup, and will have 3 well dressed, hair fixed to a tee children following behind me.
This is my life…… and what I love most about my life is that it’s messy, chaotic, eventful, and never dull. I am me. I am a real mom. I accept life’s messes and chaos and embrace it. You should too!
I hope you’ll join this little journey of mine and become inspired to know that someone else out there gets it. We’ll do life together!
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