Birthday

My daughter is 2 years old today. All of my friends keep sending sad faces, and saying they can't believe how fast the time has gone by. While yes I will miss the past stages of her life, I look forward to the future. 
I'm raising a beautiful, intelligent, happy baby girl. I'm excited to see the new things that she learns.

Do I miss the cuddles when she was a baby? Yes, no doubt, but I'm not sad to see it go fully. I may be different than some moms, crying on their babies birthdays because another chapter has passed.

We have a party planned for later today,  with Minnie mouse decorations,  an ice cream cake,  fruit,  veggies,  punch and balloons.  I'm so excited to see all the wonderful presents that everyone has in store for her.

I am not sad. I am smiling and beaming with pride to how grown up she already is.  Her vocabulary is ginormous, her problem solving skills are tremendous,  and her imagination is vast.  Adding all these together make for very interesting days. Hearing her talking to her baby and bear.  Telling stories,  and answering questions.  Seeing her work out a problem she is having to make it right makes the day shine. 
I miss her being in one spot yes. I miss her snuggling. I miss a lot of things. But none of those even hold a candle to my excitement to see another year pass.

It's a big difference hown much two years makes on a little human.  :D

My weight-loss story

There are many reasons I need to lose weight, but the biggest one for me is I need to avoid having surgery on my shoulders and pecs. The surgery I would need is for my thoracic outlet syndrome and pectoralis minor syndrome.
Each of these basically make my arms numb 80% of the time, and cause them to be weak.
I've seen several doctors, and I've been told by most of them that I should have the surgery, all but one who told me I may need a breast reduction, but first I should try to lose weight.

I was told this when I was 176 lbs, and being only 5'2", that is considered obese.
Since being told that, I have been dieting and exercising and have so far, in only a month lost 12 lbs. Those 12lbs gone has improved my problem by at least a few percentage points, so now I am in pain less. That is a glorious feeling.

I have never really had the motivation to exercise and I viewed food as a kind of release, and I coveted it. However, the motivation now is avoiding a 7 day hospital and almost 8 month recovery time surgery. This is the best motivation I can hope for. I eat less, but a lot healthier, and my new release is exercise.

I started and I could only do 10 squats, and could barely keep my breath to do any cardio exercises at all. Now I can do 50+ squats and I can do cardio exercises for 30 minutes. Drastic improvements to say the least.

I am by no means close to what I would like to be at shape wise, but I do see hope in that I won't need any kind of surgery at all. And that keeps me going.

I hope that if any of you reading this are having trouble finding motivation that you find hope in my story. You don't need a huge excuse like I did. Just do it. Even if you don't want to exercise or want that cookie, think of how great you will feel about yourself if you replace your cravings with exercise.

Being overweight and obese is hard on your body. For all I know that is what exacerbated my symptoms, that and pregnancy. But I know I feel so much better. I have a long way to go. But my sense of accomplishment grows with every pound lost.

You can do it :D

Open Adoption: My Story

So, as I mentioned before that I am a mother of 2, but I was only raising 1. The reason for this is I gave my first born up for adoption when she was born 7 years ago.

I was 19 when Ella was born, and living in a homeless shelter. When I first found out, I tried so hard to get my butt in gear and move into a place of my own with my (then) boyfriend. But it was all for not. So about halfway through my pregnancy, I contacted an adoption agency to get the ball rolling on giving her to a lovely family who were unable to have children. 

I thought very hard about my decision, and I even cried and wished I hadn't done it after the fact. But the fact is, it was the best decision that I could have made.

When I in the process of deciding if I was going to follow through, I made a lost of pros and cons, below is my list.

My Pros:

*Provide her with a full future that I can't provide at the moment.

*They have a home.

*They both have steady incomes.

*She will have a good life with everything provided for her that I am not able to at this time.

*I love her enough to give her something that she otherwise would be missing.

My cons:

*I have always wanted to be a mother.

*I feel like I'm failing her.

*People are calling me selfish, thinking I'm doing it just because I don't want to raise her.

While this list seems short, it helped me a lot. Yes I was worried about how people would look at me. Some people thought I should have done things differently, but I know now that it was an experience that I grew from.

Yes it hurt. It hurt a lot of give her up at the hospital. I fell into a deep depression afterwards.

It took a lot to bring me back to my almost normal self. My boyfriend and I got married several years later, we got a dog, got a house and eventually had our little girl.

We still keep in contact with Ella, and she knows that we love her, and knows who we are, and loves Adara to pieces.

Everything may not be perfect, but I gave her parents a gift that they thought they would never have, and I feel that it was the best decision.

And I am super glad for the friends who supported me every step of the way, I couldn't have done it without them.

This was Adara riding on Ella's barbie bus with Ella pushing her. They love each other like true sisters do. ♡ It really is amazing.

**I have edited out her picture as I do not have permission to post her face, but you can see the fun they are having.

P.s. when I first found out I was pregnant, I called Ella's mom to tell her. The reaction she had was interested, she said "I thought you might be, Ella's teach at school asked me if I was pregnant, because Ella has been going around saying that she was going to be a big sister." I was shocked, I have no idea how she knew, but she did. And ever since she makes gifts for Adara, and gets all excited to share her toys, and play with her when we get the chance to go down to see them. 

P.p.s if you have any questions for me about what I went through, please don't hesitate to leave me a comment. I am happy to answer any questions about my expietences. 

Not a blogger...

I'm not much of a blogger. In fact, I'm not much of a writer. However, apparently my life is kind of interesting, with all the trials and tribulations I have endured. I have been asked to provide my insight on it. I am a mother of 2, however, I am raising only 1 of them. I gave my oldest up for adoption when she was born to a lovely couple whom we see once, maybe twice a year. I plan to write about the things I've learned from her parents, as well as what I've learned from my own trial and error. I have conditions called Thoracic Outlet syndrome, and Pecoralis Minor syndrome, which makes certain things like being a mother hard. I am on medications, and am attempting to lose weight. So I plan to talk about those things too. I have weird hobbies, that seem to change randomly, but my biggest hobby is crocheting. And I plan to also post progress pics for those too. I also will write reviews to certain things, to give people an idea about all things that I enjoy as a mother, and woman. Now, at first it may not seem like it's interesting, and maybe a little boring.. But I will improve as I write more, and hopefully ya'll will bear with me as I learn.

Here is my mini. I call her Mini Munch because my husband has always called me munchkin due to my short stature, so when she was born mini munch became the name we used for her. 

Adara is 2 years old on April 2. The time has flown by like crazy.

It is amazing how much she has learned, as well as how much I have learned from her. With doctors opinions on how this and that are bad, or how other people's opinions tried to become my reality without so much as thought to what I wanted. I have come through so much with this beautiful little girl, and I hope you can enjoy my story and share in her growth with me.