My bout with MRSA!

To anyone who follows my blog or reads regularly, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a few days. I've been really sick. But I plan on starting back up in the next few days with my story. But right now I'm going to tell you all about my bout with MRSA. I mentioned having caught MRSA from the hospital I had Gavin in.

Let me start by saying my SIL Bethany, had MRSA as well. And of course that's where they claimed I got it from. Even though several doctors told me that while it is contagious, it's not easily caught. They told me I'd basically have to take a bath in the same water as Bethany to catch it from her. Which I did not do! I'd lived with Bethany off and on for three years and hadn't caught it from her so why would I catch it now? I didn't. I caught it from the hospital!

About a week after I had Gavin, I was at my mamas one day while Jeremy was at work and I laid down for a bit. When I woke up I had a small bump on the side of my knee that had a black head on it and was really red & warm to the touch around it. It looked like a spider bite. It itched like a bug bite. When we got home that evening I showed it to Bethany and she said immediately, it's MRSA!! I said please don't say that!! The next day when I woke up I had those little bumps all over my legs and on my sides! I made a doctors appointment. At the appointment the Dr busted a bump and slime green stuff came out and blood. The Dr tested the stuff and it come back as MRSA and these bumps were boils. The doctor said they probably started out as bug bites but where I had MRSA in my blood stream these bumps turned into boils. He put me on a seven day supply of an antibiotic called bactrim and sent me home. He told me if these bumps still popped up while on the antibiotic than it wasn't working. I actually seen several doctors. After the 7 day supply didn't work, I was put on a 21 day supply and pain medication because it was VERY painful! During all this, my milk had come in and a milk gland had gotten clogged up. And of course, that turned into MRSA!! Very, very painful this was!! I was sent to the breast imagery center where woman were sent who had breast cancer. At this place, my breast was cut open and drained which was horribly painful! Afterwards, a drain tube was placed in so that anything remaining would come out. This stayed in place for two weeks. But the MRSA wasn't going away. So it was decided that the only thing left to do was IV antibiotics. I was given two options: to go into the hospital for two weeks or do the IV at home. I couldn't go into the hospital, I had a two week old son at home! So I chose the at home IV. I was sent to a place to have a 17 inch pick line that went into my arm and into my chest. It was a very unique procedure that took nearly three hours to complete as it had to go into a specific vein. After it was in, an X-Ray had to be done to make sure it was in the right vein. And luckily it was! So for the next two weeks, Jeremy had to hook antibiotics up to my IV for two weeks. Finally, it went away. After three months of pure sickness, it finally went away!! This was in the middle of all the drama we had to deal with from Bethany and Shane!

I'll continue that nonsense tomorrow....

Lowest of low done by "family"...

We we're discharged from the hospital on July 29th. Mama had decided to have us a little gathering at her and my step-dads the next day. Some of my family was coming down and wanted to meet Gavin. Things weren't going good where we were living. We were still living with Jeremys sister, Bethany and her boyfriend, Shane. Bethany was acting strange. One day she'd be fine. She was friendly and if she heard Gavin crying at night, alot, she would come get him so Jeremy and I could sleep a little. But then the next day she wouldn't even speak to us. She was cranky and mad on these bad days. I found out later that she was on drugs and that was the cause for the mood swings. Shane worked second shift and she'd leave everyday after he'd go to work, apparently to do drugs. They were starting to do things like cleaning the carpet in the middle of the night, anything to make ALOT of noise. It was as if they were just trying to make us want to leave. And BELIEVE ME, WE WANTED TO LEAVE! But we had nowhere else to go. Jeremy had literally just started work at Walmart. He got the job the day I went in to have Gavin but they gave him a week so he could be with me. And after he started working, I went to my moms while he was at work because Bethany was getting out of hand!

The final straw happened on the first night I let mama keep Gavin by herself. We all decided to have a fun night playing board games and drink a little. Although I didn't drink, I just don't like drinking plus it was my first night away from Gavin and just in case I decided I needed to go get him I needed to be sober! But Bethany had gotten drunk. I went into the kitchen to get something and all of a sudden, Bethany started cursing Shane out, accusing he and I of "making eyes at one another"! I didn't even look his way. As a matter of fact, my back was to Shane the entire time! Remember how I said Bethany would tell what Jeremy had been doing if she was mad? Well, it happened! Her and Shane let stuff fly! She told me that Jeremy had been sleeping with Carolyn (the woman he lived with in Farmville after we split) for two weeks before I left. And that he was telling me he had to work and I was taking him to work and she'd be waiting for him! So I basically gave him a ride to cheat on me! If he "worked" 1-10 she'd bring him back by 9:30, back to me! What kind of heartless ASSHOLE does that to his PREGNANT wife?! But, of course, he said she was lying because she was mad. Which she was a horrible pathological liar! So I never knew when to believe her or not! But when Shane told me much later I believed him. After the argument, Jeremy, Shane and myself went to the store. When we left, Bethany was sitting in Shanes truck listening to CDs. I told him to get his keys from her but he didn't. When we got back home, she was gone! We searched all night and couldn't find her. My mama called the next morning and said a nurse had called her and Bethany was in the hospital. She had wrecked his truck less than a mile from our house and totaled it! She was going 80mph in a residential area where the speed limit was only 25mph! But of course Shane picked up and within a day they were "perfect" again!

After this, I couldn't take them anymore! We all went weeks and didn't speak. Then one day, Jeremy and I came in and there was a letter from Shanes landlord saying he'd found out we were living there and that we weren't on the lease so we had to move or he'd be evicted as well. So, another argument broke out because I wasn't buying it! The landlord had been there while we were there he didn't care! A few days later we went back to get our things and Bethany had us locked out. All if my stuff and all of Gavins things were inside! Eventually we were let in and we got our stuff and left! We found out that Shane had wrote that letter himself and even went to the website of the landlord and copy and pasted the logo on the letter! Instead if being a man and asking us like adults! He falsely put me out with my barely month old son!! Just pathetic!

All of that aside, I felt so happy because I had my beautiful son! Only bad thing was when I was in the hospital, I accidentally pulled out a staple from my incision and got MRSA from the hospital! This caused me to not be able to do much with Gavin as I didn't want him to get it! Below are pictures of Gavin after we got home and the one with him wearing blue jeans was his first checkup at 4 weeks. The one with the other baby is my friend Sams baby boy, Brayden, that's two days older than Gavin, the baby yawning is Brayden.

We had a rocky start after Gavin was born, but things got better very quickly! But of course, in my life, nothing good lasts at all....

Welcome, Gavin Riley Todt!

After what seemed like only a minute, I awoke, still on the operating table. I was in horrendous pain and had to move immediately after waking up from the operating table onto my bed.

None of this mattered, not the pain, nothing mattered except for him! My baby boy! I began asking, begging for someone to tell me he was ok! I arrived in the recovery room asking about him. Finally, a nurse told me, he's fine! I asked how much he weighed as you remember I said the doctors estimated him to weigh over 8 pounds because my stomach was huge! So the nurse called up to the nursery, where he was getting his first bath, to find out for me. She came back and told me 4lbs 12ozs 18 1/4 inches long! I said is something wrong with him? Why is he so small!? She said by high blood pressure caused him to have low birth weight but he was healthy and would come home with me when I go. The doctor came in to talk to me and tell me how things went. He said Gavins heart rate was dropping because his cord was around his neck three times. That combined with my contractions coming so strong and close together, he had hardly no oxygen. And had we not got to him then, he would've died! I thanked God hundreds of times, thanked him for letting me keep my son!

After about forty five minutes in recovery, I was FINALLY going to meet my son! The hospital I was at was small, very small, therefore, Gavin was the only baby in the nursery! As my bed was wheeled by, a nurse held him up in the window for me to see! I heard his beautiful screams which was music to my ears! It felt like I'd been waiting a century to hear those screams! Finally I was a mother, a mother to a baby I would bring home with me!! Since I was put to sleep for my c-section, Jeremy and mama seen him before I did. Which kind of bummed me out because I'm his mother I should've seen him first! But I wasn't going to complain! Seeing him, period, was fine with me!!

A few minutes after I was back in my room, the nurse rolled him in! And there are no words to describe how happy I was to finally see and hold my baby! The baby that had kicked so hard, the baby that was responsible for my terrible heartburn I kept for nine months, the baby I wanted and needed more than life itself! He was absolutely perfect! The most beautiful and precious baby I'd ever laid eyes on! And he was mine, ALL MINE!! He had jet black hair, a head full, he had a big white birthmark on his back that look like splattered paint, which I said came from me pushing on my stomach so much making him move! He was so tiny! The doctor said he had to hold oxygen under his nose for just a few seconds so he would catch his breath. But that was it! He also had a mild case of jaundice which he had to stay under lights in the nursery. I had to feed him in the nursery on that first night. Still, I didn't care! I was so happy to finally have my baby! I couldn't get over how beautiful he was! I was sure he'd have red hair like his daddy but no, he had black hair like me! Visitors came and went all day. My friend Melitta who was pregnant at the same time as me, had given birth to her son on June 29th and my other friend Samantha had her baby boy, Brayden, on July 25th just 2 days before Gavin came!

Finally, I was happy! I felt like the doctors could tell me then I couldn't have kids anymore and that would be ok because I had Gavin! Although that wasn't the case! I had my happy family at last! And I just knew now that we had a living baby, Jeremy wouldn't leave anymore. We were starting our life now!

We weren't prepared for what his sister, Bethany, and her boyfriend, Shane, who we lived with, would do after we got home!

The photos below show me seeing and holding Gavin for the first time, his footprints, his birth announcement, a picture of him right after being born and a picture of him coming home (the one with the pacifier in his mouth).

Please God, don't take him!

On July 26, 2005, I had a regular baby checkup. By this time, I was 37 weeks pregnant and had been coming to the doctor once a week since 32 weeks when I went into preterm labor. At this visit on the 26th, I was getting very tired of being pregnant! I still had PUPPS disease and it was driving me insane! I was HUGE and swelled up as it was the middle of summer. Doctors had estimated that Gavin would weigh over 8 pounds and the last ultrasound I had at 35 weeks said he weighed almost 6 pounds. But my mind was reminding me of how lucky I was to even be pregnant and to have made it this far in my pregnancy! I was just miserable and ready to have my baby. Ready to begin the next part, being a parent! I was so ready to be a mommy! I told my doctor how miserable I was so he set an induction date. But to help speed things along, he stripped my membranes. I don't exactly know what that means but it hurt! That night, I ate beanie weenies before I went to bed which gave me horrible heartburn! I remember I was dreaming that I had him and he was stillborn I woke up having a contraction at 6:00 am. I woke Jeremy up and told him it was time! I called my mama to come get us as we had an hour and a half drive ahead of us! We stopped by McDonalds and got a biscuit. I couldn't eat mine. My contractions were back to back and bad! I didn't think we'd ever get to the hospital!

When we arrived, I was taken to labor and delivery where I was hooked up to the stress monitor. All three doctors from my doctors office were in my room lined up talking and pointing to the monitor. This scared be so bad! The thing was, I was having massive contractions one right behind the other with pretty much no break in between. Plus, I wasn't dialating at all! I had been at a 3 for weeks by that point. And with every contraction, Gavins heart rate was dropping and very low! The nurse would come running in my room and making me lay on my side. At one point his heart rate dropped down to 40! All I kept thinking was I'm this close and I'm going to lose my baby! And I prayed, please God don't take him from me, PLEASE!!

When his heart rate dropped to 40, the nurse and doctors came in turning me and were kinda panicking! I knew they knew something I didn't know! The nurse told me I would have to go in and have an emergency c-section. I had only just got to the hospital barely thirty minutes before this so there was no time for an epidural. His heart rate was dropping and fast! I had a nurse taking off my jewelry and one putting a catheter in. I would have to be put to sleep there was no other way! Without Jeremy or my mama because it was an emergency and they didn't know what was to come so the anesthesiologist wouldn't let them come with me. The last thing I saw as I was wheeled into the elevator was mama and Jeremy standing in the hall outside my room crying. I kept asking the doctor, is everything ok?! Please don't tell me my babys going to die! PLEASE DON'T!!! I prayed, please God, please don't take my baby boy, please not again! Please let me wake up to a screaming baby, a breathing baby, PLEASE!! I think I would've sold my soul to the highest bidder just to keep my baby boy!! I continued to pray, continued begging God to let me have him!!

As the mask was put on my face and I was told to count backwards from ten, I had but one thing on my mind: Gavin Riley Todt! Let the love I already feel for him pull him through! Tears rolled down my face as I shut my eyes and was out.....

Life was just beginning...

I was so happy that my pregnancy was going so well. Besides my blood pressure being high, things were going smoothly. I had been thinking of names for my baby boy and decided on Gavin Riley. Gavin after Gavin Rosdale of Bush and Riley because it fit well with Gavin. My other two friends who were pregnant with me, Melitta and Sam, found out they were having boys as well!

Jeremys sister, Bethany, had moved a few miles from me with her new boyfriend and my friend, Shane. I get a call from Jeremy one day saying he is moving in with Bethany and Shane. When I asked him what happened at Carolyns, he said she was getting "psycho" and kept saying "you're gonna go back with your wife". I said, if nothing was going on then why would she say that to you? What difference would it make if you came back to me? He said that's what I mean my psycho. She wanted us to be together and I told her no. I'm thinking, yeah right! Do you think I'm stupid?! But that was his story and he was sticking to it! But one thing he had done, was doing right by me. I couldn't understand why we weren't together. I loved his so much and all I wanted was to be with him and us be a family with our son! He was here about a month before we brought it up. But a month after he'd moved back, he wanted me to come stay the night with him so I did. The next day I went over to my friend Sams and there was a guy there and Jeremy didn't like it. So I asked him what difference does it make? You act like you don't want to be with me. So that's when he asked if we could get back together. Of course we can! I loved him so much! I thought, things are going to be different now! Just wait until Gavin gets here! He won't be able to leave him! So we were officially back together. I soon packed up mine and Gavins baby things and moved in with Jeremy at Shanes. Which would later prove to be a huge mistake!

When I was 32 weeks pregnant, we ran into some trouble. I began going into labor. I went to the hospital in Farmville because even though I was living an hour and a half away I still went there because I loved the doctors. They were able to stop my labor, thank God. But I was put on partial bed rest and told not to swim or have sex. Also, I developed a disease only pregnant women get called PUPPS disease. It was a rash on my legs and stomach that resembled poison oak and itched horribly! It would only go away after I had the baby! So, I had atleast 8 weeks to go if I carried full term. Luckily I didn't. I was prescribed a pill for itching to help with it. Ugh, it was terrible! It's another type of this kind of disease where you itch but it's nothing there and my doctor told me people had actually committed suicide because it drove them crazy! On July 10, 2005 I had my baby shower for Gavin and got everything I needed plus some! The pictures show more ultrasound pictures, my belly at 6 months and my belly three days before Gavin was born and some pictures from my baby shower and a belly picture from my baby shower on July 10, 17 days before he was born.

I was all ready for my baby boy! The only thing left was waiting for him to get here! Which, in true "Toni" fashion, was not uneventful!!

History repeats itself!

This time of year is always hard for me as this is when my life was turned upside down, now nine years ago!

Things were going well for me now, pregnancy wise. I was given a due date of August 17, 2005. At every appointment, I had an ultrasound done to check my babys development. Which calmed my nerves some. At this same time, my two best friends, at the time, also found out they were pregnant. One of them, Melitta, found out a month before me, the other, my friend Samantha I've mentioned, was due a few weeks before me. My pregnancy was going smoothly but of course every little thing scared me to my core! I constantly had my hands on my stomach making the baby move (when it got to this point). Melitta rented me an at home doppler that I kept glued to my stomach!

But, around 17 weeks of pregnancy, Jeremy began acting as he did when I was pregnant with Kaylea. Just being mean in a subtle way. Not talking to me and when he did he constantly argued with me and made me feel like it was my fault because I was "hormonal"! When all it was, was HIM NOT ME!! I felt that familiar itch! That familiar feeling and thought, he's going to leave me, AGAIN! Only this time I was on his turf, so to speak, I lived with HIS family! What would I do?! So after some time of putting up with this, I finally asked, well demanded, to know what his problem was! And it came out, same as last time! I'm not happy with you, you've got to go! REALLY?! AGAIN, YOU ASSHOLE?! So, I walked out the bedroom, crying, and called my mama and asked to come home. By this time, Jeremys sister, Bethany, had also moved into their grandmas house. Bethany ALWAYS knew what Jeremy was doing but wouldn't tell me unless she was mad, which she later did, much later. But of course Jeremy would say, she's only telling you this because she's mad at me. But I was NOT stupid I knew better! So, as I left that day, I told Jeremy, I do not want to hear that you're telling people this baby isn't yours! You know it is! I've lived with you at your grandmas since before I was pregnant, miles away from anyone I know, so you know it's yours! I asked him if there was someone else and he swore there wasn't! I worked at the same place as him so I took him to work even on days I was off so this time I really didn't think there was anyone else! Oh, but I was so wrong! I told him I expected him to call me everyday because he was not going to treat me like he did with Kaylea! He was to help me and he was to go to every single doctors appointment with me, including my next ultrasound in a few weeks as we would learn the sex of our baby! And he agreed. But a few weeks later, as I knew, Bethany was mad at Jeremy. Jeremy moved out of his grandmas and told me he was staying with a guy he worked with, Jamal. I had been there before because we had watched the superbowl there a month earlier. I needed the key to his grandmas to go get some things so I went to Jamals house. When he came to the door, he looked confused and asked what was up. I said is Jeremy home I need to talk to him. He said, Jeremy? I haven't seen him since y'all watched the superbowl here! BUSTED!! So, I call Jeremy and I'm like what is going on? WHERE ARE YOU LIVING?! So, he tells me a woman named Carolyn he worked with told him he could rent a room at her house and he had told Jamal to tell me he hadn't seen him when really he had seen him and Jeremy had moved out a few days earlier. All lies! I remembered Carolyn from work. She worked in the deli and everytime we were in the break room together, she'd give me evil looks like she just hated me! Like I said, I'm not stupid! Most of the time, a man and woman don't live together unless they're sleeping together! What world did he think I lived in?! But all the while, I wasn't going to let myself get upset! Stress was not killing another baby of mine! So I concentrated on my baby! On April 7, 2005 I had my 20 week ultrasound (at 21 weeks this time). My mama and I went by wal-mart and picked him up and headed to the doctors. Jeremy had gotten a brand new cell phone and still maintained he was just "friends" with Carolyn. And let me just say, at this time, Jeremy was 23 and I was 20, getting ready to turn 21 in a few months and Carolyn was 45! Old enough to be his mama! And she was very unattractive! Anyway, we arrived at the doctor and I was hooked up to the ultrasound machine. On the screen I saw my tiny 15 ounce baby and IT'S A BOY!!! Every measurement was perfect, he was perfect! I was no longer sad about Jeremy, I was elated for my son!!

Things were getting ready to change again. For the better...

Another positive pregnancy test!!

The new year starts in a mere 4 minutes and I'm at home, my babies tucked away in their warm beds, continuing my story, by choice! I hope everyone are having/had a Happy New Year!!

Jeremy and I were living with his grandma. We had both gotten jobs at the wal-mart in Farmville. Me, working in the jewelry department, him, working in the meat department. Things were going well for us. One of the stipulations of us living with his grandma was that we had to go to church with them. Which, don't get me wrong, is fine, but this particular church was more like a cult! It was held in an old closed down elementary school and the people, only about 15 of them, were crazy!! So to keep from going, I would make sure I worked on Sundays or if I was off, I came down to my mamas! Jeremy was not a church person, at all! When Thanksgiving came around, Jeremys uncle was coming down from northern Virginia and stay a few days. It's funny because I remember telling Jeremy, we've gotta have sex before he gets here because we won't be able to for a few days, lol!! At this time, Jeremy was still pretty much still hated by my family because of Kaylea. But by Christmas, my family had come around and started allowing him back into the house. At Christmas, I realized I had missed my period. One way I always knew I was pregnant was because I'd dream about food! And when I woke up I'd HAVE to have whatever I dreamed about! So, one weekend, I stayed with my mama and dreamed about her fried chicken and the next day she had to fix me some! After this, I got a pregnancy test and it was, once again, positive!!! So, I made a doctors appointment which confirmed my pregnancy.

Once again I found myself elated & nervous at the same time! I had an ultrasound in January of 2005 that showed that I was eight weeks along. The picture below shows this though it's really old so I don't know if you can see it but my peanut is there! I was scheduled to see a high risk doctor once a month along with my regular baby doctor. Upon my first visit to this HR doctor, she offered an explanation as to why Kaylea died. She said I had developed Pre-eclampsia (or toxemia as it was called) and it wasn't caught in time and it cut her oxygen supply off. It gave me a little sense of closure but not much as it was just a guess not for sure. But my blood pressure went up again with this pregnancy only it was caught and I was given a pill to take during my pregnancy to maintain it. These doctors treated me VERY well! Really great doctors!

This time I knew I would get my much wanted baby! But what I didn't know was what lay ahead for me and Jeremy....