The Long And The Short Of It

Most people reading this have a pretty good idea who we are.
Having already spent months writing a blog on another site, only for the website to completely shit itself I've decided to start all over again.
So for those of you that are new, and have no idea how far we've come in the 7 years we have been a family read on. If you already know me, then look away this will probably be boring for you!

Our story is a long story, so much has happened in the last 7 years. Here's the short version of it.

2007-is where we begin. Phil my hubby and I started going out. He was 21 I was a couple weeks away from being 17. As you can imagine mum wasn't too impressed with the age gap. And to be perfectly honest I was thinking "a summer type fling sounds good lets give this guy a go" I was out of school, recently quit my crappy job in a hair salon and was working at Big W until I started working admin for BGC a building company.

2008- February I got pregnant. Bugger! Not in the plan, mum was pissed, I was scared and Phil was pretty great. 6 weeks before my 18th birthday, meant I had a very sober, very quiet 18th. No biggy I'm not a huge party person anyway. I was first diagnosed with depression halfway through the year and was given drugs that sent me loopy, when the Dr wouldn't help me out I decided its time to do it myself, no one would help me get better so I needed to get better without them. November 24 2008 our little pink bundle was born. For the 6 months following I worked on getting better and I managed to beat my depression. We had a beautiful pink bundle that we loved! About 6 weeks after she was born the neighbourhood we lived got scary, I was abused out the front of our house and we decided to leave. We moved to another little house in the city and enjoyed a nice quiet 6 months there getting to know our little pinky.

2009- Miss Kaitlyn was 10 weeks old when she was rushed to hospital for salmonella. It was our first scary experience as parents and we were terrified, she was so sick. How does a 10 week old get salmonella? Well we had been to the Byford Rodeo the night before where Miss 5 was in a pram, tucked in asleep with a blanket covering the pram. However a small piece of dust must have made its way in and voila! A very sick 10 week old baby with salmonella Newport- a type you only get from cattle. The Drs told us it was very rare for this to happen, it was just unlucky that it happened to us. The salmonella lasted almost 6 months, something we were unaware of for most of this time, we had a very lethargic, little baby not gaining weight. It wasn't until we got her tested again that we discovered it was still salmonella. By July it was FINALLY gone. We had our happy baby girl back, however due to not gaining enough weight she was now solely formula fed. 8 months wasn't too bad to breast feed, but I was aiming for 12 months.
By the end of 2009 I was pregnant with number 2. We decided to start trying late in the year thinking it would take awhile for another little Currie to come along, however that night I was pregnant. Miss 5 turned 1 as I was 12 weeks pregnant! We also moved to the little country town of Corrigin in2009 one of the best things we ever did.

2010- Mr 3 was born 28 May 2010. We were still living in the country, 2 hours from the city. I was in Perth with my mum while hubby was at home, waiting for the phone call. 10:15pm May 27 I went into labour, 10:45 hubby left home. By 12:35am May 28 in the back of an ambulance on the way to the hospital, which was only a 10 min drive from mums house, out came a big chubby Mr 3. Hubby missed the birth, even though it was only a short 2 hour drive to the hospital, Mr 3 was in a rush. Labour with Bradley was 2 hours labour with Kaitlyn was 24 hours. Big difference!! Once we arrived at the hospital midwives noticed he was blue and his cord had snapped, covering me in blood. It was later discovered that he had a heart condition. Transposition of the great arteries it was called and it meant a trip across the country to Melbourne for the surgery that would save his life. Miss 5 stayed behind with her grandma and we went with our baby boy for the ups and downs of his surgery. As you can imagine it was a scary and stressful time for us, but as always we battled on together and our boy was perfect! By 3 months of age Bradley had such bad reflux he was put onto a special formula to stop the pain. He had the real kind of reflux, not just the vomiting but the intense burning pain when he was feeding, he used to scream, kick, scratch me and go all out crazy when feeding. We decided to give this special formula a go and voila! Happy well fed baby.Hubby also had his appendix removed this year after a long battle with stomach pains that were brushed off in most emergency rooms. Although the surgeons absolutely butchered him he had deep bruising across almost his entire abdomen that lasted 7 weeks post op. 2 out of his 3 cuts also got infected and made him pretty uncomfortable. By the end of this year hubby had taken a FIFO job and we had moved back to the city, neither of us wanted this, but funds were low and pressure from family was mounting to try this FIFO craze.

2011- Mr 3 got sick just before his 1st birthday, we thought it was just a cold but it was the beginning of a 6 month battle with flu's and chest infections so severe he was bedridden for almost the entire winter months. We had weekly Drs appointments, we never left the house, in fact the pram was brought inside so he could sit and be pushed to calm him down. The rest of the family had the usual amounts of colds and flu's but poor Mr 3 could not get rid of his.
June of that year my hubby proposed. Finally. But with the illness and stress of looking after Mr 3 we put off the wedding planning until the next year. The FIFO lifestyle was crappy, it wasn't suiting us, hubby was away so often the kids had no bond with him and they sure as hell didn't respect him when he tried to discipline them. I was again diagnosed with depression this year and thankfully I had a decent Dr who didn't drug me but helped me. I saw a councillor and 4 months later I was me again! A much nicer experience this time ( if you can ever look at depression in a positive way) it didn't take me as long to get out of the black hole. It was entirely stress related with Mr 3 being sick for 6 months, hubby away all the time and and it was about this time Miss 5 started showing signs of anxiety. By October when the weather started to warm up Mr 3 FINALLY started to beat his severe chest infections and we started to see some improvement. He was sick from beginning of May until the end of October. By this stage we had tried everything to help him get better, it just took a lot of rest, medications, love and patience and he finally was back to being a happy toddler. November hubby quit the crappy FIFO job and was back in Perth working and home to his family every night. The change in the kids was instant they loved their daddy again, bonding was much easier as they actually saw him and we didn't care about the pay cut. A 30grand pay cut was nothing compared to having our family back again.

2012- wedding planning started! I had a blast planning our wedding, Miss 5 loved wedding shopping and all was going great. A friend of mine got married in September so we were able to do some planning together which as fun. Hubby started another new job in Perth which meant he goes away sometimes (but very rarely for more than a couple days) but most of the year he's still home with us. I finally got my tonsils out after 17 years of suffering severely with tonsillitis. It was a pretty happy moment for me. I was also diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in my hips which wasn't nice and I was put onto steroids, which made me gain weight like crazy. Thankfully by the end of the year I was allowed to start coming off the steroids and I lost all the weight in time for our wedding.

2013- March 16 we got married finally after 6 yrs together and 2 kids. It was perfect. The kids were perfect on the day, we couldn't have asked for more. And thanks to my crazy budgeting skills we didn't go into any debt for our wedding which was a great feeling, when it was all over and done with we didn't owe everyone money :-). May- hubby applied for a residential job in Tom Price in the Pilbara region of WA. We were told by July we should be up there, so that was exciting, for awhile. By December we were still in Perth and were getting pissed off. We are not city people, we didn't want to be here. We were trying to do the right thing by the company and we waited. By then end of this year I had given in to hubby's nagging and I was up the duff! I was always happy with two kids, hubby argued two kids was boring. I guess we are about to find out!

2014- it's only March and so far Mr 3 has had one surgery. He had a testicle stuck up in his tummy that clearly wasn't supposed to be there, so in he went for surgery last week. He seems to have recovered amazingly, except for a reaction to one of the drugs which made him hallucinate like crazy for awhile. It was a very scary couple of hours watching him thrashing around, screaming, trying to pull his nose off because apparently it was itchy and he had boogies (which he didn't) thankfully everything else went very smoothly. Miss 5 has had a nasty chest infection, I've had an upper respiratory infection and hubby has been fine! This pregnancy is progressing, my symptoms and discomfort has been massive this time around. Constipation, restless legs, heartburn, hair loss, bad skin, pelvic girdle pain, back pain, morning sickness lasting well past 12 weeks and as all day sickness, metallic taste in my mouth are just a few of the symptoms I've been experiencing. I also recently found out because my arthritis is flaring up again and I'm on the steroids again, my chance of getting gestational diabetes is very high, I could also be having yet another giant baby and I will probably be induced. I've been referred for extra scans and to see a specialist obstetrician to look after me and decide how this baby is going to come out. 3 more weeks until I find out about the gestational diabetes and I'm hoping for the best. We are still waiting to hear about the Tom Price job, which looks like it might be on the cards again. Patience is running out fast now though and if it doesn't work out this time, hubby will quit the stupid company and find something else.

Throughout the years from 2011-2014 Miss 5 has suffered from her anxiety issues, we have seen countless "professionals" over the years ranging from the horrible (she basically told me I was a bad mum, based solely on the fact I was a teen mum) to the great (finally progress!!) Miss 5 lives with her issues every day but she battles through it and with lots of patience (that mummy and daddy are still learning) love and support she is doing well, most people can't even tell. Although those that know her best can definitely see her issues.

This is the very short version of our story. There are a lot more ups and downs to our life (including me having a severe reaction to my first arthritis medications, Zac being allergic to dog food, crashing through a window, having surgery for a benign lump near his rear legs, I had a skin cancer scare a few weeks back-thankfully all was well, both kids had their first concussion by 1 yr of age, Mr 3 had an appendicitis scare, he also had a meningococcal scare, Miss5's battle with toilet training which includes many many urinary tract infections and still not being night time toilet trained, the list seems to be never ending!) but we are forever thankful for what we have, therefore we give back whenever we can!