Corban Kale

When Von was 3, Michael and I had a second son. Corban Kale is what we named him.  Little did we know at the time that Kale was a vegetable! Ha! We just knew that Kale meant free man.  Corban was born in East Tennessee a month or two before Michael graduated with his MBA. He was born in October.  Beautiful weather in East TN during that time of year.

Even though I wasn't very protective of Von as a baby, I was extremely protective of Corban. While we were still in the hospital, I placed Corban in my bed that would make someone reach over me to get to him.  The nurses in the hospital kept trying to take him back to the nurses station for normal newborn testing. They would come in and ask for him and I would want a detailed description of why they wanted him. Typical helicopter mom (something I had never been.)

They came into my room around 10 or 11 pm the night after he was born and told me they were going to check his bilirubin levels. I drifted in and out of sleep until 12pm and I got up to see why they hadn't brought him back to my room.  They told me that he was still waiting to have the test done.  I thought to myself, "WHAT?!?!? Why did they come and get him and he is still waiting 1 or 2 hours later!!" I expressed my dislike and demanded to have my baby back. They told me that he would be done within the next 15 minutes. Because I was weak from giving birth that day, I wondered back to my room. I came back at 12:30am, 1:00am, 1:30am and 2am.  Finally, I told them I wasn't going to leave the desk until I had Corban back. They brought him right out and gave him to me.  I lost almost a full night of sleep because they wanted to dawdle with my baby in the "nursery." They kept telling me it was because they wanted me to get some sleep! HA! Little did they know that I wasn't going to get any sleep until I had Corban back. Once I got Corban back into the room with me, I placed him on my side between me and the wall again and fell asleep the rest of the night. Corban slept and let me sleep until my parents came into visit with me around 8 the next morning!

Corban had jaundice, just like Von, but his was a bit worse than Von's.  Corban had to lay under a uv light in our home for 3 days.  He could be blind if he didn't have the blinder patches on. He kept taking the blinder's off so, between mom and I we were staying up around the clock for those 3 days.  That was exhausting!!!  We took 3 to 4 hour shifts 24 hours a day for those three days.

Once Corban got rid of Jaundice, he was one of the happiest babies I have EVER met. He never cried unless I had forgotten to feed him for too long.  He would cry for a short time if he woke up in the middle of the night.  But often in the mornings I would go in his room and check on him and he would just be in his room cuing and talking to himself.  It was adorable!!

When Corban was about 3 months old, we moved to southern MD. I was 8 hours away from my parents!! This was the first time ever that I lived more than 15 miles from my parents!!  Going from 15 to 500, was a very big deal to me.  But I was excited for a new adventure, so I just focused on integrating myself into the community right away! I got involved in a quilting group at a church and they invited me to a women's Bible study.