Caylee Marie Anthony you have touched our lives....

This post is for a little girl I'm sure you have all heard of named Caylee Marie Anthony. If you feel like I do, then you feel as though the judicial system has failed sweet baby girl Caylee. I'd like to honor her memory by posting a petition sent to me about a very good proposition for a law so no one will ever again get away with covering up a murder. I will post the petition to my blog but you must click the link below to sign it. Thank you all. Lets protect future children and well, anyone who is brutally killed and then left to be forgotten.
here is the link:http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/cayleeanthonylaw
(you may also view the petition here)
and here is the actual petition:

OFFICIAL PETITION FOR CAYLEE\'S LAW

Published 1 day ago

After hearing the verdict in the Casey Anthony case this afternoon, like so many people, I realized our justice system not only failed Caylee Anthony, it failed all of us. It failed every child and every future child. We should not reward people for covering up a death and hiding evidence.

WE WANT \"CAYLEE\'S LAW\".

As Americans, we can NOT continue to let a true travesty like this occur again. OUR LAWS NEED TO BE CHANGED. AND THEY NEED TO BE CHANGED NOW.

I posted my idea for \"Caylee\'s Law\" on my Facebook page this afternoon, shortly after the verdict. After an overwhelming response to the idea, I feel that this could be something that we, the people, could make happen.

PROPOSAL FOR \"CAYLEE\'S LAW\": If a person is involved in the cover up of a death of any kind, accidental or otherwise, and this cover up can be proven by the state, there will be a MINIMUM automatic penalty of 25 years for the crime of covering up a death and if the evidence is corrupted so that it makes it difficult to determine the cause of death, the penalty will be AUTOMATIC MAXIMUM PENALTY FOR HOMICIDE: FIRST DEGREE MURDER, if this cover up can be proven in a court of law.

When a death, along with evidence, is hidden and proper authorities are not notified, it will be an automatic First Degree Murder charge since it is no longer clear how the death occurred.

All deaths that are not properly reported along with an attempted cover up of said death, when proven in a court of law, will be assumed to be First Degree Murder and will be punishable by the maximum penalty for murder within that state, including death or life without the possibility of parole.

We need to not only do this for Caylee, we need this law for all children. We can not continue to reward people for covering up the death of a child...or the death of anyone for that matter.

WE NEED CAYLEE\'S LAW. And we need it NOW.

Please SHARE this petition with your friends, pass out flyers directing others to this petition, contact your local representatives, do anything you can.

LET\\\'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN FOR CAYLEE SINCE JUSTICE WAS NOT SERVED TODAY. If we get enough signatures, we can make this happen. PLEASE do what you can to spread the word and to give Caylee a law in her name to honor her today and from this moment forward.

CAYLEE MARIE ANTHONY WILL NOT DIE IN VAIN. SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT \"CAYLEE\'s LAW\" and LET\'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

The Day this NATION was born...

Now when I talk about this Nation, I of course mean our son.
He wasnt born the same day as our great nation that we live in. He was born October 27th 2010 and exactly 8:09am. He was 6lbs 5.5ozs and 20 1/2 inches long.

I had a cervical surgery done when I was 19 due to some precancerous lesions on my cervix which were removed. So they told me on my many OB visits that I might have to be inducedbecause my cervix may not efface or dilate without the help of medication because of scar tissue. They were right. I went up to 39weeks and was four days away from my due date. (Nov.1st) They decided to induce me because I had gestational diabetes. It wasnt out of control but basically there comes a time where it was just better for him to be out. So we set up for me to go in on Tuesday october 26th at 10pm. I'll always remember walking in through the double doors casually at a normal pace, thinking to myself how Id always pictured myself RUNNING into the hospital but I was just walking. I saw the nurse sitting at the desk. She says "Are you Amanda?" And I said yes. She goes ok come this way. And she walked me into Labor room 1.

Several hours of paperwork later (and breaking my iphone screen :( )around 1:30 am they came in applied a gel to my cervix they told me to relax and go to sleep and that this wouldnt be sending me into labor and they would start pitocin in the morning. 5 minutes later, I was rolling around TRYING to get comfortable, and I started to have alot of pain in my belly. I looked over at the machine monitoring the babys movements and any contractions. There was mountain after mountain. After me and Doug discussed if I may be in labor he went to sleep and I called the nurse. She confirmed that the mountains on the machine were indeed contractions! She checked to see if I was dilated and POP! She said "I just broke your water by accident." I was shocked it was going to happen tonight. At the time I was only dilated to 1 but she said I was effacing rather quickly. After hours of trying to wake Doug up and calling the nurses every 20 minutes screaming in pain begging for something. They finally decided I was now dilated to 4cm and could get the epidural. I was shaking heavily and wanted that epidural so bad. Doug woke up when they said I could get the epidural and while they did that he went and got some breakfast. By the time he came back up I was done with the epidural and dilated a full ten and ready to push!

I felt sooooo wonderful on the epidural. They asked if an intern could come in an view. I said sure as long as she held a leg up because I didnt think Id be able to. She complied. So everyone is gathering around and telling me ok PUSH PUSH PUSH....1...2...3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10. I did this for about 30 minutes overall but only did a whooping 15 minutes of pushing. My doctor came in and caught the baby just in time. Doug, a proud and astonished daddy, cut the chord.  "HARDER!" the doctor scolded at him. I heard my sweet baby son screaming they laid him on my stomach while wiping him off. I pulled him a bit closer as they did and kissed him on his head...goo and all. I was over joyed and immediately started crying...even thinking about the day makes me swell up with tears. I was so proud of him and loved him so much. And looking at his face on my chest I instantly thought...he looks just like his daddy.

The hospital was wonderful. I learned to breastfeed and basic baby care. The only crappy thing was I couldnt sleep while breastfeeding him which I did plenty of after coming home. I was so emotional crying everytime I laid eyes on my beautiful son. I was so happy. I instantly loved being a new mommy.

2 days before Nations birth

The first moment I held my son

2 days old

First family photo

Nation today at 8 months

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My First Blog :) Finding out the news

So I guess I'll start out by introducing myself.
My name is Amanda I'm 23.
My birthday is february 28th 1988.
Im a first time mommy to my beautiful son Nation James :) who was born October 27th 2010.
Basically this blog is to chart me and Doug's journey as first time parents, hence the name "Learning as we go." So far being a mother is EVERYTHING I could have hoped for. Pregnancy on the other hand wasn't the best thing in the world. I was emotional, angry, hungry, and hot all the time. It seemed that if dragged on and on and I'm so very happy hes here finally.

Even though pregnancy was awful, I made some really good memories. I remember the day we found out that I was pregnant. It was March 8th and at the time we were living in Valley Village,CA with our roomate Annie. I walked out to the kitchen one morning and Annie was cooking as usual. I went to the fridge to get some water and I instantly felt flushed all over and then suddenly felt as though I would be sick. I ran out the front door and onto the outside hall/patio. I was hunched over feeling like I was going to throw up but never did thankfully. Noticing I also had not had my period, I told Doug we needed to get a test A.S.A.P and he agreed because he too had felt that I had been acting weird.

After we bought the test we came home and I went to take one. Now this wasn't the first time I had taken a pregnancy test, not that I have taken so many, haha, but I was familiar with procedure.  Of course, I have always tested negative, prior to this time. As I put the test down it INSTANTLY came up positive. I was in shock. Even though I felt weird I had expected a negative. Last time I had a pregnancy scare it had been in August, and it turned out to be appendicitis, which at that moment seemed alot better then being pregnant. So as I sat there staring at the plus sign all that could come out of my mouth was "Oh Shit!" At that moment Doug chimed in wanting to know. I told him give me another pee stick!! At this point my heart is racing and so are my thoughts. This must be a defective test! This cant be real. I must have taken it wrong. 2nd test. I read the instructions and followed accordingly. Positive. What? No it cant be! I took another 4 tests in that hour. Positive, positive, positive, positive. Doug was laughing and smiling and I was sitting on the toilet looking at that fourth test scared and telling Doug this was not funny. We were incredibly poor so poor we barely ate! We were going to need a new place, a bigger place, a crib, a carseat, a stroller, diapers, and that was just the start! I was terrified. After a few days the news sank in. I had told alot of my friends via facebook pic of the positive test. We had gone to planned parenthood just to be extra sure. I was there too of course. They calculated I was 10 weeks but they were way off. I went to the OB a week later and I was only a month -6 weeks along. 

That's the day my life was altered. I wouldn't say it completely changed until the day Nation was actually born. June 14th we found out it was a boy, which is what we had expected. I walked around proudly exposing my belly to all :) Eagerly walked the aisles of baby clothes at stores. Couldn't step foot in babies'r'us without losing my mind. So many decisions to make. Flying across country from Los Angeles to Indianapolis 27 weeks pregnant with only carry on bags, a puppy that must be in a special bag for puppys to be carried on the plane, and a 2 hour stay over in Phoenix wasn't the highlight of my life that's for sure. Having gestational diabetes after 32 weeks wasn't cool either. But we pulled through and the end result...so worth it. :)