12-12-12

So, today is 12/12/12.  I heard this morning that it will be the last time in my lifetime that we will see such a date sequence.

Crazy.

It is also the date that I have had in my mind since May when I had the miscarriage.  There was a good chance that today could have been baby #3's birthday.  I can't really explain the emotional roller-coaster that I have been on since May.  Some days are good - others just flat out stink.  Recently though, we found out some news that keeps us looking forward:

Do you see what I see?

God has a funny way of helping us to overcome our grief by potentially giving us another gift.  :-)  Given the fact that it is still early on in the pregnancy, I'm still very nervous - especially after knowing that what happened in May could easily happen again.  But for now, I am trying to be optimistic and cannot wait for my OB appointment in January where I will hopefully hear a heartbeat.  If all goes well, Baby should arrive the first part of August.

(BTW - this is not public knowledge as of yet.  So to the 1 or 2 people that actually read my blog, you are sworn to secrecy until we officially announce this news.)  :-)

***UPDATE***  As of today (12/13/12) I have an ultrasound scheduled for Monday morning.  To say I'm nervous, would be an understatement...  Prayers appreciated.

 

35 and Still Alive

Today was my 35th birthday.  That is only 5 away from 40...  Yikes!  I had the pleasure of going to the BMV office to renew my license.  I was prepared for a wait and lugged in a bag full of stuff to keep the girls busy.  Instead, it literally took all of 5 minutes to renew.  I didn't have to take the eye exam, I didn't have to have a new photo taken (thank goodness) and so I have no idea why I COULDN'T HAVE JUST DONE IT ONLINE!  Completely unnecessary for me to drive 35 minutes for that but whatever...

Anyway, since Grant is still in San Diego, the girls and I enjoyed some yummy Panera.

Yummy - bad for you French Onion Soup

 

"Spike" was one of my lunch dates.

 Aria enjoyed her mac-n-cheese. 

Brielle ate better if Aria fed her -  go figure

After we got home, I went out and raked leaves. (fun, fun - right?)

 

Kodi enjoyed us being home.

 

Aria helped.

 

Brady liked being out as well.

 

cheese! ( I look like crap)

 

Aria's pile

 

I was too lazy to cook something for dinner, so I ordered Domino's. 

Regret that decision now.

So, I survived another birthday.  One thing that I missed today was having a friend to go out to lunch with or something.  I also missed cake.  Maybe I am just getting needy and sentimental the closer I get to 40 - who knows...  Yes, I am thankful that I got to spend time with my kids, but there is something about friendship that seems to be missing in my life right now.

Here Goes Nothing!

 

Serious attempt at losing weight.  Starting with a 3 day cleanse and then going from there.

All of the ribbon is cut up to make korker bows for Aria's party guests.  Now I just have to seal the ends, sew the bows together, cover the clips and attach the bows to the clips.  (I think I'm scrapping the idea to make tutus.  I have all of the tulle, so if you have a little girl don't be surprised to see a tutu as a gift in her future...)

That's it for now.  Back to cleaning...

All the Rage

Since it seem to be "popular" to take photos of food and post them, I thought I'd jump on the bus.  Aside from my radishes, I just picked my first veggies from my garden.  Yay!

First batch of lettuce

1/2 pound of green beans

The following photo is of a very disappointing experiment:

2 tomato plants + 1 upside down planter = 0 tomatoes and a lot of blight

In other news - there are a few pretty flowers in the flower garden that I have ignored in the back yard:

And my camera has a fun feature where I can keep the main color and turn everything else black and white:

neat - eh?

And finally, in an attempt to make our tiny bedroom more inviting and relaxing, I've started making the bed everyday (don't judge).  I also put up one of those peel and stick wall decals.  Take a look:

you like?

Tough Week

This has been a tough week to say the least. 

On Monday, I went in for what was supposed to be a routine OB appointment.  Sunday was the 11 week mark in this pregnancy.  At my appointment I was looking forward to hearing the heartbeat.  However, it wasn't meant to be.  The midwife got out the doppler to listen to the heartbeat and could not find one.  She then did an exam, determined that my uterus was tilted and so maybe that the baby was hiding.  She sent me across town to have an ultrasound done.   The ultrasound tech confirmed my worst fear - there was no heartbeat, the baby was dead.  They sent me back to the midwives for further instruction.  The tears began to flow.

Back at the midwives', they take me back to a room.  There they tell me that this happens a lot at their practice. (Not exactly encouraging news - especially since I was hesitant to call them in the first place because the last 4-digits of their phone number is 0666.)  Then the midwife goes over my options and tells me to call them as soon as I had made my decision. 

That night Grant and I discussed our options and I also spoke with my cousin that is a physician.  Between the two conversations and along with doing some research, I decided to choose the D&C.   I knew that emotionally I could not handle seeing the tissue and essentially the baby in the toilet.  Nor could I handle the waiting for it to happen and the pain - both physically and emotionally - that would come with that. 

So I impatiently wait for the midwife office to open at 9 am on Tuesday.  I call, speak with a receptionist, tell her my information and what I have decided and she tells me that a midwife will call me right back.  Over 4 hrs later, I have not heard anything.  I call back - a little irritated by now - and I ask if it is normal to wait over 4 hrs for a return call.  The receptionist puts me on hold, then comes right back and tells me that the other receptionist is on the phone with the medical practice that performs the procedure.  (Midwives, obviously don't do D&Cs.)  I hold a while longer and when they get back on the phone, they tell me that the first available appointment was June 1.  That was nearly 3 more weeks past where we already were and the chances of me "releasing" the baby on my own before then were pretty high.  The receptionist and I were in agreement that that was too long to wait and she would call me back later once they found a better date.  Her "better date" was May 22 - and that appointment was only a consult and from there they would schedule the actual procedure for a later time. 

This did not set well with me.  I decided to call Generations (where I had gone for my first two pregnancies) and I asked if this was normal procedure.  The poor girl that answered my call got to deal with a sobbing, hurting no-longer-mom-to-be.  Soon after, I received a call from Mary, Dr. Vaughan's nurse.  She asked me some more questions and said that she would speak with Dr. V and get back to me.

Wednesday morning, Mary called back.  She said that Dr. V would do the procedure on Thursday (today).  A little later the O.R. called me and set up the time and told me all the specifics about not being able to eat or drink after midnight and so on.  Surgery was scheduled for 10:30 am with arrival at 9:30.

So off we went this morning to "D day".  As per the norm in the medical field, they were running late.  The wait continued.  We finally get called back to the pre-op area and get all prettied up (ha!) and speak with the doctor and everyone else on the floor it seemed.  About an hour later than planned, I go back to surgery.  Last thing I remember was thinking that the table I was on was very narrow and I was glad that I hadn't eaten any cookies the night before and I prayed to God that everything would be okay.  Next thing I know, I wake up in recovery with a splitting headache and I can't see because they haven't given me my glasses back yet. 

Soon after, they have me get up and go to a different room when I try to shake the nauseous feeling and the headache.  While I am in that room, one of my nurses received a visit from her newborn grandson and his parents - and boy did that sting.  They were in the hallway right outside my room and my curtain was open so I could see and hear all of the happy chatter.  My other nurse must have heard and seen what was going on because she came right over and closed my curtain and apologized to us for witnessing that after what I had just gone through.  We told her that it was okay and we understand that life goes on.  Soon after the nurse that had the grandson also came and apologized.  After she left is when I finally lost it.  I try to keep my emotions in check for the most part - but obviously I can't do that this time.

I know that it will take time to heal from this.  I don't know if I will ever completely do so.  Tonight when I was praying with Brielle before bed, I couldn't keep the tears back and I am sure that this is only the beginning.

THE Trip From...

As you may know, last Saturday my mom, the girls, the dogs and I started out drive to Kansas from Maine.  First we went to Disney on Ice in Portland and then at about 1pm EST, we started our journey West.  And let me tell you - was it ever a journey...

Our original intent was to drive straight through.  Ha - that's funny.  Anyway...  Things started out smoothly.  Light snow in Maine, but nothing to slow us down.  We made it through Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut before things got crazy.  After 3 exits to find an "Easy On, Easy Off" fast food option, we finally took a "tour" of Danbury, CT, just to get dinner.  From there we traveled through New York and into Pennsylvania where we were greeted by snow.  Somewhere in PA, at around 10 at night, Aria was complaining that she didn't feel good.  We pulled off at a gas station and I climbed into the back just in time to "catch" her puke.  Fabulous.  (I think that she only puked because she had so much junk draining into her throat and she gets really upset easily when she doesn't feel well.)

After I got Aria calmed down and Brielle changed, we continued on.  However, by 1am, my mom and I were both too tired to continue driving.  I had only gotten about 4 hrs of sleep the night before because both Aria and Brielle had rough nights.  I was also not able to nap in the car because - without fail every time I would fall asleep - one of the girls would wake up crying - thus waking the other child and anyone else in the car.  We pulled off the snowy roads and found a Super 8.  They accepted dogs and said they had a crib for Brielle, so we were golden - or so we thought...

It turns out that they didn't have a crib of any sort after all.  So we had to block off a section between both beds for Brielle to sleep.  By now, it was 2am.  I finally got Brielle down and Aria quiet, when I then tried to get some sleep.  However, Brady (my Corgi) had other ideas.  She started puking, but neither my mom nor myself got up in time to get her out the door.  This began an ENTIRE night of her puking.  The only person that slept in those short 4 hrs, was Brielle and she was woken up by Bailey (my lab) jumping down into her "pen" and sitting on her.  When we got up, we found 8 piles of yak from Brady.  L o v e l y...  Then at 6-something, the car alarm on my van randomly went off.  I had to go out in the bitter cold and snow and try to figure out how to get it to turn off.  (Mind you I had no boots or winter attire because I was headed to warmer Kansas where I wouldn't need that.) 

By about 8am EST, we finally had the puke cleaned up, the two cranky kids, the three dogs and our stuff all loaded back into the van to continue our journey.  My mom and I had decided that we wanted Subway for breakfast, so we took the first exit that said it had one. 

They didn't open until later. 

Dejectedly, we continued on. 

We tried another exit and the person that made the sandwiches was not in the store yet.  (Dumb - turn off your "Open" sign then...)

Third times a charm and we FINALLY found an open Subway an were able to get some food. 

After that, the rest of the drive was fairly uneventful - after we got out of snowy PA.  We were dead tired and delirious by the time we arrived at my parent's home at 1:30am Central Time Monday morning.  We unloaded what we needed and wearily climbed into bed.  Too bad the kids didn't sleep in the next morning though...

It has taken me most of the week to get out of the "jet-lag" from that trip.  For those who are calculating - it took us over 36 hrs to get here.  I had to reset the passwords on both of my email accounts because I couldn't remember them at all.  I've been walking around most of this week in a fog.  Hopefully that fog will lift and I can enjoy the rest of my time here.

And we better not experience a repeat-performance on the way home...

Two-Thumbs Down

Today gets a big two-thumbs down. 

I don't know if it is because today is a full moon or is something else is going on, but today just plain stunk. 

I should have known that today wasn't going to be stellar when I found a magnet from one of the girls' books in Brielle's poopy diaper.  It wasn't there because she had eaten it - it was there because her sister put it down her shirt and consequently it went into her diaper.  This was followed by a full day of Aria being defiant and downright disobedient.  Usually she just has her moments, but today was just one big "moment". 

Added to my fun today was when Kodi and Bailey decided to bolt for the road and bother a guy that was out walking his Chocolate Lab along with his baby in a stroller.  That guy was less than pleased with my dogs and later paid me a visit.  He informed me that he called animal control.  Luckily - there were no prior complaints about my dogs, so they won't do anything - yet.  I now have a "record" and I have been verbally warned.  Fabulous.

To top off my day - Aria decided that it would be a good idea to eat the ENTIRE tube of her toothpaste while I was putting Brielle to bed.  Awesome.  Now I shall wait for her stomach ache that is likely to follow.

So basically I have lost all control.  I can't control my kids and I can't control my dogs.

If I drank, I would likely be doing that right now.  Instead, I am searching for some chocolate......

Just Another Day at the Funny Farm

Some days are better than others.  While my mind and heart weigh heavy today for my cousin and her new baby, there have been a few bright spots.

Brielle has started making "Popeye" faces every time I attempt to feed her something.  It's funny - and she knows it - so she does it all the time.  Today, I caught it on the camera...

Silly girl.

After I put her down for her nap, I couldn't find the cat.  I searched high and low for him and even snuck back into Brielle's room to see if he was hiding in there.  No cat.  Then Kodi showed me where the cat was...

That is him - literally squeezed under the recliner, next to the foot stool.  Better than the table, I suppose - I just hope I remember he is there if I get a chance to sit down and relax...

Just another day at the Funny Farm....

Tiny House

Tiny little house.

You are not my friend on snowy/rainy days.  It does not help that the precip falling outside is actually more ice than anything else - so I can't send anyone outside to play in it.

The kids are cranky and irritable.

The dogs are in my face.

I need some space...

Toddling

Next Wednesday, Brielle will turn one.  To celebrate, she officially started toddling last night.  She has been taking steps for the last month or so, but last night it finally "clicked". 

 

She is by no means ready to take off and use walking as her only method of movement yet - but we are getting closer.  

She still falls.

But she gets back up (with help) and walks again.

Happy baby = happy mommy!