17 weeks and cooking!

Had another doc appointment Monday.  Baby's heartbeat is right on track, albeit slower than Miles' (does that mean it's a girl?).  We scheduled our anatomy scan for my birthday.  Brad and I have decided to find out that morning and then keep it a secret until the following Saturday where we'll have a "Sex Party" to announce to our close friends and family. 

I'm very excited!  I wanted to do that with Miles, but I never got to it.  This is our last hurrah so why not go all out?  On top of all that our family has been through hell for the last 7 months.  It's time to celebrate something...even if it is something silly.  So we're gonna. 

Here's the bump at 17 weeks.

Little babe is right on track!

Had another great appointment today.  Over the weekend I couldn't shake the feeling that there was no heartbeat and when I went in this morning I was going to find out that the baby had stopped growing.  I know, I know.  I need to stop worrying about nothing.  Brad says if I could find a way to capitalize on how much I worry we'd be rich.  Sadly, I can think of no way to manage that.  :-)

So the baby, which I like to call "she", is back on schedule.  They originally moved my due date back a few days because the early ultrasounds were consistently 3 days off.  But today she was measuring exactly 13 weeks.  So they moved me up to 10/1 from 10/4.  So we're right back to where we started.  :-)  We had our NT scan this morning that measures the nuchal fold on the back of the baby's head to guage the risk of chromosomal abnormalities like Down Syndrome and two others that I can't think of right now.  We measured in the "normal range", but they sent off my bloodwork to get a better idea of if we're in the clear or not.

I feel great though about it all.  Very reassured, which is just what I needed after losing our last baby in October.  So this little fighter is doing great.  Such a huge relief.  On the ultrasound I got to see her flip around and kick her legs and wave her arms.  It was fabulous.  Brad couldn't get away from work this morning so he missed it, which makes me sad...but we're both relieved by the good news.

Here's a pic of our little babe from this morning.  They wouldn't give us a gender guess like they sometimes do...this ultrasound tech said it's too early and she wouldn't feel confident guessing right now.  So I'm good with that.  I'd be so disappointed if she told me one thing and then in May we find out she was all wrong.  So it's for the best!  :-)

The belly - 12 weeks

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Well, a little update.  Sorry I don't keep up as often as I used to.  I'll try to do better.  There are so many times each week I say in my head "I don't want to forget this moment!" so I need to start writing them down.

We lost my Dad.  It was, obviously, incredibly painful and sad, but yet also a relief too for him to not be suffering anymore.  I dreaded telling Miles so badly.  I sat him on the couch beside me and we had a conversation that went like this:

Mommy:  Buddy, do you remember how Poppy was sick and couldn't get out of bed by himself and couldn't walk and he looked very different?
Miles:  Yes.
Mommy:  Well, when Mommy was gone yesterday night she was with Granny and Poppy and Poppy went to heaven.  So he's not sick anymore and he feels great because in heaven no one hurts and everyone is happy.
Miles:  So is Jesus taking care of him now?
Mommy:  Yes he is.  And Poppy is feeling much better.

And that was that.  He got it too.  I haven't had to repeat it or explain it again.  He just gets it.  I've made a conscious effort to continue talking about Poppy and reminding Miles of things Poppy loved...songs, candies, etc.  Then on the night I came home from the visitation in Ashland I was putting him to bed and he asked me to sing him a song.  So I sang "Live Forever" because I'd heard it a million times over the weekend on the slideshow my cousin Amanda did for Dad.  When I was done I told him it was Poppy's favorite song.  His response:  "Mommy, I didn't get to say good-bye."

Cue the waterworks.

I told him that he didn't really need to say good-bye to Poppy because Poppy's not necessarily gone, he's just up in heaven waiting for us.  But that if he wanted to tell him good-bye he could and Poppy could hear him just like Jesus can anytime we talk to him.  He waved from his bed up toward the ceiling to say good-bye to Poppy.  I seriously do not understand why I got so lucky to have such a caring, compassionate, loving child.  He is amazing and he makes each day better.  Never ceases to amaze me really.

Monday he told me that I'm "the sweetest Mommy in all the world."  Then yesterday we were waiting for Brad to get home from the gym and Miles was playing outside and I was vacuuming up the bag of rice cakes he accidentally dumped in the floor of my car.  All of the sudden he was beside me tapping on my legs.  I looked at him and he opened his arms and asked for a "huggie".  So I gave him one and he said "Mommy, I missed you so much today."  And again...how did I get so lucky?!

He is very excited about his "baby sister".  Yes, he's sure it's a girl.  He has asked us to name her Shelby Lynn or Laura.  Neither of those will be the baby's name, but it's super sweet he's giving suggestions.  he already loves his baby sister.  Now let's hope it's a girl!  haha!  We get to see the baby again on Monday at an ultrasound...sometimes the u/s tech will give you a guess at the sex of the baby.  I'm definitely going to beg and plead for them to give me a guess.  :-)  I'll keep you posted! 

Oh and I'll post a pic of my current belly (in all it's giganticness) right after this post.  It's on my phone...so I'll just post it from there by itself. 

So...that's all that's going on here.  :-)  Trying to get life back to normal...whatever that is.

Coming out of the closet!

I've kept you in the dark for far too long!  We're officially expecting again.  It was our first round of clomid and we got lucky.  It's really just that simple.  :-)  The EDD is 10/4/12.  So I've gotten a lot of "10-4 good buddy!" from my friends and family, which is hilarious.  We had our second ultrasound yesterday and our little hippo is growing just perfectly on schedule.  They did move my due date back 3 days because baby has consistently measured 3 days behind...so we're assuming I ovulated or implanted 3 days later.  No big shock there.  When has MY body operated on anyone else's schedule but its own?  Egggzactly.

So we're thrilled.  Brad's hoping for a boy and I'm banking on a girl.  Miles changes his mind daily.  :-)  We'll be happy with whatever we get.  I know how to raise a little boy and I know they love their mamas something fierce.  So I win either way.  :-)  I'd just really like to buy pink frilly things.  Ya know?  And be able to say I've raised one of each. 

So here SHE is.  :-)  Our little hippo.  (Aunt Shera was brave enough to come out and call her a hippo...and she's totally right.  Little bit looks just like a hippo!)

I know, I'm post-heavy today.  But I had a teeny bit of time and wanted to do a little updating on Miles.

I really need to update more often about what he's into and how he's doing.  Right now he's Spiderman, complete with the old theme song and everything (thanks Grandma!).  He got Spiderman jammies for Christmas from Aunt Nikki & Uncle Zac that he would wear every single night if I let him.  They have webbing under the arms.  Super cute. 

He's really missing his mama.  I've been busy helping Mom and Dad and not that I've don't THAT much to help them...my brothers really are helping much more because they're closer...but still.  He's missing me on nights I'm not home and clinging to me like crazy when I am home.  I don't mind the lovin' from him, but sometimes it turns into acting out and being a turd.  I can't really tell if it's acting out because of absent Mama situation or if it's just that he's 3.5.  Either way it's tough sometimes. 

But last night we had a nice evening.  He schooled Brad and I in Candyland.  Somehow that kid wins more often than not.  It's craziness.  He was very lovey and wonderful.  This morning when I dropped him at daycare he was soooooooooooo much better than he has been the last 2.5 weeks.

2011...Good riddance!

I wrote a very nice, sappy, LONG post about NYE and being glad to see 2011 go.  Unsurprisingly the damn thing disappeared from my iPad and the app stopped working.  It was lovely.  That was in 2011.  2012 is shaping up to be much better!

Mom and I celebrated NYE together, well she was asleep, in the hospital with Dad while his heart beat out of rhythm.  It was a very scary, long night.  Anyway, what we found is that the chemo he's been suffering through has done NOTHING to help him.  The cancer has continued to grow and just make him more sick.  So he stopped chemo and a week later Mom brought him home.  Hospice has been called in and we're prepared for anything.

He was in really, really bad shape when he came home, but as the chemo wore off he's been rebounding.  We can't tell if it's the last hurrah or if he's generally feeling better with the chemo out of his system.  To be honest, we don't give a damn.  He's generally in good spirits.  He's talking to us a LOT more...even cracking jokes.  He's our Dad again and we'll take any amount of time we can get of that.  So we're soaking it all up. 

So to review 2011.  My Papaw died in April.  Dad started getting sick in March.  I had my gallbladder removed in July.  Dad found out his cancer was back and in a terminal state in September.  Back to the hospital for a wild ride NYE and also found out the end is MUCH closer than we all anticipated. 

So 2011 can suck a big fat...toe.  It was awful.  I mean there were good times mixed in otherwise we all would've lost our minds.  Nic & Evaline got married.  Erin & Thom had Emma.  Brad got a new, much better job.  So it wasn't all terrible...but in review I'd say it was a bust.

We're looking forward to whatever 2012 brings and enjoying all the happy moments we can while we have them.  :-)