Random Thoughts

My friend's baby passed away yesterday afternoon. (See earler post.) It turns out that her form of cancer is so rare that there are only five, yes 5!, cases per year in the whole world! I just can't fathom those odds.

I'm amazed at the grace my friend has shown through this whole ordeal. Her faith is certainly sustaining her through this rough time. It's times like these that I am really envious of those with such strong faith. They are accepting of the outcome and so certain that this was meant to be. Me on the other hand, I get really sad and really angry.

The funeral is tomorrow and unfortunately, I won't be making the 5 hour trip. We've sent a beautiful lavendar flower arrangement, per Emma's request. (Because really, what little girl doesn't like purple?) We're also donating a bunch of books to the family's pre-school in little A's memory. I like the idea of kids reading books in her memory for years and years to come.

It's a bittersweet day for me. I'm so sad about A, and yet, I'm feeling relieved for myself. Without giving TMI, I'm having less and less problems with the pregnancy and really hope that a weekend of complete rest will get me back to 100%. Neil's taking over everything for the next 2 days so I can actually do total bedrest. Honestly, the idea sounds much more appealing than it is. I hate being forced to lay around and do nothing. Thank goodness for wireless interent. I'm taking the laptop to bed.

My mom is coming on Sunday night to stay for the week. That way I can continue to stay off my feet and the kids can actually have someone interact with them. It's been a tough week trying to attend to their needs and still follow doctor's orders and rest as much as possible. They've been pretty understanding about my lack of activity with them, but I know they miss it. And I do too.

Sad news

I'm sitting here typing with tears streaming down my face.

A very dear friend of mine had a baby on July 19. The delivery was easy and little A scored 9 on her APGAR. She was a perfect, beautiful girl. A few hours after delivery, she started turning blue. After her rushing her NICU, it was determined that she was bleeding profusely in her abdomen. She was life-flighted to an awesome children's hosptial where they were better equipped to treat her. After having 2 surgeries to remove a tumor on her kidney and stop the bleeding, my friends received the results today.

Little A's tumor is a very rare, very aggressive form of pediatric cancer. She will be removed from life support tomorrow afternoon. I spoke to my friend the day after A was born. She was, of course, devastated, but also hopeful that the doctors would find and fix the problem. We haven't talked since; she's kept everyone up-to-date via email and the hospital care webpage. I can't even imgaine how she is feeling now. I'm sure she's spending the night holding A, so I definitely don't want to disturb her now.

I'm on modified bedrest and know that I shouldn't make the 5 hour drive to the funeral, but I really, really want to be there for my friend. Rationally, I know that it would be better to visit later when I'm healthier and we can spend some time together, but my heart just hurts so much and I want to say good-bye. I know that she would want me to stay here and take of this baby, but it doesn't really make me feel better.

Please keep my friends in your thoughts and prayers to give them the strength to deal with such a tragic loss.

Here (s)he is...

I had my first ultrasound on Monday. I've been having some minor problems, so the doctor wanted to check to make sure everything was OK. Thankfully, we saw a good, steady heartbeat and baby appears fine. I have been ordered to take it easy for the next few days, which with a 5 and 3 year old is easier said than done. Neil is fantastic though. I basically take care of their immediate needs during the day and he does the clean-up at night. It's strange having to sit around with my feet all day long. It always sounds like a nice idea, but after a couple of days of it, I'm ready to get up and move.

The tech printed out a picture for us, but it's actually quite a bad shot. Baby just looks like a blurry blob. I'm disappointed, but oh well, there will be many shots to come. :)

Pregnancy Blues

I forgot how tiring the first trimester really is. Maybe that's because I've never experienced it with 2 kids before. Emma has quiet time in her room and Andy and I sleep for a couple of hours EVERY single day! I honestly don't think I could get through the day without it. Usual naptime is 2.00, but some days I'm so tired by 12.30, that I push it up for my sake.

We finally told the kids on Monday night. I felt like I needed to explain to them (especially Emma) why I was so tired and sick all the time. She's so observant, I didn't want to her to worry about me. They were so cute and excited about the news. We told them right before bed so Tuesday was filled with questions. Andy kept asking if the baby is out yet. He's really curious about how he/she is going to get out. (Thankfully there have been no questions about how baby got in my tummy. LOL) Emma corrects him and says it's going to be a "long, long, long, long, long time" before the baby comes out. And she's right. Not a happy thought when I spend most of my waking hours feeling like I'm about to puke.

Emma has totally become a mother hen. She has always been very maternal but this news has kicked it into overdrive. She told me twice on Tuesday that I needed to eat healthy for the baby. I have no idea how she knows that. She also questioned the wisdom of eating peanut butter. She was worried the baby might be allergic like Andy. She told Andy to shut the lights off in the pantry because he was "wasting pennies." At first it was really cute. After 6 days of it her comments, I'm sick of it. Andy's really sick of it. He's in the throes of the terrible 3s and the last thing he wants is TWO mommies yelling at him.

I had some morning sickness with Emma. Never actually sick, but quite a bit of nausea. With Andy I was actually sick a few times and felt pretty crappy. But this baby takes the cake. I need to have a very specific amount of food in my stomach at all times or I feel sick. Haven't eaten in a couple of hours? I turn green. Eat too big of a meal? I turn green. It sucks! I've been having some slight complications, so I know it's a good sign to feel sick. And I try to take comfort in that. I really do. But I'm so damn sick of feeling like this.

Before I was pregnant, I kept saying I wanted to experience it one more time. I opined about how much I love being pregnant. How I good I feel. How it's just such a cool thing. What the hell? Obviously there is some sort of memory-blocker included in the epidural, because now that I'm pregnant again, it's all coming back to me.

Trust me, I'm very happy I am and I know that it's a miracle and that I'm blessed, yada, yada, yada. But that doesn't make this shade of green any prettier. Thankfully, it will all be erased again during childbirth so I'll go to my grave thinking I loved every minute of every pregnancy. And I'll really, truly mean it.

Confession: I'm a slug.

I'm so unmotivated. I haven't written for over a week. I don't feel like cleaning the house. I don't want to cook. It's too damn hot and I just want to sleep.

I went to all 3 days of CHA last weekend with Jackie. It was fun seeing everything new and getting to help her pick out some new stuff for the website. We planned the next 2 months of Design Team work so I know I've got some great stuff to work with really soon. You'd think that all of the creativity would inspire me. Instead, I'm a slug.

It's so hot outside that I avoid spending any amount of time out there. The kids aren't even enjoying it anymore. We've spent more time inside this week than we have all summer.

Enough whining. I'm going to bed.

My girl's growing up

Emma has been making half-hearted attempts to ride her bikes without training wheels for about a month. She was scared of wiping out and insisted on having someone hang on at all times.

But something strange has happened. She spent a week on the farm and never touched a bike. The first day she tried after coming back, Neil said he only used one finger to help her balance. Last night I was helping her. All of sudden she just took off and rode to the end of the block. It was amazing. She practiced for probably an hour, back and forth. The only help she needed was getting a push to start.

Today, she doesn't even need that. She's figured out how to do a running start or she just rolls down the driveway to get enough momentum. It's like a switch just flipped and now she gets it. She probably rode around the cul-de-sac 50 times today.

I'm so dang proud of her.

(I'd post a pic, but I can't get them to work on here. Any tips?)

Summer fun

It's so dang hot again that I can't stand it. I finally spent some time outside this evening once the sun started going down. Andy loves to water my flowers, so he had the hose. He moved from the flowers to the trees. Emma had a sudden fit of 5 year old bossiness, so she went over to supervise. Instead of the usual fight, Andy just turned and sprayed her with the sprinkler. And instead of her usual dramatic wail, she actually giggled. This turned into an impromptu sprinkler session. They took turns spraying each other with the hose. It was so cute. The sun was setting. We had the tiki torches lit around the patio. The air was filled with sounds of laughing kids. If only I could bottle it and replay on rainy days when they're fighting non-stop.

Home again

I met my folks yesterday and picked up the kids. They were very happy to see me. I saw them pull up to the mall where we meet and walked to the car before they got out. It was awesome to see their huge grins as they saw me get close. They both wanted to hold my hand as we walked through the mall. (This is unusual because Grandma always wins when she's around.)

Of course, the good-byes were tearful as usual. Andy's really become attached to Grandma. He cried and cried when it was time to say good-bye. Emma tried really hard not to cry, but eventually the tears came. They were excited to get home and see Daddy so I talked about that a lot to distract them. Eventually it worked and we had a very peaceful 3 hour drive. OK, so I have to give some credit to "Scooby Doo: The Movie."

Emma was sitting on my lap before bedtime. I gave her a quick squeeze and said, "I missed you so much." She replied, matter-of-factly, "I didn't really miss you, Mom, I was just too busy having fun." Strangely, given the state of my raging hormones lately, this actually made me happy, not sad.

Ahhh, silence.

The kids are at my parents' this week. They are having fun on the farm, riding the Gators (John Deere not Ali-), exploring in the trees, just running around outside. Basically doing all those things that are hard to do in the suburbs. I miss them, but I know how much fun they're having so it's not too bad.

I had forgotten how quiet a house with no kids is. I have not had the TV on all day. I had an early Doctor appointment. From there I went to Jackie's to work for awhile. I stopped at Archivers after that and then came home around 1.30. I did a little more work on the Design Team stuff and then decided I'd just go upstairs and read for a bit. Ha! I read about 5 pages of Harry Potter and fell asleep. It was awesome!

I finally made myself get up around 5. I putzed around doing nothing till Neil came home at 7. I could get used to this. Reality returns on Friday so I've got to make the most of it.

I know I'm only 4.5 weeks, but man, do I feel bloated. I don't think I've gained any weight, but I feel like everything is puffy. Ugh. I'm also having random waves of nausea already. I had this with Emma too. I never actually got sick, but I would suddenly just get a wave of blech. I'd much rather deal with this than with the actual sickness I had with Andy so I'm not going to complain too much. (Well, try not to anyway.)

And now, it's off to bed. Maybe I'll actually read 10 pages tonight.

It's official

I passed the test. Or is it, I failed the test? Whatever. I'm pregnant!

Neil and I have been trying for 4 months and were really starting to get worried. We've been fortunate and not faced fertility problems. Emma was conceived after a night of margaritas. We called her the bionic baby because we were using 2 forms of protection and she managed to be. She's still sneaky like that. It took 2 months to conceive Andy, but we weren't really trying the first month.

This time, oh the pressure. We had a very specific window of opportunity for this baby. Neil's brother is getting married in England on May 20, 2006. We (OK, OK, it was all me) obsessed over the perfect age to travel from Chicago to London with an almost 6 year old, an almost 4 year old and a baby. I created a detailed spreadsheet to track my periods, ovulation days, due dates and baby's age at the wedding. This month was our last chance and we really thought we missed it. I even took a test a couple of days before my period was due and it was negative. And then I was late. Another day passed and I couldn't wait anymore. I took another test and TA DA...

I haven't even seen the doctor yet, but I have calculated my due date as March 13, 2006. Given that I will probably have to be induced early, the baby should arrive around March 1.

I've known for 24 hours, so it's starting to feel real. This is gonna be fun. :)

A day late and a dollar short

That's me. Always on the tail end of a trend. I just heard somewhere that blogging is almost over. I took that as my cue to get started.

It feels kind of weird putting this out there, but if it gets me to start writing again, it has to be a good thing.