Preschool graduation

Lily graduated from preschool this morning. She was so excited for what she is calling her "special day". I can't believe my little girl will be 5 in a month. Where has the time gone? She is full of personality, love, empathy and sass. What a wonderful combination. She drives me insane most days, but its a "good" insane. She loves life, she feels every emotion to the fullest, and she makes me want to be a better mother. Lily is so excited to start kindergarten in the fall, she can't wait to ride the school bus (something I could live without), and she can't wait to meet new friends and experience it. Of course I have my hesitations, but I would never let her know that. I know she's going to do so well at school and it makes me so happy that she is excited about it.

it creeps up...

One minute you are feeling good... then the next you are overcome with grief. So goes the story of my recent weeks.

I haven't blogged because I've been busy, and scared. I keep myself busy, but then the feelings of loss creep up and I"m struck with it all at once... then I get too scared to write.

Does that make any sense? I doubt it.

I had blood work drawn this week, and got the results today. Everything is normal. Lovely. F-ing lovely. I should be happy that everything is the way it should be, but I'm not. I'm sad that its all normal... I'm angry about it. I don't FEEL normal so to be told that the bloodwork came back "great" (in my doctor's words) was upsetting. Its like it kind of took away from the loss. If the blood work and labs came back as normal, shouldn't I feel normal? Because I DON'T! I definitely don't feel normal, like everything is ok. I miss my baby, I miss what could have been.

part two of the story

I woke up from surgery around 11:30 or so... Paul and my mother in law were there... I don't remember a lot.... mostly the doctor saying that he saved my tubes and ovaries, that the pregnancy was in my ovary not my tubes, he removed a cyst as well that was the size of your fist and that I had lost a lot of blood..... I also remember the nurse telling me to press the green button for pain relief. Morphine, lovely morphine. I don't remember much else from the night... random blood draws, iv changes, etc... normal overnight hospital stuff. My family came in the morning to visit, I was happy they brought my girls as well. Boy did I miss them. Those girls are my world, and I was so happy to see them. Would you believe this was the longest I had ever been away from them? Kate was so happy to see me, she curled up in bed with me for nearly an hour and nursed nonstop.... even fell asleep nursing. What a sweet moment to have with her. I'll treasure that forever.
The doctor came when my family was there... he talked about how smoothly the surgery went, how I had lost over a liter of blood, how he was able to save all "my parts", and how I must have an incredibly high pain tolerance because he doesn't know how I wasn't keeled over in pain due to the circumstances.
Over the next two days I dealt with being at the hospital and trying to come to terms with what had happened. I had family and friends visiting and calling. It was wonderful to have the support. I was discharged on Monday afternoon and came home to my family, and my mother who was staying with us for the week to help.

This past week has had its up and downs. Definitely more downs, but I'm trying to stay positive. One of the best highlights of the week was on Thursday after I got my staples out... I was finally feeling strong enough to take on the stairs... I nursed Kate to sleep in her rocking chair and put her to sleep for the night. Prior to this, my mom or mother in law brought her to me after her bath for me to nurse downstairs... and although it worked, I truly treasure those sweet precious moments at night when its just me and her. We can relax and wind down together. Thursday night was just perfect. Of course I was in tears, mourning the loss of our baby, thankful for my health and ability to be with Kate at that moment.

I've learned a lot about my family this week. I'm learning to soak them in, to appreciate what we have, to love unconditionally and without hesitation. I knew all these things before, but with the events of the past week, I feel that I'm relearning them all again, and that I have new perspective on it all.

Every night I've cried myself to sleep in my husband's arms. Although he doesn't understand or comprehend the loss of our baby the same as I do, it is comforting for me to be with him. We definitely aren't on the same page when it comes to the loss... he sees it as us being very lucky that I'm here and alive... and of course I see it as we are now missing a family member, our baby, our child. We'll probably never see eye to eye on it, and honestly I don't care about that... I'm just happy that I have my family, but mournful for the child that will never be with us. But our child is with God, and I can think of no better place for our baby.

gonna try blogging

I think I'm going to try blogging again.

Paul and I lost our baby 6 days ago. May 16, 2009. I had no clue I was pregnant, we weren't trying to get pregnant, and then I woke up that morning.... everything changed. I woke up that Saturday in pain, like stomach cramping pain. My first thought was maybe a UTI, or a bladder infection, or just indigestion... something simple. I never woke up thinking that this would be the morning that my faith would be tested, that my life would stand still in time. By 9am I packed the girls up and headed to urgent care, Paul met me there. I couldn't provide a urine sample for the doctor there, I waited and waited, drank 3 bottles of water... but still could not go. The doctor examined me, he said it could be my appendix, an ectopic pregnancy, or just a bladder infection. I gave no thought to the idea of an ectopic pregnancy, that just wasn't even in my radar. We decided to go home and head to the ER. I had to drive home, which I would never advise doing. We called my Mother in law to come over and take care of the girls.... while waiting for her to arrive, I all of a sudden became in more pain. I talked to my dear friend Patty for a moment before I thought I was going to be sick. From the bathroom, I told Paul to call 911 and get me an ambulance.
I had never been on an ambulance before, but I was so thankful for the kindness of the EMTs that responded. We quickly got to the hospital and I was admitted. Blood was taken, IVs were hooked up, and soon a catheter was in place. The nurse seemed so sure that once I had the catheter that I would find relief, since my bladder was empty... and everyone thought it was a bladder infection at this point. The hospital sent my urine off to be tested.... a few hours later the doctor came in with some pain medication and terrible news... News that was supposed to be happy and joyous.... I was pregnant.
I started sobbing, I knew it wasn't good. How could this much pain be good? Paul and I knew something was wrong and started praying for strength. We called our parents to let them know and soon my parents were driving down. We headed up to radiology to have an ultrasound done. Once the sonographer put the wand on my belly I saw my empty uterus (except for the foley from the catheter) I knew there was no baby there.... it had to have been ectopic. Of course the sonographer wasn't able to tell us anything, but I've had enough ultrasounds to know what I was looking at. She scanned my tubes and my ovaries. My tubes looked the way I think they were supposed to look... Paul and I tried to be optimistic... we talked about having another baby, even though this baby wasn't planned, it was loved no less than any of our other children. All children are such a blessing, that we immediately fell in love with our baby from the moment we knew we were pregnant.... we started forming dreams about our child, imagining our family with an infant again, we started hoping for the best for our child.
After the ultrasound the doctor had to review all the labs and scans.... the nurse came in with another dose of morphine for me and said that it looked like surgery... I will never forget his face and tone when he said that. The doctor came in right behind him saying the pregnancy was ectopic, I was bleeding internally and needed surgery. I started balling, I lost all control... who was this person telling me that my hope was gone, that I had lost my baby...
I don't have an OB/GYN, I have midwives, which obviously couldn't do my surgery... so the on call OB/GYN was called. I was relieved to know it was someone I had heard good things about. Paul soon went home to put the girls to bed. We were nervous about how Kate would do. She nurses to sleep every night and doesn't use bottles, so we weren't sure how she would do. Luckily she did great and went right to sleep.
The doctor was in soon, he talked about the surgery and his different options for going in, he could either do a bikini cut, similar to a c-section cut, where the recovery would be more difficult, but he'd have a better chance of saving ovaries and tubes... or he could go in laporscopicly where the incision would be smaller, the recovery quicker but less of a chance of saving my tubes and ovary. I chose the bikini cut, I wanted the best chance for us possibly having a baby again in the future. The doctor left to go look at labs and stuff.... he came back and said that he'd have to go in and do a bikini cut because of the level of internal bleeding I was having. I started noticing sharp pains in my shoulders and neck... like they were paralyzed... my mother in law assured me that was normal of internal bleeding... but still it was scary.
Pretty soon, around 9:30pm I was prepped for surgery.. I met the OR staff and was wheeled into the OR. I was given a mask of oxygen to put on, and that was the last thing I remember.

I'll finish with everything in my next post..

Kate's first ER visit

To say I'm tired is an understatement. ugh... where to begin...

Kate has had the sniffles for a few days, nothing more than a runny nose... no fever, no cough, nothing. Well that all changed at 10:30pm last night, 3 hours after she had gone to bed. She woke up crying and could barely breath. I was so scared. I thought that maybe she was just worked up from crying, so I nursed her and layed her in bed with me to keep an eye on her. She quickly fell back asleep, but her breathing was loud and labored. I called Paul to let him know that we may need to go to the ER if it didn't get better (luckily he was on his way home from work, after working a 16 hour shift). Kate woke up again around 12:30 and the breathing sounded worse. I was getting really worried, so we called Paul's mom to come and watch the girls while we took Kate to the ER. While we waited for her to arrive, Paul took Kate into the steamy bathroom and had a hot shower going... the steam seamed to break some of the congestion up and then I heard THE cough. Croup. No doubt about that... We decided to still go to the ER, since her breathing sounded so bad. Within 15 minutes of arriving at the ER we already had seen the nurse, doctor, had our diagnosis of croup and had a dose of steroids to help with the inflammation of her lungs. A breathing treatment started shortly after that. Luckily Kate slept through most of the breathing treatment. Paul and I tried to get some rest on the comfortable ER bed... LOL. I'm pretty sure Paul was able to get an hour or two of sleep there, but I couldn't sleep listening to Kate's breathing. It sounded so bad. Luckily within 3 hours it was getting better and we were allowed to go home. I pushed and pushed for permission to go home, I knew that we could treat her just fine at home, and the steroids were obviously kicking in. We got home about 4ish and I slept till about 6. Kate woke up sounding a lot better... still croupy but better than last night.

Getting the energy out...

I'm trying to be a better blogger, can you tell? Two posts in one week? Is it possible?
Lily's new thing the past two weeks or so is running laps around the house, or laps around the swingset in the yard, yelling that she has to get the energy out. I don't mind so much when its outside, but I normally have a problem with running in the house. Not really a habit I'd like to get into, but none the less, I have to giggle a bit when she does it. I think thats one of the hardest things about being a mom, trying not to laugh and keep a straight face at times. Generally though, our days are full of laughter. The things that come out of the girls' mouths are usually hilarious and they certainly keep me entertained.
Kate's new thing is rolling as a form of transportation, haha. I was so not prepared for my 5 month old to be able to roll across the house in a matter of minutes... literally. I guess I was pretty spoiled with Lily and Julia... both of them were late rollers, and were actually sitting up unassisted before they rolled over. And they never rolled in order to be mobile. Kate is a speed roller, and will literally be across the room in seconds. I should definitely try to get it on video.
Julia has been suffering with a bit of the sniffles this week, but I think we are on the tail end of it now, which I'm happy about. She's been more clingy than normal and so much more shy in new situations... I'm sure its just her not feeling well, and I'm certainly not complaining about the extra snuggles either.

Mom's Night Out

Once a month I get together for a Mom's night out with four of my friends. We met about a year ago when our children started preschool together. For 4 of us it was the first time we sent our child off to preschool. Last night was one of our nights together and we got together at one of friends' houses for good drinks, good food and of course great conversation. It dawned on me as I was driving that the 5 of us are completely different people but we somehow come together and have a great time. The 5 of us come from different walks of life, between us we have experienced divorce, adultery, annulment, stillbirth, adoption, infertility, unplanned pregnancies, we are SAHMs, working mommies, student mommies, we have had home births, elective cesareans, emergency c/s, inductions and natural childbirth, some of us breastfeed, some of us formula feed... the list of all our differences could go on and on... but all that aside, we each have a 4 year old that at some point was diagnosed with a learning delay. In the past year I have really grown to love and care for these women. We definitely have our differences, but I love listening to them and learning from them. I have such a fun time with them and really look forward to my one night out a month.

Now enough about me....

Lily started preschool this week, and has done fabulously well at her new school. I've managed the morning time rush quite well I think. I've forgotten how quiet the house is without her here. Julia and I have enjoyed our time together as well. Most times I can get Kate down for a little nap in the morning, so that gives Julia and I some time together. I've also signed Julia up for a couple activities during the week. She starts her gym class today, which her aunt is taking her to. This will give me some nice time with Lily, which I'm looking forward to as well. I'm constantly feeling like I'm not giving each of them the one on one time they need... but both of them seem to be doing wonderfully, so I can't be doing that bad of a job. I also have Julia signed up for story time at our local library on Mondays and for a Farm class on Fridays. I think she'll really love the farm class, she'll be spending time outside, visiting animals, and whatnot. Julia's been going through a very shy phases, so I'm hoping that having these activities helps her socialize a bit better. She does great with familiar faces or if Lily is around... but if she's without Lily then she clams up most of the time.

Kate is doing pretty well too. My big girl is 5 months now and growing so big. I spent a good portion of this week getting all her 6-9 month clothes out, because she has certainly outgrown her 3-6 month clothes. I haven't even given solids a thought yet, I'm just so content with how she's growing and nursing, that the thought to add anything in the mix hasn't really crossed my mind. She's still waking to nurse at night, but she's only 5 months, and I have expectation of sleep at this age... haha.