Learning from Miscarriage

It seems that I'm surrounded my miscarriage lately. My own loss of our sweet twin baby. The heartbreaking miscarriage of a friend who almost shared my due date. Another friend telling me about the miscarriage she just had before she even had the chance to tell me she was pregnant. Two dear bloggers who have lost their babies and are now painfully waiting for D and C's. And the anniversaries of two different friends loosing their babies before birth.

That's a lot of miscarriage.

I read this article yesterday and thought it was beautiful. It says it so much better than I ever could.

But for my own, simple reflection-I will say that being surrounded by miscarriage serves a very real purpose for my life. It's easy to fall into the mindset that babies come easily. We got pregnant easily the second time around. Both of my pregnancies have been without any major complications. It's not hard to starting thinking that I'm in control. That we'll be able to have children whenever we want. And that we'll never suffer major heartbreak.

But that's just not reality. The suffering of so many of my friends serves to remind me that God is in control. He gives and He takes away. And really, I must surrender everything to Him-because it belongs to Him anyway.

The suffering of others forces me to be more grateful. To appreciate the gift of life within me on a deeper level. Because it's so fragile. Even in a normal, healthy pregnancy. And when we meet this baby on his birthday it will be because God has BLESSED us. Not because we deserve it.

Please pray for all those suffering from the pain of miscarriage. Especially S, J, M, J, M, and L.

To My Girl, at 18 Months

To my 18 month old sweetie,

You are SO MUCH FUN! You make us laugh every single day. Every hour. And probably every 10 minutes. There are so many things we love about you-it's hard to know where to begin.

Your personality. You are very, very determined. If you want something done you won't rest until you've accomplished it. You set your mind to the funniest tasks-climbing into a full cabinet and shutting the door, climbing up on the cooler so you can look out the window, laying out the blanket for your baby just right with no bent corners or wrinkles-and you do whatever it takes to complete your task. If you can't do it you get angry. Really angry. And then you reluctantly ask for help by saying, "mama". But you'd much rather do it  yourself.

There are certain words we are always using to describe you. Curious. Nosey. Tenacious. Full of energy.

You love to read. And we love to read to you. We don't have to "entertain" you with books anymore. We don't have to say, "Where's the dog? Oh look a car!" to keep you interested. We can read every word on the page and you listen attentively and soak it all up. We've been tearing through the library's board book selection because we can't keep up with your love of books. Before we read each one you examine the cover picture. When we get to the page that matches the cover, you turn back to the cover and smile because you found a match. It amazes us every single time.

You still love to be chased by your daddy. He hardly gets in the door after work before you're running from him and egging him on to get you. You watch him leave for work every morning and blow him kisses. Then you get excited if you see a truck drive by and say, "dada!" I think you think trucks are actually called "dadas".

We've been in 10 different houses in the last two months and you have been a champ. It's helped us discover some of your favorite types of toys. You loved your friend's toy car so much that we bought you one.

Your favorite toy of all is your baby and a pair of your pajamas. You could spend an hour arranging the pajamas just how you like them and trying to dress your baby in them. We just sit and watch you-we're so impressed by your intensity.

If we'd let you, you'd spend all day outside. The other day you watched a caterpillar climb on the sidewalk for 10 minutes and then looked for that caterpillar every time we came across that part of the sidewalk for an entire week. You like swimming and sliding and swinging but you'd really just prefer to walk around and explore. Your curiosities are never satisfied.

Your language is really taking off. You had a bit of a slower start but now you have almost 40 words. A lot of them sound the same. Poo poo, baby, bye-bye, and beep beep all sound like "baba". But we know what you mean :) It's amazing that we can actually have conversations. Ask you what you want and hear you give a response. Today you were pretending to talk on the phone. I asked you who you were talking to and you confidently said, "papa".

Your newest word is "no" and it's the cutest dang thing. You exaggerate your mouth and say "doooo" while shaking your head. You always know when a "no" is coming. You hold your food over the edge of your tray, say "dooo" while shaking your head, then throw it on the floor. The fact that you know "no" doesn't mean you actually obey "no".

You've always been pretty girlie and we love that about you. You love to have your toe nails painted-it's the only time you sit still. When I fix your hair or put your clothes on you immediately show it off and and swirl until I say "pretty!" This week we bought you your first pair of big girl tennis shoes. We went to the mall, just the two of us, and tried on at least five different pairs. You loved it. And you love your new shoes.

You start school Wednesday! A cooperative mother's morning out at a local church. It's just three hours a week-but I know you're going to love it. Dad and I both get a little teary eyed thinking about you starting school already. You're growing up waaaay too fast.

Hannah, every day with you is a blessing. You exhaust us, frustrate us, and push us to our limits. But we go to bed every night talking about all the cute things you did that day. We say, "She's so sweet!" at least a hundred times a day. You are the light of our lives and we thank God for you every single night, without exception. We know you're going to be a great big sister. You rub my belly when we ask you about the baby and you get excited anytime you see a little baby out in public. We can't wait for your little brother or sister to meet you.

And although you love to be "pretty", we'll probably always remember you like this. Striped pajamas. Crazy hair. Turning on some music and ready to dance. 

My View

Quick Takes

-1-

After almost two months of waiting to find out the fate of our moldy mobile home, we have an answer. It's over. It's not going to be fixed and they're not buying a new one. We can't live there as planned and have to find a new place to live. Our first reaction was one of relief. "Thank goodness. At least now we can move on." But that was immediately followed by wallowing in the realization that we're not going to get to save thousands and thousands of dollars like we had hoped. We've gone from having a virtually rent-free home with a garden, huge yard, front porch with swing, and two sheds surrounded by nature to searching for a new rental and forking over tons of cash. Like normal people I suppose. But it was going to be great to save all that money. To be able to stay home with Hannah without the stress of bills. To have dada come home for lunch since his office is just across the field. Sigh.

-2-

I will say that I'm not bummed about getting to live in town again. The house was about 30 minutes out of town. Combined with the traffic upon getting into town and it would have taken me 45 minutes just to get to my friends' houses. I'm not upset at all about losing our long commute. And I'm excited to find a home in a neighborhood, as this entire experience has taught me that I value neighbors far more than I realized. I always thought a house in the middle of the country with chickens and a garden and a clothes line was my dream. But now my dream is starting to look like suburbia with sidewalks for taking walks and bike rides with neighbors that wave as you walk by. At least I figured that out before we bought a house of our own in the middle of nowhere!

-3-

It's nap time and I'm AWAKE! This may be the first day of my pregnancy that I haven't wanted to take a nap when Hannah was sleeping. Fingers crossed that this means that all the glory of the second trimester is just around the corner!

-4-

Hannah is very into being "pretty" right now. Any time she gets dressed, gets a bow in her hair, puts a necklace on, etc-she grabs her belly and sways back and forth until we say, "Ooh you're so pretty." She even points to me and makes the "pretty" gesture. "You think mama's pretty?" Big nod and smile. Swoon. She has my heart in the palm of her pretty little hands.

-5-

I wish this Quick Takes had pictures. I am sorely lacking pictures of the last two months. My goal is to do a little photo shoot with Hannah tonight and write an 18 month update post soon. Like while she's still 18 months. And a bump picture! Must-take-bump-picture.

-6-

This article was eye opening. I had no idea that is what drowning looked like. I'm glad I read it-you should too.

-7-

Now that I can properly spot a drowning person, we're going swimming this afternoon! The good thing about Florida is that everyone I know has a pool. You just have to be a little pushy forward and ask to come swim :)

Happy Weekend!

A Past Due Pregnancy Post

I know, I know-I've hardly blogged about this pregnancy at all. I still haven't written a post describing how we found out (Hannah's is one of my favorites to re-read), haven't posted any ultrasound pictures, or even taken a bump picture! The reasons are twofold. One-we have been under some pretty major stress since we found out we were pregnant. About a week after the big news-we moved into a new house, got sick from mold, and have been staying with many different for a month and a half now. That doesn't leave a lot of time for blogging. But the second reason is more complicated.

I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that we had to have an ultrasound to rule out twins. At the time of the post-I was told there was only one healthy baby and I was thrilled. Unfortunately, the next day we got a call from the doctor telling us that it's very likely we actually did have twins and that one of them died.

It's all very strange to me.

I had an ultrasound at 6 weeks, 3 days-only because I was so sick and worried about the mold and wanted to make sure everything was ok. Otherwise-I would have never been given an ultrasound so early. This was the ultrasound that showed two little "somethings/someones". We could only see a heartbeat in Baby A, but the second little figure was kind of hiding, so it was hard to tell what was really going on. My second ultrasound, a week later, revealed only one baby and some "small density matter consistent with an envoluting twin". A third ultraound, two weeks later, showed that whatever had been there was completely gone and only one little baby was wiggling around in my womb.

We just haven't known how to mourn this. For one, we don't know that we had twins for sure. No one has offered any other possibly explanation, but no one has given us a certain answer either.

I'm sad, obviously. If it's all true, then we have a little baby in heaven right now that we will never get to meet on this earth. We won't even get to know if we have a little baby in heaven until we get there ourselves. So it's kind of like a miscarriage? But not. Because I'm still pregnant and this little baby is growing and healthy and right on track. So we mourn. But we rejoice. But mostly-we wonder.

Twins run in both of our families (tons and tons of twins!) so we've always had the idea of twins in the back our heads. Before Hannah, I said I really wanted twins. But boy is one baby a lot of work! Not that I wouldn't love two-but wow. That's some serious graces I would need to gain. During the week we were waiting to find out if there was "one" or "two"-we were both excited and scared. Ted was more excited than I was-I'll admit. But we talked about name possibilities and about going from a family of three to a family of FIVE.

But now we just need to come up with one name. And we'll just be a family of four. And that's ok. It's more than ok-it's more than we ever imagined was possible. But it still feels....weird.

I passed a dad with two twin boys in his grocery cart at the store the other day. I was suddenly overcome with sorrow. "That could have been me. My child will never know their twin sibling. Will we ever know if s/he is a boy or a girl?" It just hit me harder to see it like that. And I'm sure it'll hit me in a different way after the baby is born.

But despite all of this, despite life being absolutely upside down and crazy, despite the sorrow that has surrounded this pregnancy, our second child deserves a blog post. So here are some much needed updates on pregnancy so far:

I was twelve weeks this past Saturday. I thought I was 13 all day until Ted told me otherwise. Ooops.

I'm huge. I purposefully didn't take any pictures during the first few weeks because I already looked like I was in my second trimester. I was so bloated. Still am. I think I look about the same right now that I did at four weeks. (picture coming soon)

I haven't been super sick, but I haven' felt great either. I'm constantly going back and forth between starving and feeling over-stuffed. Certain foods gross me out. I eat a lot of soup and cinnamon and sugar toast. I'm incredibly tired and take a nap every day when Hannah naps. It's bad-I'll leave lunch on the counter and put the food away when I wake up. I'm that tired-I can't even spare 15 seconds to shove some stuff in the fridge.

We're not finding out the sex, just like we did with Hannah. That was the best surprise of my life. It's going to be amazing again. We have a boy name already (what Hannah would have been)  but are not decided on a girl name. Suggestions welcome! (it can't begin with H or end with an "uh" sound and must be only one or two syllables). Ted has a name he loves, but I'm not sold on it yet. It's weird to have to come up with a name-our names for Hannah were decided within a few months of dating!

I've had to stay on progesterone longer than I did with Hannah. I'm still taking the pills everyday and will continue until my levels stay high. I had a slightly scary drop a few weeks back  but everything is ok now.

I went with a midwife for my first appointment (when we noticed the twins) and loved her. I was really excited about using a midwife this time around. However, when my progesterone plummeted and she was unconcerned, I decided to go elsewhere. I've switched to a Catholic OB who has had some training in NaPro and love him. He said I could bring Hannah to every appointment and that if I needed to have any procedures done he'll get the nurses to help watch her!

Hannah rubs my belly when I ask her, "Where's the baby?" And when we pray in the evenings she rubs my belly because she knows we're going to pray for "our little baby". She LOVES babies. Is obsessed with them actually. I sure hope that it continues and she is as excited about having one of her own.

I've been super impatient with getting through the first trimester. With Hannah, everything was new and exciting so I relished every second. But this time around I know how awesome it can be-and the first trimester just isn't awesome. I'm just so anxious to feel this little guy moving around and to have my belly grow so big that even strangers ask when I'm due.

So I promise to take a belly picture soon. And maybe I can have Ted scan some of our ultrasound pictures at work. I'm sorry, sweet second child, that this post has taken me so long. I love you and can't wait to meet you and hope (oh please Lord!) that our life will be a little less chaotic by the time you arrive.

Quick Takes

-1-

We're in Missouri! My parents flew Hannah and me home for a week to escape the craziness of moving houses. It was my first time flying since 2000 and Hannah's first time ever. She did great. Note to self-do not sit in the very front row where there is no seat in front of you to put your carry-on forcing you to put it in the overhead storage and spend the first 35 minutes of the flight with only a bag of pretzels and a bowl of raisins that ran out in 5 seconds flat. Once I was able to get our bag down, she was happily entertained by the mini magna-doodle, baby doll, and endless supply of raisins.

-2-

Today is my 27th birthday! And the first day of our small town's annual picnic. Growing up, my birthday fell on one of the picnic days over and over again. Actually, I was born on "picnic Saturday" and my dad took pictures from the hospital to show everyone.They even announced my birth on the loudspeaker. I haven't been to the picnic since my 21st birthday, so it's sure to bring back lots of memories of birthdays past. And seeing Hannah ride the same merry-go-round and little cars that I road as a kid is sure to be adorable.

-3-

On the weaning front.....it's awesome. Thanks to everyone who left supportive comments on that post. After five days of cold turkey Hannah was doing GREAT but I was a mess. One afternoon she had a major meltdown and I just didn't know how to help her without nursing. So I gave in. And since that day she has nursed no more than once a day, sometimes going several days without it. She doesn't need to nurse for naps or bedtimes anymore. She doesn't usually need to nurse when she's upset. But she knows she can. And I know she might. And that has made all the difference.

-4-

I love Simcha Fisher. Every. stinking. thing. she. writes. This post on attachment parenting is hilarious. Beware! If you are an uber-attached parent (which, for the most part-I am ) she is definitely making fun of you.

-5-

Remember when I posted all those adorable pictures of Hannah smiling for the camera?? Those days are over. Her smile has turned into a weird nose-scrunch-with-kissy-lips-and-squinty-eyes. Also adorable, but not the kind of face you want to see in picture after picture after picture.

-6-

I went to Chik-Fil-A Wednesday. And I don't hate gay people. But I do believe in the right's of every American to say what they think and not be denied (or threatened to be denied) a business license for it. There were lots of good blog posts in the Catholic circle this week both for and against the "appreciation day". I agreed with all of them actually. But ultimately, for me, it came down to tolerating (yes-tolerating) other people's opinions even if they differ from your own, freedom of speech, and delicious chicken. Did you go?

-7-

Pigtails!

Happy Birthday Weekend!

Quick Takes

-1-

Please, please, please join me in prayer for my friends, Those Landrys. A very loooong story short-they have been trying to sell their house (that they are not living in) for three and a half years. They've had three closing dates come and go and now a fourth is in jeopardy. The house is set to be foreclosed August 8th and they are asking everyone to pray a novena to St. Jude that this most recent offer will go through. They've really been through hell and back, lost thousands upon thousands of dollars, tried everything you could possibly think of, and had their faith vigorously tested through all of this. I know you probably don't know them. And selling a house doesn't seem like a huge deal. But please pray with me. Please.

If the novena is too much, just say this in your head right now: St. Jude, please help the Landrys sell their house.


And then say it every time you pass a house with a For Sale sign in the yard!

-2-

Remember when I asked you to pray for this family to receive another child through adoption?? Prayer answered!! I love it!

-3-

Hannah has learned how to smile for the camera. Correction-Hannah is obsessed with smiling for the camera. Of course this new skill would coincide with us not having our camera for weeks because it's in the moldy house, so crappy cell phone pictures will have to serve as proof.

Any my personal favorite. Her first kid's meal. Judging by her excitement, the kid has clearly been deprived.

-4-

Pregnancy update, because ya know-I'm pregnant. Progesterone took a nose dive, got on Prometrium, went back up to a good range! I'm not that sick, but have a hard time finding something to eat that doesn't repulse me. When we pray as a family in the evenings Hannah rubs my belly when we pray for "the baby".

-5-

We have to leave our current apartment tomorrow and move to yet another friend's house. This will be the sixth place we've stayed this month. I'm so grateful for the generosity of friends, but man is this tough. Ted's confessor told him last weekend that this was an opportunity to become more like the Holy Family. They didn't even have a home to for the birth of their baby! And then they had to go to Egypt suddenly and were again without a steady place to live. The thought had never occurred to me. Well my blog says I'm trying to be more like Mary, I guess this is about as good an opportunity as ever.

-6-

And speaking of becoming more like Mary, do you think Mary looked Jesus in the eye when he was being an exceptionally difficult toddler and said, "I'm going to lose my mind!" or "You are driving me insane!" Because if she did, I'm definitely becoming just like her. But if not, I've got a looooong way to go.

-7-

I know part (if not all...) of the reason I've been losing my temper with Hannah so much lately is that I have completely neglected my prayer life. Like completely-really truly. Completely. I was thinking about buying a Magnificat subscription to help me get back into the daily readings and the Divine Office when I remembered that I have a Kindle Fire (my mom gave it to me as an early birthday gift!). I've mostly just been using it for apps with Hannah and checking email. But I found a free app that has the daily readings, the Divine Office, and every prayer you can imagine. This non-smart-phone-owning girl was very excited! So yesterday I prayed Morning Prayer and wouldn't you know......"Just as a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you."

Ouch. I'm glad I didn't need any comforting from God Wednesday. All He would have done is looked me the eye and told me He was losing His mind. And yes, I was much better at patiently comforting my cranky, teething, ornery little tot with the verse in my mind all day.

God is good.