Sorry for the delay

I know you guys are anxious to hear the results. Bottom line is I have no good news. They were not able to determine the sex, because I have absolutely no amniotic fluid surrounding the baby. Basically this pregnancy is over and all I can do now is sit and wait.

I sat in the doctors office for 2 and half fucking hours and as soon as the tech started things I knew they were bad. I've been through these before and she could barely get measurements on anything because the baby had no where to go. The worst part??? The baby's heart is beating, the skull is formed, the spine is perfect...the things I was worried about are not even a concern. Reasons for concern?? Other than the fluid...the fact that they can see can see the umbilical cord but not the stomach. His thought was that it was not in the right place. Another reason that my AFP tests were high could possibly be a problem with the abdominal wall cavity. The reason for no fluid?? No bladder production. They asked me several times if I thought I was leaking fluid? Don't you think a normal person would know if they were??? He made it seem like I wasn't telling them the truth on that. He then realized that the placenta probably wasn't doing it's job. Because it's attached to the other baby's placenta, it's a possibility that when the other baby died it caused the other to stop working. And I'm also only measuring 17 weeks, 0 days when I'm supposed to be almost 18 1/2 weeks along. So you can see that we've determined that this pregnancy was just not meant to be. I'm beyond devastated. I can't even explain to you how I feel right now. My heart literally aches. All I know is before I could muster up the strength to shed one tear I could hear Matthew on the side of me start to lose it. Then I lost it, and then my mom lost it. It's just so incredibly unfair that after all of this I still have nothing to show for it.

He told me all the thing that can potentially go wrong, stillbirth, preterm labor, pre-eclampysia, various other things that can damage my health...I could go on but I don't want to. He even mentioned something about ovarian cysts but I never heard another word about it so I have no idea if that's something to be concerned about or not.

So when I tried to get my composure back I asked him at this point what my options were. I either a.) come back in two weeks and see if the fluid MIRACULOUSLY reappears (which apparently based on his experience isn't going to) or b.) I opt to go into the hospital, have my labor induced, to give birth to a live baby who will not make it. I mean pardon the language but what the fuck am I supposed to do? I don't think I can make it another two weeks for them to tell me what I already know. I just wish someone would tell me what to do. Matthew thinks that from what he saw of the heartbeat it was slow, so maybe God is making the decision for me but I cannot in my right mind do that to a live baby. I can't. I have already "given birth" to a dead baby at home, I don't ever want to have to go through that again and I'm going to have to. It's not fair, it's just not fair. I'm not a bad person so why is this happening to me?

I intend to talk to my Dr. first thing in the morning and I hope at that point he can give me some direction because I have never felt so lost in my life. I KNOW people go through this all the time, and I actually have friends who have been through worse, I'm just throwing myself a pity party right now because it's the only thing I know to do.

I don't know when I'll blog again. I don't want this to be a blog about my losses, I still have a great life. I have a wonderful husband, the most perfect little girl who I love and appreciate more now than ever, and an equally supporting family. I want to be able to focus on the positive on my life so when I feel like I'm able to share those again I will. Hopefully it won't be too long and in the meantime I hope I don't lose you all as readers. And I will be reading you :) And wishing those of you who are on your journeys through pregnancy nothing but the best!

Wanna play a game??

So today's the big day, the day we find out if we're having a boy or a girl, but more importantly the day that we hopefully hear that the baby is healthy. That is really all I care about right now anyways.

I've never done an audience participation post so here's where you come in. I wanna know your opinions. Do you think I'm having a boy or a girl? I'll do the big reveal later but only after I get 10 comments with your guesses. Come on people, 10 comments. Is that so much to ask?

In other news, the stomach flu/virus is ripping through this family like wildfire. It started with my mom, then me and my husband and now Ava has a touch of it, bottom end style. Curious to see what my weight is today as I was pretty much unable to eat anything for 2 days. But as I sit here eating my McDo.nalds breakfast I think it's safe to assume the worst is behind me.

Wish me luck, in 3 short hours we'll know!

When life gives you a lemon, make vodka and lemonade

Yeah I'm here. I know you all are sitting on the edge of your seats wondering what to expect next. Well the neverending challenges of this pregnancy keep coming at me. Things were going good until I got the call on Tuesday. The call that will again keep me from sleeping or enjoying a minute of life until my ultrasound on Tuesday. My Doctor called Tuesday afternoon to inform me that my AFP test came back high for Neur.al Tu.be De.fects. He assured me that he's confident based on the pathology of the dead baby that this is a direct reflection of that. I am also comforted by the fact that if he was overly concerned I would have been in his office that day. It still doesn't make it any easier on me. Yes I know these tests produce many false positives, yes I know that at the time the blood work was taken I was probably still carrying hormones from the other baby. I also know that as we weren't planning to have a baby this soon I was NOT taking pre-natal vitamins. I did start choking them down the day I found out, but there were some days at the early stages I couldn't choke them down. I just have to try to have as little faith as I have left that everything still is okay. We will know for sure on Tuesday but knowing all of the what ifs takes all the fun out of finding out the sex of this baby. All I am concerned about now is that it is healthy. And considering this is the last time I am going through this, I was hoping to at least be able to enjoy a little bit about being pregnant. So far we've struck out big time in that area.


In other totally irrrelevant news, things haven't been all that bad here. My child FINALLY decided that she can indeed get faster places if she walks. Sure she's been taking a few steps for weeks, but the other night we were out to dinner at the clubhouse where my dad plays golf, and she just took off, all the way across the room, and never looked back. That's my girl. I knew she had it in her! She still prefers to crawl but at least we're getting there. Now if the dog would only get out of her way...

Knowing me I won't post again until the weekend is over. Thankfully I have a busy one planned. Matthew is having his 20th, yep 20th High School Reunion this weekend (I love teasing him about that) so there's all kinds of crap, I mean stuff going on. Not really looking forward to much of it except Keen.land on Sunday, but seeing as my favorite thing to do out there is chug the ice cold beer, I might be in for a long afternoon. He's also dragging me to some picnic on Saturday which is forcing me to miss my beloved Cats kick the crap out of the Gators. Does he realize what a good wife I am??? Because seriously, I don't miss football games for just anybody.

**Just got a message from the nurse at my Doctor's office saying my blood work came back normal??? WTF. God I'm so confused

Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh...

A strong 158 beats a minute, honestly the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. Belly growth right on track, a whopping 6 pounds gained and 6 vials of my blood now belong to the lovely people in white lab coats. Mom's happy, dad's happy and Doctor is happy...what more could I ask for! I even got a faint little flutter as I was getting ready to hop on the table. It's just been a great day.

Today's the day

If you are thinking about it at 2:30 ish, say a quick prayer for us. We have yet to actually "hear" a heartbeat due to the obscene number of ultrasounds I've had, so I'm hoping today is the day! And if all goes well, in just two short weeks we'll get to find out what this little bugger is.

Wish me luck!

One last thing and then I'm moving on...

My super ahhhsome doctor called Wednesday to check on me, but to also let me know that they did some preliminary testing on the baby we lost and they determined that it did not have a breastbone, and the ribs were not in the right place. So basically it had nothing to protect it's heart and if it would have survived, it would not have had an easy life on the outside. He also briefly mentioned something called Turn.er's Syn.drome and although I only did a little bit of research, I learned that it only affects females and am now beginning to wonder if we indeed lost a girl. Definitely a question I'm going to ask next week. While I'm definitely comforted to know that this was caused by a chromosomal anomaly and not something that I did, it upsets me to know that I'm an now a statistic.


On a totally different note, and one in which probably deserves it's own post but I'm too lazy right now to do that, Ava had her 18 month check up last week. All is well, except the little squirt weighs about the same that she did at 15 months. A whopping 21 pounds. It appears that all the chicken nuggets, french fries, and hot dogs that I've been feeding her have only made her mommy fatter. Not fair indeed.

All joking aside, she's really changing alot and I know that's what they do at this stage, but I just can't get over how much of a person she is. She's really good now at communicating what she wants to us, and she's even better at showing us when she's really pissed off. I can't even list all of her new words because she has about 10 new ones a day. She's starting to interact with the dog alot more, and she now calls him "Harwee" instead of puppa. She frequently shows her disgust with him by pushing him aside, and the other day she even smacked him on the nose screaming "no" at him because he ate her chicken nugget. She looks more and more like her daddy every day and acts more and more like her mommy. And I know we will pay dearly for that later. She's still really not walking much. She can, and we've seen her do it, she just has absolutely no interest in it right now. But give the child a ladder and she will be up it faster than you can scream "shit." Oh, and did you know that she can now climb right on out of her crib? Because she can. I found her playing on the floor the other morning when I went to get her out of bed. Do you think it would be child abuse if I gently handcuffed her to the sides, because I'm not quite ready to put her in the toddler bed, and even if I was I have no idea where the instructions are to change it.

She starts a mother's day out program on Monday and I'm really looking forward to it. I have no idea how she's going to handle it but I'm all about having 4 hours to myself. Can you say toddler free time at the grocery store? Oh I can hear angels singing now. It's going to be nice to put the frozen stuff on the conveyor belt without having to explain why it looks like a mouse got a hold of everything I have. I'm also hoping that it entices her to WALK. She passed her August deadline, and she's a flower girl in a wedding next month and I'll be damned if she doesn't walk down that aisle. I refused to push my 19 month old child in a wagon. Not gonna do it.

I guess that's it. 5 more days until we hopefully get to hear the heartbeat on our other baby. I guess the good news is that since all of this has happened, I have felt 1000 times better. No more headaches, no more backache, no more nausea (for the most part) and my appetite has returned with a vengeance. I guess I should have listened to my body that was telling me something was wrong. Naturally I just didn't want to believe it. And now I'm anxiously, and impatiently waiting for that first kick, a sign that all is well in there.

Mumbo Jumbo

I had no idea it had been almost 2 weeks since I posted, it's probably been the longest 2 weeks of my life. This pregnancy is literally kicking my ass, but the good news is that it seems to be getting a little better, and the only way to go from here is up. This post is probably going to be a jumbled mess of thoughts, but that's about the best I got for now.

I started on the Phene.gren on July, 20 almost immediately after I found out I was pregnant. I realized pretty quickly that it wasn't helping, in fact it felt like it was making me feel worse. I suffered on that for a week until I called back, and all but begged for something else. They called in Zofr.an, which I now must recognize as the greatest drug on earth. Seriously. It's $50 a pill and if my insurance wouldn't have paid for it, I would have. I didn't care what the cost, I just wanted to feel normal, or halfway normal. I wanted to be able to hold, feed, change, and play with my daughter without feeling like I constantly needed to run to the bathroom. The feeling was constant. I was miserable from the time my feet hit the floor until I actually fell asleep at night. I didn't want to have to medicate myself during pregnancy, especially during the first trimester but I literally didn't think I would make it without it. Alot of it has to do with my anxiety disorder, which I'll go into at a later date, and they say that if the benefits of taking medication outweigh the risks, then do it. The first day on the new medicine was unbelievable. I couldn't believe the difference. Then the second day hit, July 29, and I don't know if I just had an off day or what, but that was the worse day I've had so far. I almost passed out, literally, and it scared the living crap out of me. And more so because one of my episodes happened in the car, on the way home from church with Ava in the backseat. Somehow, by the shear grace of God I made it through the day and I called the doctor first thing Monday morning. By this point I was feeling alot better, but they wanted to schedule me for an early appointment anyways. So, on Tuesday of that week I went in, talked to the doc about everything that has been going on. I was prescribed enough Zof.ran to last 6 months, and a new prenatal, Premesis. That in itself has helped wonders too. the good thing, it's not a horse pill like most of them are. He also went ahead and did an ultrasound just to be safe, and I got a glimpse, albeit small, of my new baby and for a minute all was right again. According to that my due date is March 25, but I have to go back next Tuesday for another ultrasound and I think at that point they will change it. He's basing that on a conception date of July 2 , and it didn't happen then. I can guarantee it.

I had also forgotten how much you have to eat. I never thought I would say this but I am so.sick.of.eating. The difference this time is that I crave nothing, and have aversions to everything. Nothing ever sounds good, and if it does I usually put the food in my mouth, chew a few bites and promptly spit it out. I did not have that problem when I was pregnant with Ava. I ate everything, and I wanted to eat everything. This time I'm eating out of necessity, not out of want. But I know I have to keep food in this belly to keep the nausea at bay. I've eaten a shit ton of Popsicles, and popcorn. I'm really trying to eat healthy, but at the same time right now I'm just eating what I think will stay down. So far so good. But sometimes it is a struggle. Nights are worse than mornings, which is also interfering with my much needed sleep.

Matthew and my parents have been absolute life savers, especially during my really bad week. I literally couldn't get off my butt that week except to eat and go to the bathroom. I didn't even leave the house. I think I showered but how many times, I have no idea. I know I have done alot of bitching over the last three weeks, and god bless them for doing whatever I needed them to do without saying a word.

I know that I still have a long way to go, but just seeing our little blob on the screen last week makes it more than worth it And I know I can get through it. I may just bitch along the way.

The Fun Begins

The following things have made me gag today:

1. The smell of my dog's breath (although on a given day I would gag but today was especially worse)
2. The smell of my deodorant. But I'd rather smell and gag at my deodorant than the smell that would occur if I didn't wear any.
3. My daughter's sippy cup. I thought it had water in it, but forgot that it was water mixed with pear juice. It took me a while to get over that one.
4. A dryer sheet.
5. The first bite I took of my potato soup from Rafferty's. Normally a favorite of mine, but the first bite had a big piece of bacon fat in it and from there it was history.

So things seem to be moving right along. My vitamin seems to be the main source of my problem right now. I had them a while ago, but I hadn't started taking them until this week and this old body of mine isn't tolerating it. I'm giving it a week before I try something else.

U/S set for August 8th, so I hope to know alot more then.

Part 2: The Irony of it All

Before I go any further, I hope that you all don't think that this is something I didn't want. It is, it always has been, it's just the manner and the timing threw me way off. Although I shouldn't have been too surprised. I mean I haven't been on the pill since January and any time the fornicating (yep I really did use that word) happens you run the risk, and for us it wasn't a risk, it was something we wanted. The problem is that the fornicating happens few and far between here right now, and we had discussed "trying" starting in September. And by "trying" I mean ovulation kits and counting cycle days, calls to home for a lunch meeting and whatnot. I even had called Matthew earlier in the day to ask him the last time it happened because it felt like it had been forever. In fact it last happened the day after I got off my period. I was always under the impression that most women ovulated between 12 - 14 days after their period, and while this is true, I am now living proof that it also can happen at ANY time.


So let me back up. On Saturday of last week I noticed I wasn't feeling all that hot. No big deal, it was time for me to start and I usually feel pretty crappy right before hand anyways. Then Sunday came, Monday, then Tuesday and I started thinking that I was late. I'm NEVER late. Even when I'm off the pill my cycle is like clockwork. On Wednesday I decided to go ahead and take a test after something that happened at lunch. All of a sudden I got a wave of nausea, and all I could smell was milk, and there was no milk in sight. I'm sure you think I'm crazy but the last time I was pregnant my scent was heightened to a degree I didn't know existed. Anything that remotely had a strong smell had to leave the house. Walking past Bath and Body Works would almost send me running straight for the bathroom. So I had to run out to the store to get some other things anyways and decided to pick some up. If nothing else, I would have some for later months. I came home, decided then was as good a time as any to pee on the stick, Ava was happily watching Baby Einstein so I did it. I fully expected for it to skip over the first line and go straight to the not pregnant line. Not only did it not do that, the pregnancy line popped up in less than 30 seconds. My jaw hit the floor, I started shaking, crying and immediately ran to call Matthew who is in Florida for the week. He, like I, was shocked but I could tell from the sound of his voice he was happy and wanted to be here with me, not in Florida where he was.


And now that I have you on the edge of your seat, here comes the most ironic part. It was 2 years ago yesterday...to the day...that I found out I was pregnant with Ava. That is the part that got me. It is going to continue to blow my mind. Of course when I found out I was pregnant with Ava I hadn't even missed a period yet, I was like a kid in a candy store dying to know if it I was. So by all accounts, hoping that things go well, this baby will be here sometime around March 24, 2008. My birthday is March 23, and Ava's is March 27, so it looks like we will have our hands full with birthdays but how much fun will that be! I go to the doctor next month for an U/S so I'll have a better due date then. And who knows, if it's another girl we will have everything we need. And if it's a boy, then I'll have even more fun shopping all over again!


We have decided to keep this a secret for right now except for a few people (and the entire internet of course). I am dying to tell my parents but I want to wait until Matthew gets home on Sunday so we can do it together. I'm waiting to tell my close circle of friends, because one of them suffered a miscarriage last week and now is just not the time to talk about it with her. I did however go to the pool with another friend of mine today who secretly told me she's pregnant, so I went ahead and told her about me. It will be fun to have a friend here to be pregnant with. But she's also friends with the other girl so we were in agreement that this will be our secret for now. She's taking the miscarriage very hard.


Now that I've had time for it to set in, I'm excited, this baby is very much wanted and will be loved unconditionally. And although it is coming sooner that I had expected, I feel very fortunate that I am able to experience this journey again. I feel blessed that this is the next challenge that God has granted us, and that just means I will be able to hold this baby a few months sooner than I had ever dreamed. And I absolutely CANNOT wait to see Ava as a big sister.


So hop on board, this is sure to be a wild ride.