Okay, okay already :)

I suck! I know!
Everything is just fine. I am so sorry that I haven't updated--you are all such good friends to me. Okay, this pregnancy is very boring and I know that's just how we like 'em. I'm 20 weeks now. We had the "big" ultrasound last week and the baby looks great. Also, to our surprise, the baby had no penis. We're having a girl! What? Huh? I hadn't even looked at girl names, so if anyone has any suggestions, bring 'em on! I finally got my husband to agree to Samuel. So, anyway....

I will update again soon. Benny had his 1st birthday party on Saturday. I can't believe it.

Take Four

10 weeks, 2 days

No spotting, plenty of morning sickness (unlike my second pregnancy.) Everything looks great...just a little sooner than we were planning!

Hey There.

And somehow, three more months have slipped by without a word from me. B. turned eight months old today. I seriously blame this on the fact that it's only been a few weeks that he's been sleeping more than two hours at a time at night. Yup. I was still nursing him every two hours when he was seven months old. I didn't get the memo that you weren't supposed to do that. Every time he cried, I put a boob in his face and I created a little monster in the process. So that's why I dropped off the face of the planet. Now that I'm getting six consecutive hours of sleep (!), I need to get into the habit of writing again. And I want to get caught up with everyone, too. I wonder if anyone is still stopping by...

Five Months Today

Oh, I'm crazy about this kid!

Oh gee..

Thanks for those coupons for Pull-Ups that I received today, nice folks at Huggies. You are nothing if not wonderfully prompt. The coupons and accompanying potty training tips will come in handy, no doubt.

Yesterday

As soon as the calendar flipped over to January, I started feeling anxious. But then then the day still snuck up on me anyway. It's not over yet...tomorrow was Nate's due date. Sunday is the day that he died. Tuesday is the anniversary of his funeral. So many dates.

Yesterday was so much different than his first birthday. Tom and I spent the day together, just like we did last year, but this time we had Nate's little brother to make us laugh. I've thought so much about what I could do to honor Nate on his birthday and I finally came to the conclusion that being together as a family and loving each other like crazy is a good way to do that.

I made birthday brownie sundaes and we had pizza for dinner while watching the Democratic debate on CNN. We just spent a nice day together, but in the back of my mind all day I was trying to think of how I could have prevented the abruption. What did I do? Doctors can tell me all day long that you can neither prevent nor predict them, but I'm still going to blame myself for the rest of my life and that's just the way it is.

Two years ago...we would have still been in the hospital. The doctors would have been running tests, but I think that everyone knew what the outcome was going to be except for me. I was using the hospital breast pump because I thought that Nate would need to eat when he woke up. That's how clueless I was. I remember getting flowers delivered from a cousin with a card that read, "sorry for your loss" and I went ballistic. I guess I knew what would happen....I just didn't believe it. I still don't believe it.

I've also keeping thinking of the time I was standing in the NICU in my hospital gown, still bloated from the terrible edema with bad hair in need of highlights and Nate's neurologist looked me up and down and snidely said, "Did you have pre-natal care?" All I could do was sputter, "What?" I thought I was going to throw up. "Of course I did! This wasn't my fault!" I hated him for saying that to me and I hated even more that he was the one who would determine that Nate's little brain was completely dead and he was never, ever, ever going to wake up. Never. That paragraph doesn't even really make sense in this post...it's just a bad memory that has been going through my mind that I've never wrote about. Now maybe it won't wake me up at night.

This is hard. I mean, it's easier--it is, but it's still so damn hard.

Two

Happy Birthday, Natey.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)

i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the starts apart

i carry you in my heart (i carry it in my heart)

--ee cummings, 95 poems

Nathaniel Guy

Born on Tuesday, January 31st at 2:12 am

7 pounds 11 ounces and 21.5 inches long

We love you, baby.