Nate Nate Roller Skate

Finally an Update with Picture

2009-03-07T12:41:00.002-06:00

Rosemary Alice

2/25/09 7:49am

7lb. 12oz. 21" long

I'm so sorry that it took me forever to post this! Coming home was really overwhelming. I have lots more pictures, of course, but I can't find the cord thingy for the camera. I guess it's still in my bag that I haven't unpacked. I don't know why I was so overwhelmed...she sleeps like, 22 hours a day. I even have to wake her up to feed her. Totally different with Ben. She's a good nurser, too, which I was worried about. Us girls, we like our food and sleep.

Having two at home now, I don't feel the obsessive need to play "catch up" like I did before. Even bringing Ben home--I still felt like there was someone missing. Well, because there was. There is, I should say. But I feel a little more complete now. Although I think that I will always be jealous of people with two boys. I don't know. I was worried that no matter how many kids I had, I would never have enough. I know that no matter how many I have, there will always be a hole. I can't bring him back. I guess I'm just shocked at this peaceful feeling I have that has been gone for three years. But it could be hormones.

Everything with her birth went very smoothly. I have some very gory pictures of my c-section. The nurse took the camera from my husband...I won't be posting those. Rosie screamed in the recovery room for about 30 minutes and I thought, "Oh man, what have I gotten myself into?" But really, she's made hardly a peep since then. She's a sweet girl. Ben is adjusting pretty well, I think. We've just been trying to keep him really busy and away from Rosie. He's pretty rough, but he's only 16 months old...he doesn't know any better. He tries to climb in my lap when I'm nursing, which breaks my heart a little bit. But all in all, it's been easier going from one kid to two. Maybe we're a little more confident this time. But everything could change when she hits 6 weeks, so I don't want to jinx us. More pictures when I find that stupid cord.

She's here! Healthy & so pretty! More soon....

2009-02-25T11:11:00.001-06:00

12 Hours to Go!

2009-02-24T19:14:00.006-06:00

Okay, we just have to get through one more night! I am not packed and all of the new stuff--double stroller, car seat, bad ass i-pod compatible swing--still in original boxes. I'm going to pack in here in a minute, though. Tom can get all all the other stuff ready this week. We used all of Nate's stuff with Ben, so there was nothing to unbox. I've just been too superstitious to do yet.

Rosie has been really busy today, be-bopping around in there. I had my last OB appointment and everything looks good. We have to be at the hospital at 6 in the morning and my surgery is at 7:30.

Thank you so much for all of your good vibes and thoughts. I love you guys a lot. I'll update as soon as I can!

Here's a sneak preview. I think she looks just like her brothers.

Waiting, waiting, waiting

2009-02-17T13:34:00.004-06:00

She was supposed to be born today. Yesterday was my amnio and she just isn't ready yet. Now I'm scheduled for the 25th and this is going to be a long, scary week. Of course I don't want her to arrive before she's ready--time in the NICU would be awful. For both of us. I don't ever, ever want to go to my hospital's NICU again. I just don't know what to do with myself. I'm a wreck. I've been crying all morning. I've been a shitty mom to Ben and I don't see that improving this week. I think I'm afraid to move too much.

I have to keep reminding myself that right now, everything is okay. She didn't die. She just wasn't born today. She's still okay in there. And I have to keep reminding myself that I won't go as long as I did with Nate, I don't have the horrible swelling that I did with Nate. I had Ben at 38.5 weeks and that turned out okay. We just lost Nate so fast. Everything was fine and then suddenly it wasn't. I've been going back and forth with this all day and it's driving me crazy. There is nothing I can do but breathe, breathe, breathe. And some new yarn might help, too.

3

2009-02-01T06:54:00.004-06:00

I thought he'd cry when the balloons floated away, but he didn't. Maybe he understood more than I thought he would. Happy Birthday, Sweet Pea.

Birthday Eve

2009-01-30T13:40:00.003-06:00

I cried myself to sleep last night. I've been on the verge of a panic attack for days now. I knew that it was going to be hard being pregnant on Nate's birthday...especially this pregnant. Goddammit, this makes me so mad. It's not fair that I have to be so scared. Too scared to remove tags and wash little pink things. Too scared to have even prepared any semblance of a nursery. She'll be here in 19 days and all I can do is just sit here and hope I don't explode. It doesn't make it one bit easier that I've done this before. In fact, I think that I'm a little more freaked out this time than I was with Ben. I don't know why. Maybe I was just as freaked but don't remember. That's why I'm doing it again.

I miss him. I hate this.

Little Brother

2009-01-14T19:45:00.003-06:00

I walked into Ben's bedroom this afternoon. He'd been too quiet and I wanted to see what he'd gotten into. He had his back to me, standing there and digging through his baskets of weird, random toys that I keep in there. Plastic cups, happy meal toys, junk like that. He was puttering so quietly and looked so small standing there. Alone. For the first time it really struck me how unfair it was that he got cheated out of a big brother and he doesn't even know it yet. To watch him play all by himself makes my heart hurt.

Okay, okay already :)

2008-10-21T20:11:00.003-05:00

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

2008-08-12T06:05:00.003-05:00

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.

2008-06-18T21:48:00.003-05:00

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

2008-03-18T20:39:00.002-05:00

Oh, I'm crazy about this kid!

Oh gee..

2008-02-02T11:42:00.000-06:00

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

2008-02-01T14:58:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-31T08:04:00.001-06:00

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.

Random Stuff

2007-12-13T06:59:00.000-06:00

I've got so much to talk about that it's all built up and now I don't know what to talk about! So I'll just talk about a little bit of this and that and maybe I can come up with a decent post later.

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Ben is sleeping at six hour stretches through the night now and it's incredible. For awhile, he was waking every hour and a half and not really taking naps during the day. He got this from me. I suck at naps--I'm afraid I'll miss something exciting, I guess, and so is he. I handled it for a couple of weeks, but then I spent all day crying, sometimes hysterically. I was such a mess in my 6 week post partum check up that my doctor prescribed me anti-depressants. I haven't taken them. Part of it was lack of sleep, part of it was raging hormones and part of it was missing Nate so badly. The first two making the latter so much worse. I was also plagued by morbid thoughts of Ben being hurt or not waking up in the morning and thinking that I would know exactly what he would look like if he died in the night. Fucked up thoughts, indeed. Thank God they seem to be dissipating.

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I'm a cloth diaper dropout. I spent hours researching diapers, dropped a few hundred dollars on some and um, it's a no-go. I preached the wonders of cloth dipes to anyone who would listen--"Do you know how many dirty diapers end up in our landfills?" and "Do you have any idea how many chemicals are in disposable diapers?" and "They make them so easy to use these days! No Pins!!" and "I like doing laundry!" (I really do, used to anyway.) Ugh, whatever. That was before I had a kid that pees every five minutes. I'm going to give myself a break, though. We recycle everything and my husband has an obsession with composing. We have an elaborate system of rotting organic goodness in our backyard. So at least we're doing something for the planet. Anyway....I'm probably going to sell an assload of size 0 Kissaluvs soon :( I might try cloth again when he's older, but in the meantime I have to listen to a chorus of "told you so's!!"

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I've been pregnant, recovering from a birth, waiting to get pregnant, pregnant, recovering from a D&C and pregnant since May of 2005. I've either been pregnant or obsessed with being pregnant. Now I'm carrying around the left over weight of two and a half pregnancies and since I sat on my ass for the entirety of this last one, I'm weak and tired and completely out of shape. So.....I'm starting with a personal trainer on the 28th. If I lost 20 pounds, I'd feel a hell of a lot better, but if I lost 40 I'd actually be kinda hot again. I also want to start running. I've always wanted to be a runner and now Tom is running every morning and doing 5k's. It would be nice if we could do that together. I have to start looking forward now and I'm going to start that by getting healthy again. My whole world has been standing still since 22 and a half months ago. But I need to get healthy physically, spiritually and emotionally for little brother. It's just not fair to Ben otherwise.

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Speaking of feeling better--I'm getting my gall bladder removed tomorrow!!!! Woot, woot!! I can't believe that I'm excited to have an organ removed, but I can't wait. My gall bladder is horrible and vile and I want it OUT!! The stupid little bastard has been torturing me since July. I don't know what else to say about that. I'm happy, that's all.

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Today's my birthday. I'm 33. Or 32 or 34. It all runs together after 30. Okay, yeah, I'm 33. I haven't done anything except go to my pre-admit for the above. I want to go out for sushi and I want big glasses of wine. I haven't had either since I had Ben and I have to make up for it. I wonder what Tom got me...he usually does pretty well with gifts. He picks up on hints better than most.

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Ben laughs in his sleep. I wonder what he's dreaming about. Maybe he's playing with his big brother. I love him so much and it's so hard to see what we'd been missing out on. But I kind of expected that going into this.

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Here is one of Ben's Christmas pictures. He was six weeks old here.

My sister says that he looks like a centerfold pic with his hand behind his head like that. In all of the others, he's making an "oooo" face because he was screaming and I had to give him his pacifier and yoink it out right before the photographer took the picture. He's silly.

An embarassingly short update....

2007-12-09T08:26:00.001-06:00

Hmmm, I wonder if anyone is stopping by anymore? I certainly don't blame you if you haven't. My blog has become one of those that used to drive me crazy. I'd write more if I didn't spend all my time on the La Leche League message boards. Anyway...

Ben is the bomb!! Especially now that he's sleeping in 5 and 6 hour chunks at night. I was getting to the point that I was crying all day because I was just so exhausted. But he really is a good baby. He eats a lot (which he got from both his parents)...he's up to 11 and a half pounds at 7 weeks. Hooray for boobies!! I wanted to update with a couple of pictures from yesterday's Christmas Parade. Tom wears Ben wherever we go...it's extremely cute. Wow, I love my boys.

Ooops, he's up again and ready to eat. I didn't time this very well. Better post later...I promise!!

Three Weeks Old Today!

2007-11-08T09:08:00.000-06:00

When I woke up on the morning of the 18th and felt Ben move, it was the first time in 38.5 weeks that I felt good. I felt my shoulders come down from around my ears. The huge knot in my chest was gone. We made it through that last night and everything was okay. We were going to get our baby today!!!!!!!!!!

We had to be at the hospital at 6am, so before we left at 5:30, we took one more belly shot for the road. I didn't realize that I was so huge! No wonder I could hardly walk those last couple of weeks and people kept asking me how many were in there!

Getting ready for surgery! Tom's got on an oompa-loompa suit. I'm just looking majorly puffy all over. Yuck.

Making his entrance! And this is where he peed on the doctor. Awesome. Turns out, he's a very prolific pee-er and I have been peed on I don't know how many times now. He doesn't pee on his dad, though. Hmmm.

This was the moment that I had been waiting for and dreaming about for almost two years.

I was a little disapointed in my reaction, though. Maybe it was because I was so gorked out from the spinal (which hurt like hell!), but I wasn't overcome with motherly emotions like I thought I would be. Mostly I was thinking, "God, get all that crap out of his mouth!" and "Yikes, he's gurgling in my face!" So, yeah. But looking at this picture now is a different story. I think that even his poop is cute.

So mad!!! That's the biggest mouth that I've ever seen on a baby. And that's what I've got attached to my boob every hour.

This is what I had in mind.

I have so much to say about all of this. The hospital stay, this momma thing. I can't believe what a long road this has been. I can't believe how much he looks like his brother. I'll have to save all that for another post. Ben's starting to wake up....

2007-10-31T10:53:00.001-05:00

Make your own slide shows and scrapbooks

Introducing.....

2007-10-20T08:48:00.000-05:00

Benjamin Thomas!!

Here is our sweet boy :) I'm so in love I don't even know what to do with myself. I'll tell you all about it soon, but everything is just going along smashingly. He's even a champ little nurser! Thank you for all of your good vibes and prayers and then all of your yipees and hoorays! More later!!

He's Here!

2007-10-18T11:41:00.000-05:00

This is Lala's sister, Lizzie. Just wanted to update everyone and let you all know that Baby BK made it safely into the world at 7:58 this morning. He weighs 8lbs and 1oz, is 21 1/2 inches long with a full head of dark hair and HUGE feet! Baby and mommy are doing wonderful and we are all so happy he is finally here! Pics will be posted soon. Sorry about not giving away the name, I wasn't sure if Lala wanted me to do that or not so I am leaving it up to her to tell you all. Lala and Tom want to thank you all for the prayers and good wishes. Stay tuned for pics and updates!!

We're A-Okay!

2007-10-16T15:01:00.000-05:00

I have just been so weird and I'm really sorry. Thank you for checking in on me! If I were to leave myself a comment, it would be "Listen, asshole. What is up with you? You haven't posted in like a month."

Everything is fine, though. We've made a couple of trips to L&D--one was last week for regular contractions. Tom and I had to leave in the middle of a movie...we were trying to squeeze in one more date. Oh well. Something to get used to, right? Frankly, I'll be glad to.

This weekend the crib was set up and all of Nate's things were sorted. It was easier than I thought...I didn't cry. But I really think that I couldn't have done it any earlier than the day we ended up doing it. It just felt right and okay to do it on Sunday.

The date for the c/s was moved back one day to Thursday. We're going in at 6am and the surgery is for 7:45. I had my pre-admission appointment today and I was taken by surprise at how emotional I was for the whole thing. I just wanted to put my head down and bawl. I haven't done that in a long time. Now I'm afraid at how I will handle being in the operating room. I just don't know.

I think that we've got everything ready for Piglet. I've been so neutral this whole time, just not thinking about things much. And then a few weeks ago I looked down and wondered, "When did I get this pregnant? Oh my God--this is the scary part." And it has been scary...really, really scary. We still have, I think, 40 hours to go. I'm so zoned in on his movements and I'm just trying not to do anything but sit in the recliner. Oh please let this happen.

So...7:45 on Thursday morning. Send us all your good vibes!! I think that the hospital has wi-fi in the rooms, so I'll post something that day or have my sister do it for me. I can't believe that it's so close. This just seemed impossible. Just unfathomable.

A Change in Plans

2007-09-24T12:24:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, on what started out as a perfectly lovely day, I came home from the library to a message on my machine from my doctor's office. It was the receptionist telling me that Dr. W has had a family emergency and will be out of the office. Until December. She went on to say that I was being rescheduled with another doctor and I could see him a week later. Well, I was practically hysterical. First of all, I felt totally abandoned. Yeah, Dr. W pissed me off a few times with some things that he had said--but we had a plan. He knew my history (even though I felt like sometimes he forgot it), but for the most part I was comfortable with him and it was like I'd had the rug jerked out from under me. I actually felt like I wouldn't get my baby now. I had to sit down and remind myself that the baby was fine, I was still pregnant and he had to get here somehow. And secondly, I was upset because I was supposed to have an appointment the following morning that I had waited a month for. Now I had to wait another week. I'm notoriously a big weenie when it comes to sticking up for myself, but I sucked it up and called the receptionist back. I told her that I was high risk and I've already waited a month to see a doctor and under no circumstances will I wait another week to have an appointment. So she got me in the following afternoon :)

We decided that we'd give this new doctor a chance. If he wasn't willing to follow our plan, we were out of there. As it turns out, we liked him and here's an interesting bit of trivia. This was the doctor that delivered me. Now, this caused some confusion with my sister and husband who thought I meant that he did Nate's delivery. No, he delivered me. In 1974. My mom was one of his first patients that insisted on a completely drug free, natural birth. That's my hippie momma. She had all three of us without so much as a tylenol.

So, although I was suspicious of this doctor that must be 100 years old, everything is so-far-so-good. He was willing to follow Dr. W's original plan-amnio and delivery at 37 weeks-but he did talk to us about the amnio, and this is where our change of plans comes in. I've mentioned here before that I was worried about having an amnio in the first place. I really didn't have a good feeling about it. Dr. W never discussed specifics with us regarding the amnio. I know that the risks of anything going wrong with an amnio are really small. Well, 1 in 300 actually. But what I didn't realize was that because I'm Rh negative, I have a little greater risk of things going wrong with not only this pregnancy, but with future pregnancies as well.

Let me see if I can explain what has been going through my head in the past few weeks. Yes, the percentage that something could go wrong with my amnio is very small....but small percentages have not been in my favor historically. What are the chances that a miscarriage could happen after the heatbeat has been seen on ultrasound? Really small. I mangaged that last September. What are the chances of a complete abruption? Microscopic. I mean, we're talking tenths of percentages here, people. I mangaged that too. Tom and I have thought long and hard about this, but we've decided that an amnio might just be borrowing trouble. We're going to wait until 38 weeks with no amnio. Actually, we'd only be waiting 5 more days, so maybe it won't be so bad. I know that people have amnios all the time and they go just fine, but for me, we felt like this was the best choice. My doctor feels like, because of my Rh negativity, that the risk of the amnio is greater than the risk of another abruption. Tom's grandma lost two full term baby girls because of her Rh negativity. I just don't want to risk any blood transfer.

Friday, I had an ultrasound and a bio physical profile done. Everything looks great! Piglet is measuring 5lbs, 9oz and scored 8 out of 8 on his profile. My placenta is grade one, which is perfect. He's got hair and we got to have a nice long look at his face. It really looks like he has Nate's nose. We watched him open and close his eyes and mouth. He's really cute, if I do say so.
We'll schedule the surgery next week, but I think that it will be on the 17th.

So, that's all the news from here! I'm really going to try to write more before he's born. I think that I need to be getting my thoughts down, because they're all over the place right now.

Oh, and congrats Michelle on the birth of her gorgeous Natalie Rose on Friday!

Ugly

2007-08-30T03:43:00.000-05:00

We have some new people moving in on our street. I actually know them already...they are friends of a neighbor who is a friend of mine. They always come to my neighbor's get togethers and and that is the only capacity in which we know them. Now they are sub-letting the house next to my neighbor-friend because the owner is going to China for awhile evidently.

And this my problem that I can't talk to anybody about--the girl is pregnant and due in December, I think. And it's her first pregnancy. And I can't stand her. Never mind that she's one of those loud-talkers that think talking louder and louder in a discussion makes her sound like she knows what she's talking about in the first place. I can deal with that. Just something for me and my husband to make fun of on our way home. But now she's pregnant. I can't make fun of that.

This is one of the hurdles that I'm still having a lot of trouble with even 18 months later. When Nate died, I thought that I would never get rid of the rage and jealousy that I felt everywhere I looked. I thought that it would just rot me from the inside out. I would even get upset looking at cows with their calves while driving in the country. It's not that I've been really making an effort to purge these feelings, they're just fading away. I've gone from glaring at moms with new babies, to just not looking at them, to now being able to actually look inside the stroller and smile a little.

I'm still having trouble with people in their first pregnancy. A lot of trouble. That anger hasn't faded in the slightest and I hate it. I guess that I feel so cheated--my first pregnancy ended in a horror story. I don't ever get to have any do-overs and my first baby is not coming back. I'm jealous of the fact that they can coast through with no worries and I'm up at 4 am because my brain won't shut up. I'm jealous that they can register for gifts and put together the nursery months ahead of time. I can deal with painting the nursery, but I'm not ready to put the furniture back up. I still haven't gone through Nate's things to see if I need to register for anything. It's almost like I'm afraid that all the grief we felt packing up his things will come gushing out of those plastic tubs.

And yet, with most people I have to act like this is my first pregnancy. I've found myself more often saying, "Yes, it's my first" to strangers and unable to swap pregnancy stories with people who know what happened. We might be talking about something completely benign and maybe even funny, but they always look at me sadly, because they know what happened in the end. And then there's the fact that I have no clue what to do with a baby. I should be a pro by now and that kills me. So yeah, it's like my first pregnancy except it's not. I don't have the confidence and comfort that everything is going to be fine and bad things happen to other people that come with a first pregnancy. I'm in a pregnancy that small triumphs are saying "when" and not "if" and realizing how hard it is to say. "When he comes home." It seems like an easy off-hand thing to say, but it will be redemption for me after nearly two years that I thought I wouldn't live through. Hang in there, Piglet. Just six weeks to go.

Is This Thing On?

2007-08-24T05:31:00.000-05:00

Hey ya'll. This was so weird. I don't know if Blogger was doing this to other people, but it wasn't showing that anyone had updated their blogs since Monday. I would go visit, but there'd be no new posts. I was getting worried, especially about those that usually post daily (Hi Catherine). Anyway, it worked this morning and I've been catching up. I was starting to panic.

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I passed my diabetes test (yay!) but my iron is wicked low. I knew that was coming--and those of you who've taken iron supplements know what that means. Dammit. You just don't appreciate it until no matter how hard you try, you can't do it. Fiber is my friend.

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I'm and exhibitor in a big, scary bridal show this weekend. I'm really dreading it, because (a) I don't like brides. (b) I like their mother's even less. (c) I have to play for 6 hours and my belly is getting too big for me to hold my flute properly. So then my shoulder starts cramping. But you know, I signed us up for this show when I was newly pregnant and I wasn't going to make any plans based on the fact that I would still be pregnant in August. How effed up is that? A good thing is, my adorable husband is going to be our "spokesmodel" and talk to brides so we can keep playing. There is another group that we complete with, a string quartet, and the guy they bring to shows is the cellist's husband who just happens to be the morning news and weather guy for one of our tv stations. My husband is cuter, though. Neener, neener. Today, I'm going to focus on being more positive about this show or my crappy, negative energy is going to scare everyone away. We will get gigs. We will get gigs.

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I'm so hungry. I've been up since 4am, mostly because of the items in the above paragraph and all the little crappy items that go along with it that I wouldn't delegate to anyone else because I wanted to make sure that they were done correctly. Anyway, I'm starving because I desperately need to go grocery shopping. I just tried to make some cream of wheat and when I added it to the pot, a scary, prehistoric looking bug floated to the top. Crap! I looked at the expiration date, and it was August 25, 2006. Well, that's disgusting. Now I'm trying to eat a bowl of stale, generic fruit loops with soy milk. They have the consistency of calamari. I used to make a detailed, lovely menu every two weeks that I posted lovingly on the fridge for everyone to see. I'd even type it up on the computer using clever fonts and we'd always take comfort in knowing what was for dinner. I had brilliant shopping lists, stuck to the grocery budget and we always had great food in the house. Now we have cereal with bugs. There hasn't been a menu on the fridge in months and months. When I first got pregnant, everything made me so sick, there was no way in hell that I was actually going to cook anything. If Tom was hungry, he pretty much had to go kill it and barbeque it himself. And now I've got this gall bladder thing and I still can't eat anything. Bleh. The squid cereal just isn't doing it for me. Would a veggie burger be too weird for breakfast? No bread though. If I even have any bread, it's probably moldy.

____________________

We're talking October 12th for the Piglet to make his grand entrance. I was going to write a whole post about this, the gist of which is I don't really feel like my doctor is getting me. Like, he's not understanding how scared I am right now. I don't even start my two-week appointments until 32 weeks. I get an ultrasound at the 34th week, but he does that for everybody. I guess I'm just feeling like I need more attention...but I don't even know what he can do. There isn't any test to tell if I'm going to abrupt again. They can't predict it--it's like being struck by lightening and really the best he can do is to take the baby 3 weeks early. So, I need some feedback on this: he wants to do the amnio on the 11th and if Piglet's ready, do the section on the 12th. So I have to have a big needle stuck into my uterus and then be sent home? And I'm supposed to sleep that night!? He says that he doesn't want me to fast if I don't have to. What the hell? It's not like I'm getting a bunch of joy from food these days anyway, I don't give a shit if I'm hungry. I am not cool with this. Isn't it possible to have the amnio and the section the same day? What do you think? Am I being unreasonable about this?

Hey Neeto

2007-08-13T12:58:00.000-05:00

Piglet usually sleeps when I play my flute. Especially when I play with harp, and Nate did that, too. Both of them, though, would wake up when I got particularly agitated with one of my students. I always wonder if my babies would recognize the sound of the flute.

Just now I was looking for some clips on YouTube for my students to listen to. I had my computer on my lap and was listening to one of the Bach Cello Suites. (Some of them are working on Bach and I always use the cello suites when I'm teaching this stuff. It's a great way to learn to play it well.) Piglet was quiet. I changed to a clip of a flute sonata and he went bonkers! Back to Bach--quiet. Back to flute--bonkers! Ah, my child is a genius.

That's a short, silly post but I thought it was cool.

surreal

2007-08-11T10:01:00.000-05:00

We're painting the nursery today. There won't be any furniture in there for awhile, so for now it's just going to be a blue room.

It still makes me nervous.

Nine Weeks and Counting

2007-08-07T13:43:00.001-05:00

Oh man, thank you so much for your input re: my crappy gall bladder. Two weeks attack-free! (Knock on wood.) If it's just going to happen every two or three weeks, I think I'll be able to make it without surgery. That last one was so bad, I thought it was going to happen after every meal. Anyway...

Something that I really didn't go into in my last post was how much that trip to L&D threw the entire family for a huge loop. I'm almost embarassed now--quit being so dramatic, it was just your stupid gall bladder. Okay, yeah, it turned out that way. But I think what was so amazing to me was how quickly we all went into panic mode. Just when the memories of what happened the night that Nate was born started to become less sharp around the edges, it came rushing back so quickly. I said good bye for the third time to one of my babies and that's just not easy to shake off, even after you know that everything is going to be okay. My mom and sister rushed to the hospital, my sister had a panic attack. For the next week, Tom and I were both so jumpy and every time I got up to pee in the night he'd ask, "What's wrong?" I'm not sure if he actually really slept that week. We bought a doppler that week, too. Now he follows me around the house with it. My God. You know, I'm so thankful that right now, this second, everything is okay. But I hate so much that I'm not clueless anymore. I know way, way, way too much.

But what I have to keep reminding myself is this: people have babies all the time. And most babies live. That's my mantra right now...most babies live. If they didn't, there wouldn't be whole sections at the store devoted to baby gear. There wouldn't be commercials for lotions and diapers and bottles. You couldn't buy strollers or cribs anywhere. They probably wouldn't exist if most babies died. What blows my mind lately is how people is how people go on and on about my belly and my due date and oh how exciting and excited you must be! They have no doubt that this baby is going to make it home. I just wish that I was as confident as they were. I know way, way, way too much.

I'm operating on about 50% of my brain right now. Half of me is so excited, the other half is being so cautious. Today, half of me bought a jogger stroller and a baby bjorn. The other half of me cannot even fathom putting a baby in either one of these contraptions. I was driving today and became overwhelmed with the memory of being wheeled out of the hospital a year and a half ago with a memory box on my lap. Sometimes those memories absolutely come out of nowhere. I thought about the possiblity of a live baby in my lap this time. Oh please, let this happen.

Before Nate was born, we kept his name a secret. After this scare, we decided to tell people this time. If something goes wrong, I want people to know his name. I want them to know him as much as they can before he's born. I love his name and being able to say it out loud makes him seem so much more real. It's also helping me not to keep calling him Nate. I'm sure that moms do that all the time with their kids, but when one of them is no longer living, it's a little upsetting. I'm going to keep his name as a surprise for my bloggy friends, though :) I've been calling him Piglet here, so I'll keep doing that. He got that name because this is the Chinese Year of the Pig. But it's extra special because this year is the Year of the Golden Pig. They say that Golden Pig babies are extra lucky. That sounds good to me.

I'm A Mess

2007-07-31T08:38:00.000-05:00

We had a bad scare a few weeks ago. I had initially started to write a huge, detailed post about it, but about halfway through, I was like, "Crap, I don't even want to think about this hard enough to write about it." I'll give you a synopsis now, though.

Three Sundays ago I was canning jalapenos from our garden and I decided to take a break and put my feet up for a few minutes while the jars where processing. I hadn't been sitting more than a minute when suddenly--and I mean out of nowhere--I felt horrible. I had terrible pressure in my belly and I was sweaty and nauseous. Every second it got worse, so Tom took me to L & D. It was a terrifying ride there--not just because we where panicking and running red lights in mid-day traffic--but because we were automatically taken back to the night Nate was born. I was in so much pain, but the worst part was just the horrible, blinding fear. The pressure and the nausea... it was like I was abrupting again. Why didn't I have tests done? Why did I just trust my doctor? I had just finished his quilt that morning and I was so proud of it. I laid it out so that I could look at it every time I walked by. What was wrong with me? Why does my body do this to my babies?! The only thing that was different about this time was that I wasn't bleeding.

The nurses at L & D hooked me up to the monitor and found his heartbeat right away. I just knew that it would be in the 40's, like Nate's, but it was good and strong in the 150's. Okay, he was fine, but I was getting worse and worse--sweaty and writhing around--the nurses didn't really know what to do with me. And then I threw up. Magically, all the pain and pressure had vanished. I felt great. I was ready to go home. But we had a day of tests and ultrasounds ahead of us.

And do you know what? I have gallstones. Tons of them. They're going to try to wait to take my gall bladder out until the boy is born, unless things are just too bad to tolerate. I didn't have another attack until two weeks after the first awful one, but this time I had three in two days. And one of them was even worse than the very first one. Now that we knew what was going on, we weren't nearly as terrified. You know, they tell you all about constipation when you're pregnant, but I had never heard that pregnancy causes your bile to turn to sludge and fills you with stones. Great. I thought old people got gallstones. Now that it's happened, hardly anyone I've talked to even has their gall bladder anymore. And they're around my age. What a crappy, useless organ. I've already had my tonsils out--I'll just get rid of all my useless organs.

I DO NOT want surgery when I'm pregnant. Laproscopy or otherwise. That scares the shit out of me. The only surgery I want is the one where they are actually going in to get him. So in the meantime, what do I do? I'm afraid to eat. I've cut out all dairy now, because I wonder if that's what set off the three attacks last weekend. They told me not to eat fatty and spicy. So, what? No KFC? I'm afraid to eat anything with any fat in it. I'm hungry. We're hungry! I am eating, though, don't worry. Just lots of fruit and veggies and plain pasta. No red meat, only baked chicken and turkey breasts. Boca burgers. Cereal with soy milk. I guess what I'm wondering is-- has anyone had their gallbladder out during pregnancy? I know that it is a very common surgery during pregnancy, but I don't know anyone whose had it done. I would totally put up with the pain of the attacks if I knew for sure and for certain that it was just me it was effecting. I worry about the stress and pain of it to cause premature labor, I'm worried about my gallbladder rupturing, I worry about pancreatitis. I've only got 10 weeks left! I want to stick it out so badly, but I'm just so terrified that he's going to get hurt.

Next week is my glucose tolerance test. Wouldn't that just be a kick in the ass if I ended up with GD, too? Hilarious. This pregnancy was scary enough in the first place. I shouldn't have to deal with bullshit of any kind this time around. But I have to keep reminding myself--when we left L & D that day, I did not expect to be leaving with my baby. But I did. He's just fine.

Morbid Humor and a Little Magical T-Shirt

2007-07-26T10:06:00.000-05:00

My sister and I were talking the other day about the c-section (it will be another vertical one):

Sister-Maybe the doctor could just install a zipper this time.
Me-(laughter) Ooo, or maybe velcro so I'll be more washable.
Sister-Or just a series of snaps! Oh, but what if you have a big meal and sit down? Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Me-(hysterical laughter) Oh God, my uterus just fell out!!

Okay, maybe you had to be there. I thought it was freakin' hilarious.

____________________________________

The night that the new Ha.rr.y P0.tt.er was released, a few businesses downtown turned one of our streets into Dia.gon All.ey. The independant movie house was showing the third movie and serving butt.erbee.r (ginger ale and butterscotch flavoring--yum!), the glass blowing guy was making custom wands, the bookstore was doing something Potter related and there were carriage rides, too. That was cool because they were the same big shires and white carriage that Tom and I used for our wedding. Hearing them clip-clop on the street brought back some happy memories. Stuff like this always brings out the weirdos and like my sister said, it was like someone turned over a nerd rock and they all came scurrying out like crabs in their capes and Hagrid beards. I'm pretty damn nerdy about this stuff, too, but I like to keep a low profile, I guess. Except for the fact that we hunted out the screen printing shop that was making custom t-shirts. I went in, prepared to make a dorky t-shirt in pink that I would wear with much pride, until I spied a little blue onsie. I had it printed with: "I solomnly swear that I am up to no good." If you haven't read the books, that probably doesn't come across nearly as cute as it's supposed to. I think it's cute, anyway. When it was ready to be picked up, everyone oohed over how what a perfect shirt for a little boy it was. They just had no clue how hard it was for me to buy that little shirt and how I was praying that he'd get a chance to wear it. I've now bought him a grand total of four things. Whoopie-doo.

_______________________________

I have some major updating to do--a lot has been going on in the past couple of weeks. The Piglet is totally fine (he never, ever sleeps and is after me with both feet most of the time, hard enough to make my teeth rattle. Nate never behaved like this!) So many pregnancies in two years have evidently taken their toll on me and I'm having a rough time. But I'll tell you about it tomorrow. I need some advice and some sympathy. **sigh**

Vacation Continued

2007-06-28T10:30:00.000-05:00

We were in St. Augustine, I forgot to mention. It's a pretty cool town and it actually reminded me a lot of a town in Spain that we had visited last summer-Cadiz. Parts of it anyway. Other parts were really touristy. We didn't stay in town, actually. We stayed in Tom's boss' brother's condo (Did you follow that one?) about 30 minutes outside of the city.

On this day, the girls went shopping and the boys went to play golf. However, Tom hates golf (we sold his clubs in our garage sale) and I have a feeling that he just drove the cart. He also texted me a lot that day, which meant he was bored as hell. I was excited to go into St. Augustine and explore a little bit. It's the oldest city in the United States, you know. I was hoping to find some cool shops with local artists or something, but I guess that we started in the wrong part of town and it was too damn hot to wander around trying to find what we were looking for. Damn hot, yikes. So we ended up at the outlet mall.

This is actually a boring part of my story, but I'm only telling you this so I can tell you that I did something that I'm kind of proud of. (Other than being proud of not bitching and moaning about the heat, and my back, and my big sweaty boobs--I bitched on the inside.) I bought some baby stuff. I really did. Through this pregnancy, I've bought tons of maternity clothes because that's all that I could deal with. I'm pregnant right now, and I need clothes. I couldn't think much past that. But on this day, I couldn't resist the Little Me store. So I bought 3 sleeper outfits in newborn size. And then do you know what I did? I marched straight into an overpriced purse store of a certain brand and bought a ridiculously priced, outrageous, big ol' diaper bag that my husband would sooner die than carry. I figure that if the boy and I get through this in one piece, than I deserve to carry this bag. Actually, it was also peer pressure that made me buy it--if I was by myself, I probably wouldn't have done it. I'm pretty thrifty. I guess it comes from being married to an accountant.

That night we walked along the beach and it was gorgeous. The sun was setting and Tom and I walked along in our bare feet, picking up shells and looking for shark teeth. Ah, the romance, blah, blah, blah. I stood there looking out at the ocean and the thought came to me about how much Nate would enjoy this. Squishing the wet sand between his toes. I could almost hear his happy little squeals as the water washed over his feet. Helping mama find pretty shells, daddy holding his hand so the tide wouldn't knock him over. I felt so empty, so aware of who was missing and what we were missing out on. Sometimes his absence is so overwhelming that it takes the breath out of me. He'd be 17 months old now. Jesus.

Fortunately by the time we got back to the car, it was dark and the others couldn't see that I had been crying. On the way back, my chest was burning from holding in sobs and I was trying so hard not to let on how upset I was. When we arrived back at the house, I made the excuse that I was tired and Tom and I went back to our room while the others watched a movie downstairs. I was very, very tired and my belly was uncomfortable and hard after all that walking. I just wanted to lay down and do what I usually do when I get like that--read or watch something mindless on tv until I calmed down. So Tom and I watched that show with the hot British guy that does that insane survival show. Although that night, he was stranded in Norway and ate the eyeball of a frozen sheep that he had found. That was a little much, I have to say. It did get my occupy my mind enough so that I could have some much needed sleep that night. Although the eyeball thing was some good, old-fashioned nightmare fuel.

That's about it. After getting to break in my new and ridiculous looking maternity swim suit in the pool, bobbing around like a no-wake buoy, we had a uneventful flight back. I was thrilled to get home and do laundry. I'm serious. I had such a great time, but I still get a little anxious and weird about leaving my comfort zone. I didn't used to be like that, but you know, honestly, I think I was just so worried about the baby the entire time and I wanted to be close to my doctor.

I actually wrote most of this post a while ago, but I'm just now finishing it, so if the date is from days ago, that's why. In other news, I don't have to teach today, so I think that I might go see a movie today. I think I'll go see Rat.at.ouille --Tom's not interested in that one.

Do You Want to Hear About My Vacation?

2007-06-27T07:58:00.000-05:00

I just got back from Florida. You might say, "Oh, so that's why you haven't updated your blog in almost a month. What a long trip you took." Nah....it was just a long weekend trip. I've just been tongue-tied like I am quite often.

We flew and I was a nervous wreck the entire time. I had flown pregnant before (on my honeymoon), but I was only 10 weeks pregnant and that was back in the day when I thought dead babies happened to other people. My doctor told me that now was a fine time to travel, but I couldn't help but remember that he also said that if something went wrong, I could always have more babies! My big worry on the flight was that the cabin pressure would make me abrupt again. Writing that, it seems completely silly. But I spend most of my time worrying that I'll abrupt if I sneeze too hard or pick up something heavier than the cat. So that's fun.

This was kind of a business trip for Tom and we went with two other couples from his office, one of them being his boss and his girlfriend. Most of the weekend was spent with the boys going off and doing something manly and girls going off and doing something pink and fluffy. The first night, though, we all went out to a fancy Hawaiian fusion restaurant. This is where I discovered the beauty of virgin big fruity drinks. I also discovered that I didn't know what in the hell I was going to eat in Florida, wracking my brain trying to remember what seafood I could or couldn't eat. They eat a lot of fish down there, you know. I managed to find stuff-- I have no idea how much weight I gained this weekend. Oh, who cares. I'll worry about that later.

The next day, we all embarked on the aforementioned manly/pink and fluffy outings. The boys went deep sea fishing and the girls went to a day at the spa. The spa was huge and very fancy. We spent the day in white bathrobes and white flip-flops, quietly flip-flopping around the place with other spa-goers in white bathrobes. It reminded me of a cult. Or maybe monks at a beauty monastery. We had massages, manicures and pedicures, and a frou-frou lunch of shrimp salad and tabbouleh. Stuff that I would I have liked if I wasn't pregnant, but it looked yucky to me so I had two pieces of pie for lunch: pecan and key lime. That's a spa lunch to me. I want to tell you about my massage, though.

I had only had a couple of massages before. Never a maternity massage, though and I was worried about it. I was afraid to lay on my belly, even though I'd be laying over a belly hole. Although I was distracted by the spa surroundings for the most part, I was still zeroed in on what was going on inside. I was worried about what the flight did, and I was desperately waiting for this baby that usually moves constantly, to give me some kind of reassuring thump. The masseuse came out to the lounge to get me. She had the longest arms that I'd ever seen on a woman and they were covered in the big, raised veins of a bodybuilder. Oh jesus. Does anyone want to trade? But I went with her. In the (what is it called?) massage room, she asked, "Is this your first?" I hesitated for a minute like I always do. Do I want to lay here for a half hour while she talks about how great first babies are? I said, "My first baby passed away." And went back to filling out my information sheet. "Mine did too," she said.

And so for the next half hour, instead of talking in a hypothetical way about how great first babies are, we talked about how great our first babies were. She had a little boy, too, and she lost him almost 32 years ago. His name was Christian and he lived for two hours. I wondered how she was able to work with so many pregnant woman, but maybe 32 years later you lose that anger and animosity towards them. I hope so, but I hope that it doesn't take 32 years. During our chat she said, "Oh, the funeral." I said, "I know. It was terrible, wasn't it? You don't spend that time being pregnant even dreaming that you'd have to plan a funeral." It was nice to talk to someone about these things. I'm not sure how relaxing it was, though. I thought that I wanted to feel normal by having one of these massages, but I think that it helped my heart to talk about it. Maybe it helped her heart, too. She never had any more children-she was too scared. She even tried to adopt and when a baby was made available for her, fear made her turn that down, too. Now she has dogs. They're easier, she said. I wish she had tried again. But I know how scary it is. And I haven't even gotten to the really scary part yet--the last few weeks. I was glad that I met her and I felt bad that I was a little scared of her.

This is getting long and my butt is starting to hurt. I've got more to tell you, but I'll do it later, I promise.

p.s. Tom caught lots of fish, didn't puke from sea sickness once and got a comedy sunburn on his legs that looks like he's wearing red tights. He had a good day. So did I.

End Part One

About the Appointment

2007-06-04T13:22:00.000-05:00

When Nate died, I thought that I would never again be in the ultrasound room, looking at a healthy baby on that monitor. It seemed impossible. And then the miscarriage--it seemed even more impossible. But on Thursday, I was there. And it was as beautiful and amazing as I remembered.

I was there with Tom and our moms. There is no way that we could have gotten through Nate's death without them and we wanted them to be in on this one from the beginning. When the tech put the wand on my belly, she exclaimed, "Whoa, we've got a wiggler!" Ha, ha! I knew it wasn't gas. And then, "Look at those long, skinny, big feet!" And at that point, I started to wonder if this baby really was a girl, as I was suspecting. Nate had big ol' feet. She moved the wand around, checking measurements--leg bones, head circumference, then, "We've got some hangy down parts. It's a boy! And his hand is already down there, so you guys better watch out!" (Tom and I thought after the appointment that she must have some boys at home.) After hearing "It's a boy!" I started crying. And laughing. Tom squeezed my hand, and I knew that he was happy too. Moms were crying and laughing. Later he said, "You know why we got a boy?" I was expecting him to say, "Listening to AC/DC" like he had when we found out Nate was a boy. He said, "Because I was wearing my lucky boxer shorts." He's so cute.

More measurements and we listened to the heartbeat. The whole thing was finished in about five minutes. We got some pictures that for the most part, we can't figure out what they are. Especially the "boy part" picture. Although we do have a good face shot, which is a little scary. ("This is my son, Skeletor.")

Later, we went in to see the OB, who managed not to stick his foot in his mouth this time, thankfully. I was still very nervous, because I knew that the ultrasound tech couldn't tell me anything, even if she saw that something was wrong. But Dr. W said, "Everything looks great!" And I said, "Okay, I want to see why everything looks great. Show me what you're looking at." And he did. He went over everything in great detail with Tom and I, what could be wrong and why this one was alright. I felt better, but of course I'm still not great and I won't be until he's out of me, which I don't consider to be a very safe place for my child. I feel like he's standing on the edge of traffic, and all I can do is hope that a car doesn't swerve to hit him.

So, here we are. Things seem to be fine and I'm left with my thoughts on having a boy--a second son. I was so convinced that I was having a girl, and I was cool with that. I just want a healthy, take-home baby. I was excited about the prospect of having a girl, buying those big bows and making her head look like a little gift-wrapped bowling ball. I was just convinced! I had told my sister that I would be so incredibly shocked to see a boy on that ultrasound, because it was going to be a girl. Actually, I think my exact words were, "I'm gonna be shocked to shit if I see a little wiener on that ultrasound!" Because I'm that kind of classy. I was excited about having a girl, but deep down I wondered if I would ever get a chance to be a mom to a living boy. And the thought of all of Nate's things packed up in the attic, waiting to be used by a brother made me sad. All these things that a little brother would use even if Nate had lived. I think that deep down, I really wanted another boy. And I think that Tom did, too. And not to replace Nate, but...you know.

So...

2007-05-31T15:06:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess that I won't have to do much shopping because it's a....

Very wiggly BOY with great BIG FEET!!

And everything else looks good :) More later...

Yikes.

2007-05-30T10:29:00.000-05:00

Oh man, oh man, oh man. I'm really nervous about this ultrasound tomorrow. I'm also excited, though. Like a little-kid-birthday-Christmas excited. Oh, but I'm nervous. I didn't have any tests early on--I'm completely dumb to what is going on in there, except that this kid moves a lot. I don't think that I'm going to be able to sleep tonight. Oh God, I hope that everything is okay.

Visiting Nate

2007-05-29T08:04:00.000-05:00

I'm writing from my new/old laptop! This is the laptop that I couldn't touch when my husband first got it. Okay, not really, but I had to touch it very carefully. (Did that sound dirty?) That's a cool thing about having a husband who's works in internet stuff--I get his neeto hand-me-downs.

______________________________

Yesterday was Memorial Day and we went to see Nate and Tom's dad, buried in the same cemetery, a few spaces apart. I've said before that they're in the Missouri Veterans Cemetery, so yesterday was a madhouse. But it was neat. They had the flags out on each grave, flags on flag poles everywhere. Family had already been to both graves, and we were the last ones there, probably. I hadn't been there since his birthday and God, I hate that so much. I hate that I can only go there every few months. Makes me feel like a shitty mom. I cried the whole way there, I cried there, I cried on the way home. It's like I spend my days with my head in the sand, but thinking of him at least every other minute, working on his garden, talking to him. And I'm okay with this. I'm just not used to seeing his headstone yet. It is the ultimate reminder. He's not missing. He's not coming back. Someday I might bring other children here and this is how they will know him. On a Memorial Day a zillion years from now, I'll be an old lady taking flowers to my baby that I can't even remember anymore. He's not coming back. I can't go there and just be sad and miss him. I'm overwhelmed by this new life, which at this moment seems entirely too long, one that I didn't ask for. It's panicking. And that's why I hate going to the cemetery. But maybe if I went more often, it wouldn't be so hard.

_______________________________

Here's a weird thought that I've been having. I've been pregnant for the last 17 out of 24 months. I like being pregnant (good thing), but I'm having an impossible time imagining what it will be like to actually bring home a baby. I'm only able to think in the moment, but I can't think of the end. It doesn't make me freak out or anything, in fact I'm kind of neutral about it. I mean, I'm not thinking about losing another baby--my head won't let me go there and I'm not pushing it. But it won't let me think about bringing a baby home, either. It's like, "You're pregnant right now, and that's all you need to know." Well, in my head it seems weird. Writing it out, it seems like a self-preservation mechanism. What do you think? For those with sub. babies, was there a point where you could think past being pregnant?

p.s.--thank you so, so much for your advice about the doppler. I am taking it to heart, for sure.

What's Up.

2007-05-23T08:39:00.000-05:00

I have been around, honestly. I read everyday--I've just been having trouble signing in lately, so I haven't been posting or leaving many comments. I also feel like a wrung out sponge, physically and emotionally. It's been hard to think of things to say, even though I think a lot about all of you. Anyway...

I went to the doctor on Friday. This was my first four-week-wait between appointments and it was way too stinkin' long a wait. And my doctor won't let me get a Doppler. Unless I really, really want one. He says that it's like trying to monitor your own blood pressure, but it seems to me like everyone I read about that has one doesn't have a problem finding the heartbeat. I guess that he doesn't want me to freak out needlessly, but I've been freaking out for 17 weeks so what's a little more freakiness? I don't know, I may still work on this one.

So, back to the appointment....
We had an extra long wait this time and Tom had to leave before the doctor came in to talk to me. Fortunately, the nurse came to do the Doppler before he left, so he got to hear the heartbeat which was 165 bpm. (Nate always had a faster heart rate, so I guess there's no telling if it's a girl or a boy at this point. I've been thinking "boy" pretty strongly, but I had very vivid "girl" dreams last night--so we'll see.) It took the nurse longer than normal to find the heartbeat, which of course made me cry and Tom said, "That's why you don't need a Doppler." Whatever. Anyway, blood pressure is still good (which is something I'm going to worry about through this pregnancy) and I've only gained four pounds so far, go me !

Any time I have to go to an appointment alone or Tom has to leave early, I always cry and feel like I'm going to climb the walls. That place completely freaks me out. I was in the middle of pulling myself together and blowing my nose when the doctor walked in and made a huge deal about me having allergies and what I could take. I just went along with it. "Oh yeah, my allergies are terrible." (I don't really want to jump, screaming out of the window. I'm totally calm.)

He measured my fundus height for the first time with the tape measure and I'm measuring two weeks ahead of schedule. He said that's normal for a subsequent pregnancy and that it's a good thing. My only question for him was, "Can I fly at 22 weeks?" because we're going to Florida in June. He told me that it's a fine time to travel and said that it's later in the pregnancy when it's not advised. "Anyway," he said, "if something goes wrong, there's not much that can be done at that stage. And there will always be other pregnancies." His last sentence just hung there--I was so shocked that he, being a high-risk OB, would say something like that. My first thought was, Oh shit I thought you were cool. Yes, there could be other pregnancies, I'm evidence of that, sitting there pregnant after losing two babies. But it's also another funeral. It's another who-knows-how-many months of me hating my body, hating God, hating everyone and forever missing another child. It's not just, "Oh well, I guess I'll just pull up my big girl panties and try again." I should have said something to him. I always say that and I never say anything to anybody.

I feel like I've been so hyper-sensitive lately, like I'm regressing. Everything that is remotely baby related makes me uncomfortable or makes me cry. Things people say that I would normally shrug off, are really upsetting me. For example, at a neighbor's party this weekend the hostess came up to me and said, "Hey Laura! Still pregnant?" To which I replied, "Yeah, I seem to be." I know that I'm being sensitive, maybe it's hormones, but I don't think that you should say something like that when you know that the person has had a loss or losses. I so much don't want to be one of those women that people are afraid to say anything to for fear of setting me off or making me cry. I don't know.

I need to write more. I'm out of practice and my writing is sucky and disjointed, and I'm trying to fit way too much stuff into one post. Oh yeah--my "big" ultrasound is one week from tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Happy Mother's Day

2007-05-13T06:50:00.000-05:00

I hope that today is gentle and peaceful.

Poke-Poke

2007-05-10T10:22:00.000-05:00

The little dude or dudette is moving around in there! And don't tell me that it's gas, people. I know gas. I've been feeling it pretty often, especially for this stage, which makes me wonder if this kid just moves around like crazy or it just my big, saggin', baggin' uterus that makes it easier for me to feel. I felt Nate at about 16 weeks and he was very sweet and considerate the whole time. No kicks to the kidneys or anything. Hmmm, I wonder what this one will be like. It makes me sad and excited at the same time. ((sigh)))

Like I Was Saying....

2007-05-01T13:17:00.000-05:00

Today I was running some errands and thinking that I should go out to the cemetery and see Nate. I haven't been since his birthday and I really should go and make sure that there aren't any old, gnarly arrangements left there. And then, like always, I become sad and angry that I even have to go to the cemetery. I didn't go.

When I got home, I checked the mail and along with the Compassionate Friends newsletter there was a mailing from Huggies proclaiming, "Play it Up! Your baby is 15 months old!" Fuck you, Huggies. Irony is such a heaving bitch.

______________________________________________

This blog sucks. I haven't been writing not because I'm pregnant and I've moved on or whatever. I'm just really having a terrible time. I made it past that 12 week mark and into the second trimester (either yesterday or two weeks ago, depending on who you talk to), and I'm so excited about that. But now I'm already dreading the third trimester. I feel like there is a bomb strapped to my belly. I'm going to be tiptoeing through this entire pregnancy, however long it lasts. And that's the scary part.

Being pregnant makes me feel closer to Nate, but miss him more at the same time. If this baby gets here, I wonder if that will continue? And that makes me wonder if I'll ever be happy again? Is everything always, always going to be bittersweet? Will there ever be a time when I can say, "You know, I'm just completely happy right now" even if it's just for a moment? What a way to live.

Lately, I've been inundated with the "Is this your first?" question. Probably ten times already. I always say "no, it's my second." I don't volunteer any more information than that, if it stops there, fine. I usually doesn't though. "How old is your first?" they ask. "He would have been one in January. He died a few days after he was born." Then I watch the blood drain from their faces. I don't care. Honestly, it would make me feel a whole hellava lot worse for a long time to not acknowledge Nate just to spare their feelings for a few minutes. My very favorite response to this is, "Oh. It was meant to be." (Pat, pat on my arm.) We've all heard that a million times and I just don't understand this ham-fisted attempt at comfort. Why wasn't it meant to be? Was God sparing the world from something horrible? Was Nate going to be a serial killer? An evil scientist that developed some Ebola-like virus and would have killed scores of people? Was he saving Nate from a violent and painful death at some point in the future? Why wasn't it meant to be? That's crap. Utter crap. Keep your crap to yourself.

Other than being a complete nut, things are going well. My doctor has taken me off of the two week appointments and now I'm going to go every four. I go back on the 18th and then he's going to slip me back in two weeks later for the "big ultrasound" at 18 weeks. The plan is to do an amnio and c-section at 37 weeks. He seems extremely optimistic that the abruption was just the worst luck imaginable and it won't happen again. Lately, though, I've become convinced that something was overlooked in my pregnancy with Nate and no one is telling me. But that they are going to keep an eye out for this mystery thing and catch it before it happens again. I think that I had preeclampsia. I really do.

I've got a couple of posts swirling around in my head, so let's see if they actually make it on this blog anytime soon. I'm not trusting my track record lately.

Shopping

2007-04-24T11:49:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, I ventured to the mall. I hate the mall and I never go, but right on schedule my face has turned into hamburger with angry red zits all over my chin and those horrible, big, giant ones that hurt to touch. I am one ugly pregnant woman--I don't know where all this glowing business comes from. Not from me, that's for sure. So, anyway, I needed to hit the Proactiv kiosk and drop 50 bucks on face soap. Yikes, but it works, so what are you gonna do?

On my way out of the mall I walked by the Motherhood store, and just stood there for a minute and debated whether to go in or not. Nate was a winter baby, so all of my maternity clothes are jeans and wooly things. It's already 80 degrees here and the lure of cute, short-sleeved tops took me into the store. I picked out a top and some khaki capris and went to checkout. Which went like this:

Girl at the Counter: "Have you been here before?"
Me: "Yeah." And I give her my name after she asks.
Girl: "When is your due date?" Her fingers were poised over the keyboard, ready to imput this information.
Me: I don't tell her. "Umm, am I going to be getting any mailings or anything like that?"
Girl: "Well, yes. Don't you want any?"
Me: "No, I don't." And I could have stopped there, but I didn't.
Me: "I don't want any because they are extremely upsetting when something goes wrong."
Girl: "Oh, absolutely, I'm sorry."
And here again, could have stopped, didn't.
Me: "You know, getting Pampers coupons that say 'Valuble Coupons for your 12 month old!!' is just pretty crushing, really." (As far as Pampers is concerned, my son is happily toddling around soiling diapers with wild abandon. I'm using cloth diapers next time. Any company that makes me cry isn't getting my business. And they've all made me cry over the past year.)

The girl makes some hasty strikes at her keyboard. "Okay,"she says, "you shouldn't be receiving any more mailings." She hands me my bag with a sympathetic smile. I'm red in the face and embarassed over what I had just said, and I knew that other customers heard my rant. "Sorry I was so neurotic about that," I said as I took my purchases from her. I walked out of the store with my head down, realizing at that point that I really should just do my shopping off the internet. Either things aren't easy like they used to be, or I'm just making things hard for myself. I'm inclined to think it's the latter.

2007-04-21T06:53:00.000-05:00

Yikes, it's been awhile since I've written anything and I hate posting links to stuff when I haven't been writing. It makes me feel lazy. But I read this article in my town's paper this morning and I thought that I'd share it with you.

Mourning Reproductive Loss

I'll write a real post soon. I've got a lot to talk about and nothing to talk about at the same time, so that's been my conundrum.

Wow, and all before 9 am.

2007-04-11T09:31:00.000-05:00

Do you think that there might be days where the universe just screws with you? Like it's thinking, "Hey, let's have some fun with Laura today." Leave the house, stay in the house--you're still going to be blindsided no matter what you do.

I was straightening up the family room this morning after Tom left for work--there just seemed to be stacks of crap everywhere. I grabbed the copy of What to Expect to put back on the bookshelf and two pieces of paper fluttered to the floor. One was the warranty registration for Nate's stroller and the other was the list of names I had made when we found out we were having a boy. Back when things were completely, totally normal. The list was written in blue pin and beside about ten of the names was my husband's check mark in pencil to mark his favorites. I had written the name and then in parentheses I wrote what we'd actually call him (unless he was in trouble, that's when we'd use the whole name.)

The three at the top were:
Samuel (Sam)
Gabriel (Gabe)
Nathaniel (Nate)
All three had my husband's check mark.

I just sat there this morning and stared at that list. I hadn't seen it since I stuck it between those pages, which was probably quite awhile before Nate was even born. I'm sure that I just stuck it there and forgot about it. But here it was again. A list of names that every pregnant woman in the universe writes out with so much love for that baby inside and so much hope for his future. This is a very important task--he will have that name for his whole life long and someday, years and years from now, it will be carved on his headstone. When we named Nathaniel, I felt confident that he would have a name that would carry him through his life--it was a name that he could run for president with. My little boy with the big boy name.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And so, after crying in the fetal position in the recliner for twenty minutes, I got dressed and went downtown to pick up a copy of Nate's birth certificate for this year's taxes, because you know, I was in great shape to do something like today. But I had to go do it--taxes are due-what?-next week or something and I've been putting this off for a long time. I'm thankful that I'm able to have one for Nate, but I knew that it was going to be very difficult to go and get it. That's why I hadn't done it yet. When I received the certificate, it looked totally normal, just like any one I've ever seen and I was glad for that. His certificate looked just like any baby's--but then I looked in the upper right hand corner where the word DECEASED was written in block capitals. Oh.

I'm sobbing again as I walk through the lobby to the parking lot and to my car. Oh shit. I had just calmed down from the last incident and here I go again. When I reach the door to my car, I look into the passenger seat of the car parked next to me and on the seat lay a newborn diaper and a picture of a very pregnant, very young woman smiling broadly, her arms wrapped around her belly. Really. Why both of those things? I guess I could see having a diaper there, but why a picture of your pregnant self? I guess that will teach me not to look in other people's cars.

Now I'm going to go to the grocery store and pray that I don't run into anyone from my childbirth class.

2007-03-29T08:22:00.000-05:00

Chip should have been born this week.

I'm so conflicted on how I should feel about this. I'm certainly sad. I certainly haven't forgotten about him (or her)--but it's almost like I knew from the very beginning that the little beaner wasn't going to make it. But there was hope, for sure. But hope and hope lost, again. I never pictured myself making it all the way to 38 weeks, preparing the nursery, folding little onsies again. But maybe I just wouldn't let myself picture those things. It's hard for me to picture them with this one, too, even though this is a completely different kind of pregnancy. It's a more pregnant kind of pregnancy, which I'm thankful for. But am I able to imagine October? Not really.

To think about how different things would be right now, this week, is difficult. I think about that nearly empty bedroom we call "the nursery" when no one else is around. The one that only holds a few plants, a garage sale glider rocker and Nate's chest of drawers. How different it should look today.

I'm sorry, little one. I'm sorry that you never got a chance. You're not forgotten.

Ewwww.....

2007-03-28T07:21:00.000-05:00

Guess who I ran into this weekend? My ex-boyfriend. I had neither seen nor talked to him since we broke up, let's see, three years ago? We were together for six years. Six! I totally wasted my twenties on this guy. Actually, for a long time we had a lot of fun. He was in a cool band. He knew lots of cool people. He was a DJ on a cool radio station here in town. So, you know, he was pretty fun to begin with. Then he started running. A lot. And not just 5Ks. He did marathons, 32 mile ultramax races, adventure races, Ironman stuff. He spent all of his money on bike gear and nipple guards and I'd end up with crap presents for my birthday like a computer generated coupon for a backrub or some such shit. Also, with all of this activity, I was eating more than he was and I was on Weight Watchers most of the time. He got so thin and began acting like an asshole constantly. I think that his brain was being eaten by his body.

So he sounds like a real catch, eh? I still started bugging him about getting married around four years into the thing. I was watching all, and I do mean ALL of my friends get married and started to panic. Finally, we ended up in therapy. Just one session, though. That's all it took for me to realize that I was being a complete needy idiot. He had no intention of ever marrying me and I wasn't going to waste one more day on this guy. The end.

So, three years later (last Saturday, specifically), standing in the bagel shop, I hear:

"Laura?"

I turn around and see a even thinner John, standing there looking like a scarecrow and I almost throw up on the floor. (Which I was going to anyway, if I didn't get my bagel soon.)

"Oh, hey!", I say fakely and give him a fake hug.

(small talk, small talk)

He looks at mid-section that I'm trying to disguise with a baggy Riverdance t-shirt.

"Are you having a baby?"

I guess by my third go at this, I'm looking more pregnant than I really am. I look down at my belly and say, "Oh yeah. I am. But I'm pregnant a lot, so we'll see. Heh, heh." Ack! Who says stuff like that? Way to be morbid, Laura. And then 'heh, heh?' I should have just told him, "No I am not pregnant. I am fat. You asshole."

"Oh, I heard about what happened last year. I'm sure sorry," he said.

"Thanks. It's been really hard."

And then more small talk where I discover that he's still doing the same boring, self-centered stuff that he's done forever and will probably be a very lonely old man, doing the same thing. I've known from the very beginning how lucky I am to have found Tom. I know that I griped about him a bit yesterday, but honestly I could fill volumes with testimonies on how wonderful he is. And when it comes to gift-giving, you could say that a coupon for free hugs is romantic and sweet and it's the thought that counts. But a Tiffany bracelet for Christmas is a whole hell of a lot better. Call me petty.

2007-03-27T08:38:00.000-05:00

Thank you for all of the happy, happy comments! Things are fine here. Still pregnant, no spotting (which by this point I was spotting daily with Chip), taking two naps a day and the only things that I want to eat are pop tarts, waffles and Life cereal. It's the breakfast, lunch and dinner of champions. Pretty much everything is grossing me out--in fact, there's some cat puke in my laundry room that's been there for an hour and a half. I need to put in a load of undies soon, and there's only so many times that I can step over that stuff. So, I'll get right on that.

I feel bad for my husband, he's hungry. But I think that in the past couple of days he's figured out that if he wants to eat something other than the previously listed items, he's gonna have to cook it himself. Also, my house is dirty. We had a huge fight about this on Sunday--but I think that it had something to do with the fact that we'd been watching How Clean is Your House on BBC and he likened our fridge to one on the show. This makes him sound like a total caveman, but I mean, shit, I'm home all day. My house should at least be clean. I'm tired though. I think after the Big Argument, he's understanding where I'm coming from a lot more. (Now, he reads this blog, so don't say anything mean.)

So, I've been kicked in the arse by Beth to write more, so I'm going to. I doubt very seriously that I'm going to talk about being pregnant much, at least for awhile. I'm tired, sick and I've got wicked gas--not much good reading there. I do have a couple of meme type posts to get caught up on, and I've got some other posts that have been kicking around in my head in the early morning hours. So, I'm going to try very hard to get back in the habit of writing. My problem is that I'm such a lurker. I never thought that I had anything very interesting to say.

I've got a worry that has been really bothering me, other than just the obvious worry of getting through the first trimester. Some of my family members and very good friends found out about this pregnancy through this blog. I feel bad about it. This time was just so weird though. I just couldn't bring myself to pick up the phone this time. I was happy to find out that I was pregnant again, but I'd say that excited wouldn't be the word for it. I just knew that as soon as I told people, I'd be calling them right back to tell them that I lost another one. I don't know. I'm so afraid that I've done irreversible damage to my friendships this past year. I've just been dealing with this the best way I know how, and obviously that's to pull away from everyone. I love my friends and I miss them. I just wanted to say that.

Okay, Okay, Okay. Geez.

2007-03-21T12:05:00.000-05:00

I really was working on a good post, but then I got sidetracked when I decided that I just HAD to decorate my house for Easter. Good Christ, I had daffodills coming up but no bunnies in my house. What, what? Yeah, that's a lousy excuse. Anyway, after a really good OB appointment here is my news...

Third Time's the Charm??

It measured today at 8w2d with a heartbeat of 175. I'm sleeping or just gorked out in the recliner all the time, which may account for my lack of posts. Also, last week I puked!! Hooray, I feel like shit! I'm serious, this is good news. Remember last time, I was so freaked because I wasn't sick? Yeah.

I haven't said anything, because I didn't want to jinx myself. This time is really different--it's much scarier now. I had late pregnancy to worry about, and now I'm terrifed of this early part, too. I hold my breath everytime I go to the bathroom. BUT...I had a great appointment this morning and I get to have another ultrasound in two weeks. Hanging on to the positive!!

So there's my news. Ta da!

Holy Crap, I Suck

2007-03-15T17:18:00.000-05:00

Oh man, I haven't written a word since last month. That is just inexcusable.

I just wanted to say hello to the nice people who are still checking in! And I promise that I'll write something good (or maybe not good, but something) tomorrow. I just don't know about what, though. It might be about pie or flowers or my weenie dog. Wow, I'm so uninspired lately. I've got major writer's block. Major, major, major.

Ummm.....I do have something to talk about, actually, but I'm going to sit on it for awhile longer. How's that for a tasty teaser?

Talk to you tomorrow....

Hi

2007-02-26T13:21:00.000-06:00

Okay, well. Hmmm.

I seem to have been at a loss for words the past couple of weeks. I did this after my miscarriage, too, so I guess that it's something weird that I do. I just haven't known what to say about....anything. I told a bloggy friend this morning, I'm just feeling extremely "blah". No joie de vivre, as they say.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing now. It's like I've given myself that year to do whatever I needed to do...hole myself up, scream and cry, lose 50 pounds, gain a ton back, learn to sew, plant things, scream and cry, pull my hair, scan the obits for dead babies, have a pathological fear of Target and their fucking Lullaby Club, don't return phone calls, don't return emails, bitch at my husband, cry myself to sleep, cry myself awake and then wonder why I'm so goddamned lonely all the time. It boggles my mind that it's been a year. I've been crying for a year. I must be chronically dehydrated.

I've been thinking a lot since his birthday about this time last year. When we finally did go back to our place (we'd stayed with my mom for a few days) I sat at the kitchen table for like, a week. Hours and hours upon end. I am serious. I just sat there listening to the radio and knitting lace pillowcase inserts. Or I would just lay my head down on the table and bawl and scream uncontrollably. But I stayed in the kitchen. The mental pain was so mind numbingly horrible that it even overshadowed the physical pain of my c-section. I remember thinking, "What was everyone's problem with this? It doesn't hurt that bad."

So that's my thing right now. I don't know what to do with myself. All the "firsts" are gone and now every year is just going to blur into each other. His 2nd birthday and his 32nd birthday. Now what? I've turned into a very boring person. Hey, did I tell you that I saw the guy who does the weather on tv at the grocery store this morning? Yeah, that's all I got. I know that it is stupid to say, "Okay, it's been a year. Pull up your big girl panties and get on with things." That's what clueless people say. I guess that I'm afraid that it's been a year and I'm still having trouble functioning on a halfway decent level. When do I get excited about things again?

Nate's Portrait

2007-02-05T11:18:00.000-06:00

Here is the portrait of Nate that my sister, Jessica, drew for us.

And here's a close-up so that you can see the detail.

I should have taken it out from behind the glass before I took the picture, so there's a reflection in the way a little bit. What do you think? Isn't it great? I have it up on the mantel and just can't stop looking at it. I love it so much, and particularly thankful for it after that Dear Abby letter today.

Morning Paper

2007-02-05T08:00:00.000-06:00

Did anyone read Dear Abby this morning? Here is the article.

I'm not sure how to feel about this. It makes me feel a little sick, mainly because the author keeps using the word "it. 'We have to look at it.' Is this child a boy or a girl, or did the author and her bitchy co-workers even ask? I probably wouldn't display a picture like this of Nate, just because I'm very selective of pictures that I show to people. It's my way of protecting him and if anyone ever recoiled in horror upon seeing a picture of my son, I would just die.

I just feel so badly for this woman with the baby. Because I know how she feels...you feel that motherly love for your child no matter what. You're proud of that child no matter what, but in this society you're not allowed to be proud with pictures. Yet again, something else that we've been gypped of. I mean, I know that I need to be sensitive. Having a baby that has died is such a part of my reality, that seeing a picture of one doesn't even faze me. I don't see "dead", I see the beauty of the child. However, if "old" Laura, especially "old pregnant" Laura had seen a picture like that, I think that it would have really upset me. I've been thinking lately what the old me would have thought coming across a blog like the one I have now. I know that I would have never thought that it was "yucky", but it would be so out of the scope of imagination for me--something that would be impossible to happen. Never in a million years. It blows my mind that now I feel like a baby to bring home would be nearly an impossibility to happen. I hate being that negative, but I think that it's fear more than negativity, honestly. But when it's all you know, it's all you know.

I know this discussion comes up a lot, but what do you think about this article?

2007-02-03T07:04:00.000-06:00

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for thinking about me, for saying that my baby was beautiful. It helps my heart so much.

We made it through his first birthday and it was just like the "veterans" said, the leading up to the actual day was so, so much worse. I just wanted to lay down and die on January 30th--I just didn't think that I was going to make it, and I didn't want to. I was terrified to go to sleep that night and by the next morning, I knew why. Part of me actually believed that I was going to have to do it again: all of the trauma, all of the blood loss, surgery and very worst of all, the realization that my baby was unconscious in the NICU.

But I woke up.

And it was just morning. I was healthy, so much stronger than I was one year ago. No morphine, no blood, no horrible realization that my baby was sick. Just the peaceful feeling that I wanted to make this day nice for my son, for his memory. To spend the day with my husband and have a wonderful time together seemed like a perfect tribute to Nate, and I think it was.

Tom took the day off of work and I cancelled my music lessons for the day. We went to Home Depot to buy hardware for our new doors and then we bought a new orchid, something that I've decided to do every year on Nate's birthday. We cuddled together in the same recliner and watched tv. And we went to the cemetery. I had put together a little arrangement of daisies and little wooden cutouts of a train, a lion and an airplane that I had glued on dowels and stuck in among the flowers. We released some big, beautiful balloons that came with a huge flower arrangement from Tom's office. And we cried. It was so cold and snowing and the strong wind carried those balloons off fast--it was so hard to watch them disappear. But I think that we both felt good when we left.

That night I made a huge, cheesy lasagna and a chocolate and carmel cake. I opened the bottle of chianti that my mom had brought back from Florence and that I was saving for a special occasion. And it was good. Really good. The lasagna and the cake were pretty damn good, too.

And then today. Today is the day that we disconnected his life support. It was the day that I finally got it. He wasn't going to come out of this and he was already gone, really. I probably need to write about this, but I can't do it right now. Those days were so dark that I only remember them in black and white. Looking back, I have no idea how we made it through. Today, I'm going to stay busy, I think. I've got my baking class and then I'm going to pick up Nate's portrait. Maybe start painting Kaitlyn's bedroom. We've been in this house for like nine months and all of the walls are still white. I'm ready for some color in this place. I'm ready for some color in a lot of places.

One

2007-01-31T09:36:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday, Sweetpea. We love you so, so, so much.

Last

2007-01-30T14:23:00.000-06:00

One year ago today...

The first day of my maternity leave.

The day that it was really sinking in that I was bringing you home and soon, too.

I finally finished your little apple hat on this day, a year ago.

How many more sleeps would it be until you were in my arms? Just one, as it would turn out.

I had that sleep and you were gone, your little body there, your sweet soul was not.

I'm so sorry, my love. I'm so sorry that my body failed you, my beautiful boy.

Every minute of every day, I think of you. I never thought that I could love anyone as much as I do you.

My sweet boy.

Maybe?

2007-01-30T08:55:00.000-06:00

Someone's been playing with my one-year-old nephew's toys.

My sister called a few minutes ago to ask if anything weird has been happening around my house. I said, yes, a couple of things have happened that could be weird or they could be the cat. She told me that Connor's electronic toys have been going off by themselves this week. Two in particular: a toy laptop and a driving simulator. The laptop is operated by touching the "mouse" and a picture comes up on the screen. The child then has to touch the matching picture on the keyboard and if it's correct, it makes a sound. She said that a picture of a train came up on the screen and a few seconds later, she heard the sound of a train coming from the toy. The little driving toy has been honking. Both of these toys don't make any noise when they are turned on or off. If that was the case, then the batteries just might be dying. Certain buttons have to be pushed for them to make noise--especially the laptop. Not only were buttons pushed, the correct button was pushed in order for the train to sound. I don't know. But it is interesting that this is happening during his birthday week.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of birthdays...what did you do or what do you plan on doing for your child's first birthday? I'm going to make an floral arrangement for the cemetery and I'd like to release some balloons, but I would love to know some ways that others have celebrated their children.

Random Stuff

2007-01-29T14:54:00.000-06:00

In my Quest to Stay Busy, I'm taking a class at the local technical college called Professional Baking. It's every Saturday for four weeks, four hours a day. This past Saturday was yeast breads and the one before that was quick breads--biscuits, muffins, scones, etc. I have never been able to make a decent biscuit--they always turn out like hockey pucks. I'm pleased to announce that it only took me 2 tries to make the Most Awesome Biscuits Ever. Tall and flakey and everything. I'm excited to beat out my frustrations on some yeast dough this week. This coming class will feature cookies and pies--I am very excited about this. If I don't smoke all those old ladies at the pie contest this summer after all of these classes, well, then I'm just going to have to hang up my apron. The point of this paragraph is--I think that I'm going to go to culinary school for real. Not just adult continuing ed. classes. This may involve me giving up teaching music. You heard it here first.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Who wants to hear more about my period? Nobody?......okay skip to the next paragraph then. I've been on my period for over 30 days now. This is very depressing to me and is also putting a bit of strain on the relationship with my husband if you know what I mean. Right now I think that I'm on my period for real, because it changed from just spotting at about 28 days after it started, so I'm hoping that it's actually going to stop this time. And this point of this paragraph is....even though my doctor told me that it was stress that was causing this menstrual bullshit, something that a very good friend told me actually put my mind at ease. She was in the Army and until very recently, did counterintelligence in Iraq. She told me that many women would have their periods the entire time that they were in Iraq or not have one at all. This implies that the impending first birthday of my dead child and the realization that my due date with Chip is quickly approaching might just be as stressful as facing roadside bombs and mortar attacks. I believe it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My little sister is doing a portrait of Nate and I'm so excited. She is an extremely talented artist and I could brag about her all day. She's also wicked smart--she's a pre-med student with plans on becoming an OB/GYN, mostly because of what happened with me and Nate. I haven't been able to put up any pictures in my house, other than one of his feet, and I think that I might be able to actually look at a drawn portrait of my son and not feel sadness. I never thought, though, that I'd ever give anyone a picture of my child to draw with the instructions, "Can you just make him look 'not dead'?" ~sigh~ I know that it will be beautiful, though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think that the cold in my house killed most of my plants. However, my orchid was safe at my MIL's the whole time. I think that I'd just be like, "Oh well. Go buy new plants." But these were plants that were given to us after Tom's dad and Nate died. Peace lillies and stuff. I always feel extra guilty when funeral plants die. I'm never going to give anyone a plant for a funeral again. They're kind of a sad reminder and then you feel an extra obligation to keep them alive. You know?

It Sucks

2007-01-29T12:26:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I didn't spend the day on the verge of tears or sobbing uncontrollably in the shower, like I did on Saturday, but I was just mean. I wanted to kick-bite-punch everyone in my sight. I decided that I needed a nap, but I didn't sleep. I just went to my bedroom, rolled up like a burrito in my comforter with only my nose and eyes showing and watched an hour and a half of stand up comedy.

Eventually I drug my only slightly-less-bitchy self out of the bedroom and joined the living in the family room.

Kaitlyn said, "Can I have a snack?"
I grumped back at her, "How can you possibly be hungry? We had a ginormous lunch."
"Well, I am."
"Okay, go for it."
She walks in to the kitchen, puts some Goldfish crackers on a saucer, comes back, hesitates in the doorway, stumbles and flings crackers all over the floor.
"Kaitlyn! You need to be more careful!"
"Oops. Can you get the vacuum for me?"
"No! Those are too big for the vacuum! Pick them up yourself!"
She moves her foot and crushes several crackers with her boot and Tom laughs and says,
"Ha, ha! She's crushing them with her shoe!"
Again, Kaitlyn asks me, "Can you get the vacuum for me?"
The top of my head is about to pop off.
"It's in the hall closet!!!!!!"

Kaitlyn goes to get the vacuum and comes around the corner with a brand new one!! One of those badass Dyson ones that don't lose suction and look like a racecar or a rocket ship or something. And yes, I'm such a dork that I get excited about vacuums, especially this one--I've wanted one forever. So, they had planned the whole thing and snuck off to Home Depot while I was being cranky in my bedroom. I think that Kaitlyn is quite the little actress. I played with it right away and was facinated and also disgusted to see that even though I had just vacuumed that afternoon with the old one, the Dyson picked up a dust/dirt/hairball the size of my head. I am serious. I love my new vacuum.

From the frozen tundra she emerges....

2007-01-28T13:07:00.000-06:00

Hi! Here I am!

I'm okay--relatively unfrozen. Thanks for checking on me, guys :) We got power back a few days ago and I've been a complete turd and not updating my blog or catching up with everyone. I've just been running around saying, "Wheee!" and "Hooray!" and baking and cooking and using my dishwasher, washer/dryer and vacuum with reckless abandon. (Which coincidently, I was just talking my husband into buying me a new vacuum. I just ran it and the whole house smells like ass over dog now. I changed the bag and everything.)

Speaking of dogs, all mine are fine. Henry is absolutely over the moon to be home, Shirley was probably less than pleased to leave Camp Weenie Dog, but she seems to have warmed up to us again, and the cat is pissed that we're all home period.

So, I promise to write a decent entry tomorrow. I had a really hard time yesterday...a Nate milestone...but today's a little better. I'm just trying to stay really busy.

2007-01-18T16:07:00.000-06:00

Still no power, still no power, still no power. Shit. All of the newer neighborhoods with their cute, little trees and underground utilites have power. I just had to have the old house with the big trees. Goddammit. My animals are spread out all over town: Shirley is at a neighbor's with a generator and three other weenie dogs having weenie dog fun. Henry (my beagle) is at my mom's--also with no power, but warmer than our house is currently. I dressed him in a doggie hooded velour jacket that is too small. He is a fatso and looks like a before picture for diet pills. Beverly the cat is still at the cold house, running around all batshitty and becoming feral. We're still at the MIL's and I'm so thankful for her and her hospitality and the fact that she's awesome and not one of those MIL's, but I really, really miss my house and tomorrow it's going to be a week since we lost power and they're saying that it might be another 10 effing days! ~sigh~ Anyway...that's my craptastic update. I am cranky.

2007-01-16T08:26:00.000-06:00

This was in our newspaper yesterday. It's not my street, but it looks identical to it--I had to really look carefully to see that it wasn't.

2007-01-15T08:26:00.000-06:00

We are refugees at my mother-in-law's house, one of the few (very few) homes where I live that have power. The governor has declared our city and the surrounding towns in a state of emergency and the National Guard had been deployed. (You really dodged a bullet with this one, huh, Michelle?)

We lost power on Friday night. We hardly slept at all listening to the huge trees up and down our street moan from the weight of the ice, crack like a gunshot and then with the sound of a pane of glass, shatter on the ground. Every one sounded like it landed right on our house, so every 15 minutes we'd sit straight up in bed and look through the blinds of the windows right behind our headboard to see that it was actually across the street. When one fell close enough hit the gutters, we knew it. Oh man. By the second night we realized that it was kind of stupid to sleep with our heads pointed at a window which was directly in line with a gigantic oak tree, and we slept in another bedroom. Oh, my poor trees. I love our trees so much, the two huge oak trees where the first thing that I noticed when we looked at the house. Now they are trashed.

My town looks like a tornado ripped through it. Whole trees and limbs everywhere, utility poles snapped like twigs, electric lines down across streets and yards. There is a eerie feeling to the city--everything so covered in ice and silent except for the constant crack, shatter of the trees. Without the sun shining, everything looks like it's in black and white. Traffic signals and street lights are out and when night comes, it's pitch black. Gas stations have run out of gas and of course, all of the crooks have come to town in their 18-wheelers, selling generators and camping equipment out of the back for two and three times the price. My neighbor actually bought one of their $900 generators. The utility people say that we may not have power until the end of the week, and with sub-zero temps, there are practically riots when Lo.we's or Hom.e De.pot get in a shipment of generators.

After two nights in our frigid house and a nasty bout of stomach flu on my part (Great timing. Thank goodness we had water to flush the toilet) ,we decided that it wasn't an adventure anymore and gave up. So, we packed up some stuff for a few days, grabbed Nate's box and came here. I'm so thankful that we had some place to go--the shelters in town are filled to capacity. We are really, really lucky. Tom is checking on the house right now. So far, we've just had some gutter damage but I'm so terrified that our big tree is going to come down on our little house. I've seen it happen to others this weekend--this place is a demilitarize zone. Unbelievable. I have some pictures of our street and house, but they'll have to wait until we've got power again. It's going to take a long, long time to recover from this, but the important thing right now is that we're safe and warm and I've stopped barfing. Thank goodness.

Yes I'm Serious. And Don't Call Me Shirley.

2007-01-12T13:24:00.000-06:00

Meet Shirley!

She's the new member of our family. Shirley is a mini doxie and very tiny--about 7.5 pounds.

This is where Beverly hangs out now that Shirley has joined us: on top of the cabinets in my pie basket.

This is where Shirley hangs out. She loves her Dad.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Natey's orchid bloomed again. I can't believe that I've kept this orchid alive for almost a year! I was getting pretty discouraged, but I hung in there, watering and feeding a stick in a pot on my kitchen windowsill for most of the summer and all of the fall. But what a reward!

Oh, I love orchids.

Catherine's Tarot Test

2007-01-10T12:37:00.000-06:00

Yikes...Well, I did just put up new curtains in the family room.

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Dreaming and Other Thoughts

2007-01-08T13:32:00.000-06:00

Thank you so much for all of your encouragement in the last post. For the millionth time, I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have all of you awesome people telling me that I'm not nuts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I rarely remember my dreams. I'm not sure why--I've never been able to. I guess that I just sleep too soundly. I don't sleep as well as I used to, but when I do, I'm knocked out pretty thoroughly.

You know those dreams that are so vivid that when you wake it takes a few moments for you to realize that you had dreamt it? I had one in high school that I was a varsity cheerleader (which, um, I was band president so that wasn't true, obviously.) It was so vivid that when I woke up the next morning, I went to the closet to get my uniform. In my dream, it was game day and we had to wear our uniforms to school. Needless to say, there wasn't a cheerleader uniform in my closet. Recently, I've had a couple of very vivid childbirth dreams. It wasn't Nate's birth, because in my dream I knew that Nate had died and this was a new baby. It was so real and I'm hoping that it may have been a sign of good things to come.

And then there are the dreams that make you wonder if someone is trying to say "hey" or "I'm alright!" Right after my grandma died I dreamt that she called me on the phone. In the dream I knew that she had passed away, so obviously I was pretty surprised when on the other end I hear, "Helloooo! This is your Nana!" She always said it just like that. "I'm in Kentucky and I'm having a wonderful time. We're on our way to Florida. Let me talk to your Mama." And that was the dream. And then there was this one that I had a few months after Nate died.

Last night, I dreamt about a boy who was just a little bigger this time. Still wearing overalls, too--I bet that I'll always picture Nate in overalls. We were in a different house, which makes sense because we never would have bought this current house had he lived. We moved because we just couldn't stand to be in that house any longer. There really wasn't much to the dream--just me being a mom. I remember saying "Hey, come back here!" and "Yuck, get that out of your mouth!" That was it.

I wish that I would dream about him more often. I've only had a couple that I'm aware of. Maybe I just dreamt about him and that's all it was--a dream. Maybe he was dropping by to let me know that everything was alright with him and that it was going to be alright with me, too. I'm not sure if I were still pregnant if I'd be handling this better or not. I just don't know. Is there a "good" way to handle this? I've been dreading the month of January. I'm even scared of the word. January. I'm scared of the expiration dates on food, what if they say January 31st? Last night at Ho.me Dep.ot, there was a sale that ended on January 31st and it was proclaimed on huge signs all over the store. The way the air smells. The way the trees look. My purple coat that I wore to the hospital. Everything just feels haunted to me.

2007-01-05T10:04:00.000-06:00

Please, please someone tell me that this gets easier. Please.

Those days where you want to just lay down and die, do those stop? Please tell me they do. Will it be easier after his birthday? I can't go on this way. I can't. I won't.

Maybe it's because I've been on my period for 12 days. Now I'm terrified that something is wrong with me.

I hate this.

**Updated to say**
The nurse finally called me just now. Doc said it's stress that's causing me to have an everlasting period. Also, it can take quite a few months to regulate after a D & C. Don't worry about it, he said. Okie doke. I'm feeling better now, by the way. It's like drunk dialing, don't blog when you're having a major meltdown. I'm going now to get my haircut fixed. I look like Molly Ringwald--Sixteen Candles Molly Ringwald. I should just put on some camel-toe mom jeans, then I'll look great. Cheers.

Christmas Wrap Up (a few days late)

2006-12-31T07:09:00.000-06:00

So that was Christmas. That was the Christmas that I held so much anticipation and hope for in my heart as I packed up the decorations last year. It, of course, wasn't the holiday that I had imagined last year, but it wasn't completely terrible. And I think that it was because I had absolutely no expectations for it. I didn't try to make it anything that I didn't feel like making it, and I know that is because I had a "heads up" from all of you. I just wanted to smile, get through a couple of days and then take down the damn decorations, putting them back in the boxes with just the simple hope that next year is better.

The big morning at my house was nice. My family came over for breakfast and my sister stopped by without my nephew. As much as it hurts me to think it, I'm glad that I didn't see him that morning. I'm not sure that I could have held it together. That afternoon, we went to Tom's family Christmas and it wasn't baby-free, much to my chagrin. I'm not exactly sure who this girl would be to me...step-cousin-in-law? She and I were pregnant at the same time last year, and she had a little girl in March, I think. Anyway, she was there and she kept giving me these scared sideways looks, like I was completely mental and she didn't know what I was going to do next. Maybe steal her baby and run out the door or something. Oh I'm being dramatic. She probably was feeling the same way I would feel if I was seeing someone who had a dead baby while I held my live one...really fucking bad and uncomfortable. Also maybe a little guilty. The last time that I had seen her was at my mom's house after Nate's burial and I'm still pissed at her for being pregnant at my son's funeral. I wish that she had just sent a card. That sounds nuts and I don't care. I was a total bitch to her after the funeral and I don't care about that either. I was nice to her at Christmas and that's what's important. I even held her kid. How's that? (Actually, if it was a boy I probably would have had to leave. I have a terrible time around baby boys. Duh.) Other than that, the day was absolutely great. As long as I put myself on auto-pilot, didn't think too hard about anything and put lots of Bailey's in my coffee.

Do you know what would have been nice? For people to acknowledge that we had a son and that possibly this Christmas was going to be really difficult. No one wanted to upset me, I guess. I'm so tired of people tiptoeing around me. Like I'm a timebomb. Oooh, don't make her cry. But really, if the last time you saw me I was greatly withchild, don't fucking act like it never happened. Just say...something. Like "I'm so sorry." It 's not like I want to be coddled and I don't want a lot of attention drawn to it, but say something. I don't have much, and the acknowledgement from someone that he exisited means a lot. Because sometimes I think that I made up the whole thing.

2006-12-22T06:39:00.000-06:00

As of yesterday, I’m a card carrying member of Catherine’s "Fake it ‘till ya make it" campaign! And it wasn’t so bad!

My sister dragged me out of the house, practically kicking and screaming, and made me go shopping with her. I had yet to do any Christmas shopping. Honestly. The most I had done was to sneak off to the fabric store and come home and sew a few things for people. That’s it. I just could not bring myself to actually shop. Really, I couldn’t bring myself to shower and put on decent clothes before 3 in the afternoon.

We went down to Branson to the outlet malls then had some really good barbeque for lunch. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed to just go do girl stuff and laugh. I’ve been walking around like a zombie and really being quite a bitch to everyone. It was really nice.

Three weeks ago, my mom and the same sister put my Christmas tree up with me. I knew that I’d never do it by myself (Tom was in Chicago), and I had kind of decided that I didn’t care if one was up or not. So, we assembled the big, fake, ugly tree that is definitely on its last leg and decorated it with lights and ribbon. It was then up to me to put the ornaments on. Fast forward to three weeks later—still no ornaments. Hmmm. What a Scrooge I am. I did have ornaments on the little, bitty tree that I had bought on a whim for Nate, except most of them had fallen off and it was all smooshed because the damn cat kept knocking the tree off the table. Anyway, yesterday my sister finally got me off my ass and I dragged out the ornament boxes. We finally decorated the tree, and okay, I admit it looks much better now. I don’t know. I’ve gotten so weird about things—I’m always thinking when I run across stuff: I bought this tea when I was pregnant, I’m not going to drink it; last time I was here, I was pregnant, I don’t want to go in there; the last time I wore these socks, I was pregnant, not going to wear them; when I packed up all of these Christmas decorations, I was pregnant and excited and never so happy in my life—these decorations are staying in their fucking boxes. But now my halls are all decked and stuff and it really looks pretty damn nice. When my husband came home from work he said, "Yay! We have a real tree!"

I was feeling so good, I even went and had my hair chopped off and highlighted! Nothing like a new hairdo to lift your spirits, I say. My hair was truly awful—really mousey and dull and flat. I had lost a ton of hair after I had Nate and it was growing back, giving me these weird little punk rock bangs in my formerly all one length hairdo. And then when I would get sweaty, the inch and a half long bangs would curl. Not the cutest thing in the world. So there was that, and then my eyebrows were growing together. Picture me slumping around my house with ugly ass flat hair, curly bangs and a unibrow, wearing jacked up yoga pants and a holey t-shirt. What a sad sack. (I’m also going clothes shopping, by the way.) Now my hair is chin length and I’ve got real bangs and two eyebrows. I like it!

And for today—more shopping and some Christmas baking with my mom where I’m going to attempt Kristin’s mom’s ribbon cookies!! Faking it ‘till you make it works! Thanks Catherine!

ps--I also went to Walmart this morning at 4:30 to buy stocking stuffers. I'm on a roll now!

Cracked Nuts

2006-12-16T05:12:00.000-06:00

So, at about 5:30 Thursday night I was making sweet and sour chicken (which turned out kinda yuck, I think) and the phone rings. It was the personnel manager from our city's big symphony. She said, "Laura! Hi! Symphony! Can you play tonight? We're doing the Nutcracker and the Governor is going to be there." Like a big idiot I say, "Sure", threw on my black clothes and ran out the door.

There is never an opening in this symphony, so I auditioned for on-call a couple of years ago. I got it, but hadn't gotten a call until Thursday. My audition was also the last time that I really played piccolo. My picc had half an inch of dust on it (I'm serious) that I brushed off before tossing in my bag, praying that there wouldn't be many piccolo parts. I have never, ever played the Nutcracker before and I was going to be sight reading it at the performance. I am such an idiot. (And it's all piccolo, as it turns out.)

Anyway, I've played at the theater where they were doing it a million times for musicals. It's over one hundred years old and the orchestra pit is really, really small. They had shoved I don't know how many people in the pit for this show. It was the stupidest thing that I had ever seen, not to mention the most uncomfortable I'd ever been (well, playing anyway). I was practically under the director's stand so I could never see his beats, resulting in me getting lost--a lot. I had a viola scroll in my ear and I can't believe that I didn't lose an eye on her bow. I am not kidding. So there was that, coupled with the sheer intimidation of playing with my teacher from grad school and being so close to the director that he could hear every single mistake which made for an evening of magic for me. And then I did it again last night.

I think, for the most part, I did okay. As it turns out, I was much less nervous the night that I was sight reading than the night that I had actually practiced. I think that was because I was putting more pressure on myself last night. But I realized something about myself, I'm afraid. I'm not back to normal and I'm not able to take the pressure that I used to. I didn't fall apart and I only really screwed up one part last night (which in a two hour show isn't bad, I guess), but I wasn't able to focus very well and I was extremely nervous and wasn't able to shake it like I used to. I don't know. It's frustrating, but I'm not sure how much I can do about it right now. So, that's my Nutcracker story. Not that interesting. I do have something more interesting to talk about (I'm not pregnant, that I know of)--I just need to sit down and write it. We have had some major developments here at the K. house and I'm quickly trying to adjust the best I can to the new changes. Which isn't super easy seeing that I'm completely wacka-doo right now, but I'm doing my best. So...more later.

Happy Birthday to Meeeee!!

2006-12-13T08:18:00.000-06:00

Yah-hoo, I'm thirty-two!

That's kinda of a dumb age. I can already do everything, except run for president. Or get the reduced movie ticket price.

My step daughter gave me a card this morning that said:

Happy B-Day to you,

you live in a zoo,

You look like a fluterino (?)

and you smell like one too.

Then she drew a picture of a little dog (evidently the "fluterino") with his body made out of a flute. Very silly. A little Italian musical dog, I guess.

Yippee, Hooray!!

2006-12-12T08:20:00.000-06:00

Congrats, Clare!

One Down...

2006-12-11T08:01:00.000-06:00

At the concert Saturday night, the friendly oboist leaned over and said,

"Hey, didn't we play in [so and so] orchestra together at Christmas last year?"

"Um, hmm. We sure did." (please don't be interested, be totally uninterested.)

"How's the baby?" she asked with a wide smile.

"He died in February," I replied, probably a little too quickly.

The emotions crossed her face that I was so used to seeing--an inquisitive smile, turned to confusion, then embarrassment, then concern.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry. How did it happen?"

"Well, it was kind of a birth accident. He lived for four days, though." (No one knows what a placental abruption is, so I say "birth accident", which I think is better than "miscarriage"--my former OB's suggestion.)

I babbled some more, like I do when I'm asked this question. I think I ended with, "Yeah, I was really pregnant at Christmas last year, so..."

She said, "I think that I'm going to cry." I've spent the last 10 months making weird smooshy faces to push back tears. Go ahead. I'll probably join you.

Somehow the subject was quickly and mercifully changed and we spent the rest of the time before the concert laughing our asses off at a music professor we both knew who would talk about orgasams in class. A guy that you would never want to picture having sex.

I was laughing, but my heart was pounding and I felt like I was going to puke for the rest of the evening.

5 Things about Moi

2006-12-04T18:21:00.000-06:00

Yay! I've been tagged by Artblog! I've never been tagged before, so I'm excited. I feel neato and important, but I also terrible because it took me for-ev-er to do it. I'm so slow on the uptake these days...

Okay, if you are reading this and you know me "in real life", you probably already know most of this stuff.

1.) I think that I've mentioned this before, but my husband and I met on Match.com. We always joke that when our kids asked us how we met, expecting something like "on a train to Paris", I'll just say "Daddy double-clicked on my face." (Which actually sounds filthy as I see it written out.) After a few emails back and forth, we had a couple of dates and I still wasn't really sure about him. I'm so shy and he's so shy that we both kinda sat there. After our second date, he sent me a gorgeous arrangement of a dozen red roses. I was so shocked! (And no, I didn't give it up on the second date, you dirties.) I thought, potential stalker? Potentially the most perfect boyfriend ever? I went with the latter, obviously and it was true. I came to rely on the florist van pulling into my driveway the morning after a date. And if it wasn't huge flower arrangements, it was gourmet cookies. ~sigh~ The Match.com thing was so great because we literally lived less than five minutes apart from each other but there is no way that we ever would have met otherwise. I could go on and on. That could be a whole other post. He's in Chicago right now and I really miss him.

2.) Here's a short one. My nostrils are two different sizes--one long and skinny, one short and fat.

Let's see, what else? This is tough.

3.) When I was a kid, before I started doing crazy color treatments to my hair, I had a big streak of platinum blonde on the underneath portion of my hair. It's naturally dark blonde. I'm not sure if I still have it-- I might be able to see it now that it's been so long since I've highlighted my hair. After Nate had his first ever shampoo, a streak of platinum blonde was revealed in his auburn hair. Right on top of his head. The nurses called it his "skunk stripe". (Not really sure how I feel about that.) I like thinking about that little stripe. I wonder if my future babies will have it. I hope so.

4.) I smoked pot a couple of times and thought it was stupid and didn't work. Then we went to Amsterdam. Tom was fine, but I spent the whole time with a death grip on his hand for fear that I might float away. We walked around and around and around the same block for four hours because I was terrified that we would get lost and miss our bus back to the boat. I've never felt so god-awful in my life. I felt like my face was was melting off. Our pictures from Amsterdam consist of: one windmill, a stoned self portrait of the two of us, a stoned Tom recreating the Mentos commercial and 143 pictures of the Bluebird Cafe.

5.) This one's kind of heavy. When I was 20, my friends and I got hit by a drunk driver. We were coming out of a movie theater and when we turned on to the main road, we got nailed. My friend Rachel was driving and she didn't see the guy coming because he was going over 100 miles an hour. He rear-ended us. I broke my pelvis and had a concussion, Rachel broke her neck and Chris, in the back seat was hurt the worst. We were in a hatchback Civic and he was ejected out the back, flew over three lanes of traffic and landed on his head against a curb. His entire face was crushed and he was in the hospital for a very, very long time. But he recovered really well and I think he's a teacher now. I haven't talked to him since we all graduated. The guy who hit us was 17 years old. Seriously. I met him about a year after the accident. I was asked to speak on a victim panel to a group of convicted drunk drivers and there was an article in the paper about it the day I was supposed to speak. He had read the article and showed up, listened to me speak and then stopped me in parking lot afterwards. He apologized and cried. I told him that I could forgive him, because I figured that it would be easier to forgive than let it eat me up forever. I spoke to groups quite a bit for awhile and I really think that it helped me heal emotionally. Physically, I still get really sore and my left hip gets swollen when the weather changes. But I'm okay. I'm still amazed that all three of us lived through that accident. Somebody's keeping me around for something, I guess!

Ta Da! Five things about me!

A Nutjob in a Pear Tree

2006-12-02T06:19:00.000-06:00

Okay, I should probably write something.

I go through these sucky blogger phases, where I don't write anything and I can't think of any good and helpful responses to leave for my bloggy friends. I've even been tagged by a fellow blogger, and I haven't done it yet. I have emails to return. I'm terrible! I'm not being lazy--I honestly have tons to say--but I'm not doing so hot right now. In fact, I'm kind of hanging by a thread. I've been trying to keep busy and not think about anything or I'll have a complete meltdown (which I've already done twice since Thanksgiving).

Speaking of Thanksgiving, mine was great! In an effort to circumvent any emotional disasters on my part, I decided to have it at our place! This is a new thing in our family--to have one of the "kids" do the dinner. I thought that everything went really well and we had the Best Turkey Ever. If you haven't tried Alton Brown's Good Eats roast turkey, do next time. It's awesome, awesome, awesome. So, my evil plan was to keep impossibly busy so that I didn't have time to cry. And it worked. But.

Christmas has hit me like a bus. I expected to be really bummed out, but I didn't expect panic attacks. I wish that I could just not be a joiner this year, but I can't. And not because of my family (because they would understand) or because Nate would have wanted me to have a wonderful, magical Christmas (whatever). It's because I have to because of my job. December is the busiest month for musicians, except for maybe June weddings. I could just say "no", but then no one would want to hire me anymore and then there's that extra thousand dollars I'll be making this month. I'm a musical prostitute. Ha ha. Momma wants a new sofa, what can I say?

Some of the same people are calling me for gigs this year. Last time they saw me, I was greatly withchild, lugging my flute bag and dragging my music stand, shuffling along with swollen feet shoved in ugly shoes. No one has asked me anything when they've called, but I haven't played the gig yet and I'm preparing myself for another round of "ooo, how's the baby?" Yeah. Good times.

We haven't really decorated inside. We've gone a little crazy outside--we have the most Christmas lights on the block, and I have to say that I've enjoyed that. That's fun. My husband is the Rembrandt of Christmas lights and he's also really competitive. We've put up lights, gotten in the car to drive around and look at other crazy husband's light schemes and come home and put up more lights. I imagine that our front yard will be a work in progress for the duration of the Christmas season. I'm cool with that. I'm just not in a huge hurry to deck my indoor halls. I just don't really care, you know? If I was decorating the tree, I'd probably just throw a big ol' ball of tangled lights on it and call it done. Since you didn't know me before, I should say that this is not like me. Most things I do these days are not like me. Whatever. I'm not going to apologize for it--it is what it is. My child is not with me and excuse me for not bedazzling my house with baby Jesuses this year. I'm not in the mood, pass the egg nog. No, the one with whiskey in it. Thanks.

Neeto!!

2006-11-30T06:08:00.000-06:00

Congratulations, Kate!!

2006-11-21T12:04:00.000-06:00

I just realized that I would have had my big ultrasound around this time. I don't even want to think about it--this is so... awful.

Channeling My Inner 50's Housewife

2006-11-21T05:56:00.000-06:00

Last night, after dinner my husband said,

"You know how guys sometimes will talk about how their wives don't cook as good as their mothers?"

"Okay."

"Well, I just want you to know that you cook better than my mom now."

Is is completely wrong that I felt a thrill of excitement with this conversation? His mom is a damn good cook. While we're on this topic, here are some highlights from an article that we have on our fridge. It's a photocopy from the May 1955 edition of Houskeeping Monthly. It's on or fridge because, a) it's hilarious and b) our house was built in 1955 and I imagine that the first lady that lived here read this article and hopefully was appalled. I give you highlights from:

The Good Wife's Guide

Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready, on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking of him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favorite dish) is part of the warm welcome.
Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work weary people! (so the same pj pants four days in a row isn't hot?)
Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift, too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please.
Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first--remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner or other places of entertainment without you. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his very real need to be at home and relax.
Don't complain if he's late home for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through that day. (Huh?)
Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice. (Oh, ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!!)
Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgement or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
A good wife always knows her place.

Holy Crap. I don't care if this was fifty years ago, I don't believe that a woman actually wrote this. And if she did, she probably went batshit crazy shortly thereafter. Maybe she looked like this:

"oooh, what do you think of my knife collection?"

2006-11-20T13:45:00.000-06:00

This is a beautiful birthstone bracelet made by Catherine. (We did a swap--a purse for a bracelet.) It has a strand for Nate and one for Chip, too. Hopefully, I'll get to send it back one day to have another strand added for a happier outcome. Thank you so much, it's gorgeous!

An Interview with Myself

2006-11-15T07:05:00.000-06:00

What do you want?
I'd like a baby, thanks.

Well, aren't you scared?
Sure. Of course I am.

What if you have another miscarriage?
The miscarriage was horrible, awful. But...I need to try.

What if you lose another full-term baby? Could you handle that?
Well, I'd have to, wouldn't I? Shut up, don't talk that way.

You've got your head in the sand.
No I do not. Believe me, I'm keenly aware of what could happen.

Why even try again?
Because I know that there's happy endings out there. Because I know that even people who have had total abruptions like I did, have gone on to have more than one beautiful, healthy pregnancy. And because I think that my biggest regret of my life would be not to try again just out of fear. I'm hoping that someday, I'll look at my children and be thankful that I tried again.

You could adopt.
Yeah, I know that. We've done research, we've talked to people, we've thought of finances. It's something we plan on doing whether or not we're able to have kids of our own. It's just that right now, with the agency that we like, it's almost a two-year wait for a little girl from China. I just can't wait right now. One year, yeah. Two years, not right now.

What if you lose another full-term baby? Could you handle that?

I think so.

The Sucky Post

2006-11-14T09:29:00.000-06:00

I received an email yesterday from one of my former flute students from when I was teaching at the University. She was at a different life stage than my other students: she was married, she had a two year old little girl and she was pregnant with a boy and due at the same time I was. She must have taken the spring semester off, just like I did and returned this fall, just like I didn't. She had just heard what had happened and wanted to know when I was coming back. (I'm not.)

I don't know what the point of this post is. There is no point, probably. Just a big, huge cosmic "Huh?!" from me. I'm probably just like tons of people that you know. Your sister. Your friend. But now I'm an example, and not the kind I wanna be. Now I'm "look what happened to her. goddamn." I'm reproductive equivalent of going to the super buffets just to "people watch" to feel better about your own body image. [Insert here what I nice person I am and I didn't ask for this bullshit and I've never hurt anyone and I'm married to a nice man and have a lovely home, blah, blah, fuck-ity blah] If I don't get some good news soon, then I just don't know what.

**edited to add**
I know that I'm preaching to the choir, here. Maybe I just need an "amen".

Veteran's Day

2006-11-12T08:12:00.000-06:00

My mom and I went to see Nate yesterday. That makes it a grand total of three times that I've been there for him: the funeral, Easter and now Veteran's Day. My son is buried in the Missouri Veterans Cemetery and I wanted to see how the place looked with American flags everywhere. I hate that it's still so hard for me to go there. Why would it ever be easy to visit your child in a cemetery? Even so, I feel like a sucky mother.

They did have flags raised on the several flagpoles that line the drives, and it was very pretty, but they didn't have flags on each grave like I hoped. Maybe that's Memorial Day. I don't know. I never paid attention to these holidays until my son ended up in a veteran's cemetery. This particular one is brand new, and several rows of graves had been added since Tom and I had been there at Easter. Here, all of the gravemarkers are identical--more military uniformity. It's easy to find Nate's row, though, because his granddad is buried in the very first grave, 16 spaces down.

Tom's dad died on January 15 of this year. He was very sick, but he died very quickly and went much sooner than anyone expected. We all believed that he would be here to welcome Nate into the family and even have some time to enjoy him. After he had died, I had so much hoped that Nate's birth would bring some happiness back to the family and be a welcome diversion for all of us. That day of the funeral, standing in front of Tom's father's flag draped casket, I never imagined that we would be back there in just over two weeks, in the same freezing interment shelter but this time, a tiny white casket in its place. It was surreal to say the least.

It had been so long since I had been there, I was happy to see that grass had finally grown over Nate's grave. Time marches on and nature takes it's course no matter how I'm feeling and how much I feel as if it's standing still. New baby grass growing over my son's grave like new skin that covers a bad wound. It's not as raw anymore, but you can still see where you've been hurt.

My sister-in-law had already been there to place pretty arrangements on both graves. (Tom's mother and sisters always keep flowers on the graves, and I'm so grateful for that. They always make a little arrangement for the baby.) Mom and I arranged our flowers in the militarily uniform vase that we are required to use, and I stood back and took a couple of pictures. The marker reads-

Nathaniel Guy K.

January 31, 2006

Februrary 3, 2006

Son of

SPC Thomas K.

Our Sweet Baby Nate

I always laugh a little when I read "Sweet Baby Nate". It sounds like the name of a barbeque sauce. "Sweet Baby Nate's Lip-Smackin' Sauce". But that's what I called him when I was pregnant, because he was sweet. He was sweet and considerate and polite. He never kept me up all night and he never even had the hiccups. He just gave me wicked heartburn, but I'm sure he didn't mean to. It sucks that this is all I know about him. "Nate was a baby. He liked grape juice. The end."

We walked sixteen spaces down and carefully arranged some purple mums (in honor of the Purple Heart that he received) in another militarily uniform vase for Tom's dad. I stood up and looked over the rows and rows of identical headstones. In my direct line of sight was the grave marker of a 21-year old man that died last November. His stone read: "Rangers Lead the Way". My husband was an Army Ranger, and reading the Ranger motto on a headstone made my hair stand up. I thought about all of these men buried here. This young Ranger and all the others, these veterans--what did they see in their lifetimes? I thought about Nate, surrounded by these tough men and felt a little better. I felt a little proud. Many of these men were buried with their medals pinned to their chest, and my boy is right there--all seven pounds and eleven ounces of him--his hair combed across his forehead, his chin tucked to his chest, looking very stern. My little soldier.

Closer to Fine

2006-11-09T21:58:00.000-06:00

I used to sing in my car. I used to be the girl rockin' out at the stoplight, getting embarassed when she realized that someone noticed. Most days now, I cry on my way to work or I cry on my way home. Usually both. I'm definately not a trained singer and honestly, I'd have to get pretty drunk to get up in front of people to sing karaoke. I've always thought that this was a particularly weird thing about me--one of my favorite places to be is on stage with my flute, performing. I love playing to an audience. There is absolutely nothing like a standing ovation, and boy I could sure use one these days. But ask me to sing, and I clam up.

I got into my car tonight, heading home from orchestra, and despite the frustrations of this particular rehearsal, my heart was feeling pretty light. I noticed that I was singing along to Panic at the Disco. That wasn't doing it for me, so I started searching for my Joni Mitchell CD with Big Yellow Taxi, my favorite drunk karaoke song. I try a few bars a capella, but couldn't remember the words. I had to find something--I felt happy! I felt like singing! This was a big deal. At the next stoplight, I dug through my cd wallet and found the holy grail of singin' at the top of your lungs--Indigo Girls.

Ah, the Indigo Girls. I've seen them in concert three times and in college, my girlfriends and I would sit around and just sing, sing, drink and sing with IG in the stereo. To me, their music isn't just great stuff to listen to, it's my college soundtrack. It's friendship, roadtrips, bad break ups and just the plain awesomeness of being a girl. Every track was our anthem.

I haven't listened to a single song since Nate died. I used to sing Indigo Girls songs to my baby. But tonight, I sang. I sang my heart out with Amy and then switched to Emily's parts on the harmonies, like I always did. I sang all the way home, and when I parked in the garage I sat there and sang some more. I sang with a happy heart full of good memories of girlfriends and my sweet baby.

Tomorrow may be different, but tonight I got a glimpse of the old Laura. The singing and dancing and hooray for everything Laura. Tomorrow may be different, but tonight I'm alright. I'm learning not to take these moments for granted, but to celebrate them when they happen.

aaaaaaaand, scene!

2006-11-03T08:12:00.000-06:00

Okay, the offending clothes and books are folded neatly in a Zingerman's Deli mail order box, minus dead skunks or dog shit. I had 3 tops, 1 pair of okay pants and 2 pairs of ugly-ass pants that I never wore, and a couple of books. Most of it from Target and none of it haute couture. (Not that there's anything wrong with Target clothes. I love Target and most all of my own maternity clothes are either from there or from second hand mama stores. I'm just being a jerk.) Tom helped me dig out those clothes last night. He was so sweet, he said, "Let's do it now and then we can watch The Office to cheer you up." I was so glad that he acknowleged that it would be hard for me to do that, we think of things differently most of the time. Left brain, right brain couple.

So, Tom's gonna dump those off for me today. I've yet to send any type of communication, she's probably really got her knickers in a twist now. Awesome. I think, in the end, a short version is sweeter. Like, "They'll be on your porch." Just knowing her like I have for 13 years, the short version will piss her off even more and I need to nip this thing in the bud NOW. To answer Jill, yes, she's always been very self absorbed. I could tell you things that would make your hair curl, but spill it all here wouldn't be nice....

Thank you for all of your great advice--both bloggy friends and in real life friends--it was great therapy for me to get all of that out and to know that I wasn't being a big baby about it. I have 13 years of built up garbage about this woman. So, while I would never, ever, ever wish her a dangerous pregnancy with a horrible outcome, I could wish her some discomfort. Like:

May she have hemorrhoids that swell to the size of dinner plates.
May she be so constipated that her eyes are bloodshot for the duration.
May she have acne so bad, her face is like ground beef.
With every chuckle, may she pee her pants.
May she pass gas publicly. Often.

Feel free to add.

p.s.--my period started again. 19 day cycle. I wish that my body would just get back to normal, if it even knows what normal is anymore. Also, baby-making sex sucks and we're not doing it anymore. Sex for fun and leisure only. Then we'll see what happens.

and more maternity clothes B.S.

2006-10-31T13:25:00.000-06:00

Okay, one more post on this, and then I'll drop it. This is just so yucky, I can't get past it.

I got another message from the maternity clothes nazi. She wanted to know if I've found them yet and that she would also like her Pregnancy Week by Week back. And that she doesn't have the money to go and buy all new stuff. Oh, I'm very sorry. When she said that she needed them this winter, I didn't know that she was in such a hurry. I thought that I could at least have a week or two of wiggle room. Some people have told me not to send them at all and another said I should shit on them and put them in a garbage bag. (Okay, actually I thought that was pretty funny.)

I feel like since I told her that I would return them to her, I need to. But I really think that she should know that this isn't cool. My husband and I have decided that he would just drop them off on her porch (thus saving both postage and my feelings), but I wonder if I should just leave it at that. I am so mad and hurt. I haven't talked to her since right after Nate died, so I don't consider her a friend anymore, but still. I wrote this letter, but haven't sent it:

I was all sunshiny in my first response, but I really need for you to understand how difficult it is for me to even open a box of maternity clothes, much less sort through them. I fully intended to get those things back to you. I planned on doing it as soon as I was comfortably pregnant and emotionally able to go through baby stuff. However, in addition to mourning my son, I just had a really bad miscarriage. Yes, I know that you had no way of knowing that. I'm just not in the best place emotionally to deal with maternity clothes and other people's pregnancy announcements.
So, yes I will return those things to you. But just understand why I'm not in a hurry to do it. To be pushy about it is just cruel.

That may be totally writing a check that my ass can't cash. (She can be mean, and I am notoriously a huge weenie.) It think that it helped just writing that down. I'll probably just say--You'll have them this week. (piss off) Okay, maybe not that last thing. What would you say? Feel free to add to my letter.

On the 31st

2006-10-31T12:52:00.000-06:00

Nine Months Old.

What a big boy you'd be today.

Your cousin has taken his first steps.

He's one month older than you, but

I bet you'd be right there with him,

my genius child.

You'd just be fitting into the little

St. Louis Rams uniform. Daddy

and I hate football, but you'd still

look awfully cute in that outfit.

I miss you so much.

I still can't believe that we had such a

beautiful boy. And then you were gone.

I wonder what we would have dressed

up as today? It's so hard knowing that

I'll miss out on your...everything.

I love you sweet boy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two years ago today I got engaged. I had a huge Halloween flute recital with another studio and I was the director of the flute choir. We all dressed up in costumes--I was Hermione and Tom, my stage hand, was a farmer. He wouldn't dress up as Harry Potter despite my pleadings.

The concert was a huge success, and as I was thanking the audience, Tom came on stage. I gave him a puzzled look--I didn't need him to move any more stands, the show was over--but he got down on one knee and proposed to me in front of a big audience and 40-50 flute players, most of them teenage girls. I love him so much for doing that. I was just the perfect engagement. (I said yes, obviously.)

Show & Tell

2006-10-25T12:29:00.000-05:00

Stuff that I've been making to keep my mind off of being knocked up:

I just finished the purse yesterday. It's for my mother-in-law's X-Mas gift. I'm really getting hooked on making purses--it's my new thang. And then I had to show you my sushi pillow. I think that everyone needs one of those.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for your support RE: crappy friend/maternity clothes. I really thought that maybe I was just being overly sensitive. The more I think about it, if I had a friend whose baby had died and I had loaned her my mat. clothes, I really don't think that I would even ask for them back. I've still yet to look for them. She's probably only like five minutes pregnant anyway. Whatever.

Oh, and the costumes: I was a major poop-in-the-pants and didn't go to the party. Kaitlyn and I stayed home and ate Chinese and watched kid-friendly You Tube. I didn't even pick anything to be for Halloween, which is totally weird because I usually pick out my costume way in advance. I had fun just making costumes this year. But the good news is--Tom won first prize in the costume contest!

Halloween Costumes!

2006-10-24T10:04:00.000-05:00

Yikes!!! There's a stealthy ninja in my house!

Tom in attack mode. Please note the aluminum foil throwing star.

Kaitlyn as the Rock N' Roll Witch. I'm so excited that I actually sewed something to wear!

Fall on our street.

My Saturday.

2006-10-21T23:33:00.000-05:00

I read my email first thing this morning and in my mailbox was a note from someone who I used to be friends with. She's always been such a huge bummer to be around and honestly after everything that happened, I didn't want to constantly be having a "my life sucks" measuring contest. I've got her beat by a mile anyway.

So, I open up my mailbox and I see her note with "maternity clothes" in the heading. Evidently, she would like to have her maternity clothes that she had loaned me returned as it seems she will be needing them this winter. Well good for her. Way to breed. So now I get to go dig through my tubs of maternity clothes and I would much rather dig through tubs of say, someone else's dirty underpants or something equally horrible. OOOOHH I'M SO MAD AND I DON'T KNOW WHY!! She ruined my whole Saturday. What a snotty way to tell me that she's pregnant. "Oh by the way, I'll be needing my maternity clothes back. La dee da." I'm going to mail them to her. I don't want to see her.

Today, other than feeling sorry for myself and being a complete bitch to my husband and stepdaughter, I sewed some stuff. I actually sewed my first "mom" thing--a Halloween costume for Kaityln. She wanted to be Gwen Stefani, but I talked her into being a "Rock 'n Roll Witch". Yes, I made it up! She's nine! I can still talk her into stuff. I think that it turned out rather badass if I do say so myself. I also fashioned a ninja costume for my big studly husband out of his college graduation robe and a black t-shirt on his head for his cool ninja face mask thing. He was very excited. He and Kaitlyn sat on the floor cutting out cardboard "throwing stars" and covering them with aluminum foil. It was very cute. The costume is for a Halloween party--he's not like wearing it around the house or anything. But I won't be surprised if he does. I will post some pictures of Tom and Kaitlyn in said costumes soon.

In other news....we're applying to be on Trading Spaces with our neighbors! Further updates as events warrant.

That's all. Man, I am so aggravated. Why do I let stuff like this upset me?

Oh Jesus.

2006-10-19T12:07:00.000-05:00

Just now, I was sitting at my computer, reading blogs and minding my own business when the sound of an airplane drew my attention out the window directly in front of me. Flying behind the small airplane was a huge banner and on that banner was what I assume was an aborted fetus and the words "This is Roe vs. Wade." I feel sick.

CD 1

2006-10-19T08:07:00.000-05:00

Like I mentioned in my last post, I've been peeing on a lot of sticks lately. Lots of sticks. Like seven in a three day span lot of sticks. My boobs were hurting--actually they were killing me, they hurt so badly. My boobs don't lie (insert Shakira song here). They only hurt when I'm pregnant. I just couldn't figure out why all of these HPT's were turning out negative and since I hadn't had a period since July, there was really no way that I could tell if I was testing too early. But my boobs hurt, so who cares, I was probably pregnant.

My period started on Sunday and it scared the hell out of me. That miscarriage shook me up so much, that the sight of any blood--even from my period--made my heart stop. I'm scared of my own uterus, apparently. So my period started, and I cried and sobbed for a couple of hours. I also had that horrible panic that I wasn't pregnant and that I had to be pregnant and I must be pregnant RIGHT NOW! And then, of course, I diagnosed myself as being completely nuts because I was having symptoms of a non-existent pregnancy. Good times.

But here's Logical Laura:
1.) My boobs probably really did hurt. They've never hurt when I wasn't pregnant, but I've also never had a miscarriage at 12 weeks. Who knows what my hormones were doing. They probably hurt after Nate was born, too, but I was more concerned with stopping my milk supply. (By the way, what a cruel thing that is, huh?)

2.) Yeah, my doctor told us that we could start right away, but honestly, the idea of getting pregnant before at least one period creeped me out a little. At least now we can have a timeframe for things.

3.) Here's someting interesting that I just thought of: My first period came 4 weeks and 3 days after Nate was born. This period came 4 weeks and 3 days after the D & C. Weird.

I've been thinking a lot about things. I had this empty, cold feeling inside that wasn't there before. As I've grieved for my son, there was still a little something in me. I picture it in my head as a candle--a little hope candle. After the miscarriage, the candle went out. That's a very scary feeling. Being hopeless.

I prayed so hard for a pregnancy. When we were in Europe, I obsessively hunted down any church and cathedral that I could find, shoved my Euros in the little tin boxes and lit candles. One for Nate, one for his brother or sister. At St. Peter's in Rome, I went into the heavily guilded and incensed room that was especially for prayer and offered up the best plea I could think of. I mean, this was St. Peter's, it was like the Big Red Phone to God. This one had to count. Hm. Maybe He's saving it for later. I hope so.

So, we're going to trudge forward. I'm more terrified than ever. This reproduction thing is turning out to be a little more difficult than I expected. But I can feel my little candle returning.

Another Tiny Angel

2006-10-17T20:36:00.000-05:00

I want to send an enormous amount of love to Emma's Mum. I'm so sad to hear this news--it's just not fair. And that is a huge understatement. If you could, please drop by to give her some support.

In the News

2006-10-09T08:09:00.000-05:00

Okay, I think that I'm ready to come out from under my rock. Time has helped and I have a lot to talk about. Especially today--this has been kind of big news in my town for the last couple of days and here's the story from today's paper. ( I had a link but changed my mind. And then I took out eveyone's last names for fear of being linked back to. I don't know if that helps or not. Anyway.)

Mother gets 5 years for drug use
Stacey S. admits to using meth, pot while she was pregnant.
Marcus K. The Associated Press

In the third such case in four years in Webster County, a Marshfield woman has been sentenced to five years in prison for using methamphetamine and marijuana during pregnancy.
Webster County Assistant Prosecutor John A said his office pushed for prison time rather than probation to send a message that it is unacceptable for addicts to force their habit on an unborn child.
Stacey S, 26, pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and was sentenced Thursday.
She gave birth in February in a car on the shoulder of Interstate 44 while being driven to a Springfield hospital by a girlfriend.
When she finally made it to the hospital, blood tests detected methamphetamine in the bodies of both the mother and the baby girl, investigators said in a probable-cause statement.
The child was immediately taken into state custody and now lives in a foster home, A said.
S. told investigators she was already addicted to methamphetamine when she discovered she was pregnant.
She said she tried to quit by switching to marijuana but was still using methamphetamine once a month.
She said she went into labor at a friend's house in Marshfield after smoking methamphetamine there.
She said she smoked marijuana to ease the pain of labor.
The sentence was two years short of the maximum of seven years that could have been imposed, A. said Friday.
He said similar sentences had been imposed in the two previous convictions of mothers who used meth during pregnancy.
"It's an egregious offense. When you make a decision as a drug user to subject yourself to all the negative impact of methamphetamine, you're doing it as an adult. But when you start making it for an unborn child and afflicting that child with methamphetamine addiction, that's a whole other level," A. said.

She actually gave birth on Februrary 3rd. Let's see, what was I doing on Februrary 3rd? Oh yeah, my husband and I were waiting on the results from the tests that would definitively tell us that our son was completely brain dead. Also on our agenda that day was to authorize the termination of Nate's life support and then we held him as he wheezed like a little squeaky toy and then finally died in our arms. The news of this roadside birth was all that I heard in the week following Nate's death. That and shots of Britney speeding down the road with her son on her lap behind the steering wheel. I think that's when I started to get a little pissy.

I hate this woman and I hope she rots in hell. I eat too many filet o' fish sandwiches and my baby dies. She takes metham-fucking-phetamines and her baby lives. But most of all, I hate her for what she did to her baby. That child will suffer for this for the rest of her life. I'm sure that she did irreversible damage to her daughter. It's horrible. And you know, the worst thing is that she probably will do it again. And she's probably done it before. She has other kids--it's just so sad. My heart is just broken for that little girl and her other children.

Well that was my big fat rant for the day. Ahhh, I feel better. I'm going to get caught up with everyone--I knew that I needed to come back when I started waking up in the middle of the night and talking to myself again. In other news, I am very bummed that T & T got kicked off of the Amazing Race last night. I was really hoping that the Barbies would go. I also can't stop peeing on sticks no matter how many times they turn out negative. Must. Stop.

Stand by

2006-09-25T07:37:00.000-05:00

I don't have anything to say today.

I think that I'm going to take a break for a little while. I've had the wind knocked out of me. Things that used to be cathartic just aren't right now. Maybe it's just how I'm feeling today, in which case I'll be embarrassed tomorrow when I'm like, "Just kidding." I don't know.

Here is a picture of a fountain in Bruges, Belgium, which was one of my favorite places in Europe. I just love this fountain--I wish I had one for my backyard.

Talk to you soon...

Doc Visit

2006-09-22T10:34:00.000-05:00

Back from the doctor. Once again making that defeated walk down the hall to the exam room.

Here's the deal:

We can start trying again immediately. As in today, right after lunch if we want to. I asked, and yes, I could get pregnant before I have my first period. It would be pretty damn confusing when they ask when my last period was and I would say, umm July. But that is silly and it would have to just be tremendous luck because there is no way to even predict. But there's no harm in doin' it just for fun!

And he did kinda tell me who to call for counseling. I was hoping that he would have some specific names of people who might specialize in infant loss, since he was a high-risk OB and all. No, he just referred me to a place. Oh well. He scored so high with us in so many other areas, I'll let him slide on this one. I wouldn't have even known to call that place, so he helped a little.

So there's that. The rest is up to Mother Nature, I guess. I just want to get this over with. I just want to be pregnant and scared to death for 37 weeks and bring home a baby, for christssake. My sister and I were joking earlier that when and if this next kid ever gets here, he better not be a little jerk and pull stuff like, "You have to buy me that car, Mom, I'm a miracle baby!" Hmm.

Poupourri

2006-09-21T08:27:00.000-05:00

There you go again. Thank you so much. I felt like you were all right here in my family room, patting me on the back and saying, "It's going to be okay. Come on, let's go eat cheesecake and french fries."

I go to the doctor tomorrow and I'm excited and dreading it at the same time. Maybe excited isn't the right word. I don't know. I'm dreading it for the obvious reasons. I don't know why OB offices don't have a special waiting room for women who have lost babies. No little kids, no parenting magazines and if there are any pregnant women in there at all, they know exactly how I feel.

I'm just very interested in knowing what my doctor has to say about this miscarriage. I also am very interested in knowing when we can try again. And I am very interested in learning the names of some psychiatrists. I don't know why I've waited this long to do this. Maybe part of it is because Tom and I started relationship counseling almost immediately after we heard that a huge percentage of marriages end after the death of a child. We only go now when we need a "tune up". I think that I didn't want to talk about it with someone all by myself. A lot of times, Tom will talk for me.I just didn't want to think about it that hard. Even most of my posts are all hearts and flowers.

But these are the changes that I've noticed in myself:

I don't read books anymore.
I don't want to see "smart" movies anymore. I thought yesterday that the new Jackass movie might be funny.
I'm not keeping up with politics. I hate the man, I just can't tell you why, okay? He's a doody-head, how's that?
I don't listen to Classical music anymore because it makes me sad. Which means:
I haven't properly practiced my flute in months. I just don't pick it up anymore, except to play with my students. Now I officially suck.
I'm obsessed with keeping a perfect house and I get entirely bent out of shape when dinner turns out crap or Tom doesn't like the way I've put away his boxer shorts. The old me would have just said "fold your own fucking underpants" and served hot dogs cut up in Kraft Mac & Cheese for dinner.
I'm a perma-bitch. Julian's Mom called it a "constant cranky bitchy neurosis" and I think, "Ah-ha!!" That is me! I'm afraid of becoming the mean old lady on my block that smells of cat piss and screams at little kids to get out of her yard. Or even worse, the mean 31 year old lady who smells of cat piss and screams at little kids. Either way, it's no good.

I'm sure that there's more--I'm just tired of thinking about it. I'm not doing anything that requires a lot of thought. I can drive to work, feed the dog, shower and shave my legs (shave my legs? Ha!), not burn down the house. If you want to have an intelligent conversation about, well, anything, I'm not your girl. Let's go see Jackass.

Maybe for the past seven months, I've felt that I have to be sad all the time. If I'm not miserable and wallowing, then I'm not missing my son enough. It's not an act--I really am so, so sad. It's like I've just resigned to the fact that I'm the mother of a dead child and that's all I am. I should change my name. "Hi, I'm Mrs. Deadkid. Would you like to see pictures of my dead kid? Do you have a dead kid? No? Then you can't be in my club. Go away." That is no way to live. I'll go tomorrow and see what I can do about this. I just miss Nate so much and I'm so mad at Chip the Zygote for leaving. I'm so angry, I feel like I need to kick the shit out of everything. And I'm sick of this quiet house.

Little Miss Sunshine

2006-09-17T20:38:00.000-05:00

Edited to add:
I wrote this entry last night, posted it and then took it down after about 30 minutes. Last night, when I got to thinking about it, I became worried about scaring my Mom (who reads this blog) or offending someone with my Zoloft talk. I thought that this stuff wasn't what I wanted people to associate with me. But this is my journal. I started it so that I could write it down and let it go and maybe even come back months or years later to better understand this journey I've been on. Like I say in my header--it's a pensieve.

I recently read this comment left by Delphi for a fellow blogger and it really struck a chord with me:

"EMOTIONS ARE NOT RIGHT OR WRONG, THEY JUST ARE. And the healthiest thing that anyone can do is express them - and a blog is the perfect forum for that."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I really don't have one particular thought or theme for this entry. I just feel like writing something and that's what blogs are for, right? This one will probably be all over the place, so just walk with me, ya'll.

I've just been thinking about this blogsphere support system that we have here. I've been thinking about all of the support that you have given me here as well as in email and in your own blog entries. I have a wonderful support system in my family and friends, and I don't know what I would do without them, but I don't know what I would do without you, either. In my town, the only support group that we've been able to find is The Compassionate Friends. I think that it's a great group that does so much good for people, but in our particular chapter Tom and I are the only parents who have lost a baby. Most of the people in our group have lost adult or teenage children. Not that that isn't every bit as horrible, it's just horrible in a different way. And as for people close to my husband and I that haven't lost a child, as much as they love us and as much and they are hurting because we're hurting so badly, I still can't help but think that they can go back to their own lives. What I would give to just go back to my own life. And now we've had this second loss. I'm afraid that people are thinking, "Poor Tom and Laura. Damn, I'm glad we're not them."

What am I getting to here? I think that it's this--I've been using this blogging thing as a psychiatrist. In the past 7 months I've been working so hard to get to a good place. To be able to be around my 8 month old nephew without crying. To be excited for my pregnant friends. To just be half-way normal and not define myself by my loss. But I was walking a fine line--it took everything I had to stay together most days and try to remain positive and happy like the old me. This miscarriage has pushed me over the edge--I'm bonafide. So when I go to the doctor on the 22nd, I'm going to ask him to refer me to someone. And maybe even give me a prescription for something.

Reading back over those last few sentences, it sounds like I'm saying that people who see psychiatrists and take meds are nutjobs. Good Christ, I don't mean that at all. After we lost Nate my OB gave me a prescription for Zoloft. I didn't fill it. I was so terrified that once I got pregnant again, I would have to go off it and I just didn't know what would happen. And this is just my ignorance about medications. I wasn't sure what I would be like coming off of the Zoloft coupled with pregnancy hormones. Both my husband and I controlled our grief with lots of exercise, and it did help. We both had a ton of baby weight to lose anyway. I guess that I just did what I thought was right for me at the time.

But I think that I had an anxiety attack yesterday. We went to an arts and crafts festival and I knew that I shouldn't have done that. Those dumb festivals are absolutely saturated with pregnant women and babies. Everybody wants to dress their baby up, plop them in a sling and go look at pottery and crap. Well I did anyway. I thought about it all the time when I was pregnant. Plus, I think that there must have been a baby boom this past December, January and February. There were babies Nate's age all over the place. And I can't believe that I'm even writing this, but I would look at these babies and I all could see was Nate in his tiny coffin with his little fist closed around a daisy and wearing his only dress-up outfit--blue Ralph Lauren feety overalls. And how Nate was buried so far underground and enclosed in a concrete vault. All I wanted to do was to go to him and claw at the dirt until I could reach him and hold him again. Is this my life, now? Where every baby and pregnant woman I see reminds me of how I have failed and what I don't have? Those were the thoughts that went through my head so furiously that I had to sit down and stare at a tree until I calmed down. I would like to be able to leave the house, you know? But I probably should avoid places that I know are going to be baby-filled. I just wanted to see some pottery.

This is such a sad post. If you've made it this far, thank you. That last paragraph was pretty heavy, I know. I don't quite feel like I'm starting over again, but I do feel that I've stumbled back several paces. Before I got pregnant this last time, I at least had the thought of being pregnant to hang on to. I've said before that having one loss doesn't make you exempt from having another, secretly believing that I really was exempt. I wasn't.

Square One

2006-09-15T10:32:00.000-05:00

I'm just overwhelmed by all of your wonderful, comforting comments. Really, thank you so much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**This might be kinda graphic. Just warning you.**

Pregnant, not pregnant, pregnant, not pregnant. I'm not a drama whore, honestly.

I spotted early in this pregnancy, which sent me to the emergency room to have the bad ultrasound, which led me to believe that I had a blighted ovum. So naturally, when I started spotting again on Monday afternoon, I chose to ignore it, even though this time I bled through my panties onto my pants. 24 hours later, still ignoring it, but Tom was getting more concerned. I just didn't want to spend another six hours in the emergency room and get another hamfisted ultrasound. I mean, really! After dinner, I started seeing these tiny, little clots and 30 minutes later when I went to check again, I had bled into the toilet. We left for the hospital and by the time we had gotten there, I was bleeding very heavily. We tried to go to L & D this time, but they turned us away because I was less than 20 weeks pregnant. That's the second time that I've been to that front desk, bleeding like crazy and they treated me like shit.

We walked the long way around to the emergency room, right past the NICU. Just in case I wasn't feeling bad enough, that was another kick to the stomach. When we finally arrived at the emergency room, they checked me in pretty quickly and put me in a room, thank goodness. As I was changing into the gown, blood was running down my legs and pooling on the floor. I think that this would be tramatic for anyone, I'm definately not denying that, but this is how I lost Nate. In a spectacular bloody mess. This was just too much, just too fucking much.

The emergency room doctor walked in, saw the blood on the floor and said, "Uh-Oh!" In a voice that was a little too sing-songy for my comfort. I think that he realized that he was being an asshat, especially when he asked what the outcome of my first pregnancy was.

After a pelvic exam and a blood draw, I was taken to ultrasound again. This time the bad news was delivered by the OB on call instead of the asshat ER doc. I think that I scared him off. The result was as expected, no hearbeat and no growth. He recommended a D & C. I told the doctor that because of my past experience with ER ultrasounds, I'd like to wait until the morning to have an OB ultrasound, thank you very much. But as soon as I stood up, I knew that I couldn't go home. There was too much blood and too many clots, and honestly, I was scared to death to pull down my pants and see for myself was was happening. I knew that there was no way that this pregnancy was viable at this point. I was faint and crampy. The pressure in my lower abdomen was horrible--another bad memory of Nate's birth. I had to have a D & C. So I did.

I told my Mom yesterday that I just can't put how I'm feeling into a word. It changes hourly, almost by the minute. Part of me is relieved. I didn't feel good about this pregnancy since conception, almost. I just had this terrible feeling that I would either miscarry or there would be something wrong with this child. I just knew. I had to talk myself into feeling pregnant with this one, and as much I heard that every pregnancy was different, I just couldn't shake the bad feeling that I had about never being sick. I never felt pregnant and yet my belly kept growing.

I feel old. Beat up. Tired. I feel like one of those pioneer women in old pictures, where they are only 30 but look 70. I don't recognize myself anymore and I don't know who I am anymore. I can't keep doing this. My heart hurts. So badly.

According to when I'm positive that I conceived, I was about 11 or 12 weeks pregnant. I was just getting my maternity clothes back out, and on the day that I miscarried I had finally gotten up the nerve to wear the cute, little top that I had bought in Paris. It was pink and said "fruit de passion" across the belly. I didn't feel so cute when I had to wear that shirt home from the hospital. I felt like a failure. Stupid people have babies every day. I mean, my god, Britney had her baby the same day I miscarried. Where is the fucking justice in any of this?! What did I do, anyway? And if there was a point to be made, I got it with the first one, okay?

So now I'm just playing with my new sewing machine--I've graduated from dog bandanas to cloth napkins. Still working on sewing a straight line, that's hard. I'm also making cupcakes today and playing with my new Pampered Chef toys that arrived yesterday. Neeto. Just playing with my new toys and feeling sorry for myself. You know, through all of this I've been imagining that I'm the heroine in a movie or a book. And I'm rooting so hard for this heroine, and I just know that there has got to be a happy ending to this story. There's just got to be.

2006-09-13T20:53:00.000-05:00

Another little soul has passed in and out of my life. I miscarried last night. For real this time. D & C and everything.

My love bought me a new sewing machine today. I'm teaching myself how to sew by making bandanas for my dog. While I drink beer. Cheers.

Worst. Cookies. Ever.

2006-09-08T09:35:00.000-05:00

I've been eating so much sweet stuff lately, which is kinda weird because I really don't have a sweet tooth. Actually, I ate a lot of sweets with Nate, so never mind. Yesterday, we ran out of cake, (oh horrors!!) so I ran to the store to get stuff to make another one as fast a possible. While there, I decided to just make chocolate chip cookies instead, since there were less groceries involved with that. I was even going to go old school and use the recipe off of the Nestle bag. I never do that, because I think that there are a million better ways to make chocolate chip cookies. But me, the cookie recipe snob managed to eff-up the Nestle Toll House recipe. I am humbled.

See how flat? What the hell? But you might say--I like me a flat, crispy cookie, Laura. Well, my friend, these flat, crispy cookies also taste like...soap. Yes, it's true. I didn't rinse the Silpat that I baked them on very well. So they taste like apple blossom Dawn dish soap. Mmmmm. Of course I had to eat three to make sure that was really what I was tasting.

Round Two: chucked the Silpat ( I guess that I could have washed it, but I was pissed at it and put it in time out.) Lowered the temp of the oven and refrigerated the dough for awhile. Still flat and this time they stuck like crazy to the pan. BUT--the essence of apple blossom Dawn was gone.

Round three: Ahh, fuck it. Have a giant cookie.

Damn.

2006-09-07T19:03:00.000-05:00

I saw this taped to a telephone pole on the way to work today:

Lost!!

Large black dog

Missing one eye

Needs insulin

Answers to Jo Jo

Man, now I'm worried about a dog that I don't even know. Godspeed, Jo Jo!

Title goes here

2006-09-01T09:17:00.000-05:00

So, I'm kind of a mess these days. I just can't even bring myself to write anything anymore, even though I've got enough material to post twice a day, no lie. But I don't have the energy to talk about it--any of it. I'm not sleeping at night. After I wake up for my 1:45 am pee, I just lay there, thinking thinking thinking, talking to myself, crying, flopping around like a fish in the bottom of a boat. I eventually fall asleep at about 5:30 after listening to the grandfather clock bong, bong, bong for hours. I can't do this for the next 7 months.

And then there's this concern that I have--I'm not sick. Why? I wish that I would just puke already. I was barfy until exactly 16 weeks with Nate, and I'm not even nauseated with this one. Part of me thinks that the universe is cutting me a break with this one--"Okay people, Laura's pregnant again. Now, we really dropped the ball with her last kid, so let's go easy on her this time. No puking, no acne, and for christssake, no constipation this time. Oh, and let's make sure that she can still eat biscuits and sausage gravy and find it delicious." The only reason that I know I'm pregnant is because occasionally, very occasionally, my boobs feel like they're going to explode. But that's it. So my worry is--where in the hell are the hormones that are supporting this pregnancy if they're not around to make me sick? Maybe they're around, but they are what's keeping me from sleeping at night, crying all day, not wanting to leave the house and completely avoiding my poor husband. Maybe? I never thought that I'd ever be wishing to puke.

I'm just scared. Bringing home a baby is so out of the scope of my imagination. Actually bringing home a live baby and using all the cool baby stuff that I already have, some not even taken out of the packages, is about as unfathomable to me as leaving the hospital without my son was the first time I was pregnant. Ugh, I hate that. I've always been such a ridiculously positive Pollyanna type of person. I guess that this is what fear does to a person. It's ugly. I'm going to work on this, though. There is no way that I'm not going to celebrate this baby. He or she deserves all the hope that I have. I have to be brave--that' s what moms do for their kids.

Anyway, my point was, I'm sorry that I've been such a crappy blogger. I'd say that I was going to take a break for awhile, but who knows, I might have a ton of garbage to get off my chest tomorrow. Or maybe I'll just post pictures of stuff that I bake. Or flowers. Whatever. I'm hoping that here in a couple of months, when I can finally feel Chip moving around in there, I'll start feeling more connected and positive. I'm sure I will. Now that I've written this, I really think that my formerly barfy hormones have changed duties and are turning me into a horrible, weepy, whiney hobgoblin. You think?

The Roller Coaster

2006-08-23T12:36:00.000-05:00

This is a post that I had not intended to write today. I had already planned what I would write, a completely different one, but I wanted to wait until after my doctor's appointment on Wednesday.

Sunday morning, I was spotting. It was really faint and brown and was only there when I would wipe after I peed. I checked Google of course, and decided that it was normal. No big deal. But as the morning wore on, I started feeling uneasy. I didn't spot at all in my pregnancy with Nate, and since I was considered high risk with this one, we decided to go to the ER.

At the ER, they tested my beta levels and (hours later) I was given an ultrasound. I was taken down to ultrasound on a gurney and put in a room next to a screaming two-year-old. The ultrasound tech gave me a regular ultrasound and not liking the results from that one, she switched to the dildo cam. She dug around in there for awhile, talking to herself, then she started measuring a large black spot. I squinted at the screen, trying to see what kind of measurements she was taking. Was she measuring one of my ovaries? No, it was of the place where the little embryo was supposed to be. It was empty, and I knew right away--it was a blighted ovum. Oh shit.

So, back in the exam room, waiting for the stupid doctor, I'm laying on the gurney in tears. Finally the doctor returns after my ultrasound had been reviewed and blood tests were ready. He says to me, "What's with the tears? Do you know something that I don't?" and then he gets serious--"I'm very worried about this pregnancy." I put my hands over my face and start to sob. Why in hell did I think that the universe was going to cut us a break this time? The doctor went on to explain that it looked like a blighted ovum (duh) but he couldn't figure out why my beta levels were so high. So, I was told to go in for another beta on Tuesday, another ultrasound in a week, was given a RhoGam shot in my butt and sent home.

We decided that we wouldn't tell anyone about this right away, only family and close friends (and internet friends!) knew about this pregnancy anyway. We'd wait until after what was supposed to be my first OB appointment on Wednesday, where I had an ultrasound already scheduled. When we had a clearer explanation, we'd tell everyone. And I'm kicking myself for opening my mouth so early in the first place. I made it to Monday morning and I had to talk to my mom. She spread the word with a few family members, and I figured that we'd break the bad news to everyone else on Wednesday

The rest of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were weird. I went back and forth between feeling sad and then pissed off and then peaceful about it. On Tuesday, after I had gone back for my second beta, I struggled with extreme guilt about the death of my son and blaming myself for my abruption. I obsessed with how close I was to having my little boy. My pregnancy was perfect until that last 15 minutes. I was pissed off that I even had to be pregnant again--I should have a six and a half month old and way too busy to even think about being pregnant. I felt almost as dark on Tuesday as I did in those first few days after Nate died, those days where I don't even remember seeing things in color. I remember them in black and white. I knew one thing for sure, though--I wasn't going to get my hopes up. No more disappointments! I knew that there was an weird, empty sac inside of me, and now all I could do was to sit around and wait to miscarry. Lovely.

Wednesday morning came, and I was dreading my appointment. The last thing that I wanted to do was to get another ultrasound and see that little nothing inside of me. The last time I had been inside my OB's ultrasound room was under much happier circumstances. It was when we found out that I was having a b-o-y. How cool. The ultrasound tech asked me why I went to the ER. I told her that it was a possible blighted ovum and went into the bathroom to to get ready for another transvaginal ultrasound. Up on the table, feet in the stirrups, in goes the dildo cam and then...a heartbeat. I saw what I had been looking so desperately for on Sunday. Instead of the empty black hole, I see the little strobe light. Oh God. The tech said, "There it is! That's a viable pregnancy." We were in shock, and couldn't say anything except, "Are you sure?! are you sure?!" Of course we asked what the deal was on Sunday. She just said, "Never get an OB ultrasound in the ER." I was completely stunned. Five minutes ago I wasn't pregnant--I was planning to have a glass or four of wine when I got home and clean out the cat box. Now I was. My brain is still trying to get around this one.

After the ultrasound, it was business as usual. I met my new doctor and I love him. More on that later, probably.

Oh man, I can't believe this.