Mother's Day

As you may (or may not) have guessed, Mother's Day was a pretty confusing holiday for me. After passing my 27th week (when Eleanor was born) I thought all my anniversaries and reminders of her would subside until her birthday and, possibly, being back in the L&D wing of the hospital. Well, I was wrong! I had been really excited for Mother's Day, but as of Friday all I could think about was the fact that we waited to announce my pregnancy with El until Mother's Day last year because my side of the family was together for a vacation. I wrote in my journal that day, "Today I am a mother. Because of you."

All weekend those words kept repeating in my brain, and I felt truly bewildered at the full-circle of events in the last 365 days: Announcing my first pregnancy, delivering and burying her, and now within weeks of delivering my second child. Who celebrates the lives of two children within 1 year?!

Ben had been planning my Mother's Day for a long time and told me that I wasn't allowed to be anything but happy, so I really tried to be.  I couldn't help but lean in the other direction a few times, though, such as in church when the senior primary (mostly girls) sang A Child's Prayer with their mothers and a mother/ daughter sang a duet themed "I'm glad God chose me to be your Mom/ Daughter." Phew. I lost it!

It was confusing, to say the least, to feel my attention pulled toward the child I've been loving since last Mother's Day and whom I gave birth to and shared so many strong experiences with over the year while my second child tried, literally, to push his way into my heart. I could almost hear him saying, "I"m here too, Mom!" with every motion. What I eventually realized, though, is that this is the first Mother's Day since bringing my girl into the world and I needed to celebrate and honor that aspect of motherhood.  Every Mother's Day from now on can focus on Dragon and our other children, but this one was Eleanor's.

We spent a lot of time at her grave on Sunday, and Ben jumped at the suggestion to take pictures of us together. Here I am with my two babies! Funny, huh?

Ben also asked what I wanted him to cook for dinner, shopped on his own, researched the best ingredients and cooking techniques, made dinner, then ordered me to "dress nicely". 

Is it strange that I requested steak and potatoes for Mother's Day dinner? Hahaha... well, even though its the sort of thing we've never made at home and eaten once or twice outside of the home, Ben did an amazing job and I was more than satisfied with his effort and the taste! 

After dinner he gave me my {real} Mother's Day gift: 

The Angel of Mine Willow Tree Figurine. 

Ben, ever the thoughtful and insightful one, figured out long before I did that this Mother's Day was meant to celebrate bringing Eleanor into the world and picked out this statue because it's how he imagines me and Eleanor when we are back in heaven together. I lost it before the statue was even out of the package. 

I asked Ben if he thought I was being silly for taking a holiday about parenthood so seriously when I don't have a child to raise. I wanted him to be honest- I know opinions on when motherhood starts vary person-to-person, and that doesn't offend me at all. He said no, I wasn't silly.  He expressed that, though my mothering experiences aren't the typical ups and downs of raising a child, that I have had my own unique experiences with our children that are different but equally important in the realm of motherhood.  One day I will know what it's like to argue with my child, rock him to sleep, and worry about his well-being the way "typical" mothers do, but, until then, I'm still loving them with my whole heart and going through a lot to help them as much as I can. It's a different path, but it's still a path of Motherhood.

I'd never thought about it like that before. 

Baby Registry!

What's more fun than shopping, right? Well, we have actually put off our baby registry until now- the last possible second- and only now because I have a baby shower coming up and people are getting antsy!

Registering falls into that category of "Don't count your baby before it's born", along with setting up the nursery and picking a name. But, now that I'm on the eve of 30 weeks pregnant, I feel like it's finally time to count down to the big day and things feel more real and certain.

I have been adding items to an Amazon registry that Ben started here and there as I think of them, I've read the baby websites about what baby really needs, and we already have a lot of big, necessary items from my first pregnancy, so registering really wasn't such a big deal!

Including the time a rep spent explaining the clicker thingy to us and filling out paperwork to get started we were only in the store for about a hour and a half! I knew what I was looking for, what I wanted and didn't want, and had no problem clicking away on items that fit those credentials.

We team registered by Ben calling out the items we'll need from a checklist and I 

found the ones I wanted in the store.

Even though that's probably a world record, Ben still needed a break :) 

So, for anyone who is interested, we already have feeding supplies, crib, feeding chair, stroller, carseat, some toys, clothes, and diapers, front pack, slings, and white noise machine. 

We have registered for everything else on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html?ie=UTF8&id=1S1S8W2BL9GXL&type=baby

And also at Babies R Us:

http://www.toysrus.com/registry/search/index.jsp?_flowExecutionKey=_c3A8821F0-1206-7985-A718-F0A0289C233E_kB9A0B036-544F-6672-5FFB-2BC98556FDC3&overrideStore=TRUS

And, FYI, we'd like to stay away from cutesy worded items, sports emblems, and blue things :O)

We rewarded ourselves with some dee-licious frozen yogurt! I have to say, a frozen yogurt place next to the Babies R Us seems like great product placement, right? 

All-in-all, a pretty good Friday Date Night!

29 Week Pregnancy Update!

I met a man last week who asked how far along I am.

"28 weeks!"

Confusion. 

 "Uh... I just started the third trimester." 

"I still don't understand." 

"7 months." 

Everything has been so wonderful the last few weeks- especially since finding out that Dragon is perfectly normal and healthy, and so am I!

My favorite thing to do is watch him move.  He is around 15 in. long and 2.5 lbs. so he definitely takes up most of the room in my belly without being too cramped yet. That makes this the perfect stage to watch and feel him move powerfully around. I can tell when he is about to move and will then watch my bare stomach for it. I can see a bulge follow around my belly, so we say he is "Doing the hokie pokie" because he sometimes moves in a complete circle around my belly button! When he moves like that I follow where he is and can easily feel him under my skin. I'll pick the hardest place (where a large bone probably is) and start to squeeze it. I feel like that's my way of holding his hand or something, which I love. Ben will catch me squeezing my belly and will say, "Don't hurt him!" "I'm just holding him!" Don't worry- I asked my midwife about that at my latest appointment, and she assured me that he is well protected from any harm I could inflict that way :) 

The reason we can watch and feel him move with no interruptions is because my placenta (the large organ that attaches to the uterus in the earliest stages of pregnancy and feeds the baby nutrients, oxygen, and blood through the attached umbilical cord) has shifted from my front to my back! Yes, you heard that right: it's moved! Another incredible blessing during this process :) My placenta was in front (anterior position) with Eleanor, which was one explanation we were given to explain why I didn't feel her move. The placenta is thick, and in the anterior position acts as a pillow that absorbs the baby's movements until they are bigger and stronger. We were nervous to hear it was anterior for Dragon, as well, because I wanted to monitor this baby's movements as closely as possible. At my latest Type II ultrasound Ben asked if my placenta was still anterior and the tech actually told us it  was posterior (to the back)! I didn't think the placenta could move, but my midwife explained to me that, since it attaches to the uterus, it doesn't technically pick up and move to a new location but that, as the uterus expands, the placenta can, sometimes, shift. Just like any growing muscle can move things out of it's way :) Well, a posterior placenta is exactly what I've wanted- this way I can feel and watch him move really strongly, and we may even see a hand or foot try to push itself out! 

Hearing that he is perfectly healthy, my tests coming out negative, having his lifelike 3D picture, and seeing and feeling him move constantly have really helped us bond with this little in the last couple weeks! 

These pictures were taken on Saturday when I was 28 weeks, but I'm 29 tomorrow and haven't really changed :) 

I look like a goober in this picture, but at least I'm looking at the camera and smiling! 

Thanks, as always, for being my photographer, Ben!

Boccee Ball in Bicentennial Garden Park

We have been sort of boring after our week of adventures a couple of weeks ago, but I figured it was time to get out and do something blog-worthy after my sister (notorious for waiting up to a year to post outings or projects) started updating her blog almost daily!

Sorry, folks :)

But we finally had another really wonderful Saturday in Greensboro!

Ben came with me to the Friendly Center to run a few errands in different stores, then we headed to the grocery store for some lunch supplies for a picnic in one of the nearby parks.

The Bicentennial Park is one of Greensboro's most beautiful. It is full of well-trimmed flower beds, rose bushes, and special trees among various statues which have been donated and kept up by the Tanger family. It is truly so beautiful and in such pristine condition that photographers have to apply for days they want to have photo shoots!

Ben was nice enough to get veggie sushi with me (since I can't have raw fish... Boo!), before even realizing he was wearing his sushi shirt that day! What a coink-i-dink. 

We walked a fair ways through the garden portion to the park portion to find a grove of trees that Ben could use for slack lining... 

Which he did for about 10 mins. until it got too hot. 

I laid down on a bench beside him to let the sushi sit. 

Then... Boccee (Botchee) Ball time! Ben has a set that we've used at a church function recently, but it is so much fun to play with even only 2 people! We played rounds while walking back to the main part of the garden. What a great walk :)

The game involves dividing the colored balls into sets for each player then each person throwing their balls to get as close as possible to the white Pallino ball.  The person who has the closest ball wins that round. I am terribly at this game- I have very little control of myself and, therefore, hardly any aim, but I ended up winning about half the rounds! Woot woot! 

We used a yellow ball as the Pallino (Ben can't find the designated white one). My set was red :) 

Sometimes Ben had to measure which of ours was closest... 

Saturday night we went to ... cough, cough... Titanic 3D! No pictures, but I am still blogging about it! 

We saw Titanic as our annual Christmas Day movie the year it premiered, and it has remained a nostalgic favorite ever since. Thanks, Ben, for paying $20 to see a movie we own with snacks we had to sneek in to the theater when we could have watched it with our own kitchen feet away in the comfort of our living room on the projector screen :) 

It may seem illogical to YOU, but seeing a 3D movie was probably the closest I'll ever come to

 Leo DiCaprio :) 

Over the 26-week Hump, and Happier Than I Ever Imagined Being!

For weeks when I feel Dragon move inside of me I  drop what I'm doing to grab my camera phone for a video or have Ben, or whomever I'm around, feel my belly.  The movement is always unbelieveable- so firm and hard, and I am impressed every time that a person is inside of me and capable of that sensation, despite all the times I've felt it before. 

I usually feel ashamed, like a liar, when Dragon suddenly stops moving so incredibly as the camera comes out, I look down, or Ben tries to feel.  I have been saying, "Oh... he just got shy. Sorry!" But I always want to explain how incredible it was- as if that's the same thing. 

I have really wished that others could be a part of his incredible growth and the personality he shows me in those kicks and jabs, but today (last Saturday) I realized why he doesn't. Ben and I are both spending the day in the office, he is studying while I read a book, and Dragon was, again, moving so hard my book would move off of my stomach. I would stop what I was doing, pull the book away to watch him and tell Ben to touch it. As we both put our concentration on my belly Dragon always stopped. Finally I said to Ben, "Oh, He just wants attention! Now that he has our concentration he doesn't need to move anymore." 

It's as if when he moves he is trying to get my attention, then is so pleased he can relax once he has it. I recognize that quality in myself, too. I can whine and kick until Ben pays me the attention I want and so softly tells me that he loves me and what do I need? Maybe Dragon needs love as much as I do. Maybe he loves and needs me the way I love and need him. We all need someone to give us absolute attention and devotion, even babies and mommies. 

And I do love him, with no reservations. I didn't realize I had fears until they were all over! My tests have come back with good results, I feel Dragon move every day, his ultrasound finally shows a healthy, normal baby, and we are past the 26 week mark of losing Eleanor. I let out a huge sigh of relief that, at this point, all signs point to a wonderful pregnancy and delivery of a healthy child, and that, even if he was born now, he would survive with medical help.  It is a relief I didn't realize I was waiting for, but now that the time is here every sign is pointing toward letting go of any fear and loving this child as if he were already in my arms.  

 I was missing out on so much joy, but I'm glad the moment finally broke out in me!

Getting 3D pictures of him have made me so happy.  I can not stop looking at them and marveling at this baby! The combination of these adorable, realistic photos and feeling him move really help me get to know him as an individual- in his own right. 

For so long I have been concerned that, after all we have been through and seen of Eleanor, my connection with him would never be as strong as with her.  I can now see and feel that he is his own person (not just any person, but our person- with Ben's nose and my strange sleeping positions).  I am getting to know him in a completely different way but one just as real as Eleanor, and I can glimpse into the future that our love for him will surpass ours for her while we hold, raise, and nurture him to adulthood. 

It is such an incredible feeling to swell with so much love and excitement for my baby!

The pic on the left is our favorite.  He looks so sweet with those chubby cheeks :)
The pic on the right is sort of creepy with the shading, but ignore that- this one shows his arms and face in such amazing detail! I love his bottom lip and chin!

Is this not the most adorable child you've ever seen?!?! Can't you just imagine how wonderful he'll be when he's born?

27 week update: The perfect pregnancy week

After a trial of a week, this week has been nothing short of amazing- filled with wonderful pregnancy news from top to bottom!

Blood Glucose Test Results

Last week I was pretty surprised to have {what I considered} rapid weight gain of 4 lbs. in one week, and became convinced that it was the result of either Preeclampsia or Gestational Diabetes. My midwife didn't think Preeclampsia was much of a threat for me, but having a previously un-diagnosed stillbirth is a risk factor for GA so I went in for my blood glucose test last Friday.

I heard the results of my test on Monday and was very surprised and so excited that I PASSED! Not only did I pass, but "regular" blood/ glucose results range from 70-140 and my results were 72- so close to the abnormal range that I was told I am borderline hypoglycemic: that my metabolism is so high that my body produces extra insulin and burns off fats and sugars even faster than normal people. 

Being hypoglycemic answers a lot of questions for me and clears up a lot of issues I've been dealing with my whole life- issues with regular weight gain, poor sleeping habits, migraine headaches, etc. That diagnosis was a huge relief- I love opportunities to understand myself better! 

Plus, it means I'm encouraged to eat even more fats, carbs, and sugars, and cut back on strenuous exercise.  Every pregnant woman's dream! Bring on the ice cream and potato chips... doctor's orders! 

Ultrasound Update

6 weeks ago I went in for my second Type II ultrasound because the first, at 17 weeks, showed some issues with Dragon's heart.  At that second ultrasound we also saw an abnormality with his brain! Those are two of 7 markers for a serious chromosomal disorder, so I was scheduled for a third ultrasound at 27 weeks- the earliest we would be able to tell if these issues would clear up on their own as Dragon continued to develop. 

The ultrasound was scheduled for this morning when Ben would be able to come with me {he insisted I change the appointment so he could be there :) }

We had to wait for about 45 mins to be seen, which was excruciating. I had let myself forget how serious these results could be, in fact, until Ben asked how I was feeling during the drive to the hospital. How was I feeling? How should I be feeling? Oh, yeah... Then it was all I could think about while sitting in the waiting room. I had two books in my purse, my iPhone and the iPad with internet, and I had no desire to distract myself at all! 

We were rewarded for our patience with excellent results!!! Dragon is absolutely perfect!!! In the words of the specialist: "I only wish there was someone around to teach, his heart is so perfect!" and: "Look at that fluid... just perfect..." He is also measuring 2 lbs. 4 oz, which is 49.7%. "He is perfectly average!" 

Ben: "Is he still tall?" 

Suz: "We will have a tall child. There's no doubt of that."

Every condition has cleared up, and he even turned from facing my back to facing forwards just in time for some truly remarkable 3D shots! 

I was poking around trying to get him to change position for us, and Ben asked,

 "Do you like feeling him move?" to get me to smile! Hehe :)

Maybe this child isn't too good to be true. 

26 Weeks... Crunch time.

This time... last time... we found out our baby girl had no heartbeat and she was born on September 9. This time... last time... I felt like an anxious mother-to-be, but was incredibly happy. This time... last time... my pregnancy innocence was shattered.

I am sort of a wreck this week.

"Sort of" is an understatement.

Dragon is very active and we feel him move constantly, which brings me so much comfort, and every additional day he can grow ups his chances of survival in the case of an emergency delivery, which give me hope, but no amount of planning for the future or knowing/ expecting him to be perfectly healthy take away the fact that we have heard that our child had no heartbeat. That horrible moment happened.  We may have our parenting dreams realized with Dragon and unexplainable joy with future children, but that moment will never be erased.

This week is hard for other reasons, too. Not only is this the time frame that I delivered Eleanor, but I've had rapid weight gain in the past two weeks (around 8 lbs. in the last 2 weeks when I had previously only gained 3 the first 24 weeks) and my stomach has become pretty large and hard, so I have an appointment for my glucose screening for Gestational Diabetes a week early- this Friday. (Having a previously unexplained stillbirth is a symptom of GD.) Also, next Thursday is also our next Type II ultrasound, which will show us if Dragon's brain cyst and heart issues have cleared up- an indicator of his chances of having Trisomy 18, aka Edward's Syndrome.

I know Gestational Diabetes affects up to 10% of pregnancies and is quite manageable, and his chances of Trisomy 18 are still pretty low at just .5-2%, but the prospect of ANYTHING really upsets me! Even something so manageable... I just get so scared considering anything other than a "normal" pregnancy.  I will always wonder, "Could this cause another stillbirth? Am I doing something wrong?" It's just scary.

I've done pretty well (in my opinion) to keep my spirits high so far, but I'm letting myself unravel a little this week. I know I am not the first or only or last pregnant woman to have doubts, fears, and tradgedy, so I really appreciate all the love and support from those of you who have dealt with your own challenges. Bring on any advice you have-- I am dying to hear that I'm normal, ok, and that anything is manageable!

Some 26 weeks shots from our trip:

See what I mean about "large and hard?" Even considering the recent weight gain I am only 12 lbs above my pre-pregnancy weight, but my belly is HUGE all of a sudden! 

This is one of my favorite pregnancy pictures ever :) Way to go, Ben!