updates

Well, it's been awhile, hasn't it? So much for keeping up with the weekly updates.
The weeks are sort of flying by and honestly this pregnancy has started to feel much like a waiting game--like not much else can really happen until I get this baby here alive and well.
So far, everything is going perfectly (but every time I say that I still feel like I should knock on wood). I had an appointment with the midwife this week and everything is right on track. The belly is measuring right on at 31 weeks, baby's heart sounds great, and he was in perfect position at the time (although I'm quite sure he's rearranged a few times since then). He is getting HUGE in there and frequently has feet, knees, or some other body part wedged up in my ribs. It's hard to believe he is going to get bigger!
We got to take a peek at him in 3D at our 22 week ultrasound...

I'm sure he has grown and changed a lot in the last 10(ish) weeks, but I am still so enamored with his little face. :) I am getting so excited (and impatient!) to meet him. December seems so close now and yet it feels like it will never come. I feel like I have lots to do to prepare though, so I do a lot of alternating between wanting time to speed up and wanting it to slow down.
Must go eat some dinner, but here is the "weekly" survey for good measure:

How far along? 31 weeks 4 days
Maternity clothes? an absolute must
Sleep: Getting much more difficult and requires a nest of pillows
Best moment this week: Watching the belly jump with baby hiccups
Movement: Lots! Big rolling movements and definite distinction between body parts.
Food cravings: Cheese puffs (the really puffy kind that sort of melt in your mouth? I still have yet to eat any since the heartburn would likely be unbearable)
Gender: boy!
Labor Signs: Having early "practice" contractions
Belly Button in or out? Still in!
What I miss: Bending over/breathing/sleeping with ease
What I am looking forward to: Giving birth! Meeting the boy! Baby shower in a couple of weeks!
Weekly Wisdom: I have nothing right now.
Milestones: So many since the last post, but this week? Standing at work has officially gotten uncomfortable.

two zero

New weekly survey that I may or may not keep up with...

How far along? 20 weeks! Halfway there...
Maternity clothes? most definitely
Sleep: My favorite thing.
Best moment this week: Jesse feeling kicks last night!! Also, taking the babe as my date to a friend's wedding. ;)
Movement: Getting strong enough to feel from the outside.
Food cravings: Chocolate. As usual.
Gender: boy!
Labor Signs: None, thank god.
Belly Button in or out? In.
What I miss: Margaritas!
What I am looking forward to: Seeing the little one again, building the cloth diaper stash. ;)
Weekly Wisdom: Vanilla ice cream is the best cure for prego heartburn!
Milestones: Making it to the halfway point. Jesse feeling kicks!

holy baby update, batman

I have obviously been slacking on the baby updates. We had our 16 week ultrasound (3 weeks ago!) and baby proudly showed off his "beautiful spine" and healthy brain. Oh, and the sonographer said she was 90% sure that it's a BOY.

In the past three weeks, the tiny flutters I was feeling have morphed into full-blown kicks, my belly has turned into a constantly expanding entity that changes shape throughout the day, and I am already developing an obsession with cushy cloth diapers. Did I mention the boy already has a potential name (Orrin, though the spelling and middle name are still up for debate) and quite the healthy start to a wardrobe?

All that, and I still don't really believe that we're going to have a baby. Not quite. It's one of those terrible perks to being a part of the dead baby club--you are fully aware of everything that can go wrong, and you know IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU. It can, and I am not under any illusions that tragedy can't or won't strike twice, either. Believe me, I would rather not feel like this. How I would love to have just an ounce of my old innocence back, that blind faith that pregnancy automatically equals baby. That absurd notion that of course things went wrong, babies died, but not to me, not my baby. It's all just a big gamble to me now. I am holding my breath, in a sense, until that baby is screaming his head off in the outside world.

I don't think I have looked forward to Christmas time so much since I was a little kid.

For fun, a three week progression of the belly:


Funny that it looks the biggest at 17 weeks. That was when it really started popping out, and has been rounding out more in the last couple weeks. It is also frequently bigger on one side (where baby is laying) and can grow or shrink a few inches depending on any bloat that may happen. Don't mind my ridiculously tired/half dead look...growing this one on top of a busy summer at work is taking it out of me.

a little baby and a big move

Little number 2 is more than 12 weeks old already! We had our second ultrasound on Monday and got to see baby kicking away. The little one was measuring 3 days ahead (go baby!) and so far, does not exhibit any signs of neural tube defects, though it's still very early to see much. In 4 weeks we will be able to have a full anatomy scan and they can fairly confidently rule out (we hope) spina bifida. We should also hopefully be able to find out the sex, though "healthy baby" is all I really need to hear. After that, we will have one more scan at 20 weeks, to look at everything that will still be too small at 16, and then (fingers crossed) we will be done with the specialists!

So far, this pregnancy has been very easy and similar to my last in lots of ways. It makes me wonder if this is another girl, but I'm not getting a clear vibe this time. It changes day to day. We will know soon enough!

In all this time I have been slacking on blogging, a lot has been changing for us. Jesse lost his job the day after we found out we were pregnant again, and after a series of events, we are finding ourselves migrating back to the coast. The last time we tried it, we got good jobs, but had trouble finding a place to live (we were staying with my mom). This time, we've already found a place to live (I'm sitting in our new living room right now) and our jobs were both more than willing (excited, even) to take us back. It is the first thing in a long time, it seems, that has fallen into place easily for us.

Moving at the end of your first trimester is not something I will ever recommend to anyone, but I'm hoping that the end result will be worth it.

number two

In case you haven't heard already through the grapevine (or facebook) #2 is in the house. Today we saw the bitty bean with a beating heart at 8 weeks 1 day. According to the doctor (the same one who gave us Layla's diagnosis) everything looks "excellent so far." This ultrasound was mostly for dating and peace of mind, but we will be going back in 4 weeks to begin looking for the nitty gritty.

There are lots of other major life changes in the works, but I think I will wait to write about them until there is a more concrete plan in place.

fun with the furkids

The other night Blockbuster finally had a copy of Bolt, and I think Oliver found his new hero...

Layla in the sand...

I recently sent Layla's name in to the website To Write Their Names in the Sand.
It was started by someone who had a stillborn son and, after having a dream about him playing on their local white sand beach, she decided to create a memorial for all children who have left this earth by writing their names in the sand there.
Layla's page is here. It was posted yesterday, and makes me equally happy and sad to see her honored there among the ever-growing list of names. You can leave a message on her page if you are interested.

valentine's day

We have quite the collection of pictures of the dogs doing random things. I just love this one though, it looks like the two of them are dancing and Oliver is striking some dramatic pose.

So Valentine's day is now technically over I guess. I am still waiting for Jesse to get home from work. I remember how we used to try to make a big deal out of the day. A few years back we decided we had to do something, so we ventured out with the intention to have dinner somewhere. It turned into a nightmare of overcrowded restaurants and short tempers, and ultimately an uncomfortable dinner with a table full of strangers at a Japanese place after a 45 minute wait. Yeah. The next year we made a nice dinner at home. Last year, we had an even lower-key dinner in our room (because we had roommates at the time). This year? It barely registered that it was happening, honestly. It all seems so trivial. Not that we are wallowing in sadness or anything. The days are brighter and we carry on like normal, but we are not the same people we were. The last six weeks have changed us profoundly, in ways we could not have imagined were possible. Perhaps most importantly, we have learned that our love is strong, that in the darkest of times, it only burns brighter, becoming the light that guides us through. And even though we may not be buying heart-shaped balloons, that is certainly something worth celebrating.

for some reason...

It's the dads with little girls that get me the most. Today we were in Target, walking up towards the registers and there was the sweetest little girl, maybe 3 or so, walking with her dad kind of along side of us. She was pointing out Curious George and chattering away, and then she paused and said "I love you daddy."

And those are the kind of moments where I really feel the extent of my heartbreak. We will never get those moments with Layla, and it kills me.

Aside from the little things like this though, I have been doing pretty well. The last month has felt like several years because of how much I've changed as a person, and I'm starting to be able to apply that new perspective to my (our) plans for the future.

In unrelated news, I set up the comments so you don't have to have a blogger account anymore. You just have to click on Name/URL and put in your name. SO if you are reading, you should leave me a note! And if you have had trouble commenting in the past (ahem, Mom) it will be easier now. :)

what not to do

It is probably not recommended that you wander over to your insurance website only four weeks after the most traumatic experience of your life and look at the claims that have been lining up. Unfortunately, I am a masochist like that. The bills have been trickling in over the last month, and I thought the hospital bill ($2500 after insurance) was actually better than I was hoping. HOWEVER, taking a look at the claims on my insurance site was an eye opener. It seems that every single person to even touch me at the hospital is billing separately, and most of those are bills I haven't seen yet. And it is amazing how much a doctor who was present at the birth for all of 10 minutes can charge. Not to mention my insurance must have changed at some point, because I now pay 30% of office visits instead of a $35 copay. Perinatologists are not cheap either.

I know it could be worse. It is just such a slap in the face (or more like being stabbed in the gut over and over) to have to go through something so intense and terrible and then have to pay more than you can even afford for it. For reference, we were originally going to be paying $1200 out of pocket for all of our prenatal appointments AND the birth. Now we are probably at 3 times that and WE DON'T EVEN GET A BABY OUT OF IT.

Oh the injustice.

I cried for you

I am pretty sure I could have written this song.
And it has succeeded in making me cry all night. The sadness is weird like that, it comes and goes and changes, and even 4 weeks later it still hurts. Maybe less often, but never any less.

I miss my baby. :(

facelift

So I fixed up the blog a bit. It's something I've been meaning to do for a long time, but have been too lazy/uninspired, so I've just been using premade templates and things. Well, NO MORE! Isn't it pretty?

I stumbled across the most fantastic new toy today, called Poladroid. Its sole purpose is to turn your fancy digital pictures into replicas of the old fashioned polaroids. I know, absolutely pointless and counter-productive, but somehow still awesome. So! I thought I would share some pictures of our crazy furchildren, old school style.

This first one was taken with my iphone (actually, most of these were) capturing a rare moment of snuggling between the two of them. Yes, they are on the couch (again, most of these they are) and no, they aren't supposed to be. We are suckers, it's true.

More nap time, and yes, that is definitely me passed out on the couch along with Astrid. The best part is that Oliver is also sleeping down by my feet, but that wouldn't fit in the polaroid. (lame




As my mom said, don't you wish we could all be this limber? He slept like this for a very long time.


And last, a random picture of us in San Diego! Made ten times cooler because it is now a polaroid.

In other news, we are doing well. We had a really good day the other day, with lots of talking and more laughing than I have done in a very long time (admittedly, it was with the help of some margaritas) and there is just lots of love in our hearts and potential on the horizon. YAY.

an update, I guess

It's hard to know what to say here after everything that's happened. I don't want to bore you or burden you with the grief things. There are other places for that. I think I am a little afraid to be completely open about our experience here, because there are so many people in the world that will never walk in our shoes and yet still feel the right to share their opinions. And I'm not ready for that yet. Maybe someday. Maybe someday I will find the right way to share the story in a way that it will open eyes to the many conclusions that we, as humans, jump to.

For now I can tell you that we picked up Layla's ashes today. The funeral home kept calling them "cremains" which I thought sounded odd and almost trendy. Must we always shorten things and create new words out of them? But I guess these people work with death every day. The receptionist was new and had paperwork scattered all over the office when we arrived. She lacked the empathy we had felt from the others at the chapel, shuffling us through the paperwork and practically waving us off with our little white box in hand.

Not that I had wanted to stay long.

Another change of plans: the school thing didn't work out for me this term. I grieved over that for awhile too, but have come to the conclusion that nothing at all, ever, is going to be the same, and I am basically starting over. We'll see what happens. Maybe I don't want to do graphic design anymore. Maybe I do. I am getting a really strong desire to work with children though. Hmm.

I am going back to work next week. I am so incredibly sick of my job (even after a month long hiatus!) so I will be looking for something better. But the job market is looking pretty dim at the moment, so I'm hanging on to what I already have for now.

That's about all I have to update on.

Layla Wren

Our little Layla Wren was born on January 9th, 2009 at 6:15 pm. She weighed in at only 11 ounces, and was 23 cm long. She was a tiny little image of perfection, with miniature versions of her mom's feet and dad's ears.

You can see a few more pictures from the hospital here.

We are so thankful for everyone's love and support through these last few weeks. We are extremely blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. :)

our sad news

So, our ultrasound went a little differently than we expected.

We did find out that our baby is a girl. Unfortunately, our girl was also diagnosed with a very severe case of spina bifida. If you don't know (I didn't), spina bifida is a neural tube defect, where the spinal column doesn't close correctly, causing a hole in the spine and therefore nerve damage and other issues like hydrocephalus. It happens in the very early days of pregnancy. It's one of those things that "just happens sometimes" and we happen to be one of the unlucky few.

I am 20 weeks and should be celebrating the halfway point in my pregnancy. Instead, I am sadly preparing for an induction and the loss of our precious baby.

We are feeling very loved and supported through this difficult time. I'm not sure how we would make it otherwise.