Dad

I wish I could fill this post with pictures of my dad and me from when I was younger. I know there are a lot of good ones in photo albums at my parents house...in MN.
I was thinking about my dad on the way to work yesterday and how our experience with this pregnancy might be affecting him. I haven't seen him since the morning before our appointment when we found out our baby is anencephalic. He had left for MN just before our appointment.
While I was driving to work I started thinking about how my dad will be as a grandpa or "pops" as he likes to call himself : ) And tears instantly came because he would be nothing short of amazing. I know him as a dad, uncle, son, and a brother and he is the same crazy, loving, silly, genuine, honest, Godly man in all of his roles. You can spend minutes with him and he will make you feel like you've been friends for a lifetime.
I am so sad this child will not get to know my dad as a grandpa. Quite honestly I'm afraid my dad and mom won't get to meet our baby before he/she passes away, if at all.
But this child won't get to create memories like I have of my dad from when I was a child.
 Love you dad!!
                                                             
                                                                I got the image from Pinterest.

Warm air

Can you spy the vent in this picture??

Probably not, because this guy is laying right on top of it. 95% of the time when the furnace kicks in he runs to the vent and lays directly on top it and doesn't get up until the furnace stops. This is Oakley, he is almost
1 1/2.

Class was cancelled tonight due to slushy snow and high winds. It was nice to have a Tuesday night at home...even though it was spent doing other school work.

Nothing very exciting happening around here. We have a Dr. appointment tomorrow at 3:15...this appointment has been rescheduled 2 times. This is supposed to be our normal monthly visit. However, we haven't seen our Dr. since the beginning of January when we went to tell him our decision about the baby. I am a little impatient at this point. It has been so long since we have gotten to talk to our Dr. about what is going on. Hoping there is still a strong heart beat : )

I don't know how many of you are on Pinterest, but I saw this picture the other day and couldn't stop laughing.

The longer I stare at it the more I laugh.

Emotional morning

This morning was emotional for me. As we get closer to March 18th and finding out the gender of our baby I'm having more specific thoughts about what I am going miss out on by losing my baby so soon. This morning as I'm curling my hair for church I started thinking about if our baby is girl, I will be losing a daughter. That is more powerful than losing a non specific gender baby. Thinking about specific gender related hopes and dreams makes it all the more heartbreaking. I started tearing up thinking I wont get to curl my daughters hair or dress her up in cute outfits for church. I am happy our baby can experience cinnamon roll Sunday's in-utero but I am so sad that this baby won't get to experience it at our kitchen table with it's own plate and fork. I want to be late to church because we couldn't find the other sparkly shoe for my daughter, not because we are slow as just the two of us.

By the time we were in the car and on our way I had pulled myself together and thought I would be fine. As we are sitting and listening to the sermon my mind wandered again to the possibility that I am carrying a girl. I started thinking of how I want to memorialize my daughter personally, I want something with her name it that I can see all of the time. I saw a rose gold bangle bracelet on Pinterest the other day, it had a girls name engraved on the end of the bangle, and it was the name I would like to name our daughter. As much as I want that bracelet, I still don't think that will be enough. I need something that will always be around, that I can't lose or leave in my jewelry box on accident. The thought of wearing the bracelet around after the death of my sweet baby and having someone ask who is.... because they saw the name on the bracelet brought me to tears in the middle of the sermon, it took the rest of the sermon to bring myself back together.

I have no real thoughts about whether it's a boy or a girl, but for some reason today I just wondered, what if it's a girl?

Our counselor wants us to write letters to the baby, one from me and one from Jason. Just thinking about doing that brings me to tears. I will do it, but I think I will wait until I know the gender.

pic is from Pinterest

It's the weekend!

I absolutely love weekends!
I love the routine that Jason and I have developed over the short time of our marriage. Friday's are usually low key (who am I kidding our entire weekends are low key), maybe go out to dinner or cook at home and then watch a movie or catch up on some shows. Be jealous. Saturday's are lazy, sleep in, drink some coffee while watching Ellen (LOVE her) recorded during the week. Saturday afternoons are usually spent cleaning, we each have kind of picked our "jobs" and do the same thing every time. In the evening we run errands or spend time with family or friends. Sundays! I look forward to Sunday mornings all week because of the cinnamon rolls waiting in the refrigerator. When I was growing up I remember eating Pillsbury cinnamon rolls before church every Sunday...I don't know how many years we did that for but it is a memory that I love and have adopted for us. We are trying to be better about going to church...we used to go often. And then school, grad school, house projects got in the way of our relaxing and Sunday mornings just seemed too hard to be motivated to get up and get to church. With the news of our sweet baby we knew we needed God's support/words more than ever and the people's support that we go to church with.  Sunday afternoon is usually lunch with the in-laws and a few friends fro m church. I usually end up grocery shopping late Sunday afternoon and then relax as much as possible before I have to drag out my school bag and figure out what fun activities I can do with my little firsties for the week. Thanks to Pinterest lesson planning has gotten easier and more fun.

This past Thursday marked my 18th week of being pregnant and I have been feeling good lately. I am still wearing my normal clothes. I have been trying really hard to feel the baby's movement. People are giving me all these different things to feel for because at 18 weeks the baby's bones aren't hard enough to physically feel the movement from the outside of my tummy. So every moment of gas, indigestion  nausea I think it's the baby moving : )

This Saturday will be spent writing my final paper for a grad school class that is ending this Tuesday. Jason is downstairs putting another coat of "Gentle Rain" on the walls. And tonight hopefully we'll be having dinner with my in-laws and my oldest brother in-law. It was both Jason and Brett's birthday in the last couple of weeks so it will be a belated celebration. I am hoping my future sister in-law will be joining us. I have only met her once. They are not engaged yet, but I am waiting.... : ) Brett get moving!!

On Friday the belly looked like this.

And the pants looked like this...

I am not ready for maternity pants mentally yet so I am using a hair tie to hold the button closed. Otherwise my normal pants still fit!

Happy weekend!!

P.S. Jason made a comment about finding grammatical errors in my posts...I don't care. If you care about grammatical errors you may not want to continue reading this blog because it will happen again and again. : )

Birthday!

Today my husband turns 27!! He is the youngest of 3 boys and is 2 months younger than me, I like to remind him who his elder is : )

We both had to work, so I tried to find small ways to celebrate. I wrote on our bathroom mirror a little birthday note for him to read when he woke up. In his lunch I left a card and a little dessert (which didn't even get noticed because he went out to lunch). When he came home from work I had balloons and his gift waiting on the kitchen table.

His gift is a golfing cart, he puts his golf bag on it and then wheels it around instead of hanging it on his back. Dude's getting old if he is already wanting to preserve his back. But I love him anyways!

He wanted to make dinner together instead of going out...well that would have been fine if he knew that last night. We went to Menard's tonight to get some door handles for the basement (Jason finally got the stupid handle off!) and then went grocery shopping for our dinner, we had our list and were prepared. We waited in line to pay FOREVER! By the time we got home it would have been past 8 by the time we were eating.....so I made potstickers : ) and we'll make birthday dinner later this week. BUT we still have birthday treats for dessert. I stopped at a local bakery and got a small buffet of dessert to share.

Happy birthday love!!!

house projects

We have been renovating our home since the day Jason bought it, 3 years ago. Finishing the basement has been the longest project. In the last month or so we have really started to see progress, Jason is down stairs putting the first coat of "Gentle Rain" on the walls! We had a tile guy here earlier today working in the bathroom. But where there is renovation there is trouble....tonight for example, I went downstairs to check on the progress of the painting and closed the door behind me as usual to keep our two fur babies out of the basement.

I took a couple pics to send to the parents and went to go back up stairs and was greeted by a locked door! This stupid door knob is on backwards. Apparently the previous owners liked to lock their teenage son in the basement...not sure why else you have a lock on your basement that you lock from the outside. There is no pin hole to unlock on the basement side. So Jason had to use the few tools we had down there, including a paint roller, but just the handle portion and a handle of some other random tool to pound the pins out. We got out a few minutes later. I then spent a half hour watching youtube videos on how to remove old door knobs...this door knob is seriously messed up. We have replaced every door knob upstairs so we're not amateurs at this. I eventually gave up because I had grad school to work on...but instead here I sit typing this.

Jason had a meeting about life insurance at work today... coincidence, nothing to do with the fact that we will be losing our child later this year. Jason was told what life insurance we could have for a child and how much it would cost each month. We are conflicted. This is not something that has even crossed our minds. Money isn't going to solve our grief. Money won't bring my child back. I just got passed the morning sickness portion and am waiting to feel the first movement and we are talking about life insurance...and we can't even use the "what if..." when considering child life insurance because we know "what".

I am 17 weeks pregnant and just want to try to enjoy the pregnancy the best I can.

The mini bump...I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the bump. This was the first day I had worn a semi-tight shirt since I could tell I was starting to show.

Well I suppose I better actually go get some homework done.

strength or denial?

I by no means am a writer or am good with words. At this time in my life and with the life that I living right now, I feel like writing a blog is my answer for some reason. I want my family and friends to know what is happening, how I am feeling, and how I am doing even when I am not around them.

I teach first grade and have absolutely no time during the school day to think about myself. When I had morning sickness that lasted all day long, that was hard to ignore. But these days as the morning sickness has begun to subside I find that I am fully capable of going about my day and be just fine. Even though I am fully aware of the sweet life growing inside of me and that, that sweet sweet life is going to be painfully too short. Strength or denial?

My clothes don't fit the same way anymore at 17 weeks. People are starting to say they can see a bump. I can see the bump... I text a picture of my bare bump to my mom this past weekend, I was sad that I had to text her inside of being able to show her. One of the many reasons moving away from all my family is hard. My mom will call and update me on things friends and family are saying and doing after hearing about our baby. 99% of the time I cry just knowing someone else knows or is doing something incredibly kind just because they are sad for us. Then I can hang up the phone and go to Home Depot with hubby and pick out paint colors like nothing is wrong.
Strength or denial?

Driving seems to be my minds time to play an emotional game with me. Especially on my way home from work. 3/5 days coming home from work I will end up at home in tears. I start thinking about the memorial service...I don't want to have a memorial service for my child. I don't want to pick out a casket for my child, my newborn child. I am slightly angry about that reality, but that is my reality. Once I get home and have a snack and start to watch a show....life is normal again. I can find a snack and call a friend as if it was any other day.
Strength or denial?

I am working on my masters, I actually had class tonight. I am getting my Reading Specialist license. I have been with the same cohort since June and have really enjoyed all of the woman and getting to know them. Since my clothes are starting to stretch at the seems I thought tonight would be a good night to share with those ladies that I am pregnant and then tell them our sweet baby's story. I sat surrounded by 4 ladies that I teach with, all crying with me. I am so blessed to be able to work with woman who are sympathetic and yet strong for me. They don't look at me with pity in their eyes. They ask me questions about the baby and how I am doing, there is no side stepping the issue. And I love them for that. As for the rest of the cohort, they were all so quiet as I told them my story. Most of them in tears by the end, not my goal. A few even spoke up words of encouragement. If I was in their shoes and were listening to me I wouldn't have had a clue what to say to me. It means a lot to me that they stopped packing up their bags at 8:30 and sat and cried with me and offered me prayers and hugs.

Most days I don't know if I am denying my reality or haven't really excepted what is going to happen. I feel like I can go about daily life too easy. Or is it truly strength?? I have so many people praying for me and thinking of me. So many people thinking of Jason and praying for him. I am so blessed to have Jason as my husband. I don't know how I would be dealing if I didn't have his shoulder to lean against every day.

I found this quote on Pinterest a couple weeks ago....

Life as I know it...

I am 27 and am pregnant for the first time. Pregnancy was something hubby and I had wanted and were excited about. We could not wait to tell our parents. We talked about names, sports our kids would play, how we would discipline, what room the nursery would be, who their God parents would be. Then all those innocent fun thoughts and conversations came to a screaming hult.

January 7th our lives were changed forever. We went to our 12 week ultra sound on that Monday afternoon. My dad had just left our house to go back to MN and my mom was staying a few extra days to help in my classroom. The ultra sound was going great! We could see our baby's legs kicking away and we heard a strong heart beat. The technician handed us 1 photo and said she'd be right back with our OB...we didn't think anything of it because we had an appointment with him after our ultra sound and this is our first pregnancy so we had no idea anything was wrong. The first thing our OB said when he walked into the room..."I'm sorry, I know seeing me isn't a good sign." I remember just staring at our OB wide eyed unable to comprehend what was happening. Then I looked at Jason and he reached out and touched my shoulder and all I wanted to do was get off the table and sit with him and cry...but I had to lay there while they took more pictures of the baby. At one point they turned the screen away so we couldn't see. I started crying not knowing what else to do. The technician was very nice, she finished and said our Dr. would meet us down the hall after I got dressed and wished us good luck with her eyes full of pity. I dried my eyes and cleaned off my stomach avoiding eye contact with Jason the whole time. As soon as I was ready we walked out of the room. I felt like the room was a mile away and all the nurses were staring at us, knowing what we were about to hear. We got into the room and waited maybe a minute before our OB came in. He told us our baby has anacephaly, he told us this kind of anomaly is not compatible with life. I know he kept talking but all I heard was that our baby would not live. That I would not get to be a mom to this baby. We had just finished telling all our family. How could this be happening. He explained that in our ultra sound it showed that our baby does not have a skull from the top of it's eyes to it's neck. Then I vaguely remember him saying that we needed to decide if we wanted to terminate this pregnancy or carry to term knowing that this baby would not live. I just heard my baby's heart beat....I couldn't comprehend what was happening. The OB said something about calling somewhere for us and said to take as much time as we needed. As soon as the door shut and Jason and I made eye contact we fell apart in each others arms. I could not stop crying. After a period of time our OB came back in and told us he had called another OBGYN and made an appointment for us the next day for a second opinion and then he wanted us to come back to him the day after that to discuss everything. The rest of the day is a blur. We went home to my mom, I remember not wanting to open the door to the house. The rest of the day I felt like I had fallen down a rabbit hole and everything was whirling around me.

By Friday we'd told all of our family and had made the decision that we were going to carry this baby as long as God allows us. This is our baby and we are going to love it as long as we can. There is a 75% chance we will carry this baby until our due date, Aug. 3rd and it will end in a still birth. The other 25% is we have the baby prematurely or carry until Aug. 3rd and possibly have a couple hours (could be minutes or maybe days) with our baby.

I am now 16 weeks and am beginning to show. I think I have finally gotten over the morning sickness. Most days we are ok. Some days I come home and cry because I had a thought on my way home. At Christmas time my baby should be 4 months old...Or I think about finding out if we are having a son or a daughter and just knowing that information I am sure I will spiral into some emotional hole.

At the end of the day we are blessed to be surrounded by family and friends who couldn't be more supportive if they tried. I don't know how we would get through this all with out them.

Found this quote on Pinterest.