...I don't know

It's July already. I don't know how that happened. My due date is in 24 days. It was changed to July 25th about a month ago.
We had a Dr. appointment last Thursday,well actually we had an ultra sound and the Dr. appt. was rescheduled for tomorrow. Our OB was held up with another mom who was in labor at the hospital and by the time he got us we had to leave because of other appointments. My blood pressure is still low 106/..something, I never remember the bottom #. I have now gained 45 lbs!! Goodness gracious that was tough to type. Majority of it is water weight. My large prego tummy is measuring normal even though Ellie is an itty bitty peanut weighing in at 3lb 6oz or so the ultra sound estimated. So of that 45lbs I have gained only 4 pounds are baby...that does not help my self-esteem. The rest of my large tummy is all water...
My mom told me I look like I am carrying a watermelon that is standing vertical and she is absolutely right, when I look in the mirror that is exactly what it looks like.

My due date may be July 25th but I have a feeling Ellie is going to make us wait. Dr. said he wouldn't let me go beyond Aug. 2nd. So for those of you who are going to be traveling to see us after Ellie is born you can plan your trip around those dates. I joined a couple Facebook groups related to anencephaly and from what I have read most anen babies come early, between 20-30 weeks or they come after their due date. Of course if my blood pressure spikes or if I gain weight rapidly my Dr. will break membranes...which will start labor.

 Now that I am not on my feet for 7 hours a day my feet have been looking a lot better. My calves are definitely large and tender. My legs feel bruised when ever they are pressed because of all the water retention. I had to change the way I get into bed because of how tender my shins are.

I have braxton hicks (fake contractions) every other day if not everyday. They feel exactly like they were described to me, a tightening sensation that rolls through my stomach. They are not painful. Sometimes they happen a few times within an hour.

Now that we know about how much Ellie will weigh I have been shopping a little more seriously...braxton hicks contraction is happening right now... Just thought you'd like to know : )
My mom and I have been shopping online for a couple outfits.
I am having a really hard time with what to bury Ellie in...I see burial gowns online and all I can think is "she will be cold in that" and I don't want her to be cold. I am fully aware she won't be able to feel the cold but I can't seem to accept that. I don't want to pick out what she is going to be buried in, I shouldn't have to. None of this is fair.

The thought of burying Ellie and seeing her for the first time are the two things that bring the most apprehension. Seeing her for the first time... I have no idea how to prepare myself. She is going to be missing  the top of her skull. Covered in a hat or not I will know part of her skull is gone and that will bring me so much pain. All of the unknowns of the birth are very scary and there is nothing anyone can say, because every birth is different. My OB can't tell me exactly what is going to happen or how long Ellie is going to live for.

We weren't able to see Ellie's face in the last ultra sound, the way she was laying her body was casting a shadow over her face. We do know she will have some hair around the back of her head, we were able to see that in the ultra sound. We have pictures of her legs and of her spine. She is still head down and really low.

Sorry the pictures are not of the best quality. The first 3 are her feet and the last 2 are her spine, all of the pictures are taken as though she is sitting up straight, but she is really upside down.

The question no one wants to ask...

As we started telling people about Ellie and anencephaly I am sure they went and did research like we did. And one thing that seems to stick out is that anencephaly could be caused by a lack of folic acid. Moms-to-be are told they need plenty of folic acid to prevent neural tube defects...which anencephaly is.

Some friends and family members were kind and never even mentioned it to me and others kindly talked their way around trying to find out if I had been taking folic acid. Well to answer your question, yes I was. I had a physical done once Jason and I started talking about wanting to try for a baby. My Dr. told me to start taking prenatal vitamins now and continue until you get pregnant and then through the pregnancy. That is exactly what I did. I was taking prenatal vitamins for 5 months before we found out we were pregnant.

Folic acid is not the end all be all to preventing anencephaly. Our OB reassured us over and over again that we did nothing to cause it, it just happens. Some people think anencephaly is caused by genetics and even environment. The truth is no one really knows what causes it.

strength

A lot of people have told Jason and I how strong we are and they don't know how we are going about life like we do knowing that we are going to lose our daughter. I get it quite often on my own, not everyday but at least once a week. Sometimes I feel kind of guilty with how normal we go about normal life. I know God deserves a large amount of credit for our strength. We also have fabulous families and friends. Do I have my days/moments where I don't want to get out of bed? Of course. But when you think about it you're pregnant for almost a year of your life, that is a dang long period of time. We found out very early on about Ellie's condition, we still had majority of the pregnancy ahead of us. What are we going to do? Be angry and hate life for the next 9 months? no. We have 9 months to be parents to our little girl. There are moments when I am bitter listening to other expectant mothers talk about the frustrations of their pregnancy or about the expense of welcoming a child into the world. Sometimes I want to get up and not listen. What about J and I's expense of our pregnancy? We will pay for the birth of our child and quickly after pay for our child's funeral. It is wrong. Period.
But other times I get caught up in the pregnancy conversation and am able to laugh and enjoy sharing stories. Why shouldn't I? I have found sometimes that the fact we are going to lose Ellie doesn't even cross my mind while talking about my pregnancy with other pregnant mothers. For a moment I get to be like any other normal pregnant lady.
Ellie deserves to hear us laugh and joke. Am I going to screw all the "don'ts" of pregnancy because its already as bad as it can be? no. Ellie is alive and well right now, she deserves a healthy environment.
At this point I think we deserve to be happy and to enjoy life while we can, enjoy Ellie while we can. Just because we aren't crying everyday all day doesn't mean we don't love her and aren't thinking of her 24 hours of the day.

Come the end of July, beginning of August, we are going to dig ourselves into 12 foot deep holes and probably not come out for a very long time. The people we have been all of our lives will probably disappear for a while. I can't even imagine the reality of the pain we will feel this summer. So for these next few months we deserve to be happy. I say "we deserve" for myself, not because I am trying to prove a point to someone else.

We are also finding things to look forward to. For example we are going to have a party for Ellie in June. Some people have a hard time understanding why we would want to do that. The only birthday Ellie will have is her BIRTHday. So as parents we decided we want to throw her a party while she is alive. To have as many people near her that love her and want to celebrate her life as possible. That is something that as her parents we are excited about, this is the only party we will get to throw for her.

I think of this quote often when I think of Ellie and her impact on us and everyone surrounding us. 

nap time

Jason went to go do a little painting downstairs and I thought it was a good time to take a nap...I woke up to this song on American Idol...

Carrie Underwood- I will see you again

engagement and baby clothes

I have started and stopped this post a handful of times now, not because I have something hard to talk about but because words just don't want to come today.

I posted on Saturday saying it was a dull day, well actually I had a secret that I wasn't sure if I could share yet. My brother in-law got engaged on Saturday!! Same brother in-law I mentioned in an earlier post saying he needed to hurry up and propose. He is engaged to a wonderful sweet woman.

Ellie girl...she feels like a tire around my waist. All of a sudden I feel like I can't bend over normally or lean forward in a chair easily. I don't feel like my belly has grown that much to make that feeling pop up all of a sudden. Sleeping has also gotten a little uncomfortable. I am so cautious of laying on my stomach. I am told I can sleep on my stomach but I think I am just nervous of hurting Ellie. I wake up in the middle of the night and before my alarm feeling uncomfortable, almost like my stomach is being stretched but it can't stretch anymore. Is that normal? Or am I crazy?

As I was wandering around Target today I past the baby clothes section and couldn't help myself from going in and picking out something for Ellie. Whether she is born alive or not she will need at least a few outfits. I found two cute summery outfits. Emotionally I was fine, my mind was kind of blank as I picked out the outfits and then went about my shopping. I realized when I got home I was afraid to be happy about buying clothes because I might jinx Ellie and she won't be born alive if I buy too much stuff in hopes she will be with us for a length of time. I remember the morning of our January 7th appointment, I was watching those baby story shows on TV (the first time since we found we were pregnant) and then hours later we found out our baby probably won't be able to come home with us. I know I really didn't jinx Ellie by watching those shows but it is quite annoying the morning of the appointment I let myself get excited about being pregnant. I am not sure how I will ever be able to relax the next time we find out we're pregnant...

Back to school tomorrow. It is always harder to go back after a long weekend, but only 9 school days until spring break!!

kind of dull...

I don't really have anything going on or anything exciting to talk about. Just enjoying a long weekend.

The emotions of learning about Ellie (that she is a she) are still raw and sudden sometimes. But it seems to be like when we found out our sweet baby was anecephalic, we had a week of being very emotional and now it is our norm and we go on with life. We enjoy talking about Ellie and not about "it". I have started looking at hats online for Ellie to wear...which feels a little surreal. I think that's because I enjoy shopping for hats but deep down I am shopping for hats to cover the abnormality of Ellie's skull and that hasn't truly sunk in yet. I can't seem to wrap my head around what she will look like. I know that no matter what she looks like I won't care because she is my daughter, but I am a little scared of how I will feel when I see her lack of skull for the first time.
I had a friend tell me that there is no skin where the absence of skull is, which almost terrifies me. How will I hold her? I don't want to hurt her. You will see dark matter (brain I am assuming) that is covered by a thin clear membrane. After talking to a few people and reading a little more I have re-affirmed my feelings of wanting a c-section, it seems having a c-section gives Ellie better odds of being born alive and living anywhere from minutes to possibly a couple days.

Well, I guess I had more to talk about than I thought I did.

Happy Easter!

Ellie Martin Holmertz

Our daughters name is Ellie Martin Holmertz. Martin is my maiden name, it would have been the middle name either way, boy or girl. I wanted our baby to have a bit of both families in her name since she will not be here to know her family.

Knowing we are losing a daughter is incredibly hard. I find I am in tears more often than I was before finding out she is girl. I figured that was coming  because now every time I see something girl related I know that is something that I will not get to experience, that Ellie will not get to experience. Before, when we didn't know boy or girl, seeing baby/kid things was not as hard because we didn't know which we were going to lose. And now we know.

Our counselor wants us to write letters to her...even starting to draft a letter in my head brings me to tears.I don't even know Ellie and I love her more than anything. I miss her already. I try to imagine what she might look like at 1 years old, on her first day of kindergarten, on her wedding day. The thing that seems to be hardest for me is thinking about her going to Heaven...I know that sounds odd. You would think knowing she will be in a better place with loved ones we have already lost would bring me comfort and joy. All it reminds me of is that she will be there and not here with us.

If anyone is willing to do some research for me I would appreciate it...I want to know the percentage of Anecephaly babies born alive after a c-section vs. vaginal birth (assuming I go to full term). I plan to talk more about it with my OB but I want to know what is out there on the web but I am scared of what I might see. I also want to know what the top of her head will look like, will there be skin? Or will we be able to see the wound?
I did find these % when I was being brave yesterday...
7% died in utero 
18% died during birth 
26% lived between 1 and 60 minutes 
27% lived between 1 and 24 hours 
17% lived between 1 and 5 days 
5% lived 6 or more days 
from www.anecephaly.info (I did not look through this website in detail)

This info goes against some stats that our OB told us...

Here is our beautiful daughter.

Here is her profile. It was really hard to get pictures of her face, she wanted to hold her arms in front of her. 

Here is another profile, a little more wavy and hard to see. You can see her one arm is up and she is touching her forehead. 

It's a girl! You see her butt, her two legs going to the left, and then nothing between her legs... : )

Love you Ellie!



Our basement.......
Here is the before

The future family room.

Will become bathroom and bonus room

Laundry room/storage will remain unfinished.

And as of today!!!

The family room 

The hallway to the bathroom (on the left), bonus room at the end of the hallway, and then laundry room on the right.  Eventually the wall on the right will have built-in shelves. 

We'll get glass walls for the shower. 

Happy Saturday. 

I don't want to hold everyone in suspense...

This morning we found out our baby is a girl. It is very bittersweet and we are still working through how to even being thinking about this baby as a girl and our daughter without falling apart. I am going to keep this short so I can compose my thoughts and write again later when I have my head screwed on tight.
Thank you for all of the support and prayers!

Tomorrow

I have absolutely no idea how to feel about tomorrow. How should you feel when you're going to find out if the baby you are going to lose is your daughter or son? I have the slightest feeling of excitement...because we will finally know, boy or girl! The other 99% is a ball of emotions that I can't begin to organize into words and sentences. I am afraid of how life will change after tomorrow. Will I be able to function as well as I have been in the last 11 weeks? Will seeing other babies be even harder than it is now? Tomorrow determines how depressing it will be to think of pretty girly clothes or little boys playing sports until August 3rd and far after I am sure.

I have this reoccurring thought about Christmas in Iowa every now and then. While Jason and I were celebrating Christmas with family in Iowa last year we were having a fun conversation about how old the baby would be the next time we are in Iowa for Christmas...4 months. I keep thinking about that sweet 4 month old baby that I want to be holding in Iowa, wearing cute Pjs and being passed around by family...
Instead we will be empty handed and heartbroken.

Tomorrow at 10:30 (well lets say 10:50, they're never on time).

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

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.