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.

sorry I have been absent

I really don't have anything exciting to share. Well, I am beyond excited that I only have 8.5 days left with students! I am so ready for a brain break. My class has come so far this year I really don't want to start over again next fall. I have been working at grading the ginormous stack of papers that have accumulated over this last trimester.
Since my grad class ended I have finally been able to read for fun. I am currently read the fourth Shopaholic book. It is a cute easy to read serious. My next grad class starts June 17th and is one week long, within that week we compete a 3 credit class. It is a tough week. So I am enjoying as much "fun" reading now while I can.

Ellie girl...
She is riding on a roller coaster inside of me I have decided (just about 30 weeks). One morning recently I was sitting on my couch drinking my coffee when all of a sudden I felt this great wave/whoosh thing roll through my stomach. I decided to flip up my shirt and see if I could see any movement.A few seconds went by and the second roller coaster went by, my whole stomach did the wave. THE weirdest feeling I have ever felt/seen. I went and got in bed wanting to show Jason, of course Ellie decided to take a break at that moment. Now I am obsessed with watching my stomach anytime I feel her move. I can see movement everyday and Jason has been able to see her moving as well.

On the not so fun side of pregnancy...my feet and ankles are so swollen! The swelling used to go down during the night. Well not so much anymore. It got so bad last Friday that I was freaking everyone out at school. They were pushing on my feet, now coined "play dough feet" because when you push on my foot it indents and takes a few seconds to puff back out.  I called my OB's office during lunch and they were a little concerned so they wanted me to come in quickly. They wanted to make sure my blood pressure hadn't rose and that there were no proteins in my urine. Well, all came out fine. They decided that I should start coming every week to check all of my numbers (blood pressure, weight, urine/protein).  I went in again today and all the numbers are good still. We were told early on that with the absence of the skull and all the amniotic fluid that I may retain excess water weight so that is why my feet and ankles are so swollen all the time.

I think that's all I got.

this and that

Take a look at this!!

In case you don't know why you're looking at my legs...yesterday my feet and ankles were very swollen. You couldn't see any bones in my feet, all my toes were squished together and my ankle bones were gone.
Mind you, I had to take my students to the zoo the next day (today) and was already worried about walking all day. I tried some compression socks last night while going to bed...they didn't stay in place so I ended up just taking them off. This morning my ankles looked much better but my feet were still swollen. I decided to jam my blimp feet into my tennis shoes for the field trip and hoped I'd still have circulation in a hour. Well, I got home this afternoon afraid to take my shoes off;  my feet are back to normal!! My ankles and calves are swollen!! You can see the indent line going around my ankles where my shoes stopped. I couldn't believe it.

ah the joys.

The zoo we went today is in Madison, WI which is a long drive for first graders so we took coach buses and brought movies. I don't know who we thought we were kidding, our first graders can't watch a movie for the life of them. They talked through the whole dang thing!! And the conversation of first graders is so...I don't even know the word for it. Example: "oooh look a water tower!!" followed by 49 "oooh a water tower!!, look a water tower!" I didn't know water towers were exciting. And then I hear "Mrs. H! Mrs. H!" What was so exciting?? Walmart. One of my students saw a Walmart. It just cracked me up.

stretched

Holy cow...I don't understand how skin stretches out this far. Today I was walking back to my classroom after dropping the kids off at their buses and I felt like my stomach was going to rip off. It was so uncomfortable feeling. Once I sat down in my classroom with my feet up for a few minutes I felt better. I still have 3 months to go (@ 27 weeks now)! How much further is my poor tummy skin going to stretch?!
Not only is my tummy stretching....my thighs are expanding, my once waist is now "muffin top-esq." I am being a big wimp about the weight gain and body changes. I can handle my tummy bump getting bigger (self-esteem wise) but when the rest of my body begins to change I am not so happy.

ANYWAYS!
It has been quite awhile since I have posted, sorry about that. Now that the weather is warming up I have been spending more time outside and doing things around the house. I seem to be much more motivated to clean and organize when I can have the windows open. I have spent the last 2 weekends outside planting flowers. I think that is how I am "nesting" since I don't have a nursery to be prepping. I am much more motivated this spring when it comes to gardening and concerned about checking the soil everyday.

A week ago J and I met with 8 different people at the hospital I'll be delivering at. Our OB was instrumental in setting up the big meeting. In the end our OB couldn't be there, he got pulled in the OR, oh well. The rest of us went piece by piece through a birth plan. I don't know what I thought was going to happen but I didn't go into that meeting mentally prepared for talking about a birth plan and all that those entail. There were 2 woman from the Haven Network (prenatal hospice), 1 OB that our OB highly respects, 1 neonatal nurse, 1 highly respected nurse from the labor and delivery floor, and 3 admins from the labor and delivery floor. We talked through every little detail. Somethings were easy to decide if we wanted to or not, others we will work through it in the coming months. The conversation went from what kinds of things do we want in our L and D room like books, movies and computers to do we want Ellie to be intabated (spelling?).


*Warning* tearjerker ahead!! If you don't feel like being sad or re-doing your make-up don't read the following paragraph.

The hardest thing we've done lately is drive by the cemetery. We drove in and found the family members that Ellie would be laid near. It was incredibly hard and surreal. It didn't really sink in what we were doing until we sat in front of the exact spot. I continue to remind myself something that my aunt once told me, that's not where Ellie will be, she will be in Heaven. That is very comforting to me. Even with Ellie going to Heaven it is still not where I want her, I want her at our home, alive with us. I know she will be healed in Heaven and happy.

On a happy note I only have 19.5 school days left!! My school doesn't have air-conditioning! It got really warm twice last week and my feet swelled for the first time. It was quite depressing and not comfortable at all. So I am hoping the really warm weather can wait until June 7th. Well actually lets say June 12th or so, then I can get my classroom cleaned up and ready for summer/next fall.


Here is little miss Stella keeping me company while blogging, she is laying on my legs.

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. 

morning sickness??

This will be really short but had to share.
So this morning I was feeling a bit nausea's so I had a bowl of cereal...as soon as I finished and walked to the bathroom it came up. I thought I was over this!! Well this bought was so bad I burst blood vessels in my face and neck! I look like I got too much sun over spring break or like I don't know how to do my make-up. Right below my eyebrows look awful! They are bright red. Also below my mouth on either side are dark red and blotchy. My cheeks and neck are scattered with  red freckles.

The joys of pregnancy. I Googled it and looks like it is quite common. Most people say it will go away in 3-4 days, there was one person who said they never went away...

this and that

Sorry I have been terrible at updating my blog!! I am finally on spring break and just got back from MN the other day.

Where to begin... 

My students have been talking about my baby more often now. After I initially told them they were so concerned with sharing who they knew were pregnant and really didn't say anything about me being pregnant; which was fine with me. I can only smile so much when talking about being pregnant. They are now talking about my baby more and asking questions. A couple of my boys have told other adults at my school that I had my baby already, they are quite the crew. One of my very special babies tells adults at school that I am "fat in my belly with a baby". I told him that the baby is a girl right before spring break and now anytime I read a story about a girl he likes to make comments that Mrs. H is having a girl. He also likes to tell me that he wants to see the baby and asks if I can bring the baby to school. Those kind of comments make me smile because he has been so caring about me being pregnant that I am so happy for him and our relationship with how it is growing. He was really tough at the beginning of the year and I was worried how the rest of the year would go. When he asks if he can see her I try to explain to him that I won't have the baby until we are out of school for the summer. He doesn't really understand that statement so the conversation usually ends there. 

Ellie girl is doing wonderful (25 weeks old). She moves the most in the late afternoon and when I am laying in bed going to sleep. She was moving a lot last night as Jason and I were laying in bed so I told Jason to feel and see if he could feel her movements. She was kicking a lot right below my belly button, Jason said he felt it! and then she stopped moving. I like to play Pandora on my phone and put my phones speakers on my tummy to see if Ellie will move and she does! So as Jason was trying to feel her movements I played her a little music and she started moving quickly and Jason was able to feel her again! I was so happy that he could be apart of that. 

We met with the Haven Network yesterday about Ellie. They are a local prenatal hospice group. The woman we met with was wonderful. Her and a photographer from the Haven Network will be at the hospital when I go into labor. They will be there to help comfort, deal with memorabilia, and help dress Ellie for the first time. The photographer will take photos of Ellie, J and I, and family members that are at the hospital with us. We will get a disc with all of the photos (there will be 100's) and then they will choose some of their favorites and professionally edit them for us. The woman told us she will be there for us as often as we want or as little as we want, before Ellie's birth and after. 

We also met with our OB yesterday for our regular appointment. No ultra sound this time, we will again around 33 weeks. J and I had 2 pages of questions we wanted to discuss, our OB was wonderful and answered all of them. The delivery conversation will be on going. He would prefer a vaginal birth because he is looking out for my safety. There are many things to consider with both delivery options; they both have pros and cons. We have another appointment in May and after that we will probably have appointments more frequently. 

I suppose that is enough for now.