It's Over

Thanks for the love, kindness and prayers.  Although I was really worried about contractions, pain, etc. it really ended up being more like a bad, but lighter, period.  The difference, besides not being pregnant anymore, is that when I get up and do stuff I bleed more and start to cramp.  So I'm just staying down for a few days.  My appointment today confirmed that it was complete, so, no complications.  My sweet sister arranged for dinner on Saturday (which was enough for Sunday dinner too:)), which was definitely the hardest day. 

I'm sure I didn't do anything to cause this, but I'm on the internet researching how to help myself be healthier for next time nonetheless.  Of course, we all know how reliable internet "research" can be, but it's nice to know what others are doing, thinking, what seems to help, and every now and then I come across an actual study or something very useful.  Learning is important and I learned a lot from this.  It was very different from the last one.  I used a lot of herbs that really helped, and figured out what I'd like to keep on hand. 

 I don't know why everything happens, but I'm at peace with this miscarriage.  It took so much longer last time for me to be okay with how things turned out.  I really wanted to understand, and thought I needed to understand exactly why, how, how to prevent it, and was generally in turmoil for several months.  I have faith that there was a reason, even if it was just for my own experience, and that everything will be fine.  Probably better than fine. 

The baby is mad at me for not picking him up today.  I can't even begin to count his words- he knows too many now and learns more every day.  The other kids are having a hard time doing their chores and school.  I'm having a hard time deciding whether to be an enforcer from the couch, or just ignore it all and put old movies on for the day (which would, of course, stop all progress on everything else). 

Waiting

Waiting is never fun for me.  Waiting for something unpleasant is much less fun.  I found out I was pregnant the day my sister found out her baby had passed away.  (And I cried for days due to crazy pregnancy hormones.)  I worried about how and when to tell her, and decided on waiting until much later.  I guess I don't have to worry about that anymore.  Or getting a larger vehicle by January.

Today, I started bleeding, just spotting at first, and then real bleeding.  The OB did blood tests and an intravaginal ultrasound.  They would be very surprised if I didn’t miscarry.  A blessing confirmed that I will, and that it will be okay.  At 6 weeks they don’t usually do D&Cs, which I didn’t want anyway.  

So now I wait.  The first time I didn’t know what was coming.  Now I do, though every miscarriage is different, and I’m dreading it.  The pain, the blood, the time, the weakness and recovery.  I want it to be over and done so I can start over.  Dumb pregnancy hormones are making me weepy.  My body knows it’s not pregnant anymore.  The nausea left all at once.  But the hormones take much longer to subside.  

I want to run.  But even when it’s over, the best I can do is limp.  A stranger at the bus stop asked if I was okay as I slumped against the car when I returned from the hospital.  A neighbor pretended he didn’t see me as I cried my way up to my house.  I almost laughed, but I was busy crying.

The cramping is mild, but not so mild that I can sleep.  Maybe if I can sleep, I can deal with this tomorrow.  I’m glad everyone is going to be gone.  I was going to go to the PCC too, but now I will stay home in bed and hope it’s all over by the time they get back.  I don’t like people around when I’m in pain, or sad.  I don’t like writing public posts like this, but I was going to write it anyway, for my journal. I hate to end on a not-particularly-positive note, but at the moment I’m not feeling all that positive.  Maybe tomorrow.

Families are Forever

Quick Update: Everyone got the stomach flu (except Teddy).  It was a fun week.  It ended Thursday, so at least we weren’t sick over the holiday weekend.  

Also, I was given the go ahead to walk without the crutches as soon as my leg would hold my weight; so I practiced for several days, and as long as I don’t walk around too much I’m not using the crutches at all.  I can just use one crutch when I go out (like on Sundays).  My knee occasionally buckles unexpectedly, but the therapist thinks it’s just not strong enough yet.  I limp heavily, and the doctor wants the limp to be gone in 6 weeks when I come back.  Strength training here I come!

Lorenzo.  I love this stage.  I adore babies anyway, but this is one of the cutest stages there is.   He is 16 months.  When He was a year, he could say Mama, Dada, ba (ball), bu (binky), and bubu (bottle).  His newer words are much clearer, and I love the surprised look Shawn gets when he does or says new things.  He says book (with the “k”!), ball, drink, brothers (brus), and of course, cheese.  I’m pretty sure “cheese” was one of the first words of all my babies.  They love cheese.  He loves eggs, and if he sees them, you have to give him one (same with the cheese).  Boiled is probably his favorite, but he’ll eat them any way he can get them.  

He mimics other words too, and it’s so fun that babies who can’t even say a sentence still understand so much.  You ask where his toys are and he goes to the toy basket.  Tell him you’ll read him a story if he brings you a book (this is said an awful lot in my house, especially as I haven’t been very mobile lately), and he grabs a board book from the shelf.  Ask him if he’s hungry and he walks to his high chair and waits for you to put him in it.  This evening I told him to come lay down on the bed and go to sleep and he did!  (Love it when that happens.)

I love the games they play at this age.  He plays peekaboo, tag, catch, and we played with playdoh for an hour (at one time!) while the rest of the family was at the pool on Friday.  I didn’t even know (or maybe remember?) that babies that young could do one thing for that long.  It was fun.  And he likes me again.  Of course, if Shawn is around he still prefers to go to him first, but he comes to me and plays with me now instead of running away.  He points to body parts, but only when you say them in Chinese.  Don't worry, I'm sure he'll catch the English words soon enough.

Okay, so we’ve established that I love my baby.  I love the rest of them too :).  Xander has been an angel about potty training ever since the pull ups.  He brings me books and asks me to read them for about 45 minutes each day.  Teddy is learning to clean really well, and he’s proud of the job he does now.  He is better than me at Chinese (he practices more than me, and loves it when we practice together).  Olie is so excited about going to cub scouts in August!  He is getting better at helping to watch his little brothers.  Both Olie and Teddy love to play board games and do so at every opportunity.  They can get their chores and schoolwork done pretty quickly if they decide they want to play a game.  Demetri is just getting too old.  His feet are the same size as mine, and he steals my socks and t-shirts.  He and Shawn went on a 7 mile hike today with the Young Men.  He really wants to go on the 50 mile hike in two weeks, but I don’t know if that will happen.

One of our new hobbies for now is watching “Little House on the Prairie” or “Mister Ed” while I go through my exercises.  Now they want to live on a farm, with snow.  I’m just happy they like my old shows.  I don’t like much of anything that is newer. They laugh hysterically at "Mister Ed."  I should record them watching it.  It's more fun to watch them than the show!

I bought a hat.  It hides my hair well, which is in serious need of help.

 I'm pretty sure out of 20 pictures there was only one with everyone looking at the camera.

 Pictures.  Other than sleeping, the only time they look like they are holding still.

The Things You Find While Cleaning

When I was growing up I remember my mother was always drawing, browsing, collecting, and dreaming up house plans.  It was a big theme.  She was going to build her dream house, which evolved over the years.  For years, whenever I was cleaning and came upon one or more of her (usually) hand-drawn house plans, I would sit down and study it.  It was the topic of many a conversation.  Not only was this something that was easy to talk about with my mother, but it often delayed my chores for a while. 

For several years I did the same thing, starting sometime in high school and ending a few years into my marriage.  It was a fun thing to talk about with my husband, and we had grand plans.  While in the military though, that kind of dream is a very-far-away kind of dream.

The thing of mine most often found while cleaning my house is actually lists.  (My mother also had lists for everything, and various kinds of planners, which I loved to read through, occasionally stumbling across gift lists I’m sure I wasn’t supposed to see.)  Specifically, baby name lists.  No, this is not an announcement.  I am simply in love with baby names.  I have lists dating back to about the time I was 14 I think.  We had baby name books that I would read like novels, occasionally suggesting names to my mother for the next one. I very carefully named my stuffed animals, and many of them were named from my list of future children. (I also addressed journal entries to my unborn children for a time, haha.)  It never crossed my mind that my husband would probably want to have a say in naming his children. I still make lists of baby names.  I made one today.  Some are mistreated and lost, and then I’m upset I can’t remember the name I loved a few months ago.  Some find themselves tucked away in my filing cabinet for later reference.  Some float around the bookshelves in my room for a few years.  My husband thinks I’m balmy.  Illogical and obsessed at best. 

I still remember when my parents would announce they were having another baby, which happened, um, several times.  My greatest concern was what names they were considering.  I loved to look through my Mom’s baby name lists.  Ashley could have been Melody or Melanie.  Matthew was always in the top 5 for a boy.  I was also rather jealous.  At least two of my sisters had names that were ever so much more interesting than mine.  I changed my name to have an “e” at the end in middle school, and signed it that way—yes like in Anne of Green Gables, which was my favorite movie.  I changed it to have an “ie” in high school.  Notice, all of my children have at least 3 syllables in their names.  I think when I’m done having babies, I’m going to have to start adopting animals so I can keep using the names I love.  Hmm, or maybe I’ll just have to find another hobby before then!

Someday He'll Read This Blog And Never Speak To Me Again

Two weeks ago my 3-year-old suddenly decided he wanted to be potty-trained.  He found some underwear and used the toilet often, not having an accident for the entire day.  He clearly understood the principles involved in this enterprise.  The next morning however, it all fell apart.  We had been dubious about letting him use underwear at bedtime, but he staunchly refused to be put back in diapers, repeating over and over that he was a big boy now.  In the morning his underwear and bed were wet.  He was embarrassed and confused at the trick his body was playing on him.  He refused to talk to us for the first hour of the day.  He wouldn’t be put back in diapers, nor listen to his parents’ pleas to use the toilet when the need was obvious.  In fact, it suddenly seemed that the very act of excitedly telling him it was time to use the potty like a big boy caused him to immediately pee on the floor. 

Everything was really falling apart.  The week was spent threatening, pleading, bribing (unfortunately that backfired and he wanted the treats without the try on the potty- causing major tantrums), picking up a thrashing child off the floor and washing him off by force, and cleaning up unsavory messes.  I might note that most of this was done by my husband, as I was not capable of catching him while on crutches.  As the time for my husband to return to work approached, he decided he was done with the whole ridiculous process and put him back in diapers (which he promptly took off as soon as Daddy left the house).  In a last-ditch effort (and thanks to the advice of a brother-in-law) he purchased pull-ups (and more treats).  We told our son they were special underwear just for him, not really expecting it to work, and that the glow-in-the-dark ones were for night.  He was so excited!  And, for that, so were we!

He still gets upset and throws the occasional tantrum, usually when he has to change out of a wet pull-up (denial?), but for the most part he is potty-training himself.  I have had no accidents to clean up, and don’t even have to remind him to use the toilet.  Long live pull-ups!

In other news, my baby has a bad tummy bug, and hasn’t kept much down since about 3 a.m., so there are still plenty of a different kind of mess to clean up.  Poor baby.   And he only wants Daddy (which has been pretty normal since I returned from my trip with a broken leg anyway).  We are praying that this bug moves through him quickly, and also that it doesn’t hit every person in the family.  Feel free to join in :).

Last week I had a physical therapy appointment.  My therapist put electrodes all over my leg and shocked me for 40 minutes.  Ouch.  But really, nothing my mom hadn’t done while we were growing up, haha.  I had to call her and tell her about the huge machine the therapist had instead of wires and copper pennies and whatever other stuff she and grandma used in their homemade versions.  I told her I’d consider getting her one for Christmas to add to her arsenal :).

Today my therapy appointment was a group appointment for people with leg problems, and wasn’t really geared for someone who can’t walk.  So I just did everything one-legged.  One-legged squats, yoga poses, leg raises, and stretches.  20 minutes after class the one leg that I thought of as my good leg was useless.  Lesson learned.  Go slower.  Don’t try to be a hero.

It’s getting better though.  Easier to straighten, easier to bend, not very painful, and I can put a little weight on it. 

Proud wife moment:  On finding out that I didn’t have carrots for my vegetable soup I turned dinner into vegetable-egg drop soup on a whim.  My husband likes egg drop soup ever so much better than vegetable soup and I’ve never made it for him.  This was all accomplished while standing on one leg and making children bring me various ingredients.  I was just grateful he was holding the child who was likely to project fluids (mostly) at any moment.