25wks

Not the greatest pictures in the world... But here we are at 25wks!

44 years...

Today is the first of my parent's anniversaries... Strange, I know... But 44yrs ago today they slipped out and eloped... 2 days before their planned wedding! They were just crazy kids - my Mom was 20 and my Dad was only 19 at the time.

My maternal grandmother found out that they had done this and was furious! She wouldn't let them stay together (even though they were legally married) until after the wedding at the church. I even think she's still a little mad about it.

So now every year my parents celebrate both of their wedding anniversaries two days apart.

They couldn't afford a wedding photographer so this is one of a handful of pictures that they have from the "real" wedding.

Every so often my sisters' and I dig out my Mom's wedding dress and take turns trying it on. None of us could ever really wear it. She was TINY at the time.

New outlook

For some reason - even after a week of a nasty summer cold - I feel like I have a whole new outlook on things.

The last few weeks were really emotional and dark for me - but in a good way. It felt like I was saying good bye all over again.

I re-lived every minute of what happened in my mind. As painful as it was to do that it made me realize all over again that Ellie will never really be gone. She is a part of me, a part of my life and a part of our family. Nothing will change that. It doesn't matter how often I visit her grave or how often I talk about her - she is in my heart and my mind. Her pregnancy, birth, life and death have always been very private things for me. Right or wrong it's just how it is for me. I share things here in the annonimity of the blog world that I would / could never share IRL.

Now - I'm completely in new baby time. This is his time that doesn't have to be shared with all of the sadness and memories of his big sister's pregnancy. I have decided to concentrate on how things will be different this time. If something does go wrong I'll deal with it at that moment. I'm not going to put this pregnancy on hold waiting for the worst to happen. This little guy deserves to be celebrated and welcomed with all of the love and joy and excitement that I've been keeping a lid on for the past 5 months. Now I just need to get "T" on board with this new outlook too.

24w Ultrasound

I'm getting a little frustrated with my MFM's office. I make an appointment with my Dr. but then at the last minute for who knows what reason I always seem to end up with someone else...


But today it was OK - because I found another Dr. that I like - Dr. H... We talked about my BP - it's on the rise, but isn't skyrocketing yet - so we are still in a hold pattern there. And no protein - YEAH!!!! So it turned out to be an OK morning after all. I'll have the GD test next time I go in at 26w and then we'll talk about when to start doing NST's


We had another ultrasound to monitor growth. So far everything is still looking good (it still shocks me every time the ultrasound person says that). Big Boy was being difficult so she couldn't get all the views / angles she was trying to get - but he weighs 1.5lbs already (right on track for gestational age...) and my fluid levels are right where they should be!!!! On top of Bog Boy being difficult the ultrasound tech had problems getting a good head measurement because his head was right under one of my gigantic lovenox bruises. She showed us how the picture changed when she hovered over the bruise...she thought at first I had some kind of fibroid problem, but no... I just have a spotty lumpy belly. She finally got him to roll to a different spot and got the measurment she needed. His head is BIG!! (Good news / bad news if you ask me...)

He kept his hands or feet in front of his face almost the whole time! But we did get to watch him swallow and stick his hand in his mouth a few times. It was kind of cool because I could feel him move and see him move at the same time. Totally freaked me out a little bit.

90 years old!

Today my Grandmother is officially 90 years old... Happy birthday Grams!!!! (I know she will never read this but I wanted to celebrate how special she is to me)

I know I posted some pictures a week or so ago, but I just love old pictures... These are a couple more that she has sent me recently.

This is Grams when she was a baby with her older sister. According to Grams she was 8m in this picture - but I think she must have meant 18m...
These are all the sisters... Myrtle, Elizabeth, Charlotte (Grams), Ruth, Esther, Marie, Ida and Clara.

New sweater & new school

I slight diversion from the heaviness of the last few days...

Just had to share a few YaYa pictures... Yesterday was her first day of "big girl" school as she calls it... She was so excited to go (and to get a lunch box and backpack!!). I think she's really going to enjoy pre-K and we really LOVE the school she's at. The bottom picture is at the welcome to school picnic for students and families.

I finished Yaya's sweater and she loves it!!! She picked out the yarn and the pattern a couple weeks ago. I'm so proud of myself for actually getting this done in a reasonable amount of time. Usually I start a sweater and it sits around for several years 1/2 finished until I get sick of looking at it. (sorry - they aren't the best quality pictures - but you get the idea.)

A couple more things...

Thank you all for the wonderful comments to Monday's post. It feels wierd to have been so emotional about it (T thought I was way off my rocker) but it really was a very, very emotional day for me. I also want to apologize to everyone for being so terrible about commenting on your blogs. I've been reading - I just seem to have lost the ability to write a comprehensible comment for any of you.



I missed so many things that I wanted to include in my last post. At that moment I just couldn't say anything else.

The day that Ellie was born we had a wonderful nurse. Not just a good nurse - but the best nurse that a family in that situation could ever have asked for. I've never seen her again after that day but I always secretly hope that somehow I run into her this time too. It will probably sound strange - but when we picked a name for Big Boy (yep, we've already got one...) we knew it was the right name immediately because his nickname can be this nurse's name - and we both thought of it at the same time.

Dr. E was really so wonderful too. I could see in her eyes how much she was hurting with us when she came to talk to us about what our choices were. It was her words and her compassion that finally broke through and made us realize that there was no way Ellie would survive. She explained to us that if we had chosen to try and save her we would mostly likely never get to hold her until after she had died. Dr. E is the reason we were able to be there for her life. Sometiem I wonder if we should have done more to try and save her - but deep down I know, no matter how hard it was, what we did was right.

Friday is 24w for this little guy. The day that I hoped and dreamed of getting to with Ellie. Even thought I am overjoyed to be here - it's still so hard. I am filled with guilt that all of the good things that are happening this time didn't happen for Ellie. I'm jealous and sad and angry all at the same time. I don't really tell everyone all of this - just because they all assume that because this pregnancy is going well everything from the past is erased. But it's not - it just seems to have put it all in sharper focus for me. I thought 24w would put my mind at ease, and I guess in some sense it has, but now I'm just left wondering and waiting.

23w3d

At 23w3d my daughter was born.

A few hours later she died.

I was so out of it I barely remember it happening.

I want every minute back.

This is the only picture I will ever have of my two girls together.

23w1d

This is Ellie at 23w1d. We had just had a successful amnioinfusion.

It doesn't really look like much. I have such a clear image in my mind of her gulping down fluid immediately following the injection. They had the ultrasound on during the procedure so they could make sure they weren't injecting into her so we got to watch the fluid fill in around her. It was really wonderful. We saw her swallow and then almost immediately I felt her start to move around.

Our happiness was short lived though. Not more than 15 minutes after this a nurse came into take my BP and noticed that it was very, very high. (sorry - I was so overjoyed and consumed with the thought that our baby was going to live that I paid very little attention to the nurse so I have no clue how high it actually was...) So we went to L&D still on cloud nine - just thinking they needed to run some other test. The nurse in L&D immediately put in an IV and we realized all was not well. They gave me a mega dose of Labetelol and started Magnesium.

Then the Dr. came in and said everything that had been going wrong during this pregnancy was caused by PE. They just hadn't realized it until now. It wasn't until the next day when they told me they were going to induce labor that it really hit me. Really - it was even later than that. When they told us they were going to induce me we both just assumed that Ellie would be a micro preemie. We both still believed that she would pull through. All of my Dr's already knew she wouldn't. Slowly they all began a campaign to open our eyes to this reality. I should have realized something when they came in the first night an took off the fetal monitor, but I was oblivious. It wasn't until the next day that reality came crashing down on us.

Mad Men (a completely frivolous post...)

Bruce Handy on Mad Men: vanityfair.com

I don't normally swoon over movies or TV - but for some reason the AMC show Mad Men has me completely hooked. We just finished watching the 2nd season on DVD. I just love everything about this show (especially Don Draper...). It is just completely full of throw back chic. We don't have cable so I don't get to watch it "live" but I can't wait for season 3 to come out on DVD.

The vanity fair article is pretty interesting and the photo shoot is amazing (I posted two of the pictures here...I couldn't resist...).

I especially like one quote

“I’m of the persuasion that budget constraints are very, very good for creativity. I think people having unlimited amounts of money makes you really lazy. And I will be quoted on that, believe it or not.” The speaker turning his back on decades of Hollywood wisdom was Matthew Weiner, 44, the auteur behind Mad Men

In my field - you have to learn to be creative with all sorts of constraints - so I totally get it and respect the show for acknowledging that.

Finally...

OK - I finally broke down and did a belly shot... These were taken at work. The bathroom there has an amazingly flattering full length mirror. T has taken a few others at home - but I've hated them all so far.

My Grams

My grams turns 90 on August 24th. I've been going through old photos that I have (not many...) to send to my Mom for the memory book she's putting together.

I thought I'd share some here too...


This is Grams, her brother and her parents. I don't really know the year - but she looks to be in her late teens or early 20's. She was the second yongest of 12 living children.

This one was dated 1958. Grams is in the center with my mom to her right.


July 1971 - my baptism at about 4 weeks old. This is me, my mom, Grams and my great grandmother (growing up I always called her little grandma because she was so tiny by then).

July 1971 - Grams and my mom's dad. He died a few months after this picture was taken.

This is one of my favorite pictures... I remember doing this all the time. I would make Grams drag out all the photo albums and look at them with me. I did it for years and years... she still has most of her pictures in these same albums...

This is YaYa and Grams last fall when she came to visit. I wish we got to see her more often.

22w1d

Today I am 22w1d with big boy...

At 22w1d with Ellie we had our first unsuccessful amnioinfusion.

Dr. E wasn't excited about doing it - but we pushed her a little bit and she agreed to try it because she thought it might help them diagnose what was wrong. But it didn't end up working. They couldn't find a pocket around the baby big enough to inject the fluid into and my body ended up reabsorbing all of the fluid.

Even though she was so close to the age of viability the lack of amniotic fluid meant that her lungs were severly underdeveloped. We hoped that a successful amnio infusion would last a week or even a few days to help her lungs.

At this point there was still no mention of PE.


This is Ellie's profile at 22w1d. I can see how strange it looks now...there are no beautiful dark areas surrounding her face.

Hoping

A really good friend and co-worked is starting stims for IVF tomorrow. She and her husband have been trying to get pregnant for 6 years. But because of bad luck and a lot of scar tissue they haven't been successful. I want this to work for her so badly.



We have both been trying to get pregnant for almost as long as we've known each other. But it wasn't until last year that we both started talking about it. I always assumed that she and her husband only wanted one child. And I guess it was obvious that T & I weren't expecting to get pregnant after we adopted YaYa.



But there we were... we've worked together for 10 years at least... and are just now starting to find the support and understanding that we could have had years ago.



But now I'm pregnant and she's not. My two surgeries were able to do what three surgeries for her were not. As she starts IVF full of hope, my belly grows - and she is forced to watch.



I want this so much for her. I want this for all of my blogger world friends too. It hurts me because I know how hard it is to see happy little pregnancy announcements amd pictures.



I would change the world for all of you if I could. I hope I don't offend anyone here. And I hope I don't cause any more pain or hurt with my stupid words and compalints. I hope I'm not that person who gets pregnant and forgets everything that came before.

Sorry!

OK - I apologize for the whiney post earlier... I know there are many of you who are currently pregnant and would wish to have the puny little problems I am having right now! I was having a feel sorry for myself moment.

Whine much?

OK - before I start... I just need to whine for a minute...

This weeks' lovenox shots are killing me. It seems like I've forgoten how to insert the needle without searing pain and then when I do finally inject the miserable stuff (don't get me wrong... I do love it, well, at least the idea of what it is allowing to happen) and pull out the needle I bleed all over the place for a few minutes. So I've started putting a little bandaid on the spot to keep it from getting all over my clothes. Yesterday, I peeled of the morning band aid and all the skin came off with it. OMG! It is the most irritatingly painful injury I've had in a while. T put another bigger band aid on the area to protect it - but that almost hurts worse! (Sorry... sometimes I just need a little sympathy!)

On to the real question of the day... What should I knit? I've been working on little hats and blankets for the hospital where my MIL works off and on this summer, but now I want to make something for Big Boy. I've pretty much decided the last blanket I made wa going to be for him but I want to make something else that was his from the very beginning. I've got a couple of options - take a look and tell me what you think....

1. There is the very practical button up bunting sack and another version...that I really love.

2. There is the adorable pants and sweater set - that might just drive me crazy to work on but I really love the striped pants in this set...

3. There is another practical but still very cute one piece outfit.... (I see this as a "snowsuit" kind of thing to be used as an outer layer over clothes)

4. Any other ideas????

I promise I'll post some hat pictures. Some are boring but lately I've tried a few stitch and color details that I think turned out kind of cute.

Melt my heart...

YaYa told us this weekend that it wasn't fair that we got to "wear" baby Ellie and she didn't. It took us a while to figure out she was talking about our tatoos. So we gave her one too...

I think the idea of a new baby coming along is weighing heavily on her mind too. She talks a lot about her baby sister lately. Kind of like she wants to remind us that we shouldn't forget Ellie because there is a new baby on the way.