Moving

I decided that I really do want to give blogging a fair shot. Mostly because I need a place to write. But I've decided to start this blog over and move it. You can now find it on ScrawlsofLife.com 

I considered transferring over blog posts, but have decided just to start fresh

The 3 days I was pregnant with Baby #3

For anyone who knows me, you know I say all the time that I question if I want more kids. But that we at least need to know we can survive toddlerhood before having any more. Having two toddlers at home has created more than enough chaos for me to handle. And honestly, I am not handling it very well.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive. My Husband and I barely have enough time to even be in the same room together let alone enough time to make a baby. But apparently we did. And I, completely in shock, was expecting baby number three.

We left for camping with the in-laws the next day. But first I ran to the corner drug store to get another test to confirm. Positive. It was finally sinking in. I had ran through a string of emotions in a day.

Anger. Mostly at myself, because how could I not know I was pregnant? And how could I get pregnant?

Frustration. I just finished my Master's degree and am job searching. And while I know it's illegal for places to discriminate against pregnancy, I also know that pregnancy makes potential jobs see me as a "less-serious candidate" even though this is far from the truth.

Worry. We are barely surviving with two. I don't sleep. I'm not a perfect mom. My house is disgusting. Tempest hulk throws her mattress. And both the girls can't stop moving furniture around. How would we survive with another?

Guilt. For my children who already don't seem to get enough attention. For my poor baby Alice that would mean being demoted to middle child. And Tempest is already super jealous and feels abandon most of the time.

Excitement. Most of all, I ended on excitement. I always said I wanted a lot of kids. And while I'm happy with both the girls, I can't help but feel a twinge of jealousy every time a friend of mine announces their pregnancy.

I was still processing it all. Day one of our camping trip, morning sickness kicked in. Actually I had been nauseous for about a week on and off, but this was bad. And on top of it I was suffering from a serious migraine, probably from caffeine withdrawal  (I'm a serious caffeine-a-holic). But I remembered this. I knew it sucked, but it is worth it.

My husband and I talked through out the weekend about little things, like when we look for a new car how we will have to find one to fit 3 car seats (seriously, 3 car seats, is that possible?!). We talked about waiting to tell Facebook because of my job search. And we joked about all the pregnancy fun to come.

The day after we got home, I started bleeding. It came full force. There was no question to if it was a little spotting. or all the "it's normal, don't worry" type bleeding. No, this was full period mode, bleed through my pants bleeding.

I knew what this meant. We all know what this meant. Just a few short days after having my entire world thrown upside down with news of a baby, my world was flipped once more that no, in fact there wouldn't be. I was miscarrying.

Miscarrying is a dirty word. When we type it on message boards we have to put the word "trigger" in front of it because the word itself is so awful. And we don't talk about it. What's worse is that women are made to feel ashamed and embarrassed that they are upset. I wasn't very far along. And I know the chances of miscarrying are extremely high. But I was, am, still deeply hurt by this miscarriage.

I didn't even want another baby right now. I wasn't sure I wanted another baby ever. But, I'm hurt. And trying very hard to act normal, like everything is the same. Because no one knew. We didn't know long enough to tell people. and our society tells us we shouldn't tell people right away because something might happen. And of course we wouldn't want to talk about something happening.

I got on message boards to find out when I could officially call this pregnancy over. Mostly, because if I'm not having a baby I'm going to drown my sleep deprivation and sorrows in caffeine and alcohol. But instead what I find is a lot of false hope. Hundreds of posts about women who bled during pregnancy and came out with kids. Thousands of women telling their stories and telling the original posters not to give up hope, that there still might be a chance. But that isn't the reality, is it? Estimates say one in three pregnancies will end in miscarriage, most within the first few weeks. But instead of focusing on consoling each other we talk about the miracles. We talk about not giving up. And while I get it. Hope is good. And there is a chance. The truth is, I don't want hope. I don't want to hold on a few more days. I'm grieving now and I want to get through it and move on from it.

I don't feel validated in feeling sad about this. Instead I watch my children play and promise myself that I'll get at least one thing done on my to do list. I talk to my mom on the phone and I listen to her business plans and grievances. I don't tell her about the miscarriage. Not because I don't think she would be sympathetic. I know she would. But because I'm not sure I want sympathy. It doesn't help for people to feel pity for me. I just mostly want to be left alone to process. I want things back to normal. Back to the crazy hectic life I love. To the children who drive me crazy with their fighting and where I can't imagine how another would fit in right now. But now, with the realization, that I'm okay with how things are, but I'm also okay if we do end up pregnant again. Mostly, I am okay.

The Abadonship of the Blog

Yes, I know I abandoned this blog. Yet another blog that was started with good intentions, but lost motivation. Eventually, I'll get back to it. Right now, I am in my last semester of grad school, so not going to happen any time soon. So why, come back now? Because it is then a commitment to myself. That I will come back and make something of this. That I do plan on actually doing this. It is not just a someday possibly thing. It is a real, concrete plan. Just not yet.

And then there was 4

I wasn’t sleeping. I knew I should be, after all the toddler would be up soon and being full term I was already exhausted most of the day. But my hips were killing me. The last few months of pregnancy I had been in so much pain I could barely move. If it weren’t for the toddler, who still wanted to be played with, despite mom’s grumpiness and short temper, I probably would not have moved from the bed. But there I was, awake again. 3:57 I saw the time on my Kindle and in an all too familiar rush, I felt my water break and trickle down my leg. I knew this feeling, baby was coming. My contractions were irregular and I knew from the birth of the toddler that I had some time, after all that one was 42 hours. I texted Tim to let him know, he would be getting off work in a few hours, no need for him to rush home. I prayed this wouldn’t be 42 hours.

I was excited, but not nearly as giddy as the last time. 2nd pregnancy, especially this close to the last one, has a weird feeling of excitement, dread, and most of all boredom. Excitement because here comes a new baby. Both excitement and dread because everything was going to change, we were no longer a one kid family.Our precious daughter was going to be a big sister, a role she obviously had no idea what it meant and how this would change her life. Could we really handle two? Would she be ok? Would she love her baby sister? But oh baby, those firsts all over again. There was also a large amount of dread on the impending pain. At this early phase the contractions weren’t that painful, I knew that wouldn’t last. But with all this, there was still boredom. I knew it would be awhile and knew generally what to expect. I couldn’t start anything, but I couldn’t just expect to sit around and not do anything. Mostly, I paced around the house and watched mythbusters on the TV.

Tim came home around 7:30, I called my mom about that time too. I let her know that today was the day, but to not hurray. She had time to gather her stuff, maybe stop at the grocery store, and prepare for coming to my house to stay with the toddler. The toddler was just waking up when Tim got home. She seemed oblivious to mom stopping and whining with each contraction, she just wanted to know what was taking so long for her milk and breakfast.

I sent Tim to bed because I was still doing well and I knew I would need him up and not grumpy for this.  

My mom arrived around 9:30. We sat and talked names, of which we still weren’t sure. Unlike last time we knew the sex of the baby, another little girl, But I still had no ideas about names. Sure we had our short list, but nothing seemed quite right.

I let Tim sleep until about 12:30 before coming in and telling him he should think about waking up. He got up took a shower and got ready. We packed everything in the car, made sure the carseat was properly installed, I ate half a leftover sweet potato from our anniversary dinner two nights before. And away we went at around 1pm. Toddler waving in the window.

The drive to the hospital was new. Since Tempest was born at home, I never experienced having to drive while in labor. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. By then, contractions were about every 4 to 5 minutes apart, the drive was around ½ hour, and of course there was traffic.

Pulling into the hospital we had to decide, do we go through the front doors, or through emergency? I figured emergency was a bigger deal, and at least through the front we were close to parking and I knew my way. So in we went. Bag in hand, stopping every little while for me to catch my breath.

We sat in the waiting room for a few minutes before someone brought us back to triage. They checked my blood pressure and had me get changed. Then hooked me up to the heart rate monitor. The midwife who came in didn’t believe me that my water had broke. She took a swab anyway and sent it off to the lab. A quick ultrasound showed baby was ready to go. Everything looked good. Tim and I sat alone in the intake room for what seemed like days, it was really only about an hour. Then the midwife came in told me that my lab results did in fact show amniotic fluid and that yes, my water had broke. I tried to contain the annoyance on my face and luckily another contraction took my focus off of it.

They finally got us our room and we got settled in. I was happy to hear that the midwife who checked us in was just getting off shift and was not the midwife I was delivering with. The nurses came by checked my blood sugar, told me I couldn’t eat, but gave me the “liquid” only menu that I could order from if I wanted. There was nothing I wanted less than food.

Iv started

Water broke again

Penicillin again

Final pushes

Baby

Toddler Fit of the Day

How to have fits like a toddler. Today's lesson: Birds do not want to be inside of our house

Currently there is a bunch of birds right in front of our deck door. Since it is a glass door she can sit and watch them, which she loves to do. Today however she decided that they need to be inside of our house. 

So, she goes over to the glass door. Half of them fly away. 

Then she tries to open the door for the rest of the birds, so I help her open the door and of course the rest fly away. She cries. For a successful toddler fit repeat until distracted by something else

10 months

In less than a half an hour my little girl will be officially 10 months old. I cannot believe how fast it has gone by and as I sit here and watch her sleeping all curled up with her toy sheep in her grip, I still cannot believe that I am lucky enough to be her mom,. I am lucky enough to have her in my life, and to watch her grow up. At 10 months she is already beautiful inside and out. She is strong, courageous, independent, funny and talented. She is everything I imagined when I dreamed of becoming a parent and she is so much more. I wish I could stop time and cherish where we are right now forever, but I also can't wait to see who she is as she grows up.

Miley Cyrus

So, I had to look up the clip of Miley Cyrus because I don't watch award shows and after watching it, I have a few things to say.
1. it really wasn't nearly as bad as everyone had been acting.  I have seen way worse on TV
2. she looks like an idiot and none of it was sexy or acting sexy.
3. it isn't all her fault

While I do believe that it is her decision to act like that, I do think we have to realize the underlying cause of this is being ignored. First off, do you really believe any celebrity is getting ready for these shows on their own? She isn't some regular young adult getting ready in her bedroom alone. She has teams of stylists and fashion-gurus helping her get ready. This means someone picked out and made her outfit for her. it wasn't some blind decision. The same goes for the dancing. There is a choreographer involved, period. There is lighting and sound guys, there is music arrangers and a string of other people all pushing her in a certain direction. I remember me at 20. I was young, stupid, and if I was in her situation probably would have also got caught up in a scandal. In fact the majority of 20 year old's do wild and crazy things that are way to overly sexualized. This is why they are still making "Girls Gone Wild" dvds. The difference is most 20 year old's do not have cameras following them around, they also do not have people pushing them in the direction that they feel profit them the most.  If you believe this was 100% Miley's creation you need a reality check. If you believe somewhere someone in't making a billion dollars selling these scandals, you are wrong.

I think it is time that people realize, acts like these are not one person "going wrong" they are the cause of a deeper unit at work here. One that feeds off of chaos and lies, one that preys on young adults because they can. One that is being drilled into every young child's mind through music, tv shows and media. It isn't about one girl acting crazy on TV. Its about so much more than this. We can pin blame on one person all we want, it does not change the fact that this is happening. It does not explain why child stars are falling in droves in this same pattern. You can't change your image from child to adult without some experimenting with who we want to be. And you shouldn't have to. Everyone should have the freedom to find who they are as an adult. I am happy I was allowed to do mine without the media questioning my every mood. Stars are not that lucky, maybe this is why their attempts are bigger and more exaggerated, maybe they just seem that way. Maybe at the end, this experience will make her a been women, maybe she will regret it, maybe it doesn't even matter to her. But it should not matter to us.