Couch Rest SUCKS!

Well, I made it to another weekend.  I usually look forward to the weekends because that means I'm not sitting at home alone.  Although right now both of the boys are napping...so silence it is again.  Can't wait for them to get up and liven up the house.

This couch rest thing is getting really hard.  I feel like I'm hitting a wall with being patient.  Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to still be able to work during the week and get up and do small things...but I am so incredibly bored!  I feel like I'm missing out on all of the fun that summer brings by just sitting on the couch.  We have taken Cole to the park several times, but I always have to observe.  I want to get up and play with him so badly!  I can't do much around the house either which makes me feel like my life is out of control a bit.  Of course, I will continue to sit as much as possible because it's what is best for Baby Corbin, but I just wish I could for once enjoy being pregnant.  And I can guarantee that will never happen, because this is the LAST time I will EVER be pregnant again. :)  I want to spend the rest of my life loving and enjoying these boys that God has given to me and I don't want to take any time away from them to sit on the couch going forward.

Tuesday will mark 28 weeks...that's our second goal!  I feel so incredibly blessed to have made it this far.  Our baby will now have about an 85-90% chance of survival if he is born anytime soon.  Of course, I don't wish that he will be born soon, but it's reassuring to know that things only get better from here.  I have two more goals in mind for this pregnancy.  I want to next hit 34 weeks (August 13)-- that will be when the baby can be delivered at our local hospital and we shouldn't have to worry too much that he will need any stay in the NICU.  And then 37 weeks (September 3)-- I will get my cerclage cut and will be able to do whatever I want again.  Now granted, at 37 weeks I will be huge and uncomfortable, but I will plan to fit in as much summer fun with Cole as I possibly can before the baby comes.  And if this baby is anything like Cole, we will have spent all this time trying to keep him inside and he will not want to come out at all when he is allowed to.

Some days this baby being here seems so far away, but at the same time I know it's only really a matter of single-digit weeks that we are down to.  The nursery is almost finished, we have bought a ton of diapers to stock up, the clothes are all washed and put away, and the baby book has been started...now we just continue to wait.  I can't wait to have both of my little boys in my arms at the same time!

99 Days!

We are officially under 100 days until we meet the little Mister.  I'm counting down to 37 weeks, when I get my stitch cut, so by my count we are down to 78 days :)  I know he likely will not come the day I get it cut, but it's more fun to count down to 37 weeks because I will lose all restrictions of sitting.

Can you tell that couch rest is getting old?  I hit a wall over the weekend of just being plain bored and tired of not being able to take care of Cole without help.  We did get out and go to the park (where I sat on a bench) and to the zoo (where I rode in a wheelchair)...but I can't complain.  At least I was giving my couch a break from this huge butt imprint that I'm leaving behind.  I told Matt that after 20 weeks of couch rest with Cole and 20 weeks with this little guy, we may need to replace my chair in our sectional couch.  If you look at the couch, you can definitely tell where someone always sits ;)

Over the weekend we celebrated Matt's birthday and Father's Day.  It was the weekend of Matt around here.  I am so lucky to have him in my life.  He is a wonderful husband and I fall more in love with him every single day.  He is an awesome dad...so involved and wants to do everything with Cole.  He does the dirty work with Cole, will get down on the floor and play with him, and he teaches him new things.  I can't wait to see him with two little boys that adore him.  I know that things have not been easy for him the last few months, and they won't get easier until I can get up and help out more.  He works full time (at a stressful job-- and I am so proud of how good he is at his job), takes care of Cole, takes care of me, grocery shops, cleans the house, takes care of the yard, runs errands, and so much more.  He has earned the new nickname of Super Dad around here.  All without complaining one bit.  He knows that I'm doing what I need to in order for our baby to be born healthy...and I am so thankful he doesn't make me feel bad about sitting at all.

I hope that Matt and I have so many more fun years ahead of us with the boys.  I can't wait to watch him become an even more awesome and involved dad with these two cuties tagging along.

Times Two

When I first found out I was pregnant I admit I wondered how I could love another little human as much as I love Cole.  I can also tell you that it didn't take long before I fell in love with this 2nd boy.  I know some mom's say once they see their second/third child for the first time the same love is instantly there.  But I already know that I have the exact same amount of love for each of my children and I can't wait to see my baby boy for the first time!

I also felt kind of bad for my youngest child because during my pregnancy with Cole I talked about how he was such a miracle child.  I mean after all, he was an IVF success, a cervical cerclage success, and a child born after a devastating loss.  You can't get much more miracle packed in there if you tried. I wrote all about how blessed we were to have Cole in journals before he was born and even on my blog.  I worried that some day my youngest child would read these entries and wonder if we thought he was a miracle baby too.  Well, he did not want to be outdone.  He is our miracle in another sense.  After going through years of fertility treatments he was a complete surprise baby.  I can't even explain how shocking it was to confirm I was pregnant without using drugs and having surgical procedures done to me.  If we make it to full term (we've already made it to viability) then he will be another cervical cerclage success story.  Then most recently this baby boy decided he wanted to get some extra attention, so he wrapped the cord around his neck two times around.  Talk about being worried and wondering if he would get out of the mess safely.  I think he just wanted to make sure we were paying attention to him.  It's fun to think about how both of my kids are true miracles and blessings from above.

I've been thinking quite a bit about how I never want my boys to think that one of them is more special to me than the other.  I know it's impossible to do everything exactly the same for both kids, nor is that always practical, but I do promise that I will do everything in my power to make sure they both feel equally loved.  When I was pregnant with Cole I kept a journal of all of the details....the appointments, his growth and development, setting up the nursery, my thoughts and dreams for his future.  Then as he has grown over the last 17 months I've continued to journal about everything he's done.  I decided that I would do the same thing for Baby Brother.  I want them to both have these special memories to look back upon one day.  Maybe they will not appreciate the thought and love that went into them until they are becoming dad's themselves...but one day I know they will think these are nice to have.

We have been setting up Baby Brother's nursery too in the last couple of weeks.  Once it's done I will post some pictures, but I want to put the finishing touches on it first.  As I've been getting his room ready I've been thinking about what things I will need to get for him that he can't share with Cole.  I started thinking about the special things that Cole has.  He has a couple of things that he sleeps with in his crib and I wanted Baby Brother to have the same type of items.  I also wanted Baby Brother to have the same baby book, so I ordered one of those and have started to write in it.  I got a special coming home outfit for the baby too.  I mean after all, he has a TON of hand me down clothes from Cole and his cousin Kamden, so he has to have a few new things, right?

I hope that in the future I do a good job of showing my boys that I care about them the exact same.  I know that things may not always be fair, and one kid may have something that the other doesn't, and they will have different experiences...but I want them to grow up knowing that their dad and I supported, loved and respected them the same way.

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On a side note-- we had another doctor appointment today.  I'm 25.5 weeks along.  We were just double checking to see if the cord was really off of the baby's neck.  The good news is that he is completely free of the cord.  He was moving fine and his heart rate was perfect.  My cervix is still measuring really long too, which is a relief.  When we were sitting in the room waiting for my doctor to come talk to us we got really annoyed b/c we had to wait for over 35 minutes.  We normally see the nurse practitioner and sometimes she gets behind, but we've never waited this long.  Our doctor finally came in and apologized for running behind.  In a very nonchalant way he mentioned he had to run over to the hospital and deliver a baby really quick.  What a cool job!  I know he has done it so many times it's just another day to him, but it really made me smile to think that he ran over delivered a baby and then rushed back over to finish up his appointments for the day.

We were talking to him about how the baby got the cord off of his neck and how we were really glad to not have to worry about that anymore.  He told us a story about one time when he was doing an ultrasound on a lady her baby's heart rate started to plummet.  He said it got all the way down to like 10 beats per minute or something like that.  He said he was even starting to freak out bc he had no idea what was wrong with the baby.  He said then all of a sudden the heart rate went right back to normal.  He continued to look around to see what the problem could be and while he was doing that the exact same thing happened again.  He said he was pretty frantic at this point...jokingly he said he was looking around for a pocket knife to cut this lady open and deliver her baby right there in the ultrasound room...but he kept looking for the problem. All of a sudden he said he could see the baby was squeezing the umbilical cord with his hand and basically passing out from lack of blood flow.  Then as he would pass out his heart rate would go back to normal.  Talk about an adrenaline junky baby!!!  HAHA.  Can you imagine?  I don't think I'd be able to sleep until September if we saw Baby Brother pull something like that.  So for now I'm counting my blessings that he "just" had the cord around his neck twice and isn't making himself pass out several times per day.  Or maybe he is and we just don't know...hmmmm...

Anyways, on to week 26 we go!

Houdini

Well, Baby Brother decided to escape the cord being wrapped around his neck just as fast as he got into the predicament to begin with.  I had an ultrasound today to check on him, and guess what-- he was perfectly fine.  Crazy kid!  I guess he wanted to make sure we had just as much excitement with him as we did with Cole.  My doctor's office was very surprised he got out of it as fast as he did...she said she expected us to have several more visits before we saw that he was fine.

My mom came with me to my appointment today, and I was glad to have her there to witness the good news.  Now she can officially say she has seen 4 of her grandkids on the ultrasound monitor.  We even got to see him yawn really big as we were staring at him.  Pretty cool!  Oh, and he is still head down...which is great news! (Thanks for lunch at my favorite spot too, mom!)

I am still going to go back to the doctor on Thursday this week to make sure he really is free and to check my cervix.  But then if everything is good we will start going only once a week again.  I have to say I love my doctor's office so much, but once a week is enough to get in there!

Now I just hope this little guy calms down.  We've had enough excitement.  I'm ready for 12 boring weeks ahead of us.  Can't believe it's only 12 weeks until I get my cerclage cut!!  Then hopefully it won't be long until we are meeting this special little boy.

Thanks for sending prayers for Baby Brother to untangle :)

If it's not one thing...it's another!

We had an appointment today to check my cervical length and to do full measurements on Baby Brother.  The good news is that my cervix is holding strong at 4 cm long and there was no funneling.  That's awesome news to my ears!  When I was pregnant with Cole my cervix started to change and funnel around 28 weeks, so that'll be the true test.  Baby Brother's measurements were perfect as well.  He measured a week ahead in some areas.  They estimated he weighs about 1 lb. 10 oz. at this point.  So it sounds like we have nothing to worry about, right?

Remember how the last couple of weeks I mentioned that Baby Brother has been in a Frank Breech position?  With his butt down and legs up by his head?  Well on Monday I felt a lot more pressure pushing down.  I told Matt I was 99% sure that he had moved head down.  I was really anxious to see if I was right when we had our appointment today.  Well guess what, he did move to the head down position!  But what we also found out today was that in doing this he now has the cord wrapped around his neck twice.  I swear, if we aren't worrying about my cervical length we are worrying about something else.

There is nothing we can do right now to change the circumstances.  It's one of those things that we just have to wait and see what happens.  There is a good chance he can move out of this tangled mess.  We will go from one appointment a week to being seen twice.  Each visit we will do a sonogram to see if the cord is off of his neck.  We are going to hope and pray that it comes off soon and we can go back to one appointment a week.  Once we get closer to 35 weeks, if it hasn't come undone yet we will have to start talking about when to do a c-section.  I really don't want him to be born any sooner than 37 weeks, but I guess it will all depend on if he is in distress or not once he grows bigger.

If you are the praying type, send up a few extra ones that this baby will be a little Houdini and get himself out of this mess.  I'll continue to update my blog after each appointment.  :)

The Grieving Process

Someone close to our family was put on hospice care this week.  She is entirely too young to be taken from her family and friends.  It's really made me think again about how unfair life can be.  It also makes me want to search for a reason of why this kind of thing happens.  As humans it seems like if we can find a reason for the unfair experiences then maybe we can make a little more sense out of them.  I'm not convinced we will ever know on Earth what all of the reasons are...but it's definitely one of the first questions I plan to ask when I get to Heaven.

Thinking about this person and her family and what they must be feeling this week has taken me back to my life in 2010 again.  The year we lost Braelyn and then a few short weeks later my grandma.  I am now nearly 3 years on the other side of losing someone special to me, and I have been blessed to see some of the good that came out of it.  I know that in October/November 2010 I wasn't sure that would ever happen.  I couldn't possibly imagine anything good that could come out of someone dying.

Right after losing my daughter and grandma, I found out that our church offered a small group session that was called Grief Share.  I inquired about the small group and found out it was for people who had recently lost someone and were wanting support from others who were going through a similar ordeal.  I honestly didn't really think I needed to go to this group, but I also thought that maybe I would gain a perspective that I hadn't yet seen.  It was really out of my comfort zone to go to this sort of thing, but I figured it really couldn't hurt anything to go try it.  Worst case scenario, I didn't have to go back.

The first night I went to this group, it was just me and one other couple who had recently lost their son who was in his 20's.  They were a really super nice couple and I am glad I had the chance to meet them.  Then there was the lady who was running the group, I'll call her Sue (to protect her real identity).    I found out that the "class" had already been meeting for a few weeks and I was joining late in the game.  They were watching a video series that was done about grief and the different stages you might go through.  That night we watched the 30 min video and then discussed what we had watched.  Before the discussion Sue asked that I share my story about why I came.  I talked about our long road of battling infertility, to finding out we were pregnant, to unexpectedly losing our daughter.  I also shared a little bit about how much my grandma had impacted my life and how she died.  The other couple shared with me about their son as well.

Sue was qualified to run this course because she had watched her husband suffer with a disease that eventually killed him.  I think she had also witnessed someone else in her family that was close to her pass away as well.  So she understood death.  However, what Sue failed to understand in my mind is that not everyone grieves the same.  She was very set in the fact that there are stages of grief and everyone has to hit every stage.   In her opinion, one of the stages that everyone must go through is being mad at God for taking a loved one away from them.  I can honestly say that I have never once been mad at God for taking Braelyn away from me.  I can't explain why I have never been mad, but I just have not.  Yet, I know other people who have lost someone close to them who are very angry at God and everyone else.  Sue pressed me for asking how I could not be mad at God when he took someone away from me.  She said it was normal and eventually that stage fades.  Again I told her that I was not mad at God for this and I didn't feel as if I was ever going to hit that stage.  I just had an odd sense of calmness about the situation that I can't explain.  I think part of it was that I realized very early on that there was nothing I could do to change what already happened and being mad was not going to solve anything for me.  Sue said that if I wasn't mad at God now I certainly would be later on and that I would need to seek some sort of counseling later if I denied those feelings.  It really rubbed me the wrong way.

I only went back to this class one other time, just to make sure that it wasn't going to turn into something I felt would benefit me.  And I had also promised the other couple to come back for one more week after giving some thought to what we had learned in the video that night.  There was something about Sue that just really bothered me and made me not want to go back to this group.  After reflecting on it later, I realized that the reason I didn't want to be a part of this group was because they were teaching that everyone HAS to go through the same stages of grief.  There is no skipping a stage, or mixing up the order of the stages.  It was like she was telling me how I was supposed to feel even though I was telling her I didn't feel that way.  She didn't seem to believe that I could skip a stage entirely.  I didn't like being told HOW I had to grieve.

I guess the point of this entry is to share my experience, but also to help others who have not gone through a traumatic experience realize that there is no one right way to grieve.  Some people might go through every stage of grief, and they may go through each of the stages in order.  Others may skip entire stages or maybe go through some of the stages in random order.  I think if you know someone who has just lost a person they love, you need to be patient and understanding towards them.  Don't ever try to give advice on how you think they should grieve.  Everyone is different.  Some people may not want to talk about what happened at all, where others may only focus on that experience.  Some people may become very angry where others become withdrawn and quiet.  I truly believe that there is no one right way a person should grieve.  If you know someone experiencing grief, just be there for them.  Let them know that you are there to listen or talk or do whatever they need.  Make sure they can see from your actions and what you say that you are not judging them because even though you may have experienced someone dying, you are not in their exact shoes.  Feelings they have initially may subside and give way to new perspectives...or they may linger for a very long time.  Bottom line is just that people are all unique.  And it's probably a good thing that we don't all grieve the exact same way when we lose someone close to us.

For now, I'll be thinking about this friend of our family non-stop until she gets to Heaven.  I know there is a very special spot up there for her!  And may God bless her family and protect them as they learn to grieve their loss.  <3

Goal #1 = Complete!

Today I am 24 weeks pregnant.... Feels great to hit milestone #1.  Next stop- 28 weeks.