The breath sucked out of me

    




     Just this past week I was feeling like things were coming together. Things were going well after our initial pregnancy scare. We were starting to get really excited as the reality of this baby was becoming more and more real to us. We were getting the nursery prepared and making our list of boy names. Things seemed to be finally going well and we were finally feeling relaxed about the pregnancy as a whole. However, our world was rocked once again after my first OB appointment the other day.

     I showed up expecting a quick appointment, knowing that they would ask me some questions, measure my belly, record my weight, listen to that beautiful little heartbeat and send me home. I didn't have a care in the world as I swung those doors open and confidently walked into his office. But it wasn't long before I was in tears.

    
     As my OB sat there looking over my chart, he had a look of concern on his face that made me feel immediately sick to my stomach.

     "So we've had a few problems already in this pregnancy I see", he said.

    "Well, really only the bleeding incident..but I'm feeling good now. No problems since then. I'm totally fine now" I responded, feeling my confidence quickly slide away as I felt like I was trying to all of a sudden convince him of this.

    He looked at my chart again.
"I assume you're taking it really easy these days since you have Placenta Previa", he said.

    I had no idea what he was talking about. No one had told me that I had this condition, even though I was just at my doctors three weeks before. No one had told me that I was supposed to be taking it easy because of this condition and I had no idea what Placenta Previa even was.

   He explained that Placenta Previa is a complication of pregnancy in which the placenta grows in the lowest part of the womb (uterus), when it is supposed to be growing much higher. He explained that more bleeding could occur and that our baby might need to be delivered by C-section much earlier than he is supposed to be in order to avoid complications for both mom and baby. He then explained that for some women the placenta moves up to where it should be, but since mine hasn't moved at all, he said to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.
    
    I felt my entire body drain of energy as I tried to control my breathing as I took this all in. But to my dismay, he continued on further.

     He explained that the risk of this pregnancy is heightened even further since it was documented in my chart from Mya's birth that I had "severe hemorrhaging" postpartum.

    He was again shocked that no one had talked to me about this or explained the risks or at least warned me that with the next pregnancy we had to be aware of this and be prepared for a blood transfusion. I remember there being a lot of blood when Mya was born, but since it was my first time giving birth I thought it was normal, especially since no one said a word to me about it after the fact.

   I took a deep breath, expecting that he was done...but he looked at my chart again, this time locking eyes with me as a gesture of comfort, or so I took it...and he continued.

     "So, you need to be aware that this baby could come very early. Too early. Our goal is to keep this baby inside of you for as long as we can. I see here with your first pregnancy that you were already fully effaced and dilated more than a month and half before your daughter was due--and you were put on bed rest".

    I nodded. Not wanting to hear any more.

    "Because of this history, and all of the other complications that are going on with this pregnancy, we need to do all that we can to prevent a preemie. We don't want you to have a baby at 26 weeks".

     I felt my whole body go limp as I stared at him, feeling my cheeks go flush as I felt the stinging in my eyes as I tried to hold back my tears.

"Is that even a possibility?" I asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

He didn't look at me this time. And he didn't answer my question.

"Well I'm going to have to keep a close eye on you and this baby. You'll need to go to many more ultrasounds and I'll be checking you at every appointment to see if you're dilated already. I would even like to check you today just to be sure".

     I looked at him in shock, "But I'm only 21 weeks...there's no possible way that I'm dilated. It's way too early". I knew that I was more so asking him this question instead of telling him this, but he looked at me, nodded and simply responded "I just want to be sure". My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach.

     All of a sudden I felt my world spinning out of control as I laid on that cold table, with the crinkle of the white paper underneath me, waiting and begging to hear even the slightest words of comfort from him.

     I breathed a sigh of relief as he told me that I wasn't dilated yet. But his news wasn't over yet.

     Before I left the office he told me that we would take it week by week, but to expect to be put on bed rest as the pregnancy progresses.

     My first response to him was, "But I need to go back to work in September. That was my plan all along".  The look on his face said it all.

     "You'll be on bed rest by then dear, if we can get you that far in this pregnancy. You're not going back to work in September. It's not just the Placenta Previa that is cause for concern in making you go into labour pre-maturely, it's all of the factors that have plagued this pregnancy combined".

     At that point I gave up. I had heard too much. I was too overwhelmed. Too stressed. Too tired to ask one more question or say one more thing about the situation. I was worried sick about my baby and realized that all of the planning in the world didn't matter anymore...this situation was completely out of my hands. All I could do at this point was "take it easy" (although I'm still not sure how to do that with a 19th month old who literally runs everywhere she goes and a job teaching kindergarten...but I'll try my best), and wait.

     I left the office, got into my car and burst into tears. My body felt heavy, as if I could barely move. I didn't know how to process this information. I didn't know what to do next. I didn't want to call Terry at work to tell him all of this. So, where do you go when you feel like your world is crumbling...? mom and dad's house.

    
    So after a good cry, lunch and some much needed chocolate, I tried to pull myself together and move forward with my day. With all of this being said, the thing about this situation is that although it's scary and overwhelming to hear a professional tell you that you will likely be faced with bed rest, a pre-mature baby and further hemorrhaging complications after the birth, I always come back to the reality that I'm so grateful to even be pregnant.

    Not to say that I didn't have a mini pity party for myself that day. I certainly did. I sat there in tears wondering why I couldn't be one of those women who seemed to just float through their pregnancy without a care in the world, glowing and finally begging for their baby to be born since they were past their due date. I wondered why things couldn't be easier for us. I wondered why this was happening to us when it appeared that others were so easily getting pregnant, having perfectly simple pregnancies and being left with a healthy baby to take home the very next day. I wondered what it felt like to feel confident being pregnant, being reassured throughout the entire 9months that everything was going smoothly. I started having scary visions of an emergency C-section and our baby being swept away after being born, rushed to the NICU where we would be left to worry, cry and pray that everything would be okay.

    I worry about how Mya will cope with her mama being away, left at the hospital to be monitored for up to weeks after the birth. I wonder how I will cope with being away from her. I wonder how much time Terry will have to take off of work in order to look after her during this time. It already kills me to think about all of the unknowns. I still sit here with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

     But I come back to the reality that everyone goes through different struggles. It feels like we're going through a lot right now, but there are others who are going through much worse. It's all perspective and it's remembering that it's part of our life experiences that make us who we are. It's the unexpected that, in the end, make life so beautiful and rich and full. I just hold on to my theory of "everything happens for a reason". I really do believe this. It may not all make sense right now as we work through the reality of what we've been told and all of the unknowns that we'll face in the weeks ahead, but we'll get through it. We'll learn from this somehow...we'll be stronger for it, we'll be closer...we'll be okay.






  
   

A little work goes a long way...

   




     I just love the feeling of everything coming together. It takes a lot of work, but the reward of feeling like your efforts have paid off is awesome. After a couple of weeks of working on my report cards every night after Mya went to sleep, they're pretty much done (hallelujah!).

     We then successfully moved everything out of our office to be able to transform it into our little boy's new room. We sold our desk (thanks Emily!) and his room has already been painted and is quickly transforming into a real nursery.

      Mya decided to get a few more minutes of hide and seek in before we took the desk apart.

P.S. I love curl mullets. Curly in the back, straight in the front. Awesome.

     We've already bought and re-invented this baby boy's dresser (found for $40 at a thrift store!) into something much nicer than we started out with (pics to come soon) and his crib is ready to be set up this weekend.

      This past week (and a bit) has been so busy. Terry and I have had a million things on our to-do list, and we've been steadily checking them off daily. We tore up almost half of our backyard lawn to sod it (and by 'we', I mean Terry, Jeff and my dad)--and today will be another day full of dirt, sod, trailers and dirty boys.

     My dream of having a piano in our home also came true last weekend as our new-to-us piano (that we found free off of Kijiji!) was carefully carried into our living room by a bunch of our wonderfully strong friends/family. After recruiting our mover buddies (thanks Tyson, Matt, Chad, Jeff, Terry and dad), our babysitters (thanks Jen and Amanda) a lot of organizing, planning, phone calls and texting, we ended up with a piano sitting in a rented trailer being driven back to our home (where baked goods were provided for the movers)--that was my contribution as I could do nothing but organize the details of the move and then stand back and watch these guys carry this beast into our house.

     I grew up playing the piano my whole life and being in a household where music, singing and piano playing was just part of our every day life. My grandma was a piano teacher, my dad plays beautifully and Jen and I were raised to practice, play, perform and enjoy the piano. And I do. I love it.

     I can't even tell you how excited I was to finally see that piano sitting in our living room. I've been playing it every day and I love watching Mya put her arms up to me as I'm sitting there, wanting to try her little fingers out on the keys as well. A huge part of my reason for wanting a piano was that my dream of our children's childhood included a house full of music, singing crazy showtunes together at the piano and waking up to the sound of little fingers on the keys in the morning. Oh, and don't even get me started on how wonderful it is at Christmas time. There's something magical about a piano--and I wanted to provide that same feeling to our kids. And although I realize that the potential is always there that they might decide that they don't want anything to do with playing it in the end, I want to at least provide them the same opportunity that I had. And so far, the excitement over the piano is definitely there for these two little cousins. They're already playing duets together.

     Another item on my to-do list was to get Mya a kitchen set. It's always something that I just expected that our kids would have (maybe because I have so many memories of playing with my own kitchen set when I was a kid), but either way, I just couldn't imagine our house without one in it. I knew I wanted a wooden one, and when I found the most adorable little pink set I just couldn't resist. It's really super girly, so I did hesitate about ordering it once we found out we were having a boy...but I just put aside my practical thoughts and decided to go for it regardless. With all of the furniture that I've painted and transformed, I figured once this little boy becomes old enough to play with it as well I could always paint it and transform it if he's turned off by the mass amount of pink. It was just too cute to pass up.

      OH...and let me mention as well...I put this thing together ALL by myself. I won't tell you that it took me 3hrs to do. But after a million screws, a billion parts and a booklet of instructions that made no sense, I did it. Terry was totally willing to do it for me, but he was busy digging up our yard the night that I wanted to put it together, and I have no patience when fun things arrive. So he came downstairs to find me surrounded by pink wooden parts, pink handles, screws, and instructions all over the floor. It was totally worth it though...Mya was beyond thrilled when I brought her downstairs to see it for the first time.

      All of a sudden I completely forgot about how time consuming and frustrating it was to put this thing together as I watched her become instantly enthralled by every little part of that kitchen. I resisted pointing out to her each screw that I screwed in the night before and refrained from telling her that little microwave took me almost an hour to put together. I just watched her and smiled, and realized that this is why parents do these things for their kids.

     It was my mom's birthday last weekend too (and although she tried to convince us to just let it pass without any fuss), we made her dinner (or, Jen and Jeff actually made her dinner--an incredible Chinese meal that was just fantastic) and Mya got to stay up past her bedtime to enjoy every moment of her Nana's birthday.

      Apparently staying up 1/2hr late and all the partying tuckered this little one out---she crawled under the table and curled up on wrapping paper before we took her home to bed.

     Even though we`ve been working hard tying to get everything done over the past couple of weeks, we`ve also made a point of making time for fun--because balance is everything.

Trips to the park with friends are always in order with this kind of weather...

I decided that we should send this pic below to the Baby Trend company so they could include it in an advertisement...all four of us have the same brand of stroller.

     And here is beautiful Andra, smiling through painful contractions, as she was actually in labor as we were at the park...what a trouper. Nothing like running through the park to get labor moving along quicker! Her sweet little boy was born that same night.

     Last weekend my parents surprised both Mya and Oliver each with their own little kiddie pool for our backyards...so we've been spending almost every day splashing about, keeping cool and enjoying random drop-by's by neighbour kids who were not shy about jumping in the pool the moment they saw the water. We couldn't stop laughing.

  

     Thanks mom and dad for the hours of summer time fun to come with these little pools!!

And to finish off...a few floor cuddles with her daddy.

     With a day full of yard work, laying sod, running some errands and I'm sure splashing about in that little pool...we're looking forward to a night away tonight to go to our friends house for a bbq. I'm sure a lot of eating, hanging out and relaxing with friends will happen tonight. I just love weekends. Have a good one!

YEA!! We found out!!

     It's a BOY!!!!!
       
     We went today to our follow up ultrasound from the other week, and everything went beautifully. We went to a different ultrasound clinic this time with the hope that their rules might be different about telling people the sex of their baby. And I'm so glad that we did.

     The ultrasound technician was kind, caring and chatty...talking me through what she was doing, what pictures she was taking and pointing out all of the little details on that beautiful little boy. Before she even started the ultrasound she asked if I wanted to find out the sex, which was shocking to me..but thrilling. She told me that some ultrasound clinics were following the new rule of keeping the sex a secret from couples, but not theirs. So I of course told her yes, and within about 2 minutes she knew that it was a boy (but kept it a secret until Terry was allowed in the room).
    
     So I laid there in incredible anticipation, waiting for her to take all of the necessary pictures and willing her to tell me that she was finished so that Terry could finally come in. When he finally walked through those doors I locked eyes with him and smiled, telling him that she knew. He smiled and I could see the excitement in his eyes. Then we finally got to see that secretive screen, as she turned it towards us and showed us every inch of that perfect little boy. She showed us every part of him...his tiny little arms that wiggled around, his legs and teeny little toes, his head, face and each little finger. It was just amazing. Then she pointed at the screen, and said "So you're having a boy!". I smiled at her then turned to look at Terry and he was beaming, which made me beam with happiness as well.
    
     It felt so surreal this time round. With Mya it felt different finding out that she was a girl. We were just as excited and thrilled to find out, but this time round the moment that she said "boy", I immediately thought of Mya and what that meant for her. She'll have a brother. What will that relationship look like? Only having a sister myself, I don't know what a relationship between a brother and a sister looks like. Will they still be as close as Jen and I are? Will they tell each other their deep dark secrets? Will they stick up for each other when it feels like no one else is? I love now trying to picture what the future might look like, picturing the two of them playing together, loving on each other, Mya being proud to show off her new little brother.

     I love thinking about how wonderful it will be having both a boy and girl, the excitement of the unknown, a new adventure and a new way of life for our little family, now adding one more to the mix. I love thinking about my little boy running up to me, wrapping his arms around me and him growing up to be protective of his sister. I love imagining what the future might hold...that Terry and I now have the privilege of being able to raise a boy to turn into a wonderful, caring, loving young man. My mind is running wild with the excitement of the unknown, the excitement of now being able to decorate his little nursery and plan for the arrival of this already loved little boy. The moment that she said "boy" it all of a sudden became incredibly real to me and it was as if I fell in love all over again at that very second.

     I know that I would be feeling just as thrilled if the technician had said that it was a girl, as I again would have started picturing what that now would look like for Mya having a sister to grow up with. What a blessing that would have been as well. That's what's so incredible about babies though...it really doesn't matter if it's a boy or girl...it's just a complete blessing either way. I'm so glad though that we were able to find out, as the planner in me is now able to start the process of preparing for this wonderful little boy to come. We can finally give him a name and start to talk about him to Mya, telling her that she has a sweet little brother on the way and trying to figure out how to wrangle up enough boy clothes now to dress this little one! (So, p.s....if anyone out there has any boy clothes that they're looking to sell/get rid of, please drop me a line!).

    I'm sure I'll fall asleep tonight to visions of boy names dancing in my head.

      

Thomas the Train Cake..and Mother's Day Love

   



     With a cake order due on Saturday for an adorable little boy named Anthony (along with a fabulous 2nd birthday party) and Mother's Day the very next day...this weekend was full of fun, excitement and love shooting from all directions. I love these kinds of busy weekends. It makes you stop and realize what life is really all about--being with people, celebrating, enjoying the little moments and making a point of taking time out of report card writing, vacuuming, yard work and the craziness of "oh my gosh, it's almost the end of year and there's so much to do" stress. Sometimes you just have to walk away from it all for a moment, turn your brain off and go party with the ones you love. That's exactly what we did.

    Here is the Thomas the Train cake that I made for little Anthony's 2nd birthday party (Keri, this pic is for you).  :)

With a little birthday party fun to follow...

We're waiting in such anticipation for the news of this little boy's arrival! Any moment now!

There were a whole lotta baby bumps goin' on that day...

After the fun of a wonderful Saturday afternoon full of cake, delicious food, great company and lots

of play time outside, we got a good night sleep and started the celebrations all over again the next day.

There's nothing like being celebrated for being a mom...something that I love being more than anything in the world. And having so many moms now in our family, we made a point of getting together to celebrate us all this Mother's Day. A delicious Sunday brunch at mom and dad's house with Mya running around, Oliver practicing his standing skills and all of us just relaxing, enjoying each other's company and filling our bellies full of amazing food was absolute perfection.

Here are all of the mamas in our family with their babies. I told Terry he needed to hop onto his mom's hip like Mya and Oliver..but for some reason he didn't think that was the greatest idea.

Mya and her Papa spent some time working away at their writing skills...she didn't even have time to take her coat off before she ran over to my old little table that I used when I was her age and started scribbling away on her paper. Too cute. And yes, that's my old little kitchen set behind them from about 30yrs ago (that my parents kept stored away for the anticipation of future unborn grandchildren). I thought they were nuts years ago for keeping all of this stuff, but I completely appreciate it now as I watch my own daughter loving all of my old toys.  

And we couldn't have asked for better weather as we went for a beautiful walk through the neighbourhood to finish off our afternoon...(and yes, that little red wagon was from my childhood as well..stored in their garage for years).

Happy Mother's Day to all of you wonderful moms out there! Hope you enjoyed getting spoiled on your special day.

  

It's a...

BIG disappointment.

    We were so excited this morning as we got ready to go to our ultrasound. We were going to find out the sex of our baby and we were also going to find out if all was healed properly with my placenta. Big news all around.
    However, as I laid there waiting for the ultrasound technician to get herself all set up and ready I mentioned to her that we'd love to find out the sex today..and she looked at me and shook her head.

"We aren't allowed to tell people the sex anymore" she said.

I thought she was joking--I really did. I smiled, looking to be reassured that she was just kidding..but she stared at me with a very serious look and I knew it was no joke.

"What do you mean you can't tell me the sex?" I asked.

"A new rule was just passed just yesterday saying that we're no longer allowed to reveal if it's a girl or boy. Our job is to check to see if the baby is okay and healthy..they told us it's not supposed to be for entertainment purposes".

I would have appreciated if someone had helped me to pick my jaw up off the floor. I couldn't believe it. Are you kidding me???!

I said to her "Can you just tell me secretly? I promise I won't tell anyone. Or just say the letter 'b' or 'g' quietly...that's good enough for me".

She shook her head.

"Can you just turn the screen so I can take a look myself and make my own judgement then?"

"Nope" she said.

Good grief.

     So she proceeded to do all of the necessary measurements, photos, etc as I waited in silence... upset and desperately trying to strain my neck and eyes to do my own detective work to see if I could see anything at all to detect the sex of this baby as she took all her pictures. I got nowhere though.

    She finished up and went to get Terry. He walked in smiling and I greeted him with a look of "you won't believe this".

    He had the same reaction as I did..."What??"

    So we got about one whole minute of looking at that sweet baby bouncing around, then we were ushered out of the room and sent on our way.

    I said to the technician before we left "So is my placenta okay?".

    She looked at me, then looked away.

"We're going to have to have you come back in two weeks", she answered.

"Why? Is everything okay?" I said, now worried.

"We'll just need to see you again. Your doctor will get the report".

I looked at Terry and he looked as concerned as I felt. She wouldn't tell us anymore.

So, the waiting game continues...

BUT...we got to see that sweet little baby and man oh man is he/she ever cute. I might be biased..but really..adorable.

Party Party Party

Well...I'm exhausted.     
      My weekend started with a session of report card writing--good times. But it got much better as Saturday afternoon became filled with a big celebration for a little girl named Vera. Her 1st birthday party was amazing, wonderful and full of good friends, food and adorable decorations. Vera was a superstar the entire afternoon and looked like a little angel in her cute little birthday dress.

     This is my favourite part of 1st birthdays...that first piece of cake..icing...sugar. So cute. Jen (Vera's mom) was smart and took the cake away at an appropriate time..Mya's mother (on the other hand) let her kid eat cake for way too long on her 1st birthday and then found out later that she secretly threw up in Nana's arms. Oops. Mother of The Year award got awarded to me that day.

What a fabulous way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

There's nothing quite like a 1st birthday...I just love everything about them. I'm already starting to think of Oliver's 1st birthday party, and it's still over 5months away.

 Happy Birthday Vera!!

    On a high from such a fabulous party, I had to get the last minute details of my own shower ready for the very next day. I threw a baby shower on Sunday for three friends (Alex, Tammy and Andra)...two of them expecting a girl and one expecting a boy. As I was trying to come up with a theme idea for the shower, I knew that it had to be gender neutral...so I decided that bumble bees would be adorable. I spent the past couple of months making all of the decorations, food tags, signs, banner, food, etc. (one little bit at a time) --while recruiting my mom, sister and mother-in-law to help along the way as well (thank you!!). Here is my Sunday afternoon baby shower (in a nutshell)...

I had to make sure that I made both a boy bee and a girl bee...one representing each gender of the babies to "bee". The little girl got a cute little bow in her hair and the little boy got a bow-tie.

And of course the drink of choice had to match my colour theme...tee hee.

Thanks Gillian for letting me steal your Scholastic book order packing box from school so that I could create my little cupcake stand! (She looked at me like I had three heads when I asked for her recycling from her blue bin in her classroom...but I had big plans in mind for that little box).

Oh cake balls...how I hate to make you..but love to eat you.

You certainly can't have a baby shower without milk and cookies...

If you're looking to make these pompoms for your own party, just Google "Martha Stewart Pompoms"..they're super easy to make.

A few of the ladies and kids...(funny how when you have kids somehow the floor becomes the best place to be).

The three ladies of the hour...(or, afternoon).

Everyone got to take home a little treat...and something for their little one as well.

I thought baby food jars full of candies would be appropriate...

And some crayons and bumble bee colouring pages for the little ones...

And on a side note...look! Oliver can stand up now!

So there it is in a nutshell...I love babies. I love parties. So put them together, and I'm a happy lady.

Oh, and if anyone is interested in these decorations, let me know! I hate to throw them all out..but that's what's going to happen (and I have 5 black pompoms I'm going to throw out too). I usually make Terry do it for me since I hate to see my hours and hours of work pitched in the garbage...but really...storing them all for safe keeping isn't exactly a realistic option.

Anyways, off to work on report cards and get started on the details of a cake that's due this week. I've got a sick baby (and dog) on my hands too...so I don't think my exhaustion is going to be leaving me any time soon. HOWEVER...tomorrow we find out the sex of our baby!! woo hoo!