11 Weeks and 4 Days

I had the longest OB appointment ever.....and had the opportunity to pray for two different ladies while I was there!  Got to the office at 8:25am.  Saw the insurance lady at 8:30am, then the OB nurse who went over all the things not to eat, do or think about when you are pregnant...then had blood drawn, and then it was about 9:45am.  At that point I waited over an hour just to see the doctor, but while I was waiting, I overheard another patient greet a nurse and ask how the "babies" were doing (she was apparently pregnant with twins).  She responded that her water had broken at 22 weeks and she had lost one of the babies.  Oh how my heart broke for her.  I just prayed for her silently in my heart, because the nurse said she was so sorry, but "at least she still had one baby left".... yeah, that doesn't take away the pain of losing the first baby.  The patient handled it graciously, and I never saw her again....she was taken back for her appointment. 

So finally I get in to see the doctor and he explains that he had an ectopic pregnancy first thing in the morning, and that set him back at least 30 minutes, so everything was running late.  My second person to pray for!  I instantly remembered when they told me about my ectopic pregnancy; my very first pregnancy loss...and how numbing it was to think that I had a perfectly fine baby, growing in the wrong spot, that they would have to remove.  I felt so bad for the mother-to-be who lost her baby this morning. :( 

After my checkup I had opted to do all the diagnostic testing which includes blood work and ultrasound- nothing invasive.  Prior to Mary Grace I had never performed any of these tests with the mindset that "I wouldn't abort if something was wrong with my baby".....of course that statement is still true today, but now the difference is...that I want to know if something is wrong with my baby, if I need to start preparing for life with or without a baby that may have special needs.

So by the time that everything was done, it was 12:15pm!  I wish I had brought a snack!  I was starving.  The great news is that baby is measuring a day ahead (11wks 5days)!  The ultrasound looking at the nuchal fold was within normal range, and baby was alive and moving all around!  Heartbeat of 161!  Thank you God for a squirming, live baby on the screen!!!  I had of course prepared myself for the fact that things may not go well at this appointment.....just due to past experience.  So it's such a big relief (and almost a shock!) when things go right!

Thank you Jesus!

I'm back....with news!

To begin, I have to apologize for my unexplained absence over the last month and a half...wait, 2 months???  Is that right?  Ugh....I'm sorry.  Life has been....to say the least....in transition.  The kids and I are back with Rob, but we are not yet in our own house.  My mother-in-law has been gracious enough to let us rent from her until we get the right house.  We have started the homeschooling year and gotten back into the routine of co-ops and field trips....

And on top of all that....the news!!!

I'm 10 1/2 weeks pregnant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow...yeah, we were trying but I was not expecting God to bless us so soon, with my past history!  So we were kind of blown away and are VERY excited and grateful. 

Nausea set in at 5 weeks and I was pretty miserable until my first appointment at 9 weeks when my OB gave me zofran by day and something else for night.  We were both surprised that I had lost 7lbs in those first 9 weeks.  I had only thrown up a handful of times but it was really the nausea that kept me from wanting to eat or drink- anything!  Now that I'm on meds, things are much more manageable and I can eat again!  Not alot at one time, but it's a big improvement over not wanting to eat a thing.

Baby was moving during my ultrasound and we saw the heart beating away.  It is only one little bean in there (I was pretty convinced that I must be having two with the kind of nausea I was having), and baby was in the right place, measured right on track, and there were no cysts or anything unusual around my ovaries this time!  Unbelieveable!  Maybe this will really be a problem-free pregnancy!  I can hope and pray!

So 10 1/2 weeks gives me a due date of April 11th.  This must be God's sense of humor, because Isabel's birthday is April 27th and Ian's is April 5th.  Maybe we just make April babies?  Anyway, I'm getting too far ahead of myself....I am trying to take it day by day and be thankful for each day I have with this growing little babe...because I know how quickly things can change.  My heart has really been torn for the blogger friends who have recently lost babies, and my prayers are with you for God's healing.  Also heavy on my heart have been some special bloggers and friends still struggling with infertility.  My prayers are for you as well! 

I will try to be better about updating!  Sadly, I haven't been reading blogs very much either these last two months.  Trying to get things balanced while we are trying to find a home ;)

Time to talk about being separated.

Woah, that's a shocking title!  Luckily for me and my husband it's less dramatic than you think ;)  I'll give you the brief version:

May 25th our house went under contract.

July 6th due diligence was supposed to end.  (In NC due diligence is the time period that the buyer has between going under contract and once it ends, if they back out of the contract, they lose their escrow money).

July 3rd:  A digging machine busted the back left corner of our fence.

July 4th:  Supposed to be the buyers' last walk-through of the house before due diligence ends...they walk through and see a busted fence.  Of course we are now in July 4th holiday mode, so no one is available to fix the fence!

Had to extend due diligence to July 11th (also our 9 year wedding anniversary), in order to get fence fixed and appease buyers.

July 17th:  Initial date of closing...postponed until July 23!!

July 10th:  Moved nearly everything out of our house.

July 12th:  Took the kids, the dog, and the cat to my parents' house in the mountains.

July 13-15th:  Volunteered at a Catholic Engaged Encounter weekend in Charlotte.

Since then......the kids and I (oh yeah, the dog and cat too) have been living at my parents' house in the mountains of NC, while my dear husband has been living at his mother's house 4 hours away (so he can keep working!)... so technically, we are separated...but just physically! ;)  We figured it would be a good way to save some extra money before we get into a new house, rather than having to rent in the meantime.

We have an offer in on a short sale house, but since it is a short sale, it could take months to hear back from the bank.  In the meantime, we are still looking for other houses.

The goal is to be back with Rob by September, because at that point, Isabel needs to be in Faith Formation on Sundays, and our homeschooling co-ops start back up as well!  

We all miss each other, and can't wait to get back together under one roof again, but are certainly blessed to have such generous parents who would let us room with them in this transitional time!  I think the kids think we are just on an extended vacation at their grandparents' house!

So that was my very busy July, and my excuse for a lack of blogging!  Not only have I not been writing my own posts, I have not gotten to read hardly any posts either!  I need to catch up.

Quick Takes #14: "Ian Time"

1.  It seems like all I have time for lately are 7 Quick Takes (visit Conversion Diary for more)!  So this one is all about Ian.  We had his 15 month check-up today and the little guy weighed in at a shocking 18 pounds 15 ounces.  Okay, not shocking if you are me or my husband...but to the rest of the world, yes!  Our pediatrician is so laid back about his weight because his length and head circumference look great, and of course Isabel is a wee little thing too.  So basically the kid needs some cheeseburgers, fries and pizza, oh and top all that with butter and full fat ranch dressing.  Anyone have their fave toddler-friendly high-cal, high fat foods?  Hahaha...last thing you hear a mom ask for, right?

2.  When asked how many words Ian can say, I told the pediatrician "about 12".
They are:  mama
                dada
                up
                pup pup
                hello
                bye
                help
                peek-a-boo
                uh oh
                shoes
                lizard
                Kee (our cat)
                fish
             
She said, "Oh that's great...it should be about 3-6."  And I was like, wow, great!  Until I read the little take home sheet:  Your baby should say 3-6 words clearly.  Oh well that's a different story.  Lizard is more like "izz-er", shoes is "sooz" and peek-a-boo is more of an inflection than it is an actual spoken, understandable word ;)   Dada, Mama, Up, Pup Pup and Uh Oh are his perfectly clear words ;)  So he's right on target!

3.   The poor kid had 4 teeth break through over the last month.  The 2 bottom molars and the 2 bottom incisors.  He's been drooling, chewing his hands...some days have been rough on him.   One of his fave remedies for teething has been his toddler toothbrush chilled in the freezer.  I just pop it back in when he's done chewing on it and it's ready for next time.

4.  Have you ever seen the show Ultimate Baby Tantrums?  Well, of course you haven't because it doesn't exist, but if it did, they could easily showcase Ian and I could probably make a million bucks.  We secretly call Ian, Drama Baby.  He has throwdowns the likes of which I have never seen when he doesn't get his way.  At home we try to catch him before he throws himself backwards in pure dramatic fashion and lay him gently on the ground where he begins the screaming, crying, kicking, flailing routine.  At that point we quietly walk away, or turn our back to let him know we are not amused, interested, condoning or encouraging this behavior....and he gets the message, but boy he lets you know he isn't happy about it for a good minute.  I remember baby tantrums with Isabel but hers were mild compared to what Ian serves up!  Please don't be a wayward son.....Saint Monica, Pray for us!!!

5.  Besides the baby tantrums, Ian is tons of fun.  The kid loves to play games like Where's the Baby? (hiding behind a curtain, or better yet, where he hides behind his own hands and thinks we can't see him unless he peeks out!), Chase Me! (mommy or daddy crawl around on the floor and chase after him as fast as we can- who are we kidding, the kid is FAST now....my 32 year old knees can barely take all that crawling!), or Chase You! (where he gets behind his plastic Tonka dumptruck and chases me around the house, crashing it into my heels).  His giggles and laughs are just the cutest and he really likes to be held upside-down and tickled under his chin lately.

6.  His new interest is feeding the pets.  "Ish", "Ish" for the fish...and they are always hungry, so we always have to feed them.  He has figured out how to open the cat's food container and will take one or two pieces of cat food just to carry around the house until he finds the cat or until he gets distracted and drops them.  Usually he drops them somewhere.  Nice.  And then the dog food which we keep in a minature garbage can with a flip-up lid, under a kitchen cabinet that is redneck-locked with a rubber band....(didn't I see that on a blog somewhere?)...anyway, the kid can get into all that and come out with a single kibble of dog food and he takes it to the giant german shepherd, Greta, and feeds her the one piece and then does it all over again.  After she eats it, he does the baby sign for "all done".  Hysterical!

7.  I'll leave you with a pic, just because.

Quick Takes #13

1.  We didn't win the bid for the house.  :(  I feel like I'm on a bad episode of Hou.se Hunt.ers now!  I had a cry about it...yes, briefly, to get it out of my system....and we are continuing the house search.  The winning bid was over asking price, and well.....ours wasn't ;)

2.  So now I just thought I was anxious before.  We move out of this house in less than 2 weeks.  And we're really going to change things up!  When we move out, Rob will be staying locally with his mom, and I am taking the kids to temporarily live with my parents in the mountains....about 4 hours away!  When we initially devised this plan it seemed great...we can deal with being apart for the 30-45 days it takes to process the loan on a new house.  But now....it's very uncertain how long we will be apart.  We may end up coming back and renting an apartment.  But we thought it would be a great way to save money (no house/rent) payment in the meantime!  And thankfully we have very generous parents!

3.  Our purple finch baby birds flew the nest this morning!  So happy that they survived since the mockingbird baby didn't fare as well.  It was so fun to watch them.  At the bottom of our stairs is the window to the front porch and the bird nest was in the hanging basket right outside that window.  Every time I would carry Ian down the stairs, he would do the sign for bird!  It was so much fun for the kids to watch those little guys hatch and grow.

4.  Am I the only mom out there nervous about swimming lessons??  I guess it's because I hated swimming lessons as a child.  Isabel desperately needs them.  There are children younger than she is swimming across the pool and she is still in those arm floaties in the deep end!  Yikes!  I know I need to get on the ball with this!

5.  And yes, back to houses....(uh broken record?)  Well I think all of this may be another move by God to get me to relinquish some of my controlling ways ;)  Like oh, back when I used to think I could control when I got pregnant??   Well, since we are moving in 2 weeks, it is unlikely that I will be here to really "find" the house.  That's pretty much going to be on Robert to go out and look at houses (although I will be obsessively stalking real.tor dot com.)  And that is driving me a little bit crazy.  Because looking at homes is alot of fun for me.  It's really enjoyable to walk through a home and ponder what you would do differently, what things you would keep, what color would this wall be painted, which rooms would the kids get, etc... I guess God wants me to let someone else be in control of all that.  I mean, some people by houses sight unseen!  Now THAT is trust....or maybe a little crazy ;)

6.  With many toys already packed, the kids are having fun using moving boxes in mysterious ways.  Of course there is the moving box as house, moving box as tunnel, and moving box as car, but yesterday we cut up a moving box and made it into pirate swashbuckler swords and scurvy gold.  Okay, I have no idea if those words all make sense together, but the afternoon turned from packing into pirate-treasure-finding-adventure-fun!  Then I took the slipcover off an old chair that we have in the master bedroom, and apparently it was like a brand new (errr... too old for them to remember) piece of furniture treasure and they were all over it.  With Ian able to climb up on the couch and chairs now, life is really getting dangerous interesting!

7.  It's going to be HOT today.  We have an excessive heat warning and are expecting 104 today, with a real feel of 108.  Yuck. 

Quick Takes #12

1.  Packing, packing and more packing...that's what has been going on around here.  I am a planner/organizer/list maker by nature ;) and I am so thankful that I started packing WEEKS ago.... we decided to forgo the POD because renting a storage unit and hauling everything ourselves is cheaper...by HALF!  We just couldn't waste that much money to go with the portable moving containers.  So I've been slowly moving minivan loads of boxes to the unit.  Wow.  We have too much stuff.  What's funny is that now that the "stuff" is packed, I am not really missing anything that has been packed up, and half of it I can't even remember!

2.  I'm really slightly stressed at the moment because last night we got a call that the foreclosure home that we have fallen in love with is in a multiple offer situation at the moment, and if we want to make an offer, then we must submit it by Monday.  Yep....fantastic.  Now I'm really kind of nervous about this, because it seems like it is absolutely tailored to meet all of our needs, but God will really have to work it out for us, if this is in fact the house He wants us to buy, because we truly have a price that we cannot go over, and I'm very worried that if there are multiple bids then one of those is going to beat ours.  Ugh....I feel like an episode of House Hunters!  Did you hear that that show was rigged???
In my head I am repeating that the Lord is in control of all of this and He will put us where He wants us, but in my heart I am kind of battling it out with nerves and wanting to do crazy, irrational things like sell a car and all the furniture in my house so that we could put down extra money to guarantee that we get this house!  *sigh*....okay, not really, but...just....have...to....TRUST!

3.  This morning I took the kids to the pool and we have a play structure/slide on the kiddie side.  Well Ian proceeds to climb under the slide and of course I'm there but I'm trying to let him be a little independent since he's learning how to toddle around in the water (so I'm an arms length away) in the 4 inch water and he goes under the slide and is squatting.  I say, "watch your head!" and he stands up and bumps his head on the slide, then instantly goes down to the water -which of course gets his face wet and sends him jerking back up, which bumps his head again, and that in turn sends him back face down in the water.... can you picture it?  Okay so it lasted for like a split second but seemed like it was an eternity before I swooped him out from under the slide where he was caught in the vicious cycle!  Poor guy....he was very traumatized for about a minute, and then was okay.

4.  Now back to the house we want to buy...because clearly it is still on my mind.  You see, I just don't think all of this is coincidence.  This foreclosure that we want popped up the same day we got an offer on our house (which is the same day I buried St. Joseph!)....and on Thursday, Rob tells me that he talked to our real estate agent.  I then casually tell him that I would like to go back out to look at the foreclosure home one more time.  He then sets up the appointment without my knowledge for that afternoon.  I find this out after I had already promised Isabel a trip to the pool at that time.  So at that point I was a little frustrated, but decided he's made the appointment to see the house, so we need to go.  Then our agent just happens to touch base with the foreclosure agent that night and that is how we found out that we just barely have time to get in on a multiple offer situation.  All of those things had to happen for us to be able to KNOW it was time to make the offer.  I think that is God working, so I really want to believe that He wants this house for us!  I guess we really just have to make the offer and wait and see.  If you feel led, would you pray for us over this house situation? 

5.  This bishop of Raleigh celebrated the Mass to kick off the Fortnight for Freedom at our new parish, St. Joseph's, last night.  It was my hope that our whole family would attend, but Ian did not take an afternoon nap yesterday and the Mass was to begin at 6pm.  He usually goes to bed by 7pm and without a nap....ewww....you just didn't want to have him at church for that.  So Rob took Isabel and I stayed home with the baby.

6.  Speaking of the baby....he's not much of a baby anymore.  What baby dresses up like Mr. Potato Head?

These are clearly toddler antics.  *insert sobbing here*  Come on NFP, work for me!

7.  The new profile pics for our family were taken last weekend at my sister-in-law's wedding.  She got married on this beautiful farm in Chapel Hill, and she was absolutely gorgeous!  I'll have to see if she'll let me post some pics of her (she's currently on her honeymoon -so don't want to post without permission) ;)  But we had a wonderful time and are so excited to welcome her husband into the family. 

Quick Takes is hosted by Jennifer; go to Conversion Diary to read more!

Moving Out: Baby Bird and More!

Well, I don't think the bird made it.  We watched it get this big:

And then a few days later, the nest was kind of disheveled and the baby was no longer there.  Maybe it grew the rest of it's feathers really fast and flew the coop, but we are thinking something got it :(  Sad.  But within a few days we had purple finches nesting in the hanging basket on our front porch, so that has been a blessed distraction!

But really this post isn't just supposed to be about the birds.  It's really about what God has been doing in our life lately!  Our house has been up for sale since the beginning of February, and while we've been waiting for a buyer we've been praying for the sale of our home.  And of course I had heard about burying a St. Joseph statue in the yard....but this seemed like a lot of Catholic nonsense to me!  I mean, here I am making a point every time I speak to someone who may be unfamiliar with what we Catholics actually do to let them know that we don't pray TO the saints, we ask for their intercession.....and we DON'T WORSHIP Mary, we honor her as Jesus' mother, etc., etc.... Well, taking a statue and burying it upside down in the yard to help your house sell sounds a little,...well, superstitious?  Ummm.....rich with Catholic craziness??  But on May 25th, after a friend lent me her statue of Jesus' foster dad, I decided that I would bury the statue and MORE IMPORTANTLY, start a novena....that is 9 days of prayer asking for St. Joseph to intercede (that is to pray to our heavenly Father) that we might in fact sell this house! 

We had a showing that morning.  I buried the statue around 3pm, and by 5pm our real estate agent called to say that the people who had come to look at the house were going to make an offer....and they did. 

I about fell out of my chair. 

I think God was smiling at me that day.  It wasn't so much that I needed to bury a statue in my yard to sell our house.  I think it has more to do with God wanting me to devote some serious prayer time to this petition (more so than my bedtime "oh and please send a buyer for our house"), and that he wanted me to ask other people to pray too (particularly St. Joseph)!  Well, it gets better than that.  We had decided awhile ago that we were going to be changing parishes, and had fallen in love with the atmosphere of respect and reverence that we found at a parish by the name of (none other than) St. Joseph's!  The 9th and last day of our St. Joseph's novena, we attended our first Sunday Mass at St. Joseph's Catholic Church as parishoners!  I didn't even plan that one out!  But what a cool way to end the novena, starting out at a new church! 

So our house is under contract and fingers crossed that all goes well and we get to close it in mid July.  In the meantime we are packing and figuring out living arrangements, and all kinds of other fun stuff.  God is definitely working out all the details!  And if you want to pray that it all goes according to His plan, I would be grateful!! :)