Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Music to my ears
No ultrasound today after all (I guess two in the first trimester is enough, right?), but she plunked the doppler on my tummy and didn't even have to search for the heartbeat - it was right there, front and center! A gorgeous 156. Next ultrasound will be "the biggie" at 20 weeks...will it be a Mini ME or a Mini MATT? That shall remain a mystery until the final screaming push!!
13 weeks!
13-week appointment today!!!! (I'm actually 13 weeks tomorrow, but appt is today.) Pray that it goes as swimmingly as the last one did! I'm pretty certain I'll have another ultrasound. At work on Sunday afternoon one of the L&D nurses grabbed the Doppler and we heard a beautiful little heartbeat chugging along at 155! Nonetheless, I get a little nervous right before an appointment, so please pray that I'll remember that God is in control and His work and timing are perfect. And that He'll keep our Little Bird healthy, thriving, and strong.
I've been feeling very well. A little queasy on and off, but my energy is back and I was able to tackle a major project in the front yard yesterday, which felt soooo good!
Lord willing, I'll have a fun little picture to post later on!
I've been feeling very well. A little queasy on and off, but my energy is back and I was able to tackle a major project in the front yard yesterday, which felt soooo good!
Lord willing, I'll have a fun little picture to post later on!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Zzzzzzzz...
First, I have to talk about something that has nothing to do with this post. All you people who have been pregnant...is it normal to feel ENORMOUS at 12 weeks? Oh my WORD! I'm like, I can't suck it in, I feel bloated and huge, and it's that point where one could look at me and go, "Is sheeeee????? Or iiisssn't sheeee?" and then conclude I'm probably just "packing on a few." I step on the scale at work and I haven't gained a pound yet. But if I don't make a conscious effort to "suck it in," I could easily pass for several weeks farther along than I am. Ugh!!!! So I've finally just given in to the maternity clothes. This is partly because due to some very awesome people at work, my closet is FILLING with hand-me-downs. Jeans, dress pants, capris, cute tops...way cuter stuff than I would normally be wearing. So there you have it. I've finally caved to the elastic. I LOVE the ones that stretch clear up to your collar bone!!! hahahaha! You may never find me NOT wearing maternity clothes AGAIN!!!!!
Now to my story.
It's 12:30am. I wake up to pee. For the second time since I went to bed at 10. I was just up about an hour ago, stumbled down the stairs, slogged back up, covered the dog with a blanket because the AC was blasting (it gets pretty hot in the upstairs) and I could tell she was cold, and fell back into bed. Then I woke up again, dang it. Laid there for a long time trying to figure out if I REALLY needed to pee again. That's when I looked up and noticed that the window at the other end of the room seemed awful bright (the window over our head is covered with a thick blanket at night - we like it DARK). Odd. Put my head back down, still contemplating if I really want to go all the way back downstairs.......MAN, something's really rumbling out there. Train whistle in the background - is that just a MASSIVE train I hear a few blocks away?? WHY is it so bright in that window? Are the neighbor boys sitting in our driveway with the brights on??? Oh for cryin' out LOUD - I DO have to pee - arghhhh....
So I get up and make my way for the stairs. Overcome with curiosity and mildly annoyed (I'm just certain someone's using our driveway to idle their car with the brights on), I peek through the blinds toward our neighbors' house - which sits nearly on top of our driveway, about 15 or 20 feet away.
There are three fire engines in the street.
Police cars.
All of their strobes are on.
A floodlight in the front yard. Like a dang movie set.
Firefighters swiping huge flashlights through the upstairs bedroom just spitting distance from where I'm peeking through the blinds.
Gobs of people milling in the street...actually, the entire street is blocked off.
I pull back, snap the blinds shut. Naw. Run downstairs, pull open the big blinds in the kitchen. Well shoot! It's the same scene! Our neighbors are sitting on the sidewalk in front of our house, the lady with her head in her hands. Firefighters are peeling off parts of the house and tossing them on the front yard.
So I run upstairs and wake up Matt. I contemplated NOT waking him up - I mean, he needs his sleep - but for heaven's sakes, I could not justify waking up in the morning and saying, "Oh, BTW, I got up to pee last night and the neighbor's house was on FIRE. Didja sleep well?" So I woke him up. We went downstairs and got some stuff on, and went out to the family on the sidewalk to see if they were okay, if they needed anything, etc. By that point it was pretty much in cleanup phase, but still - the siding on the front of the house was charred, the windows were burned out, there was a hole in the roof - it was a pretty significant little blaze. They said it started in the attic and everyone got out okay. We stood there for a few minutes taking in the melee, feeling not just a little bit useless and gawky, and then turned around and headed back inside. It took a while to settle ourselves down, and it was about another hour before the engines rumbled away and the lights went out.
Fast-forward to the next morning. I get to work and half the people there already know there was a fire on our street. They heard the sirens and thought the world was ending or something. A picture on the Holland Sentinel's website shows the house with three firemen climbing up the roof, smoke pouring out the attic window. They extinguished the thing in like ten minutes.
And we slept through just about the whole thing! People miles away woke up to the sirens, and they landed on top of our HOUSE, and we slept through. Even the DOG! Molly didn't even peel herself OFF her BED until well AFTER Matt and I had gotten up and headed outside! People, strobes, fire engines, floodlights, and all...and we're snoring away. Wow.
Had I not woken up and pondered my need to micturate, all three of us would have remained comatose through the entire event. I would have gotten up and gotten ready for work, and in stepping outside to walk to work would have thought to myself, "Did someone light a match out here?"
Hopefully I'm a little more, um, wake-able in November!!! hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!
Now to my story.
It's 12:30am. I wake up to pee. For the second time since I went to bed at 10. I was just up about an hour ago, stumbled down the stairs, slogged back up, covered the dog with a blanket because the AC was blasting (it gets pretty hot in the upstairs) and I could tell she was cold, and fell back into bed. Then I woke up again, dang it. Laid there for a long time trying to figure out if I REALLY needed to pee again. That's when I looked up and noticed that the window at the other end of the room seemed awful bright (the window over our head is covered with a thick blanket at night - we like it DARK). Odd. Put my head back down, still contemplating if I really want to go all the way back downstairs.......MAN, something's really rumbling out there. Train whistle in the background - is that just a MASSIVE train I hear a few blocks away?? WHY is it so bright in that window? Are the neighbor boys sitting in our driveway with the brights on??? Oh for cryin' out LOUD - I DO have to pee - arghhhh....
So I get up and make my way for the stairs. Overcome with curiosity and mildly annoyed (I'm just certain someone's using our driveway to idle their car with the brights on), I peek through the blinds toward our neighbors' house - which sits nearly on top of our driveway, about 15 or 20 feet away.
There are three fire engines in the street.
Police cars.
All of their strobes are on.
A floodlight in the front yard. Like a dang movie set.
Firefighters swiping huge flashlights through the upstairs bedroom just spitting distance from where I'm peeking through the blinds.
Gobs of people milling in the street...actually, the entire street is blocked off.
I pull back, snap the blinds shut. Naw. Run downstairs, pull open the big blinds in the kitchen. Well shoot! It's the same scene! Our neighbors are sitting on the sidewalk in front of our house, the lady with her head in her hands. Firefighters are peeling off parts of the house and tossing them on the front yard.
So I run upstairs and wake up Matt. I contemplated NOT waking him up - I mean, he needs his sleep - but for heaven's sakes, I could not justify waking up in the morning and saying, "Oh, BTW, I got up to pee last night and the neighbor's house was on FIRE. Didja sleep well?" So I woke him up. We went downstairs and got some stuff on, and went out to the family on the sidewalk to see if they were okay, if they needed anything, etc. By that point it was pretty much in cleanup phase, but still - the siding on the front of the house was charred, the windows were burned out, there was a hole in the roof - it was a pretty significant little blaze. They said it started in the attic and everyone got out okay. We stood there for a few minutes taking in the melee, feeling not just a little bit useless and gawky, and then turned around and headed back inside. It took a while to settle ourselves down, and it was about another hour before the engines rumbled away and the lights went out.
Fast-forward to the next morning. I get to work and half the people there already know there was a fire on our street. They heard the sirens and thought the world was ending or something. A picture on the Holland Sentinel's website shows the house with three firemen climbing up the roof, smoke pouring out the attic window. They extinguished the thing in like ten minutes.
And we slept through just about the whole thing! People miles away woke up to the sirens, and they landed on top of our HOUSE, and we slept through. Even the DOG! Molly didn't even peel herself OFF her BED until well AFTER Matt and I had gotten up and headed outside! People, strobes, fire engines, floodlights, and all...and we're snoring away. Wow.
Had I not woken up and pondered my need to micturate, all three of us would have remained comatose through the entire event. I would have gotten up and gotten ready for work, and in stepping outside to walk to work would have thought to myself, "Did someone light a match out here?"
Hopefully I'm a little more, um, wake-able in November!!! hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Hoping
I'm so sorry if you've been checking this blog every day for the past few weeks, only to see the same grainy picture posted there that was there the day before! If I haven't been working, I've been a couch tumor, nestled uselessly and taking up space. Not exhausted in the oh-my-word-I'm-coming-down-with-something-awful kind of way I had imagined, just supremely unmotivated. And incapable of cooking meals.
Wednesday marks 12 weeks!! Recently I was encouraging a friend not to write off hope in an area in her life...and I realize that I need not write off hope. In the past two or three weeks I've been starting to actually dream (like hope-dream, not sleep-dream) about what and who this child will become. I'm in awe that the Lord is knitting him or her together in a deep, dark place. I'm in awe that He's breathing life into something that before the last few months did not exist on this planet. I'm fascinated that whatever I do, wherever I go, there's this little person coming along with me, who will have their own opinions, personality, looks, dreams, ambitions, struggles, hopes...things that I'll have some say in, and others that only the Lord can shape.
I want to start thinking about decorating a room...but is it too soon? I know the next several months will fly. The weather will be warm, and suddenly, the leaves will fall and the wind will bite, and it'll be time. We're going to pull up the carpet in the guest room and have someone come to finish the hardwood lying underneath. I want a beautiful rag rug on that floor. We found a "mini" crib that comes in smaller dimensions and will be perfect for a smaller room, and will later convert into a twin bed.
Our last baby I had started to call mon petit oiseau - French for "my little bird" (it's pronounced "moan" - kind of without the "n," though - "puh-TEET wa-ZOE"). When that little oiseau flew home...and took a part of my heart with it...that's when I started calling him or her Glory Baby. Somehow, I've felt granted permission (??) to call this little one "my little bird" again. I almost feel guilty. I still grieve the one we'll only meet in heaven. I still kind of keep track of the weeks - I'd be nearly 27 - and July 24th will be a bit of a hard day.
Fear is so easy and comfortable to wear. It's a semblance of control. I do fear losing this one. I see it all too often - 16, 20, 22-week pregnancies that were going fine and suddenly end. Babies born with one itty-bitty little thing wrong - one little thing you wouldn't even think would really matter - that changes things forever. Gives them only moments to meet their parents before passing into the arms of Heaven. I pray for every organ as it forms, that it'll end up in the right place, that the heart vessels and valves will end up in the right position. Holes will be placed where there need to be holes, no holes where there shouldn't be holes! That there is a brain and not just a stem. Pairs of chromosomes instead of triples. Oh my word, I know too much!!!
And I just have to keep surrendering to God's goodness, sovereignty and control. This child is such a gift, whom I already fiercely love. I also pray for a heart that will hide God's Word inside...a mind that is fully stayed on Him...lips that speak praise and encouragement...ears that will be available to listen...hands that will serve...feet that will have the courage to go...
I cannot write off the possibility that these things will be. Each day, I acknowledge that possibility a little more. Thank you for praying for me and Matt and mon petit oiseau...pray that when he or she does spread his or her wings to fly, it's into this big world, to fulfill a Plan larger than I can hope or imagine!
Wednesday marks 12 weeks!! Recently I was encouraging a friend not to write off hope in an area in her life...and I realize that I need not write off hope. In the past two or three weeks I've been starting to actually dream (like hope-dream, not sleep-dream) about what and who this child will become. I'm in awe that the Lord is knitting him or her together in a deep, dark place. I'm in awe that He's breathing life into something that before the last few months did not exist on this planet. I'm fascinated that whatever I do, wherever I go, there's this little person coming along with me, who will have their own opinions, personality, looks, dreams, ambitions, struggles, hopes...things that I'll have some say in, and others that only the Lord can shape.
I want to start thinking about decorating a room...but is it too soon? I know the next several months will fly. The weather will be warm, and suddenly, the leaves will fall and the wind will bite, and it'll be time. We're going to pull up the carpet in the guest room and have someone come to finish the hardwood lying underneath. I want a beautiful rag rug on that floor. We found a "mini" crib that comes in smaller dimensions and will be perfect for a smaller room, and will later convert into a twin bed.
Our last baby I had started to call mon petit oiseau - French for "my little bird" (it's pronounced "moan" - kind of without the "n," though - "puh-TEET wa-ZOE"). When that little oiseau flew home...and took a part of my heart with it...that's when I started calling him or her Glory Baby. Somehow, I've felt granted permission (??) to call this little one "my little bird" again. I almost feel guilty. I still grieve the one we'll only meet in heaven. I still kind of keep track of the weeks - I'd be nearly 27 - and July 24th will be a bit of a hard day.
Fear is so easy and comfortable to wear. It's a semblance of control. I do fear losing this one. I see it all too often - 16, 20, 22-week pregnancies that were going fine and suddenly end. Babies born with one itty-bitty little thing wrong - one little thing you wouldn't even think would really matter - that changes things forever. Gives them only moments to meet their parents before passing into the arms of Heaven. I pray for every organ as it forms, that it'll end up in the right place, that the heart vessels and valves will end up in the right position. Holes will be placed where there need to be holes, no holes where there shouldn't be holes! That there is a brain and not just a stem. Pairs of chromosomes instead of triples. Oh my word, I know too much!!!
And I just have to keep surrendering to God's goodness, sovereignty and control. This child is such a gift, whom I already fiercely love. I also pray for a heart that will hide God's Word inside...a mind that is fully stayed on Him...lips that speak praise and encouragement...ears that will be available to listen...hands that will serve...feet that will have the courage to go...
I cannot write off the possibility that these things will be. Each day, I acknowledge that possibility a little more. Thank you for praying for me and Matt and mon petit oiseau...pray that when he or she does spread his or her wings to fly, it's into this big world, to fulfill a Plan larger than I can hope or imagine!
Monday, April 5, 2010
Awww...isn't it....cute?(ish?)
Matt thought it would be cool if I posted my ultrasound pics. I wasn't sure how that would turn out, given that we don't have a scanner, so I'd have to take a picture of the pictures and hope they turned out okay. They kind of did! So for all who are interested, here is the debut photo montage of the lima bean who is making me feel like I'm still riding in the back seat of that 15-passenger van that smells like gym socks and has been plunked in the middle of the ocean during a hurricane (at least once during the day, but not all day, fortunately!).
Ta-da!!! Here we have Little G at 7 weeks (which is really 5 weeks "post-conceptual age," sorry if that's TMI), no larger than a grain of rice. If the picture makes you nauseated, you're in good company. It's really of no better quality in real life! But the ultrasound lady nicely drew an arrow at it and labeled it "Baby" in case there was any sort of confusion. ;) But yeah...there you have it. A neural tube and a yolk sac and I'm not entirely sure what else, but there was a little steadily flickering light in the middle, and that's all I was interested in seeing at the moment! But here's the really cool part: in two short weeks, we go from this little grain of rice to...........
.........something that kind of looks like a person-ish! As you may be able to tell, Little G's head is to the left, there's a bitty arm bud sticking up in the middle, and the umbilical cord is forming up to the right and connecting with a cloud that I want to say must be a rudimentary placenta.
So there you have it! Pretty fun, huh? Next ultrasound is my 13-week one at the end of the month. I'll be ten weeks on Wednesday. :) Fun stuff!
Ta-da!!! Here we have Little G at 7 weeks (which is really 5 weeks "post-conceptual age," sorry if that's TMI), no larger than a grain of rice. If the picture makes you nauseated, you're in good company. It's really of no better quality in real life! But the ultrasound lady nicely drew an arrow at it and labeled it "Baby" in case there was any sort of confusion. ;) But yeah...there you have it. A neural tube and a yolk sac and I'm not entirely sure what else, but there was a little steadily flickering light in the middle, and that's all I was interested in seeing at the moment! But here's the really cool part: in two short weeks, we go from this little grain of rice to...........
.........something that kind of looks like a person-ish! As you may be able to tell, Little G's head is to the left, there's a bitty arm bud sticking up in the middle, and the umbilical cord is forming up to the right and connecting with a cloud that I want to say must be a rudimentary placenta.
So there you have it! Pretty fun, huh? Next ultrasound is my 13-week one at the end of the month. I'll be ten weeks on Wednesday. :) Fun stuff!
Friday, April 2, 2010
Preach it, Clive...
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Thursday, April 1, 2010
All is Well
Just to let you know, my appointment on Wednesday went great! :) It was supposed to be at 9:45am but it was rescheduled for 4:15 on account of another chunky screamer being introduced to extrauterine life and my OB's required presence at said event. How's that for poetic??? Anyway, on a leap of faith that I would not be reduced to tears again at the OB office, I took advantage of the gorgeous weather, donned my fave summer dress, and walked to my appointment (it's four blocks away). My appointment went well (have I ever mentioned my rockin' OB? She's an ICU nurse-turned-physician and has fab bedside manner, squeals in delight with you, and is just overall amazing). She slipped me in for a quickie ultrasound just to give me peace of mind, and there it was!!! A little person-shaped lima bean, nearly an inch long, measuring nearly spot-on with my dates, with a heart rate of 180. It even flapped a little arm bud in greeting.
So I left with a fistful of pictures and a smile on my face. :) With two positive ultrasounds in the first trimester, your chance of maintaining a viable pregnancy into the second is 98%. I like those odds!!
Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!!!
So I left with a fistful of pictures and a smile on my face. :) With two positive ultrasounds in the first trimester, your chance of maintaining a viable pregnancy into the second is 98%. I like those odds!!
Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!!!
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