Details & Updates

• I'm 11 weeks pregnant.
• My previous losses all happened between 5 and 8 weeks.
• I've had two sonograms already--at 8 weeks and 10 weeks--and have seen/heard a strong heartbeat both times. Measurements were right where they should be at 10 weeks.
• We've heard a heartbeat before, at about 6 weeks, before one of our previous losses, so it wasn't as much as a reassurance at 8 weeks as the doctor seemed to think.
• I love the German reliance on sonograms--one in every exam room.
• The doctor also copies each sonogram session to a CD and gives it to us to take home. But she says it won't work with Windows Vista, which is what we have, of course.
• My due date is August 18.
• Katrina's due date was August 21.
• Katrina's birthday is July 15.
• The hospital at which my OB works has no NICU. We have to decide whether to stay with my OB or switch to a different one at the bigger hospital a bit farther away.
• My fun pregnancy symptoms: nausea/lack of appetite (which is starting to abate); crippling fatigue paired with brain fog (or more fog than usual); shortness of breath; constant low-level agoraphobia paired with periodic high-level anxiety/panic attacks just for variety; and because of all of the above, irritability, whining, self-absorption, and a marked reluctance to leave the couch.
• I'm a joy to live with. Pray for my poor husband.
• We've decided not to move to a bigger house, so we may have company in our room for some time to come. Our bedroom is upstairs, and the other bedrooms are downstairs. There's no way we're trotting downstairs X times a night for feedings.
• We're delaying telling Katrina for as long as possible. One, in case something goes wrong, better for Mom to just be sick and getting better. Two, she'd want to see the baby right NOW and drive us crazy with asking when, when, when?
• Thanks so much for your kind comments and prayers. We appreciate you all so much.

Planned Parenthood

“And was this planned?” asks the doctor, and her pen pauses over the file.
And I try not to laugh--or cry--only smile wryly.
We gave up our plans, slowly, painfully, years ago,
Replaced them with hope, with longing, with trying again.
With hard surrender to our limitations, with adjustments to our dreams.

Planned? Like the years-long wait, the rush of blood, the mad dash to the hospital,
Searching black screens in vain, tears, appointments, procedures?
And our longed-for, hoped-for child, the only one to hold on long enough to be born?
No plans there, either. Five years later than planned, and five weeks earlier.

And the past weeks, again, fearing to hope, trying to smile, nightmares filled with blood.
No. Nothing has been planned.

But that’s not her real question, is it?
So I ignore her words and respond to the unspoken.
Is this baby wanted? Will you welcome it with joy? Will you do all you can to keep it?
Yes, I answer.
Please, God, yes.

Big News

Now, my sister may have just given birth to the cutest baby girl on earth (well, that's what she tells me, and the pictures sure are cute) on January 9--but that doesn't mean that OTHER family members can't also have milestones to be forever remembered.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, Katrina got her first loose tooth.

Oh, yeah, and strep throat. (As does at least 4 of her classmates. Including one with scarlet fever, which apparently is strep plus rash and other nasty stuff. I have never been so glad to live in a time with antibiotics.)

Oh, all right, a loose tooth just can't compete with the miracle of life. Welcome to the world, Taylor Alexa! By the time you see your cousin, she'll be missing at least one tooth.

Perhaps at some point in the next year, between Taylor getting her teeth and Katrina losing hers, they will have a matching number of teeth and gaps. Get your cameras ready!