Lily Is Here!

Yesterday my beautiful daughter Lily Pearl was born via caesarean at 11:47 am. Oddly enough, I was born one day following (today!) at 8:47 am, also via caesarean! Happy birthday to us and everyone else in June!

We are so excited to welcome her to our family! However, we will have to wait a little while to take her home as she was born with a saccrococcygeal teratoma which looks like it will require surgery to remove. She's in the NICU for now, and is sedated so that she doesn't hurt herself by flailing too much - apparently she makes very vigorous movements otherwise!

I am sad that I can't hold her or nurse her yet, but am thankful for the technology that is available to help and most of all for the God who has brought her this far and will see her (and us) through the rest of this process. Pumping is going well so far - it's weird to see the small amounts of colostrum in the bottle, but every little bit will help! I was just surprised I was able to get any so soon - another example of God's excellent handiwork! The human body is truly amazing.

Well, I should probably go back to sleep for a while. All of the strange noises (leg cuffs, etc.) aren't really helping, but I need to rest and recover quickly! :) I've already been able to walk around some, which is crazy to me as I remember how it took me 24 hours to do that last time! Again, God at work, and the strong motivation of getting to go see our daughter!

Looking forward to posting some good news soon. Until then please keep Lily in prayer, and may you and yours be blessed!

Last Day

Well, I was going to write a post but I find myself pressed for time as I am going out to lunch with work friends on my last "official" day of work! Feels weird not to have a job anymore but I know this is a good change. 4 weeks to go until baby Lily is here and I sure won't be thinking about work anymore at that point! So TTFN!

Selling Stuff

Has anyone else tried selling stuff to increase their household income? Like, selling random items on eBay, or going a bit farther and becoming a drop-shipper?

I'm looking into drop shipping and was wondering if anyone else has had experience with it.

Long Post

Well, apparently I haven't updated this blog since January, so this post may be a bit long!

Joseph continues to grow and surprise us with his development. He's now 18 months, totally cute, and full of fun and activity! He's started singing the abc's and saying hi a lot. Looking forward to some more words soon. :) We went to the park today and had a lot of fun on the swings. It's close to 80 today which is very rare for Rochester in March! A nice break from the normal spring weather, and if it stays this warm through the summer I will be happy (although my pregnancy ankles might not be!).

We are still using cloth diapers, although today was one of the days I sometimes have when I don't like them as much. (3 messy poops... thankfully no leakages and my husband changed 2 of them... but still... gross!!!!) I am very thankful for the nose plug my husband got me when I was in the first trimester. Still using it!

I am home from work now, which has been rather weird. I was very used to the one day a week schedule, and kind of miss having a "job" besides being a mom. I am doing some consulting work on the side, but that hasn't been as regular so it's not a guarantee of something to do each week. I've been thinking about what I 'want' to do with all of my "free" time and have decided to focus more on being a better homemaker. Starting this week by getting out some books on organization (I'm pretty organized, but one can always improve!), parenting, and cooking (specifically, Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month).

I'm also working through the faith challenge of waiting and watching for our daughter's healing. I'm almost 28 weeks along (which reminds me... time to do the glucose test. blegh.) and am having a bit of a break from the near constant ultrasounds and OB visits (two more weeks with no visits! hooray!). I know I didn't go into too much detail on my last post, but basically what the doctors are telling us is that she has a pelvic cyst (saccrococcygeal teratoma, to be precise) that they think will be causing problems for her. Overall, they are saying that a) she will need surgery after birth, perhaps even immediately and b) that she may have a variety of problems, ranging from club feet to lack of use of her legs to lack of a working colon/rectum (depending on what the teratoma has been pressing up against).

Whew.

So anyway, we've been praying and believing that she is going to be just fine, regardless of if she needs surgery or not. (I however am really really wanting it to be not.) I think this situation has been harder for me than other things in the past because a) it's my baby girl! and b) there is absolutely NOTHING I can do to fix it. What I can do is: 1) Pray. 2) Have faith. 3) Read and listen to the Scriptures over and over. 4) Ask others to pray and believe with us. This is as much a reminder for me as it is a request for prayer. :) (And for patience with me as I'm sure more posts about this will be forthcoming.)

Right now it feels like I'm on a bit of a roller coaster. I have "good days" where I am able to speak in faith and feel positive, but those tend to be followed by "bad days" where I feel stressed, depressed, and would like to do nothing more than curl up on the couch, eat ice cream, and watch shows on Hulu until my eyeballs fall out. (The 18-month old tends to prevent that however. :) I like having definite projects to work on because it helps to distract me from thinking through all of the "what ifs" (I am a planner, so I try to plan for every possible scenario so I can deal with it better), but I am trying to avoid doing that because I know its not really going to help me in the long run.

I also have been avoiding talking about this with anyone but close friends/family, but lately it feels like if I don't have somewhere to write about this that I may just explode. So here we are!

Well, I've tired myself out with writing, so it's time for that whole ice cream/couch scenario I described before. Thanks for listening. :)

Grace for This Day

Ever have a day when it feels like you can't take it if there is anything else to do? Too many things going on at once, and if one more thing comes along it's going to overthrow the entire pile?

Welcome to my life lately! We have a lot going on, with Joe's job, my transition from being part-time one day a week to starting my night-time training/teaching job that will be one-two nights a week, a growing boy who gets into everything, a part-time consultant gig for a gas and energy company, and being the property managers/paperwork fiends for our real estate investment LLC that is adding a new property/tenant right now. Oh, yeah and we are also refinancing our home! Craziness! And Joe's car has been unusable for a week! No wheels! Bummer! :P

So what's the one more thing? Well, yesterday we found out that baby #2 is going to be a girl! :) Yay! However, we also found out that I will be transferred to the high-risk OB group because of placenta previa and some other concerns, which means lots more appointments than a normal pregnancy. Not cool! I was hoping to see the midwives (my first, and last, appointment with them was yesterday) and to have a VBAC awesome natural delivery. Instead, I now will likely have a planned C-section. :(

I guess the first human response is always "Why me?" But then really it should be about "OK, Lord, now what are You going to do with this/in this situation?" I'm sure He has good things in store, even if we can't see it right now.

So we will take it day by day, seeking the Lord and relishing the grace to make it through each day. And if you read this blog and are a believer, please pray for us and for our little girl that all would go well in pregnancy and beyond!

First haircut!

That's right folks, the curls are gone! (Still missing them... the new 'do makes him look so much older!)

Before

 

After

In other news: I have my first midwife appointment this week. I'm looking forward to it, but am somewhat nervous  because I am 20 weeks along and here I am seeing someone new! I finally decided to make the switch after reading as much as I could about VBAC and birth in general. I really enjoyed the book Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. The whole second section of the book talks about what the body goes through during labor and birth, as well as the effects of C-sections and the reasons why (in most cases) they probably wouldn't be necessary if the medical community embraced birth as a natural process that shouldn't be hurried or forced. I wish I had read this before my first birth, but am looking forward to putting this new mindset into practice this time around! And I look forward to having support for my choice to try for VBAC! :)

Anticipation

What am I anticipating? Let's see... could it be baby #2???

Yup! Joseph will have a sibling next year!

I'm due June 13, 2012, and am hoping to have baby sometime around the 9th (my birthday!). Every time I go in the doctor keeps asking me if I want to have another (this time planned) c-section. I'm thinking NOPE. So we will see.

Now if I could only get through the rest of the first trimester with my tummy and nose calmed down. This morning the smell in the kitchen (from Joe's cooking last night) made me upchuck the few crackers I had eaten. Great start to the morning. Thankfully Pop Tarts are easy to heat up. ;)

It's very frustrating to not know what is going to set off the super-sniffer. However, at least the baby is healthy (saw the heart beating on the ultrasound! so amazing.) and things are going along okay... I just want to sleep all the time and can't cook for myself. Lately even feeding Joseph his food has been iffy. Thankfully I have a wonderful husband who takes good care of both of us and rolls with the punches as I gag my way through the day.

P.S. I'm thinking it's a girl... any predictions?