Retrospective 2013

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I’m shamelessly stealing this survey from Erin over at It’s All Happening to look back on our 2013. Except I skipped a lot of questions because they either seemed irrelevant to me, or like the answers would be too boring. Hopefully the ones I kept are at last semi-entertaining. :)

Here goes nothing…

1. What did you do in 2013 that you had never done before? Spent time in the hospital for something OTHER than giving birth. Eight days, to be exact. This is something that I definitely don’t want to repeat in 2014… or ever.

2. Did anyone close to you have a child? ME! I had Vivienne on August 2. My brother and sister-in-law had my first niece, Sadie, on October 19. My cousin had a baby boy, Wyatt, in April. We also had a few good friends who had babies as well—Logan in February, Amelia in May, Hattie in November. I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting, but it was definitely a good year for babies around here.

3. Did anyone close to you die? No, no one close to us. SO THANKFUL. We had a few friends who had pretty significant losses, though. One of our friends suddenly and tragically lost her brother. Another friend from college lost her newborn son. I’ve shared their heartbreak. :(

(January)

4. Where did you travel? We went to California—San Diego, Disneyland, and Los Angeles—at the end of January. It was nice to be at the beach (Nora loved it!) and to take Nora to Disney for the first time. I actually teared up a little bit when we were waiting in line to enter the park (pregnancy hormones?). I thought it was really special. And she had a great time. For Memorial Day weekend, we did our traditional trip to the Poconos with my family to visit lifelong family friends. Then, in September, we went back down to the Poconos for a wedding! It was a relatively low-key travel year for us, what with my pregnancy and all.

5. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013? I can’t really think of anything that I feel like was missing from my life in 2013.

(February)

6. What dates from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory? April 5—diagnosed with appendicitis, which was such a nightmare. April 15—Boston Marathon bombing, a horrific day for America, and particularly memorable for me since I was at home recovering from my appendicitis and watched so much of the coverage. August 2—Vivienne’s birth. August 6—my due date. September 14—Nina and James’s wedding. October 28—returned to work after maternity leave.

7. What was your biggest achievement of the year? By far my biggest achievement was carrying and delivering a healthy baby girl for the second time. The birth itself felt like a big achievement for me because I felt so in control this time around. I chose to do it without any drugs, and succeeded in “achieving” what was basically my dream birth. The whole experience was tremendously empowering and I hope that I always look back on that day as fondly as I do right now. Professionally, I was also promoted this year, and have gained confidence in myself as a professional that I’ve been working toward for years.

(March)

8. What was your biggest failure? It’s very possible that I’m forgetting other failures, but the one that sticks out in my mind the most is that I missed the birth of my niece, Sadie. I never really blogged about it because it was such a sensitive subject for weeks afterward. I was (once again) invited to be in the delivery room in order to take photos. Kara and Trevor had me in the delivery room when Hunter was born, and Tyler and Marie had me in the delivery room with Bryce, too. It’s been such an honor to be part of all of that, and I was looking forward to it with Sadie, too. When Kara was induced on a Saturday morning, I waited around and finally headed up to the hospital around 3 p.m., not knowing her progress because they weren’t checking her (they had broken her water and didn’t want to check any more often than they had to in order to avoid risk of infection). After a few hours, they checked Kara and she was only 2 cm—exactly what she had been when she had been admitted to the hospital 12 hours earlier. It sounded as though it was going to be a long haul, and after a quick discussion with my brother, I made the decision to leave, to go home for a while since I had Vivienne (who was only 10 weeks old) at home, and Michael was hosting the entire rest of my family all by himself. My brother told me I should go home for a while, and given all of the circumstances, I agreed. The hospital is about 20 minutes away from our house, and I was home no longer than five minutes when I got a frantic call from Trevor that Kara was suddenly 9.5 cm and was beginning to push. I dropped everything to rush back to the hospital, but of course, I was too late. I walked into the hospital room and when I saw the baby, I just cried because I was so pissed off at myself. Of course, the most important thing was that she was here and she was healthy, but I had a hard time forgiving myself for leaving the hospital and missing out on the privilege that I had been given. I honestly don’t know that I’ll ever really FULLY get over it.

9. Did you suffer illness or injury? YES, unfortunately. I had acute appendicitis at 22 weeks pregnant and required emergency surgery after the appendix burst before they could get it out. I was in the hospital for 8 days, and out of work for 2.5 weeks. It was AWFUL. So awful.

(April)

10. What was the best thing you bought? Hmm. There are no huge purchases coming to mind for 2013. I guess my iPhone 5S? Not anything outrageous, but it’s a daily fixture in my life and helps me capture moments of my life and keep in touch with those I love. A fun purchase, for sure.

11. Where did most of your money go? Oh God, I don’t even know. A few things that come to mind—our vacation to California in January; the kids’/guest bathroom makeover we did in April/May; preparation for Vivienne/baby supplies; my maternity leave; and CHRISTMAS PRESENTS! :)

(May)

12. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Expecting our second baby. Duh. :)

13. What song will always remind you of 2013? Probably the ones that have been Nora’s favorites—Katy Perry’s “Firework” and “Roar,” and Lorde’s “Royals.” But some others I’ve loved are “Demons” by Imagine Dragon, “Wake Me Up” by Avicii, “Stay” by Rihanna, “Mirrors” by Justin Timberlake, “Brave” by Sara Bareilles, “Daylight” by Maroon 5, and “Just Give Me a Reason,” by P!nk. What can I say? I listen to a lot of pop radio!

(June)

14. Compared to this time last year, are you A) happier or sadder? B) thinner or fatter?  C) richer or poorer? A) Happier, because last year at this time, I was still miserably in the first trimester of pregnancy and was wishing away the days and weeks so that I’d get to a time when I would finally FEEL BETTER! B) Thinner, since, you know, I’m not pregnant anymore. And I finally saw a pre-pregnancy weight on the scale the week before Christmas, so woot woot! C) I would say richer, since both Michael and I got promotions and/or salary raises this year, except that now we’re paying for two in daycare, so… I think it probably evens out, for the most part.

(July)

15. What do you wish you’d done more of? I wish I would have taken more photos and more video. I never feel like I’ve taken enough, and I sometimes am overcome with this sense of dread, that some day in the future I’m going to be so regretful that I did not record EVERYTHING. I mean, I know it’s impossible to do so, but I often times feel like my children are just slipping through my fingers. Where do the days, weeks, months go? Nora is so different from month to month. Vivienne has already grown so much. GAH.

Aside from that, it obviously would’ve been nice to travel more, but it wasn’t very practical this year. I also wish Michael and I would’ve been able to spend more one-on-one time together out on dates and such, but being pregnant and stuff, it was tough. We’ve resolved to change that in 2014!

I wish I had done more exercise.

I also wish I had blogged more often, but hey, I’ve got priorities and sometimes this blog does fall to the wayside.

(August)

16. What do you wish you’d done less of? Am I allowed to say working? Haha! I know it’s a fact of life, but man, it would be nice to work less. And hell, I had a 12-week maternity leave in there, so I worked less this year than I do most years, you know? I guess I also wish I had done less worrying. Less complaining.

17. Did you fall in love in 2013? Yes. I fell completely, head-over-heels in love with my new daughter, Vivienne. I cannot imagine life without her.

(September)

18. What was your favorite TV program? Breaking Bad. Hands down. We binge-watched it on Netflix over the course of four weeks or so in September and October. There wasn’t anything else I watched this year that was really worth watching.

19. What was the best book you read? Um, holy shit. I don’t know if I read a single book this year. That’s terrible, and embarrassing. I know I started one on our vacation in California and got about halfway through it. But it was about a man having an affair and it was a love story so it was supposedly justified. I just couldn’t get past it (it was disturbing!) and stopped reading. I’ve read lots and lots of children’s books with Nora, though. :) The favorite of the year was definitely “The New Baby” by Mercer Mayer. We read it SO MANY TIMES—every night—in the months leading up to and weeks following Vivienne’s birth.

(October)

20. What was your greatest musical discovery? Well, I don’t really get hooked on particular artists in this day and age of digital music. I can’t tell you the last time I actually purchased an entire album. But if we’re talking about a new artist that I’ve become relatively familiar with and like a lot… I guess it would have to be Imagine Dragons.

21. What did you want and get? iPhone 5S. New clothes after the baby was born (so nice to go shopping again!). A beautiful right-hand ring from Michael and my girls.

22. What did you want and not get? New DSLR camera, but it’s something we’ve been talking about and planning for, and this year just wasn’t the right time for it. But I hope that’s coming soon in 2014. Also want a new car, but again, it just hasn’t been the right time yet. In both of these cases, these things aren’t something that I NEED yet, so they weren’t high priority in a year when we were expecting a baby and all.

(November)

23. What was your favorite film of the year? I think we only saw one movie in the theater all year, and that was Planes on Nora’s birthday—which I didn’t care for much at all, and most certainly wouldn’t be labeled my favorite! I’m trying to think of what else we saw at home that I enjoyed. Nothing is really coming immediately to mind. I really liked Pitch Perfect (and just got it for Christmas, yay!) but that’s more of a mindless, fun flick than anything else. We also watched End of Watch when we were in California and I thought it was well done, but deeply sad… in a way that sticks with you for a while after you watch it. But overall, no real “winners” this year.

24. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? It was a Friday, on maternity leave, so I stayed home and snuggled my 2-week-old baby all day long. When Michael was done with work, we all went out to dinner and my family joined us. We came home and had cookie cake. It was low key and just what I wanted/needed at the time.

(December)

25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013. Nothing is guaranteed. Everything you think you know can change in the blink of an eye.

When we had our anatomy scan with Vivienne, we were alerted to a potential problem with her heart. We had to go to the hospital to get a fetal echocardiogram done on her heart, only to find out that—thank God—all was okay. But between the time we were told there could be a problem and the time we found out everything was fine, we faced the possibility that our baby’s life may not be what we pictured. And then, just a few weeks later, I had appendicitis and before I went into the emergency surgery, we were told that there were risks to the baby and it may not survive. It was a scary, scary time. And now, looking at Vivienne, it is amazing to think about how it was her all along. On the fetal echocardiogram. On the doppler before, and countless times after, surgery. Thump, thump, thump. She was a fighter, and so was I.

I saw major, major changes at work this year. My entire team, whom I loved and considered great friends—even “family”—all left within weeks or short months of each other. It used to be a joy to go to work every day, and now things are different. I still work with some great people, but I still miss those who left. And not only that, but my life has changed in that I am now a working mother of two kids. It’s been hard all around. Honestly, I’m still adjusting.

But life goes on.