I think I’ve said it recently, but in case I haven’t: For as challenging as age two can be, it is also so freaking awesome. Nora is SO cute and SO funny. I absolutely love listening to the things that come out of her mouth at any given moment. It is incredible to me when I think about how, last year at this time, we were getting ready to call Early Intervention to have her evaluated for a speech delay. She had so few words, and now, I can’t believe some of the things that she says. She may still very well be a little bit behind what is “normal” for a two-and-a-half-year-old, but I do not for one second think that there’s anything wrong with her.
Anyway, I wanted to blog a little collection of recent quotes from our darling Nora Grace.
At the end of bedtime prayers every night, we say, “Amen.” She smiles and says, “NO, Mama! THE END! The End, Mickey Mouse!” (I have no idea where she got it from. She said it one time and we laughed hysterically so of course, now it’s a thing.)
She suddenly has a big interest in knowing random kids’ and pets’ names. We passed a father with two or three little girls in Lowe’s. “Names?” she asked. We saw a dog in the parking lot at a garden store. “Name, Daddy?” (What are their names? What is his name?) She’s a goof. She even asks about random kids in picture books. Some times I actually make up fake names just to placate her. :)
Often we’ll be in the car and we’ll pass an area with water and she’ll start talking to me about ducks. I’ll say, “What are the ducks doing, Nora?” And she’ll say, “Ducks’ house.” And then, “Eating mac and cheese!” (So random, I love it.) One day she said, “Mommy, else ducks eat?” (What else do ducks eat?) Just last week I said, “Do you think the ducks have babies?” And she said, “No, BIG GIRLS!”
Last week I forgot my cell phone at home one morning. When I realized it, we were halfway to daycare. I said out loud, “Oh no, I forgot my phone at home!” From the back seat, I heard the following advice: “Acks Daddy help get phone back.” (Ask Daddy to help you get your phone back.) Brilliant, child. BRILLIANT! :)
She was eating some pineapple for dessert one night. As she speared the final piece in her bowl with her fork, she looked up randomly at us with a big smile on her face and said, in a high-pitched sing-song voice, “Laaaast piece!” We immediately bust out laughing. How could you not?
This morning at breakfast we were discussing birds. I said, “Nora, what do birds eat?” She didn’t answer right away, so I said, “Do birds eat worms?” Without missing a beat, she replied, “Nooooo, Mommy! Birds no eat worms. Too yucky!”
Last week I was getting her out of her chair after dinner when she started waving at my tummy. “Hi Baby!” she said. Then she patted both of her hands on my belly and said, “Mommy, drums!” And then she leaned in and gave my stomach kisses. I DIE.
Tonight she suddenly started telling us that she has a baby in HER tummy. Now every time I ask about the baby in mine, she says, “No, my baby, in my tummy!” Okaaaaay. So cute!
I hope you got a laugh or two from these funny little Nora-isms. Only out of the mouths of babes, right? Maybe I’ll try to type up these small collections of quotes on a more regular basis!
It may have been cold and windy today, but it was still a celebration. After all, in our neck of the woods, we’ve actually seen SNOW on Mother’s Day, so cold is par for the course.
We went to my mom’s this morning for a family Mother’s Day breakfast, which was nice. The boys cooked and us moms just hung out. It’s always nice to celebrate my mom because she’s a pretty awesome one, if I may say so. And of course the fun has just multiplied now that ALL of us kids have become parents ourselves, and given our mom grandchildren to spoil.
Nora had fun playing with Hunter—who we found out this morning is expecting a baby SISTER in October (hooray for Nora’s first girl cousin!). These two are hysterical to watch and listen to together.
Pancakes, hash browns, cinnamon rolls, strawberries, and fun while we all dreamed about what the scene will look like next year with two more little ones in our company. It is crazy to think about.
After a few hours at my mom’s, we went home and did a little work on the bathroom while Nora played nearby. Working on a home improvement project doesn’t seem like much of a way to celebrate Mother’s Day, but when you consider that I have had some serious nesting instincts kicking in lately, there was no other way I would’ve rather spent that time. In the grand scheme of things, anyway. Because sure, it would’ve been nice to relax or do something really fun, but the whole time, I would’ve been thinking about how I wanted to make progress on that bathroom.
Nesting is annoying.
We soon put Nora down for a nap and did a little more work on the bathroom before I had a chance to lie down for a little while and put my feet up. Soon Nora was awake again and we ran to my in-laws’ for a bit to wish my mother-in-law Happy Mother’s Day, too.
We were planning to make dinner—well, Michael was going to make it for me—but the day got away from us and it was getting late. So we ultimately decided to give BOTH of us a break and just get takeout Chinese food from my favorite local joint. And it’s funny, because I just went back to last year’s Mother’s Day post and realized we ALSO had takeout Chinese food for dinner last year (but with my entire family). Well, now. I guess it is becoming tradition! :)
We then shared a miniature “Mom” cookie cake for dessert, which was amazing because I love cookie cake like no other. And I didn’t have to make anything in the kitchen all day, which is always a treat.
All the while, I got to enjoy laughs and hugs and kisses with my sweet little girl—who would be correcting me with “BIG GIRL!” right about now. It’s our last Mother’s Day with just her, and I’ve been finding lately that a lot of these “lasts” are making me a little sad. Of course I am looking forward to welcoming another little one into our family but we’ve sure had a great ride with our firstborn over the last 2.5 years.
A few nights ago, I was putting Nora to bed and told her, “Move over, make room for Mama.” She responded, “Nooo, name MOMMY!” (No, your name is Mommy!) That gave me a good laugh. What a goofball I have. And the truth is, I don’t care what variation of “Mom” she calls me—all of it is music to my ears. Because there’s nothing I love more than being her mommy.
Happy Mother’s Day. I hope everyone enjoyed the day, no matter your motherhood “status.”
Can I get a “woot woot” for third tri?
As quickly as this pregnancy seems to have gone so far, I also feel like I have already been pregnant FOR-EV-ER. I mean, when you think about it—Thanksgiving was a long-ass time ago. So much has happened since then. And I’ve been pregnant the whole time. THE WHOLE TIME! (Random, but I’m channeling Sally Field at the end of Mrs. Doubtfire there. Annnd I’m sure no one knows what the heck I’m talking about, so nevermind.)
I’ve been getting a lot of comments on my belly this past week or two. A lot of “You REALLY look pregnant now” remarks at work. And dude… I do. Earlier this week I was swearing up and down that I’m the same size now that I was when I was nine months pregnant with Nora. I just feel huge. But then I looked back at photos, and um, no. I look like I’m roughly the same size now as I was at this stage of pregnancy with Nora. And looking at full-term pics of my first pregnancy, I now see that unfortunately for me, I still have a lot of growing left to do. It’s amazing how quickly you forget these things. :)
Side note: I had my hair cut this week. She chopped off several inches and now it feels so much lighter and healthier for summer. Ahhhhhh.
We’ve had really beautiful weather here the last 10-14 days, and as a result, I was able to wear a lot of my old maternity clothes from my pregnancy with Nora. It felt really nice to bust out some “new” stuff, especially SKIRTS! They’re so much more comfortable than my everyday work pants. Oh, and all that stuff I ordered last week? Yeah, pretty much every piece of it needs to go back—or at least be exchanged for a different size. SO.ANNOYING. I wish stores like Old Navy and Gap would carry more maternity stuff in store, because this online ordering stuff is a pain.
I have to go into the lab tomorrow morning for my glucose test. No big deal, aside from the fact that I have to drink that super sweet stuff. Normally I wouldn’t be that worried about it (hey, I got through it OK the first time!) but ever since I was in the hospital for my appendix, I haven’t even really been able to stomach 100% juice, let alone this high-fructose-filled crap. Juice just tastes overly sweet right now… and I blame the “clears” diet I was on for a few days while in the hospital. Blech.
I’ve started to try to pull together a list of things we need for the baby. Not a lot, obviously, since we have so much we can reuse from Nora, but there are some things we want to buy new (crib sheets, bottles, pacifiers, etc.) and some things that we need (a second baby monitor camera). We’re making good progress on the kids’/guest bathroom—hoping to wrap it up this weekend, in fact—so starting next week, I really need to start wrapping my head around plans for the nursery. I still have no idea what we’re going to do in there. I suppose I should start by finding some bedding. With Nora, my mom and I made it all, but this time, instead of reusing it or making something new, I kind of just want to find something affordable and buy it. Easy peasy. But cute gender-neutral bedding has been a little rough to come by. I’m on the hunt!
Today would’ve been a due date. An estimate of when we could’ve expected the arrival of our second child.
I’ve been meaning to write this post since I first mentioned the loss of a pregnancy way back in January, right after we announced my current pregnancy on this blog. But it’s not a post that I ever felt particularly motivated to write. And then last week, I was thinking about it some more, and I realized how close we were to the date. So it only seemed fitting for today to be the day.
I had a miscarriage. It’s not unique. In fact, 1 in 4 women will experience a miscarriage at some point in their lives. And, of course, there are women who experience more than one.
Here’s the thing about my miscarriage: No one needs to be sad about it. I actually feel a little uncomfortable when people tell me that they’re sorry or offer sympathies. Why? Well, because to be absolutely honest, my miscarriage really didn’t cause me any heartbreak. I never shed a tear.
There are reasons for this, which I’ll explain. But I just want you all to know that you don’t need to be sorry for me. Out of those 1 in 4 women, I consider myself to be one of the extremely lucky ones. Again, why?
Because I didn’t even know I was pregnant until it was over.
Rewind to last August. We decided it might be time to try to expand our family. I didn’t know what to expect, given my past struggles trying to get pregnant with Nora. But my period seemed to return to normal (meaning regular) after I started weaning Nora at around 12 months old, so I was cautiously optimistic. We threw caution to the wind, so to speak, but I didn’t truly believe that we would ever get pregnant on the first try. So I was relaxed about it. So relaxed, in fact, that I didn’t pay much attention to my body.
I did take one test. But it was early, and it was negative. A couple of days later, I started spotting, and I figured it was over. At this same time, we were in the middle of a hellish project at our house—the kitchen/entryway floor remodel. We were busting our asses, and then we went through enormous stress and a battle with our original contractor, who—instead of opting to do the job correctly—ultimately decided to walk off of the job. It was so stressful and upsetting, in fact, that I never even wrote about it here. If you know me at all, you know how amazing that is, given that when I’m stressed like that, one of the first things I want to do is vent. But this was so bad, that I didn’t even want to relive it long enough to write about it.
Then, just as we resolved the floor issue—my cousin’s husband came to the rescue and got it done for us—we suddenly and unexpectedly lost Michael’s beloved grandfather. That next week, among calling hours and an incredibly moving funeral, my 10+ days of spotting finally gave way to what I believed to be a normal period, although heavier (and longer) than normal.
You can maybe see why I was not aware that something weird was going on? I had just a few distractions.
But once things started calming down after Poppy’s services, I started to really look at dates, and think about what had been going on. Things didn’t seem normal to begin with, and then, after a heavy/long period, I had four days off from it all when suddenly I started spotting again. At that point, I was definitely wondering, what the hell?
I called my doctor and they wanted me to come in. I made an appointment, and in the meantime I began to wonder. The possibility did occur to me—I remember mentioning to Michael one day when we were getting out of the car, “I’m worried that I might’ve had a miscarriage.”
I went into the doctor’s office the next week, and as part of the standard urine screen, they ran a pregnancy test. The nurse practitioner came in and handed me the little plastic cartridge, which showed a very faint second line. “Congratulations,” she said.
Uhhhh… what?
I remember laughing. Just because it was so completely not what I expected to see. And it was my way of dealing with the tension. But I also knew, deep down inside, that this was not right. I told the nurse practitioner as much. I even asked, “Could this positive be the result of residual hormones left in my system after a miscarriage?” She said there was no way to tell beyond running a beta blood test.
Long story short? Beta #1 was a measly 23. For me, that was confirmation enough that things had gone down exactly as I figured they had. I got pregnant back in August, right after deciding we’d give this second baby thing a go. And at around 5-6 weeks, in the beginning of September, I’d had an early miscarriage. Of course, they had me do a second beta draw anyway, and the number then was 9. Official confirmation.
I had a lot of feelings of disbelief. I’d had a miscarriage. It didn’t seem real.
A day or two after the second beta draw, I began to bleed heavily again. I assume it was because my HCG levels had finally dropped to zero. This time was different—I was more crampy, more uncomfortable, and it was not at all like a normal period. A real miscarriage, I think. It was my body, finally getting rid of everything it needed to.
That lasted all of a few days, and then things were truly over in early October. And I was lucky in that things got right back on track, because as you all know now, I managed to get pregnant again in November.
Lucky, lucky, lucky.
Through the whole thing, once I knew what was going on, I really didn’t feel much but gratefulness. I was just so glad that I had been distracted. I was glad I hadn’t ever taken a pregnancy test and gotten a positive. I was relieved that I had never had the chance to be excited, or to worry.
Still, I sometimes think about the one we lost. Or rather, the one who wasn’t meant to be.
Whenever someone announced a pregnancy due in May, I thought about how I could’ve been right there with them. My cousin and one of my friends from college both just had babies, and even now, I’ve thought about how that could’ve been me.
Today, I could be on maternity leave, with a tiny baby in my arms. Instead, I still carry a baby with me, one whom I am feeling move within my middle… one whom I have not yet come to know. But that’s OK, because I still know…
I am one of the lucky ones.
I feel like I missed out on a good chunk of the “dream trimester.” Now that I’m rounding my way into the third trimester, things are just not feeling as good as they used to. I have periodic aches and pains, discomfort, stitches in my sides, etc. Seems like every day, something hurts. I told my doctor that I wasn’t sure what to label “pregnancy” and what to label “surgery aftermath.” I don’t think I’ll ever be able to draw a line between the two.
This poor baby. He or she is going to read back on my pregnancy “journal” and read all about my misery. Sorry, kid.
My biggest challenge right now is maybe energy. Or, rather, patience. I find myself more easily aggravated with Nora these days. I would maybe call that a product of her age—two-and-a-half can be challenging, you know—but I think it’s me. My discomfort and general feeling of, “Ughhh, I don’t have the energy to fight you!” mean that I snap sooner than I used to. When she’s being good and listening? Love. When she’s not? I just want to walk away and go lie down on the couch.
The energy thing is improving, though. But I wonder how much more improvement I’ll see before late pregnancy kicks in and things decline again. So for now, I’m enjoying the bursts of energy and motivation as they come—even if I pay for them later. Last weekend, I got started on a (relatively) minor facelift in the kids’/guest bathroom. I made a pretty decent amount of progress just during Nora’s naptime… and then I felt like I had been hit by a truck the rest of the day.
I had another doctor’s appointment today and everything looked good. She measured my belly for the first time, and it was on track. I’m 26 weeks, 2 days, and I measured at 25.5 cm. I gained 2-3 lbs. in the last couple of weeks, which is good since I had lost some from my surgery and recovery. Heartbeat sounded good.
We talked about my travel plans for the summer (nothing crazy, just a few long weekends away within driving distance), and she gave me her blessing as long as they were before 36 weeks. Which they are.
I ordered a bunch of maternity clothes this week, and unearthed the rest of my stash from the basement now that the weather has finally been warm enough to wear some of them. I had more than I remembered—some dresses and tops that I forgot about—but I still need a few more things to get me through, so here’s hoping that some of the stuff I ordered actually fits and looks nice.
I’m starting to feel some pressure with the baby name situation. We are pretty sure about a boys’ name (might use the one we had picked out for last time!), and have a handful of girls’ names that we like. The problem with the girls’ names is that I haven’t fallen in love with any of them like I did with the name Nora. I keep waiting for one of them to grow on me in that same way, or to hear a new name somewhere that just clicks as “the one.” Naming a second baby is also harder because we have the added factor of, “How does it sound when you say it with Nora? Does it go with Nora?” Since my ultrasound in the hospital, I’ve been leaning toward feeling like this baby is a boy—no real reason other than that was the feeling I got when looking at him/her on the screen—so part of me has been thinking, “We probably don’t even really need a girl name.” But what if we do?!
I had the cutest conversation with Nora last night during bedtime prayers. We were going through, blessing my brother’s family, and I said, “God bless the baby in Aunt Kara’s tummy.” Nora said, “Nooooo… Aunt Ree’s tummy.” (Aunt Marie. My other brother’s wife.) I explained to her that no, Aunt Marie wasn’t having a baby, but Aunt Kara is, just like Mommy. I told her that Hunter was going to have a baby brother or sister, just like she’s going to have. She said, “No, Mommy, Hunter BIG BOY.” Any time we mention babies she always thinks we’re trying to talk about her, and corrects us that she’s a big girl. The same went for Hunter, I guess. :) I finally explained it to her by telling her that she is going to be a BIG sister, and Hunter is going to be a BIG brother. She eventually smiled and conceded with, “Ohhhh.”
I still wonder how that’s going to go. Even 26 weeks in, it’s hard to imagine someone new in our little family.
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
