Thank You For Making Baking For Kate a Huge Success!

The first Baking For Kate Online Bake Sale was a fabulous success!! :)  A total of $870 was raised through the bake sale alone and sent to Kate's Paypal account set up just for helping fund her Mommy Bucket List!  It was just shy of the $1000 goal I had hoped the bake sale would meet by the end of the weekend.  

I want to give a HUGE thank you to all of you who made it to the bake sale and bid on all the goodies! :)

And I also want to thank all of the lovely and giving bloggers who donated signed cookbooks, kitchen goodies, baked yummies, & baking inspired items for the bake sale...

~Lori from RecipeGirl~

~Kelly from Star Blossoms~

~Jaime from Mom's Test Kitchen~

~Camille (and the rest of the sisters!) from Six Sisters' Stuff~

~Stephanie from Life Tastes Like Food~

~Julie from This Gal Cooks~

~Dorothy from Crazy For Crust~

~Sarah from Fantastical Sharing of Recipes~

~Meg from Sweet Twist of Blogging~

~Julie from White Lights on Wednesday~

~Lisa from Wine & Glue~

~Lyuba from Will Cook for Smiles~

~Rachel from My Disorganized Life!~ 

~Marisa from Food In Jars~

~Heather from SprinkleBakes~

~Raquel from Organized Island~

~Amy from Rational Designs~

~Martha from A Family Feast~

~Teri from The Freshman Cook~

If you haven't done so already, go check out these lovely bloggers and give them a follow on one of their social media outlets to say thank you! :)

The Baking For Kate Online Bake Sale was such a wonderful success that it is my hope to hold another one of these in the fall.  

I am also considering holding a Handmade Online Rummage Sale near the beginning of December to also benefit Kate's Mommy Bucket List.  I have had several small shop owners who make handmade goodies (not necessarily baking or cooking inspired) contact me about wanting to get involved.  The Rummage Sale would be a way to bring in those of you with non-food talents into the fundraising fold and would help bidders get a jump start on their holiday gift shopping while also helping a good cause. :)

If you are interested in donating an item(s) for either the bake sale or rummage sale (or both!), please be sure to fill out the Donation Interest Form. 

**Please note, I will be limiting bake sale/rummage sale items to 25 for each event to keep the events manageable.  I will try to include everyone who would like to donate, but completing the form is not a guarantee that your donation will be accepted.  

If you were unable to participate in the bake sale (or were outbid on your favorites), you can still help Kate and her family! 

You can make a direct monetary donation to Kate and her family via Paypal (please send as a gift to Friends/Family) to CrawfordsRockingCancer@gmail.com 

Or via check or money order to:
The Crawford Family Benefit Fund
First National Bank
4627 Rt 51 Suite 601
Belle Vernon PA 15012

My friend Lisa from Hummingbird's View is selling her Feed Them With Love print for $5 as a digital download.  100% of the proceeds from the sale of this will go to Kate's Mommy Bucket List fund.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE

Again thanks so much to each and every one of you who made Baking For Kate possible! :) 

I am Now Blogging for Hope

A couple of weeks ago I was asked by my good blogging buddy and online friend Suzy from Simply Suzy (formerly Not a Fertile Myrtle) to become a new contributing author for Bloggers for Hope.  Bloggers for Hope's sole purpose is to reach out to others who are experiencing infertility by telling our own stories of our infertility journeys and by providing resources and support.  You will find me over there about once a month as their miscarriage and loss contributor.  

If you are experiencing or have experienced the loss, heartache, frustration, pain of infertility, know that you are not alone.  Bloggers for Hope has several contributing and guest bloggers from all facets of infertility sharing their stories, spreading their hope.  I wholeheartedly encourage any of my current readers who are in the throes of infertility, who have experienced the loss of a pregnancy, or who may be on the adoption journey to click on the button above and follow along.  Our stories are your stories...

Click on over to Bloggers for Hope and check out my intro post to learn about my infertility story.

2011- My Perfect Whirlwind

Some would look at my life the past year and call it a whirlwind.  A whirlwind of love, hope, change, loss, tears, anticipation, and new beginnings.  From the outside looking in, I guess I would also use the word whirlwind to describe 2011 for me.  But from where I sit, everything happened just as it should.  Just as it was meant to be.  It all seemed to happen at just the right pace, at just the right time.  

New Year's Eve 2010- Yes, those are Buddhas.

I rang in 2011 with my soon-to-be husband.  We had just moved into together after just a few short months of dating, but those few months felt like years.  I never questioned my move to be with him.  I never wondered if it was all happening too soon.  I just knew it felt right.  A couple of days after New Year's, we found out that we were expecting our first baby... Blueberry.  She was a surprise.  We had talked about going ahead and trying to have a baby a month before then, but had decided to wait since we were busy making wedding plans.  Every decision was prefaced by, "But what if I am pregnant by then?".  So, we decided to wait until the week of the wedding to try to get pregnant.  Originally we were planning a September wedding, but when we found out about our little one on the way we moved it up to May.  Our joy would be short-lived.  Blueberry would leave us on January 30th.  I was heartbroken and questioning whether my husband & I would ever have a child together.  Blueberry was my second loss in less than a year.  What if I couldn't stay pregnant?  

After losing our baby, my midwife recommended us to an OB/GYN that she thought could help us.  From our first meeting with her, I regained hope.  She prescribed me every blood test under the sun and scheduled a saline sonogram for April.  All tests came back negative.  No blood disorders. No thyroid problems. No immune disorders. Nothing physical that could have caused my losses.  This gave me relief, but also worry.  I didn't have a "cure".  But our OB said to try again in May, and she looked forward to seeing us again for our first prenatal appointment.  Confidence.  I needed that.

Our wedding day- May 2011

My husband and I planned our perfect, ideal wedding.  It wasn't huge, but it was classic.  Timeless.  Us.  Just recently my husband said to me, "You know what I loved most about our wedding? That I could look to the left and then to right, and I knew every single person there."  Our wedding day also signified the week we would officially start trying to have a baby again.  Apparently this was when it was meant to happen.  A few weeks later, we found out we were pregnant again.  We dubbed her Bean.  

The first few months of the pregnancy were exciting, anxiety-ridden, amazing, & scary.  Each new milestone brought us hope.  But the fear lingered in the back of my mind always- please don't let me lose another baby.  Honestly, I wasn't sure I could handle another loss.  I didn't know if I would have the courage to try again.  But every healthy ultrasound, every new week  in the pregnancy were small victories and brought us renewed hope.  

Our Bean at 20 weeks

I had decided even before we had started to trying to conceive again that I would approach this pregnancy with a very different attitude than I had with Blueberry.  With Blueberry, we didn't tell hardly anyone about her. Not even my parents or my son. I wouldn't allow myself to buy a single maternity item or any baby clothes.  I was not going to let it rip my heart out if something happened again. But we lost her. And my heart was still ripped out.  

Bean would be different.  I wasn't going to question whether she would make it past 8 weeks.  I had to believe that she would.  I told my parents, my sister, my son, and a few close friends within a week of us finding out we were pregnant again.  The rest of the world would find out after our 13 week ultrasound.  We bought her a stuffed coqui frog during our honeymoon to Puerto Rico- I was only 5 weeks pregnant then.  Now this isn't to say that I never worried or had anxious moments of panic in that first trimester.  I had them all the time.  But I forced myself to take deep breaths and willed myself to think positive thoughts.  And I prayed.

2011 literally ended with my husband and I moving back to our hometown.  My husband had lost his job just two months before.  I feel blessed that we had that time together even if we faced financial hardship and new stress.  But we were able to spend hours together feeling our baby girl move, talking to her, making our plans for her future with us.  Those are moments I wouldn't trade for any paycheck.  2012 has brought us a new beginning, but in familiar surroundings, and closer to the family that we love and hold so dear.  In a few short weeks our baby girl will be here and a new amazing and beautiful chapter in our lives will begin... 

"Every day brings new light...you just need to look for it."

The Bebopping Bean

Bean- 10 weeks

Last Wednesday (after placing an urgent & anxious call to my nurse at my OB's office), my husband and I got to see the Bean again.  Why anxious?  Why urgent?  I believe it was mainly because we had entered the 10th week, another (and the last) trigger week for me.  In January 2010 when I was what we thought was 10 weeks pregnant, I found out my Peanut had never really made it past week 7.  I was told it was a missed miscarriage.  So, even though I wasn't experiencing any of what most people (and the medical community) would classify as miscarriage symptoms, that didn't mean much to me.  What is "normal" for most women hasn't been normal for me in a couple of years.  I can't trust the normal, obvious signs of pregnancy loss.  So, I had a minor freak-out.  I had not seen our baby in 3 weeks and how could I be sure that everything was fine?

So, the nurse scheduled us another date with wandy that afternoon...

The hardest moment of each ultrasound for me is those first few moments after the wand has been inserted and the ultrasound tech hasn't breathed a word yet.  I cannot stand more than a minute or two of silence, and have to ask rather anxiously, "How is the baby?"  (In my prior experience, silence during an ultrasound is a VERY bad sign.  I refuse to let the tech stay silent.)

And she turned the screen to us and pointed at that familiar flickering spot on the screen.  *Deep sigh of relief*  And then my husband and I marveled at what we were seeing.  We couldn't believe how much bigger Bean was in just 3 weeks!  And Bean looks like, well a baby!  Before Bean was kind of a shadowy white blur. 
Watching my husband's reaction to all of this is something I will always cherish.  This is his first child.  I have a son from a previous marriage, so all this isn't completely new to me.  But for my husband this is new, amazing ground. 

After taking all the necessary measurements (and the Bean measured in at just about exactly 10 weeks ;) ), it was time for the tech to capture the heart rate.  Bean decided that he didn't want to cooperate much initially.  Bean was bebopping!  We watched as he moved his hands back and forth and touched them together. (Our baby has hands, and fingers, and legs!!)  She tried 5 times before the little one finally stopped moving around just enough for her to finally catch that little heart rate- 164 beats per minute! 

As a mother to two beautiful babies that I haven't met yet and a sufferer of anxiety, this ultrasound has brought me peace of mind.  While I know I am never really out of the woods (and those fleeting thoughts that all of this still could come to an abrupt end still plague me now and again), I feel more confident, more hopeful.  I have found myself actually experiencing feelings of nostalgia now over my pregnancy with my son as this one progresses instead of constantly comparing it to my last 2 miscarriages.  That is definitely a step in a better direction for me.  More often than not, I now experience a symptom or notice the more pronounced rounding of my belly and it reminds of me of how I felt when I was carrying my son.  For that and for the health of this baby I am carrying now, I am grateful beyond words.

Restoring My Hope One Baby Step at a Time...

Bean- 7 weeks, 3 days

After a restless & somewhat worrisome day and a half, my husband and I got to see Bean again for a third time.  There was no emergency.  No miscarriage symptoms.  Just this looming bake it or break it deadline looming in the back of my mind.  The 7th week of pregnancy has not been good to me or my babies the last two times. 

They brought me back to the ultrasound room 20 minutes after my scheduled time.  On edge and anxious, the ultrasound tech inserted the wand and I took a deep breath, squeezing my husband's hand.  In just a few moments, we would know.  We would know if our baby had made it through my scary week.  Within a few seconds, I heard her speak magical words to us, "I see the heartbeat and boy, is it going!".  She turned the screen towards us and there in the middle of that hazy, white mass was a wildly flickering spot- our baby's heart beating.  I laughed, then I cried and then I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  She did a count on the baby's heart rate- an amazing 175 beats per minute!  Bean had went from a heart rate of 105 one week before to 175!  Wow....  She did all the necessary measurements and then gave us our first official due date- February 14, 2012. <3  Happy Valentine's Day to us... :)

My anxiety has greatly subsided since this ultrasound.  We had reached one incredible milestone- a baby with a strong heartbeat past 7 weeks.  Today we reached another- I have made it to 8 weeks of pregnancy.  I haven't made it to the 8th week in pregnancy since I was pregnant with my son 13 years ago.  Tomorrow we will hopefully reach another- making it to our first prenatal appointment with our OB/GYN.  My hope is returning, my faith in my body is being restored...  I know I am not completely out of the woods.  You never are until you are actually holding that tiny baby in your arms after 9 months of pregnancy, and hours of labor and pushing.  But I have hope.  My hope is looking at you in that picture above. 



Trust is a Funny Thing...

It is hard to get the trust back when you have been horribly betrayed not just once, but twice.  When the betrayal has ripped out your heart, caused you countless tears, and made you just feel sick to your stomach.  How do you forgive and allow another chance after so much heartache and pain??  How can you be sure that it won't happen a third time?

My body is trying to win my trust back.  I am still skeptical and very cautious, but I can see that it is really making a concerted effort, a heartfelt attempt to make me believe in it again.  And I need to forgive it...  I need to be able to trust it again.  But I am holding back a bit.  It has broke my heart horribly two times now.  Doesn't my body realize that it isn't so easy for me to just forget and move on??

Trust is just one of those things with me.  Once you have betrayed it, I have a very hard time ever confiding in you again.  I may take you back as a lover or a friend, but I will always be analyzing everything you say and do, fully expecting you to betray me again.  I will not allow  you to get as close to me as you might have been before the deception took place.

But I can't distance myself from my body right now... Distancing myself from my body would mean distancing myself from Bean.  Bean is a part of me, my body is a part me, Bean is a part of my body. 

I have realized over the past two days that my distrust in my body's ability to keep my babies safe and healthy is the source of almost all of my anxiety and fears surrounding this new pregnancy.  If I can just find a way to trust my body again, maybe I can find a way to alleviate the anxiety.  The trust is coming back slowly...  Wednesday's Beta result and yesterday's ultrasound are a very good start.  I guess it is my body's way of buying me roses and taking me out for dinner.  ;)  I am starting to soften a bit, and let my walls done a little more.  Please don't let me down again, body.

My Worldess Wednesday

It's In the Cards

So, during our trip to Puerto Rico I had the opportunity to sit with a fortune teller from the island and have my cards read.  I have been wanting to do this for a while now.  The husband hasn't always been 100% behind this for fear that they will tell me something that I do not want to hear and that it will cause me more worry.  But the chance literally fell into my lap this time.  At a dinner that the hubby's company was hosting, they had paid for various local entertainers to be there.  Fortune tellers were hired. ;)

After waiting for nearly 45 minutes, I finally sat down with the dark haired and somewhat exotic looking card reader.  She shuffled the deck, and asked me to split it into 3 different stacks with my left hand.  Then I was to flip the top card of each stack, again using my left hand.  One stack represented my past.  One my present.  And one my future. 
**Word in italics below represent my thoughts on the reading of each card.


My Past- She saw that I had a happy & vibrant childhood & that I was creative in my youth. She really loved this card for me.  She looked back at it more than once & touched it and just smiled.  She told me that many people in my adult life were not always aware of the happy girl beneath the surface of the adult me, but she was there.
Dead on.  I had a wonderful childhood. :)  I look back on my childhood very fondly.  And I was very creative then.  My sister & I would play pretend for hours every day.  At one point, I had my little sister convinced that the sound of the water pipes banging was little creatures who lived in the walls.  I even went so far as to create these little creatures for her once.  ;D 
I am slow to let people in during my adult life, so there are few who know the playful me well in my adult life.


Present- She saw that I have many people surrounding me that support me, and we can all relate to each other on something.  She also said that I am stronger and happier now than I have ever been.  She spoke of my spirituality and that there are people in my life who do not understand what I believe because I embrace different things, not just one idea or concept of spirituality.  She referred to me several times as a career-oriented and driven person and that I need to relax some.
When she mentioned the support system I have, I automatically thought of my gals on Twitter and my fellow bloggies whom I can relate to on trying to conceive and pregnancy loss.  I teared up a little when she said that.  I am stronger and happier now than I have been in YEARS.  I had some very tough times the past 3-4 years and I can honestly say I have come out of it a better woman.  She was right on about my spirituality.  I was raised Christian, but not all of that clicks with me.  There are elements of Buddhism that speak deeply to me.  My spirituality is not any one particular religion.  And for that, I have had devoted Christian friends and family members not always understand me or agree with my thoughts or beliefs.  I am not really career-oriented at this time in my life- one of the first things she got wrong. ;)

Future- She flat out told me that I worry too much.  I worry about this, worry about that. And I have apparently been doing a lot of that lately.  She told me that I need to calm down, and breathe and just live life in the moment, and not always worry so much about the future.  She even suggested that I start meditation. :)  She said all my worrying wasn't necessary because she sees great happiness in my future.
Yes, yes, and yes.  I had been worrying more than I would like to admit since we found out I am expecting again.  Thoughts of loss, and of something being wrong, worry was creeping in everywhere- my thoughts, my dreams, waking me up at night...  And I actually have been considering mediation since reading about it in one of the pregnancy books I have been reading. :) 

After feeling pretty good about her reading, and knowing that most of what she said was specific to me and not just some generic reading, I took a deep breath and asked her the question I had been dying to utter since I had sat down at her tiny table- What do you see for me as far as children goes?  She smiled and told me that she sees 2 children. She pointed to my  present card and said, "one here", and then to the future card and said, "one here".  I then told her I was pregnant and that I had miscarried before. She told me the 2 before I was not meant to hold now, but that this one now I would hold.  She told me to talk to the baby, tell him or her that I would be holding them soon and would take care of them.  She said that I need to take care of myself, and again, to not worry so much. ;)
I found it very uncanny that she knew that I already have a child in the present.  That blew me away because I had said nothing to her about my son.

I walked away from her table with a renewed feeling of confidence and peace.  If nothing else, I at least felt that I was now in the right frame of mind for this pregnancy and that could make all the difference this time. 

The Ramblings of a Hopeful, Fearful Mother-To-Be....

**Warning:  This may come off disconnected and very random, but I feel if maybe I can grab & put down in writing these thoughts that keep running through my head then *maybe* I can gain some control over them.  I find that these thoughts sometimes wake me up at night, or float through my consciousness while enjoying a breathtaking view in Puerto Rico, or when I subconsciously run my hand over my belly that is beginning to round slightly...  Thoughts that cause very real feelings.  And most of the time, these are feelings I don't want to experience.

Do I have enough pregnancy symptons yet??  I don't know...  I do pee a lot (sure sign!), and I sleep more (9pm has become my new bedtime the past week).  Shouldn't my boobs be sore?  Not sure....  When did they become sore the past 3 times?  And maybe it is a good sign that they are not sore.  Do I REALLY want this pregnancy to be in any way similiar to my last 2?  And nausea...  none of that yet.  Are my hormone levels not high enough yet or not high enough for where I should be?  What if I am not getting morning sickness because Bean has stopped growing already...

Wait. What if there isn't a Bean??  What if this is just a gestational sac??  I don't even know for sure that there is a baby there yet.  I have never had a blighted ovum before (At least, not that I know of. I never got to see Blueberry on a ultrasound, so who knows...).  I will have my first ultrasound in less than 2 weeks, so I will know then for sure.  But some nausea would be good in the mean time.  Just for reassurance....
But of course, I don't want terrible nausea.  I had awful nausea and vomitting with Peanut, and I know now that didn't mean that I was having a healthy pregnancy as so many had reassured me.  It meant that I was carrying around a tiny baby that had stopping growing weeks before and my body was reacting to that...  *sigh*

This week there have been painful and heartbreaking losses in my Twitter family.  Very real and vivid reminders of what can go wrong (and what has gone wrong before for me) in a pregnancy.  And there have been joyful news of new pregnancies.  Babies that will hopefully be born within days or weeks of Bean.  My emotions have been a whirlwind this past week.  Every time I hear of a pregnancy loss, the feelings, the heartache of my last two losses come flooding back to me.  And then I feel guilty- Guilty that I am feeling such sorrow (what if this isn't good feelings to feel for Bean?) and Guilty that I carry new hope while others have temporarily lost it. 

Then the "what if's" creep in....  I hate these the most.  The what if the unthinkable happens again.  Will I be able to try again?  Is there something wrong with my eggs then?  And then, the thought of the next step- being referred to the reproductive center and then more testing.  I try to keep these thoughts at bay the most.  These are worries of something that hasn't even happened, and something I have no desire to will into reality. 

So above are my ramblings.  I just want to throw in a **Disclaimer here:  These are NOT thoughts, fears, worries that engulf my being all day and night. These are recurrent fleeting thoughts & feelings that pop into my mind when I least expect it.  Most of the time, I am thinking thoughts of hope and positivity.  I am planning for the future that will include my husband and I's first baby together.  I talk about next year with the inclusion of a new baby and all that entails.  I talk to Bean every day, and so does my husband.  We send him/her love everyday. 
But just like on a beautiful sunny day, a gray cloud will appear and make you wonder if your lovely picnic will be rained on...

My Wordless Wednesday

When a Postive Pregnancy Test Doesn't Always Mean Baby Right Away...

To most women who are trying to conceive, the home pregnancy test result above brings them feelings of joy, elation, confirmation that they can create life.  To those of us who have suffered a miscarriage (or in my case, multiple miscarriages), this result brings about a different feeling.  At first there is excitement and happiness- We are pregnant again and here is a new chance to start our family!  Then that feeling is promptly followed by anxiety and worry- Will this baby stick or have I set myself up for another round of heartache and grief?

After testing 3 (yes, 3) Big Fat Negatives just 5 days before, I tested "Pregnant" this past Sunday morning.  I was staying at my parents' house for the weekend to celebrate my sister's birthday and my cousin's baby shower, so my mom and my sister were the first to know.  (And yes, I woke them up by flashing my pee-laden & capped pregnancy test in front of their faces! ;) )  Then I promptly took a pic of the test result (the one you see above, in fact) and texted it to my husband.  My dad was the next to know, as I told him when we met him for lunch and I ordered a cheeseburger from our favorite hot dog joint.  Dad: "What did you order a cheeseburger for?"  Me: "Because it isn't recommended that pregnant ladies eat hot dogs. ;)"  His response was to call me a Fertile Myrtle and given that I have been pregnant now 3 times in the last 16 months, I guess that is kind of true.

I am obviously not staying as hush-hush about this pregnancy as I did the last.  I am also not going to be screaming it from the Facebook mountaintop anytime soon either.  But I figure that what I did when I was pregnant with Blueberry didn't do us much good last time.  Being superstitious (aka, not jinxing ourselves) and telling only a handful of people (which did not include my parents that time) didn't help.  We still lost our baby.

So, I am trying to approach this pregnancy with a new outlook and a new game plan.  People I love and care about will know.  I feel that I need the prayers and positive thoughts from each of these people to help me carry this pregnancy to full term.  How can anyone be rooting for our little Bean when no one knows that we are pregnant through the most treacherous part of the pregnancy for me??  The Bean and I need the love and strength that each and every one of you can provide.

Whether I allow myself to get excited or not, or I let my hopes get too high doesn't matter.  If I lose Bean, the pain will be the same for me.  I have to believe in the power of positive thinking and actions, and of prayer (and of a kick ass positive OB and the progesterone suppositories I will soon start ;) ) to get me through the next 8 weeks and then the next 8 months. 

I have to believe that this baby will stick.  As someone who has suffered major anxiety problems in the past, I have to keep my stress levels low.  (And yes, easier said than done to be sure!)  Mediatation, prayer, journaling, blogging and prenatal yoga will be my best friends through this pregnancy. 

I have to believe that Bean will be in my arms in 8 short months, because what is the alternative?

Operation Stay Baby Stay

In 9 days or less, I will know if we got pregnant this month...  And the wheels are already turning in my head.  I feel like I am starting to formulate a military operation strategy for how to avoid the landmines of the first trimester and the possible causes of miscarriage. 

I am going to be fastidious about my flanking maneuvers, where I will employ my defensive positions.  The objective is to STAY pregnant once I get pregnant. 
Oh, and I want to be very militaristic about what I consume, what activities I participate in all while trying to maintain a zen state of mind.  After all, it has been know that increased stress & feelings of anxiety can have a hand in pregnancy loss.

I see myself as the newly pregnant general holding the line, defending my bun baking temple.  I will have the strategic advantage this time of deploying progesterone suppositories, what I will refer to as my anti-aircraft defense weapon deflecting any possible attempt to deplete my hormone reserves.  I will have frequent ultrasounds to check on the progress of the objective (my baby snuggling in good and tight).  The intelligence I will receive in those first few weeks will be mind-boggling compared to my other campaigns to stay pregnant. 

I also realize that Operation Stay Baby Stay will need the emotional and spiritual support of my friends and family, just like a country needs the support of it's citizens to fight a war successfully.  So at this time, I am making a call for any and all possible allies to step forward and take up arms (hugs, positive thoughts, prayers, baby dust) with me. 
Even though I am not 100% sure that Operation Stay Baby Stay will be a go for next month, I am starting the recruiting process now for my "army".  Won't you sign up for a tour of duty?  :)

"Military power wins battles, but spiritual powers wins the wars." ~ General George Catlett Marshall

There is a story behind this picture...

Some of you may recognize it as the background on my Twitter profile page. 

This past summer a lot of things were not going well in my life.  I had lost Peanut earlier that year, and the loss of our baby sent my relationship with my then boyfriend into a rapid downward spiral.  Within a couple of months of the miscarriage, we had broken up and he had moved out.

I was alone.  And overwhelmed with the emotions and sadness that followed losing Peanut.  Sometimes I would cry uncontrollably.  Sometimes I blamed myself.  Mostly I asked why and only heard silence.

This was my first realization that just because you are pregnant doesn't mean that you will stay pregnant.  My faith in my body's ability to nurture and sustain a baby was shattered.  I felt betrayed, tricked by my own body.  How could it easily carry my son for 9 months with no complications and now it couldn't keep a baby safe longer than 6 or 7 weeks?

While struggling with these feelings of self-doubt and pain, I lost my job teaching.  The school I was working at closed it's doors.  Now I didn't have financial security, or a baby, or a stable relationship...  I couldn't even continue what I had already been doing successfully for years at this point- provide a stable home environment for my son.  I felt myself falling into a deep crevice.  What was I going to do?

During this time when everything seemed to be going completely wrong, I decided to load up Charlie (my papillon) and his leash into the car and head to the local park.  After all it was a beautiful day, and I was tired of sitting in the house that I could no longer afford to live in. 
We walked for a while and then I sat on top of a picnic table and let Charlie run around a bit off of his leash. 

I turned and looked up towards the trees above me and the photo you see above is exactly what I saw.  A feeling of peace, of warmth came over me and I started to cry.  Right there on that wooden picnic table in the middle of a park.  I knew that eventually things would get better. And I started the process of learning to forgive myself, of finding out how I could let go, to pick up the pieces, and eventually move forward in my life... 

The Opening of Pandora's Womb...

As I was sitting at the lab today getting vile after vile of blood drawn, I started to panic a little.  One of those tiny viles of blood could have the answer in it.  The reason why I have lost two babies this past year.  *Gulp*

I pray that the answer is a simple fix.  But what if it isn't?  What if I am about to open Pandora's Womb here?  What if I am about to lose a blissful ignorance that I can never return to?
Obviously, I am am aware of what can go wrong during a pregnancy, so I am not entirely blissfully ignorant.  But now I could be finding out what is wrong with me.  And once I know there is something wrong with me, I can't ever go back to not knowing that something is wrong with me.  

But I have to know.  I must know why.  Even if I do not like the answers that I get. 

So, I am going to open Pandora's Womb fully knowing that once it is opened I can't close it again.  I am going to wait for my blood panel results.  I am going to have my saline hysterogram next week. 

In the Greek myth, Pandora's curiosity gets the best of her and she opens the jar.  You know, the one she is never supposed to open?  (And yes, it was really a jar and not a box.)  All things evil escape, and she would not be able to recollect those things and shove them back in the jar.  But when she looked back into what she thought was a now empty jar, she saw that one thing still remained there- Hope.

If You Build It, He (or maybe she) Will Come...

Yep, that is the line from the Kevin Costner movie where he plays an Iowa corn farmer who decides to tear up his cornfield and build a regulation approved baseball field (much to the dismay and astonishment of just about everyone around him) because he is hearing voices that are telling him to do it...  "If you build it, he will come."

Well, I am hearing voices too, I guess.  Or more like cries and coos and babbles. 

So, I am "building".  I want he or she to come.  I am rebuilding my thought process.  I am going to stop being cautiously scared.  I am going to start thinking, talking, acting like this year I will be pregnant.  And sticky pregnant.  Like I will be holding a baby in my arms after hours of labor and pushing pregnant.  I have to walk the talk. And I took a baby step towards that today.  I bought very chic baby shower invitations at Target that were marked down to an incredible $1.24 for a pack of 10. I bought 3 packs.  ;)  And that whole being scared to jinx myself complex?? Out the window!  It sure as hell didn't do a whole lot of good for me this last pregnancy.  The only things I allowed myself to buy then were a couple of books.  I let the fiance buy me one maternity skirt because he said it was so me (and it was marked down to 10 bucks).  I wouldn't dare let myself buy a single baby item, no matter how cute or how much of a bargain it was.  The Fear of Jinxing Myself era is OVER.

I am also physically building myself over.  I have a few diagnostic tests scheduled in the near future. Depending on the findings I get from one of them, I may literally be getting a few upgrades to the lady parts. I still take my prenatal vitamins religiously every morning.  If I build it in my heart, my mind, my lady parts, then I know he/she will come.


"You can begin feeling whatever you want (even if it's not there).. the universe will correspond to the nature of your song." ~ The Secret

A Letter to Myself (to the me 14 months ago...)

Dear Me,

It's me.  I know you have already had a feeling about this.  Call it mother's intuition.  Very soon you will be going through something physically, mentally, emotionally that you never fathomed could happen to you.  I am here to tell you that you will be okay.  You will survive this, and things will get better.  But there are some things that you need to know.  Have a seat.

First of all, please don't take those pills.  Ugh. You are just dragging it out and you will torture yourself for over a week.  Take the option the doctor gives you for a D&C.  It is NOT the same thing as getting an abortion.  That baby knows that you wanted it.  Have them send the tissue off to be tested.  Try to find out why.  Now, in case you don't listen to me about the D&C (which you might not because I know how strongly you are going to be opposed to it), I want you to know that you will lose the major tissue (yes, the baby may be in there) at your boyfriend's grandmother's 80th birthday party.  Now this will be hard to get a handle on, but try to get a Ziploc bag & try to save it.  It may not be easy to do since you will be at a community rec center for the party.  Thus, PLEASE take my first suggestion.

Second, you did not make this happen.  You didn't do anything wrong and you did not fail your baby.  I know you are still going to feel some guilt and responsibility, but you will realize one day very soon that it was completely out of your hands.  It had NOTHING to do with the few drinks you had here and there.  It had nothing to do with the meds you were taking for your anxiety.  The pregnancy was a surprise.  You didn't know you were pregnant.  You did all that you could, and you were a good mother to your baby while he was still inside of you.  DO NOT BLAME YOURSELF.  Do not obsess about every little thing you did or put in your mouth while you were pregnant.  It will not change the outcome. 

I know things are going to seem very bleak after you have lost the baby.  But I want you to know that your life be AMAZING in less than a year.  You will be happier, stronger than you have been in years.

Love Always,
Me

P.S.  The school you are working at will close it's doors after the last day of school.  Pack up the house, move it all into storage, and GO HOME.  I know you are gonna hate to hear that, but you have to.  You need to.  Don't knock yourself out trying to make things work with a part-time job. You will just get yourself very deep into a financial hole which will bring back your anxiety attacks.  Don't be the stubborn ass you usually are.  Go back home to your family.  :)