Be Back Soon

Every day I think... I will be able to find the time to post something fabulous tonight or at the very least post an update about Ari and every night I find my self so busy/tired/distracted that I just can't pull it all together. I appreciate all of my loyal readers checking in with me and I do promise I will be back to my writing and updates per usual very soon.

For now, I will leave you with a quickie.

My miscarriage: I know I posted that most web sites say to contact your doctor if you are bleeding for more than 2 weeks, but after about 2 1/2 weeks (I gave myself leeway) it dropped down to very light almost spotty bleeding and I thought... today will be the last day.. I'll wait until tomorrow to call the doc. This has gone on for an extra 2 weeks of me putting off having a medical intervention since it was so light. I think that I have finally turned that corner and can start planning for our future again.

Ari: Still reading up a storm. She's gotten sick again with a cold and so we have had to keep it low key for a few days which with Ari means high energy but stuck at home. So yesterday, after being totally stir crazy, we took her for her first nature hike and we all had a blast except that it got way to hot way to fast so we were only out walking about 45 mintutes. Still... she had a great time and we all got some fresh air and exercise. Ari has also discovered dressing up and here is one example of that:How cute is she? Neigh!!! She has also started getting super affectionate by giving out hugs. :) It's really cute.

One of her favorite books right now is a sing along as you turn the page book by Raffi named Baby Beluga. It was introduced to her in her music class and she has fallen in love with it ever since. Now, she actually tried to sing along which brings tears to my eyes its so cute.

My Mom and Dad watched Ari this weekend so we could go see X-Files. I thought it was okay. Definitely not my favorite, but if you like the show, it passes for a long episode. Last weekend, for the second time, I saw Mama Mia (I saw it the weekend before as well). I LOVE this movie and totally recommend it to anyone who likes Abba music. Even if you don't like Abba music but love theater and movies that just make you feel good, this is the one you want to see. The weekend before, it came in direct contrast for me, it was a movie full weekend, with Dark Knight, which I also thought was great, but definitely extremely dark.

Anyway, Ari has a new friend and some amazing pictures with this new friend, but I still need to confirm with the mom that I can post them. Hopefully, that will be the next post. That and another opinion piece soon. :)

Again, thanks for sticking this through with me. This wouldn't be nearly as much fun without knowing you'all were out there (even my lurkers)! Hehe...

Bay of Play, Flags, and Planters

If you haven't been there, I love the new Bay of Play at Sea World. Ari had such a good time on a recent visit. I didn't get a lot of pictures, because a lot of our time there we were just the two of us, but once my mom joined us, we caught a couple of cute pictures of Ari getting to meet Grover. She was so excited!


For the fourth of July, every year, there is a really nice real estate agent that comes to our neighborhood and deposits these little flags in everyones yard. It always makes for a nice fourth of July surprise. :)
Remember me alluding to a planter in an earlier post, well here is what my husband and his father built during this most recent visit. We wanted a raised garden so it was easy to maintain without bending over and they did an amazing job! This is just the first. We plan on doing two more. :) Isn't it beautiful?

This next picture shows you starting from left, that we have two roma tomato plants and an artichoke plant.
Next to that, we have four strawberry plants and finally 4 Japanese cucumber plants.

We are not sure how all of these will do, but we can't wait to see and eat! In the next two planters we plan on putting some herbs and other vegetables. We may even get a second artichoke plant and move the strawberry ones over to one of the other planters since they tend to grow out a lot and who couldn't use more artichokes. :) If you have any suggestions for things to grow, we are all ears. The things we are considering but were told some are more winter season while others we could plant now are: peas, baby carrots, onions, string beans, and maybe even corn. For herbs, I'm sure it will be like basil, thyme, mint, oregano, and pretty much all your basic herbs.

As far as how I am doing personally... for anyone still interested in knowing more about miscarriage, read on, others feel free to skip. So today was the worst. Apparently, all that minor cramping pain was leading up to a big tahdah and that was today. Intense pain (took 2 motrin) and loads of ickyness. By tonight though, I'm back to moderate bleeding, so I hope that means I have made it through the worst and am cresting over that hill.

As a good friend pointed out in the comments of an earlier post, it is a process. I am a big believer that medicine is best used when it is absolutely needed. Our bodies go through so many day to day process and then there are big events. Just because they are big events, for me, doesn't make them less a process. I am a big proponent of natural birth. I think the birthing process (notice the word there) is something that the body just goes through and when you go through it, certain things like hormones and such are all released at the appropriate times, the body reacts to things at the appropriate time, etc. When these process are altered, who knows what we are doing to our bodies experience and reactions. Maybe I'm just coming off as some big tree hugger. Truth is, one day, for those that haven't heard it before, I'll post Ari's birth story, but needless to say, neither I nor she would have made it without modern medicine, so I don't dispute the wonders that medicine does provide us with. I just believe, like with Ari, it should be used when there is no choice. I decided that principle held true with this as well, and I think, letting it follow its own path has let me come down from the hormonal high of pregnancy at a steady pace. I definitely couldn't imagine dealing with todays pain on top of all the pain from previous days all mushed into one. That seems like it would be so hard. There was definitely a part of me that wished to just get it over with, but.. ouch! The gradual definitely worked for me.

Anyway... this means there probably won't be too many more posts touching on this subject. :)

Where in the world is Michelle?

Okay... so I've dropped off the face of the earth again and I appreciate everyone who has been checking in thinking, where'd she go? Here is a quick rundown and I'll try to post more over the weekend.

Since the last post, I had my in-laws come for a visit that went great except for the fact that Ari got sick and my miscarriage has finally arrived. Ari had what the doctor called the Adenovirus. Needless to say her fever spiked up to 104 one night and she ran around in a horrible mood grabbing at her throat and mouth. Poor baby was miserable!

Mommy had a slow lead up to the miscarriage on the other hand. (If this is TMI - too much information, please feel free to skip this paragraph, but since I mentioned we should talk about this more, this is another part of the process I wasn't quite clear on.) It started with spotting for a couple of days that were followed with very light period like bleeding and has progressed about 5 days later into painful, crampy, clotty bleeding. ICK! I know. Anyway... I'm hoping since I am in the painful stage, I will be done with this soon. Apparently, if you go more than two weeks, you need to see your doctor so I've got just under another week to go to be finished.

On top of all this, on Tuesday my in-laws left (COME BACK!) and John gets home from work with a cold that I also start to feel that night. We think Ari has gotten over her illness which we went to Urgent care for on Sunday and went to her doctor's as follow up on Monday and by Wednesday morning we were sure she was going to feel better except... she woke up with the same cold. *sigh* It's never fun when the whole family is sick. Thank God for all the help we had from my in-laws and from my parents. They are amazing!

Coming into this weekend, though, we are all starting to feel better from the cold and hopefully the miscarriage will start to sort itself out. I am happy that I waited for it, because experiencing all of this all at once would be really hard. I am not saying it is the only right choice, but the right one for me. Maybe over the next few months I'll be able to come back here with joyful baby new. Keep your fingers crossed for me. :)

One project I'll be posting about soon is our raised garden that my husband and his father worked on while he was here. It looks so great! There are two more to build and then plant, plant, plant. :) Can't wait!

Write more soon!

Why Don't We Talk About This More?

I was originally concerned to bring this up thinking, I've already talked about our sad day and maybe this will be a big downer for people to read so I should just wait until I am ready to write about something else. I am talking about my miscarriage. I'm guessing that the reason we don't talk about it more is because we don't want it to be true or real in our own lives so no body really brings it up too much until you have one yourself. It turns out, that many people in and around my life have experienced one and I have found out that the type I have had is a very common one, yet, I didn't know they were so very common before. I didn't know so many people have them, before. I didn't know to prepare myself for the possibility, because they happen all the time. That's because we don't talk about them.

So... while I hesitated discussing my own more, I decided that the point of this BLOG was to help other parents (and share the joy of my daughter with family and friends). If I can't discuss everything to do with parenting, which includes the disappointments, what good is this?

I have opted to pursue a natural miscarriage. This is one of three options and my doctor, though others may not agree, said the best option unless complications arise or it doesn't happen by the 12th week of the pregnancy. The other two options are a D&C, "Dilation (dilatation) and curettage literally refers to the dilation(opening) of the cervix and surgical removal of the contents of the uterus. It is a therapeutic gynecological procedure as well as a rarely used method of first trimester abortion." from Wikipedia, and a pill called misoprostol, "Physicians have begun prescribing misoprostol to women who have experienced a miscarriage early in pregnancy." from WebMD.

Every day is a day that I question letting it happen naturally, but I don't think I will change my mind unless complications arise. It is just a really weird thing to have your mind look forward to the future wanting to move on, but have your body still feel and act like you are pregnant. You tell your body every day that you are ready to stop being pregnant and wait for those signals to arrive in the right places to make things move along and when nothing happens you think, come on body... I need you to work with me, I'm ready to move on.

Regardless, I am keeping my mind as firmly set into the future as I can, because there is nothing I can do to rewrite the past. I just wish I had known how common this was so I would have had some amount of expectation for its possibility. "Studies reveal that anywhere from 10-25% of all clinically recognized pregnancies will end in miscarriage." from American Pregnancy Association. I think that if we are given so much early information with home testing kits being so accurate, that we should also have this information to counter-balance just how excited we get. It's good to know what the chance of success is.

Again, I am not wanting to be a downer, I just want to be someone who talked about it in case it helps someone else with their own situation. I'll post an Ari update soon, I promise.

A Sad Day

I had my first doctor visit today and it turns out that we have miscarried. Not in the official sense yet, but they can see there is no baby. I have so many feelings running through me right now. Sadness is the main one though. There is just no point in anger for me and I have no one or nothing to resent, so I'll just feel the sadness, let it be there with me until the actual miscarriage event takes place and then look forward to our next try at expanding our family. Thank you for sharing in my joy of this and my sadness within such a short time. It helps just writing about it because it solidifies the reality of it within me and that makes it easier to move forward.

I'll be back to blogging about other things soon.

UPDATE: I'm not sure if anyone else is interested, but this is the type of miscarriage we are experiencing and is apparently extremely common. My doctor was kind enough to share with us that he and his wife had 2 of these on there way to creating their family.
"
An empty sac is a condition where the gestational sac develops normally, while the embryonic part of the pregnancy is either absent or stops growing very early. Other terms for this condition are blighted ovum and anembryonic pregnancy." From Wikipedia