Let Go and Let God

Happy 33 weeks to me! It’s mind blowing how fast this pregnancy has gone. Guess there is a lot more going on, versus last time when I was jobless, twiddling my thumbs waiting anxiously for my first born. This time I’d say I have 2 jobs, being a mom and running my Etsy shop. I was hoping to continue through Christmas and January making frames, so I’d have a little cushion for bills, but I got some unexpected, yet delightful news. The frames are no longer in stock from my supplier! Luckily, they had just enough left to send me to fulfill all outstanding orders, and said to check back at the end of January for them. My cut-off for Christmas orders was yesterday so now that is the official end of the frames for a while! I actually couldn’t be happier to have a little break, after making them now for over a year. Since I started, I’ve had about 400 Etsy orders, and have about 20 more to complete this week until I can say I’m done! It’s a great feeling because although it’s been pretty steady income, I would love to begin new projects I haven’t had time for.. and hello.. get ready for this baby! Lots left to do in the nursery. And everywhere. And Christmas shopping. And spending time with our only child for the last 48 days. And birthday party planning. Oh my!

In other news, baby is doing great. Feeling lots of movement, now in my ribs. I guess he wasn’t big enough before, but officially starting to get  very crowded! Last go round, I complained about soreness high up, right at the bra line, and it’s back! Being stretched, ribs being pushed, all that fun stuff. The good part is, I am less pregnant than time during the holidays so it’s not as bad. Looking forward to Christmas Eve game night with the family! And relaxing, eating, family, and playing Santa! Harper will have SO (too) much to play with, but seeing her face and excitement will be worth it!

Finally… How awesome is our God! The past few months, I’ve really been struggling in a certain area of my life. I’ve prayed about it, tried everything I thought of to fix the situation, and ultimately decided there’s not much I can do but wait it out and give it time. But things kept getting worse, like I couldn’t see the end of the tunnel. Well the other night, I’m feeling like a failure, sad, bitter, and hopeless. Don’t know what else to do..really upset. And then suddenly I just feel overcome with Jesus and plain as day hear in my head and heart: “Make time for me and I will show you the way. Just make time for me. I will take care of it and help you through. I am here.” It was so clear to me. That night I chose to let the little things go. I prayed. I opened my heart even more. I realized that though I had been praying off and on, and hoping for change, I was not making time for the most important thing. Part of the original problem is that I’m too busy anyway, and this just proved that I do need to stop..step back and take time for me, for God, for my relationships and ultimate responsibilities, rather than silly things that don’t really matter. And the very next day… the situation did a 180. Completely and obviously changed, and the day was even better than I could have imagined. It’s always going to take effort, but  I truly feel like all of that was an act of God and message to me, and a reminder to Let go and Let God. Looking forward to this new little journey in bettering my life.

Better than winning the lottery!

We got NORMAL results back from the Down’s syndrome test! The new blood test is 99% accurate, so once I finally got the call Friday morning, we were very excited and relieved to know we have a healthy baby.

Oooh did I mention what we’re having???? It’s a BOY!

Mama’s instincts were right! Though we’ve been in love with the thought of having our little miniature Harper, a little sister, Abby Rose…maybe next time. A little boy couldn’t be more perfect! One of each will be such a blessing and definitely some fun, new experiences to come. And bring on the ball games, and some wild, energetic testosterone. Our house will be very evened out. I can’t wait to meet the little guy!

Biggest question: Have you picked out a name???

No! Naming is such a big deal to me, and Kyle and I already think naming this one is WAY harder. Now that we officially know it’s a boy, we will start thinking more, but nothing has stood out so far, for something we both agree on and love. I keep telling people it really may be February before we decide, but maybe sooner. Also if we decide on something we really love, I don’t really want to hear how many people don’t feel the same. Remember how long it took me to name Cooper?? I am VERY, extremely picky.
Our style: Sawyer, Knox, Lincoln, Bennett, Leo, Daniel, Henry, Liam…. Just to ease curious minds. Though, we’re both hoping to come across something else. And not “Gatsby” – Kyle’s latest obsession, hehe! (I told him we are not naming a cat.) Harper is a tough crowd to please as well. It’s funny to see what names she likes since “No!” is her favorite word.

The morning of: We got to our ultrasound appointment at 8:15 Thursday morning. The tech was nice, and asked if we wanted to know the sex, we said yes. After taking a few measurements, she went down that area, and we could immediately tell! Kyle said, “boy?” And sure enough.. there HE was. No surprise to me, but Kyle was! Our Facebook poll was about 50/50 on the guesses. Here’s his little profile! There’s a real baby in there. And I also alreadyyy have an “outie.” :-O We decided to go ahead and just text our families the news, after dealing with all this and since we weren’t going to be in town for the weekend.

So as if my 1/250 chance for DS wasn’t enough, once we met the doctor after the ultrasound, she told us we may be at an even more risk because of some of the head measurements. We didn’t ask many questions at this point, because we were still waiting on the test results, which should have been there at any time this week. She said we would go from there, but if they come back negative (normal), we will still be sent to MFM (Maternal Fetal Medicine) for a closer look and more in-depth sonogram, as a precautionary measure. Sometimes this is all normal, and I think my chances for a healthy baby were still good, though I felt I had no hope by then.

Just when I least expected it, Friday morning as I’m rushing around finishing orders and getting things packed for our weekend trip, I get a phone call with the test results. Hallelujah, great times and it meant I could enjoy our mini-vaca without worry. My MFM appt is set up for this Friday, so praying that is also all good news. Totally optimistic and relieved right now.

Our Gatlinburg trip was fun, too. Poor Kyle had to go into work at 5:30 Friday morning, after staying up past midnight. Then work eight hours, then drive four. We hung out with Kyle’s aunt and uncle, ate several good meals, walked the strip, visited the aquarium, and I enjoyed a couple days off of working on orders. We went to a toy store, and Harper picked out her favorite–a bag of rocks. LOL..she had fun in the whole store, but definitely getting the most use out of these colorful gem rocks. She slept almost the whole way home, which was a great, easy ride. We all needed to catch up on sleep after attempting 2 nights on a pull, out couch bed full of springs. Cooper was happy to see us and Kyle was even happier to see Cooper! First time away. I think he had fun at his cousins’…playing with other dogs.

Favorite quote of the week: This weekend she sneezed, and then said, “Bless you! Thank you! You’re welcome!” afterwards. She’s so funny.

Hope everyone has a good week. My prayers have definitely been answered. God is Good.

Dreams

Well I’ve been trying to figure out the sex of baby in my subconscious, but I hadn’t a clear dream about it yet. Just one that slightly hinted girl.

Last night, I clearly had a “boy” dream. We had the baby. It was in the nursery, but we still didn’t know what it was. So we thought.. should we go change the diaper and find out?? But there was another way, where you type in what you think on a computer, and it reveals “boy” or “girl” on the screen. It was boy. We were excited but thought,  we still need to think of a name! Katie Couric was my nurse in the dream.

Strange. But oooh boy I’m glad we have 25 more weeks to brainstorm on a name, need be.

PS. I think I’m starting to feel movements!! Will be great when it’s more often. I hope you people who subscribe don’t get an email every time I update an update 😉

Babytime!

Well I officially suck at blogging! I already did, but now I really do. Becauseeee this is the journey to becoming a family of seven and that is happening! 🙂 Okay not how I intended that intro to go, but I’m a little behind!

We’re expecting!!! Baby #2 is due January 31, 2014! (Original EDD was 1/25, but now it is 1/31.)

I am currently 14 weeks and 4 days (14w4d). The most common question I get is, when will you find out the sex?? Not until 19-20 weeks, which will be next month. Even though I think it would be so thrilling to wait and find out in the delivery room, Mr. OCD won’t let us. But in reality, that is double the wait, and we’re so excited to find out soon! What do I want? I  completely 100% do not care. I already have my baby girl, so another girl would be an awesome addition/best friend to her, and no doubt they would have adorable cute matchy dresses all the time. 😉 And they’re going to be exactly two years apart, so can wear the same clothes. I’ve saved almost all of them. We picked out “her” name a while ago. But, a baby boy would be cool too, and bring a different dynamic to the house. I would love a little wild and crazy boy running around, and Kyle would for sure. Win-win for us! No names set in stone for a boy, and we may wait to announce it anyway once “he’s” born. My intuition says BOY, so let’s see how accurate that is. Kyle thinks girl. The old wives tales are half and half.

Next question.. Have I been sick? Nope! Not one time; I feel great..lucky lucky me. Other than exhaustion, lack of energy, and mood swings, that’s really my main symptoms, and they are starting to disappear now that we’ve hit 2nd Tri. Oh, and that I look like a middle school girl with all the acne. Definitely starting to show. It’s not “baby” yet, but everyone can tell. This weekend, I helped at Stephanie and Roger’s church food drive, and people were offering me chairs and making sure I didn’t lift things, so I’d say it’s noticeable!

How we told immediate family, and then how we announced to Facebook.

 

Harper is excited. She doesn’t understand of course, but she absolutely loves babies and will be a great big sister.

How it came about: About a week after my last blog post, on my dad’s birthday, Thursday, May 23 we got a BFP! (Big Fat Positive.) I had taken a test the Friday and following Monday before, both negative. I was like, I’ll just take one more to make sure, because I was still a week late. Took a cheap one, and glanced at it.. yeah it’s negative.. went on. Came back 5 minutes later, there were 2 lines! OMG! Soo rushed to the dollar store, for a better one, and sure enough.

First appointment, I had anxiety, but we knew deep down everything was great. We saw a legit squiggle in there! Went back two weeks later and saw gummy bear sized baby. Very relieving because after a loss, it’s a constant worry and I did NOT want to relive that nightmare. But, baby is still there and still growing. Hasn’t quite sank in that we will have two children next year. :-O

First and second u/s.

 

I got my own heart rate monitor, which is cool. I use it maybe once a week. When the dr tried it at my appointment, I already knew it was there, so wasn’t worried and didn’t feel the need to record it like I did with the first. Harper does not like people messing with her momma though, so she cried. Oh well. I enjoy my new OB, and the valet parking the most.

No other baby news, besides that my honey got me a mom-mobile! It was time to trade in his car, so we finally decided on a 2012 Ford Explorer. I love it!! Just signed for it yesterday. He now will drive my car to work every day, which is a downgrade for him but will be nice to not fill up with premium gas every week.

Now here is me currently, at 15 weeks (since I updated the pictures late). Our happy family, and big brother Cooper!

The Once and Future Babe

Well, things did not go as planned at the doctor.

Warning.. possible TMI and sensitive details ahead. For this exact reason, we never told anyone about this pregnancy, besides parents and siblings. So, if you are reading this, you are just finding out. Sorry, but I’m glad I made that decision! We would have told the rest of the family around 10 weeks, like we intend to do next time. Even though I’m making it public, it is a very personal issue and I don’t want to talk about it, at all, to anyone, because it will make me sad. Unless you have recently experienced a miscarriage yourself, in that case, I would be happy to talk about it with you. I’d just rather get it out there, and move on. Miscarriage happens to most women I know, it seems. I try to think of people who have only had healthy pregnancies (that we know about…lucky them) and I think of more who have experienced a m/c. I hate the word. My mom has lost four babies, as well as other women in my family, so it’s always felt like an impending doom. Now it’s here and it’s happening to me. This is my story.

We had a bad feeling, since the spotting for three nights in a row. I’ve had this doom over my head the whole weekend before. Mother’s intuition? However, I tried to stay positive, like I am now. We had an ultrasound done and could tell immediately something was wrong. There was no baby. I was 8 weeks, so there definitely should have been, and I know my dates are accurate. No baby. Only a sac. My heart sank and we were crushed. I was crying, so the lab lady led us to another room so the doctor could come in and talk with us.

Apparently this is a common reason for a miscarriage in early pregnancy. They didn’t tell me the scientific name, but I researched it and found that it’s called a “blighted ovum.” A sac forms, and your body thinks you are pregnant, but a baby never forms, only the sac. The doctor said this could have been from too many sperm trying to get in, so it never fertilized correctly. Needless to say, going from excited to see my little bean and to already being two months in, to no baby, was disheartening. This happens to some women, who go back a couple weeks later, to realize they had their dates wrong and now there’s a baby. This isn’t my case, and my body is starting to realize it and will “officially” miscarry on its own, and pass the sac (ew.) If it doesn’t, I will have to be admitted to the hospital for a procedure, which I find to be more traumatic and awful, so I’m praying that doesn’t happen. It gives some women more closure, but it will set me back.

So, we are sad that we won’t be having a little newborn in September. 😦 However, we are choosing to remain very optimistic. Not to discredit anyone else who has gone through this, because I know it’s devastating, but for us personally.. since no baby ever formed, we’re albeit less severe. We feel if there was a baby but no heartbeat or something, that’d be extremely worse, a different story. For couples who have been trying for a long while, or have no other kids, I couldn’t imagine their pain.  We had only been TTC for two months, so we will definitely be able to try again here soon and hopefully get better news! If Kyle hadn’t taken off the rest of the day yesterday, I would have been alone and crying all day. But we came home, played with our sweet precious baby we already have, and of course puppy!

ETA: I’m glad I hadn’t bought anything yet for this baby, but I feel pretty gloomy today. Now I’m behind on all of my business frames and obviously can’t tell them why.

It’s all in God’s hands though. It’s definitely a spiritual matter. It’s my belief that God definitely does not CAUSE these things to happen, as “it happened for a reason”…no. Maybe? We can say that about somethings to make ourselves feel better. But I believe He created the laws of science, such as gravity and weather cycles, just as he created women’s bodies to do miraculous things like carrying a baby for 9 months and then being able to sustain life and feed it, with milk. He created our bodies to know and terminate pregnancies that haven’t formed right, or at all. Nothing we can control, nothing I did wrong. It’s all pretty amazing, even though we never want to lose something or someone so dear. And He always gives us his love and it’s our job to seek Him in these times, to show us the way. To become better people and to learn from our experiences, and to grow closer in our relationship with God.

This is more of a journal, for my benefit, so I want to include it in my blog. It’s a defining point in my life, to definitely be better a better person and Christian. Besides teaching your children about God, showing them love, and educating them, I think the greatest gift you can give them is siblings.  When you have no one else, or when your parents have passed, (ideally) you will always have your siblings. Your sisters and brothers by fate, your best friends by choice. If I didn’t have my sister and sister-in-law, I would no doubt be crazy. They are such blessings to me and I want Harper to have as many siblings as God intends. 😉

This blog will still remain “Sevenly Bliss,” of course, as this is the journey for our seventh family member. Whenever that may be, I’ll be ready. Maybe more ready, now that I have a few more months to catch up on…life. It will remain unshared for quite a while longer, but that’s okay.

Have a great day!

Good things come in pairs.

I was about to start writing this post… and then I open the fridge to get a drink and see this: 

Total pregnant brain. By the way, that coke is not mine!

Sunday we took Shadow to visit the grandparents, and he met his cousin Skippy. They Shadow had fun playing with a friend; Skippy was a little nervous about the whole thing. They’re about the same size right now. So this morning, Kyle was like.. “Maybe we should get Shadow a friend… We will have two of everything else!” HA! I beg him for a puppy and then he makes that comment. My heart kind of melted and my brain kind of gagged at the thought of house training another puppy. Don’t think he was really serious, but still.. funny. Shadow’s making good progress though! As long as the days are nice, I love taking him outside. The first two nights he whined a lot in his crate (from being lonely) and so last night I put it beside my bed and he slept the whole time.. except twice when we went out. I’m still not 100% feeling the name, but feel bad to keep changing it!

Last night we also had a “spotting” scare. Without TMI, it was the second night of light spotting, and really had me nervous. I think I know what it’s from now, but I was really upset. Our appt and ultrasound is tomorrow, so I’m praying everything is normal and good. Seeing a heartbeat and getting an accurate date will make me feel a lot better. Now I think I’ll put off telling more family this weekend. So today, I’m “taking it easy.” Not going anywhere, so I don’t have to carry Harper and the carseat a lot. Also Kyle said to expect a package today as an “early Valentine’s Day present.” 🙂 Flowers is all I can think it could be. Hopefully not another puppy, haha! (I’m lying though.. I totally wouldn’t mind.) Guess we will see soon! He’s the best at making me feel better.