Swallowed by a whale

I've gone back and forth over whether or not to blog about this. I certainly don't want people's sympathy or pity (there's my cons list), but I also remember many people reaching out to me after I blogged about our first miscarriage and thanking me. Many people told me they learned a lot from our experiences, and honestly, if I can help someone else make it through a similar experience or help a friend/family member help their loved one cope through a terrible time, then that makes me putting our heartbreak out for all to read more than worthwhile. And so with that thought, I've decided to open up about our last 10 days ...

We'd been trying for about four months when we found out we were pregnant again. We were both super excited, but cautious. If we learned anything from our first pregnancy, it was that being blindsided with a loss is just about the worst feeling in the world. So I can say we went into this eyes wide open, but of course I was hopeful. You hear about first pregnancies failing way more than subsequent ones, but the fact remains (via my doctor and midwife) that 1 in 5 pregnancies fail. Being a typically optimistic person, I can see that 80 percent of pregnancies make it, but if you've been through the 1 in 5 before, you know that that 20 percent is a HUGE number.

We asked for, and were granted, an early ultrasound (we did the same thing with Piper) and both felt huge sighs of relief upon seeing the flicker of a heartbeat two Fridays ago. 164 beats per minute. Nice and strong. We had over an hour to wait until the appointment with the midwife so I came home and emailed some of my closest friends. Hooray! We were pregnant again.

I was stupidly confident.

At the appointment with the midwife, she told us that there was a pocket of blood visible on the ultrasound, which concerned her. She explained that sometimes this can be a normal occurrence with the development of the placenta (it was in between one end of the placenta and the uterine wall) that could be absorbed by the body. Or, it could be a sign that the pregnancy was eventually going to fail. Out the door flew our confidence; in flew fear. The good news was that I was really sick - throwing up some days, but generally nauseous and feeling awful from the moment I woke up until I went to bed. The midwife explained that those were hormones at work, which was good. The plan became to do another ultrasound in a week to make sure the baby was still growing. We both knew it would be an incredibly long week of waiting, but regardless of what the outcome would be, there was nothing we or any doctor could do.

Fast forward a few days to last Monday, when all of a sudden, I woke up and felt completely back to myself. No more nausea. No more tiredness. I had an internal freak out, thinking this was a sign that things had gone terribly wrong, but continued to try to be hopeful. After all, I had one friend whose sickness only lasted three weeks so the baby could be fine. Piper and I kept super busy while Reid was working to make the time fly, and Friday was once again upon us.

We returned to the practice and got set up in the ultrasound room. No heartbeat was seen in the first attempt, so we switched to an internal ultrasound for a better view. No heartbeat again - the baby had died. As much as I was somewhat expecting this, it still hurt more than one can imagine. I wanted to be hopeful, after all, we wanted this baby. We planned for this baby. I had an app on my phone to help with trying and peed on an ovulation kit stick every morning for crying out loud. We already loved this baby.

I wasn't able to have a d and c until yesterday morning, and spending the weekend knowing there was a dead baby inside of me was torturous. I wanted it out. I felt so gross. And it was messing with my subconscious and dreams, which made sleeping unrestful and aggravating. Friday night I dreamed that I could already feel the baby kick and woke up with my hand on my stomach and the awful realization that the opposite was true. The next night, Reid and I had an enormous fight in my dreams over a new car. In real life, we were planning on getting a different vehicle since I was pregnant, so the dream clearly had a root in our planning, but in the dream I had to keep yelling at Reid that "the baby was dead! We don't need a new car." Over and over again. I would wake up mad, and sad.

I've had brief moments of sadness, but I know the long road of grief is really yet to come. I am great at suppressing my feelings, but I don't want to do that this time. For Piper's sake, we need to deal with this and move on. I do find writing to be therapeutic so hopefully this will help me in addition to others, but I hate that we've lost another child and that we'll be planting another hydrangea in the spring to go with the one that represents our other lost baby. We threw out the first ultrasound picture we had with "BABY" written on it. I didn't want the reminder of what we had lost, not that I'll ever forget it.

I will say that being sad around Piper is pretty much impossible. She has no clue what has gone on in our lives (for which I'm thankful) and spent the weekend running around our house with a huge smile on her face. Hugging her fills me with warmth. We are so blessed and lucky to have her - and while she does serve as a distraction, she's way more than that. She is the best and I will never take her for granted.

How is it mid-November?!

Is it possible that so much time has gone by that I didn't even post after Piper's 15 month checkup?! ARGH. Well, the good news is, my available free time is once again back to sparse instead of nonexistent so I'm putting blogging back onto my to-do list.

Looking back over a MONTH, Piper had her 15 month checkup. Her stats were as follows ...

Height: 32.5 inches - 95 percentile

Weight: 25 pounds - 90 percentile

Head circumference: 18.5 inches - 75 percentile

I can report that she's up to 26 pounds, 12 ounces from her appointment last week, when she went in with conjunctivitis in both eyes and a sinus infection that had come back after one round of antibiotics. Antibiotic eye drops (torture for everyone involved) and another heavier duty antibiotic later, she's doing much better!

At this point, the election was almost two weeks ago ... and while it didn't end favorably (the electorate in our district chose a soldier instead of a businessman to solve economic issues - go figure), it was a unique experience and I'm glad I gave it a shot. After four and a half weeks, Piper finally adjusted to daycare - in fact, she began to love it! She went back to being a solid sleeper and returned to her usual chipper self. It was amazing to have her back! And so much less of a burden on me - I had way less guilt once she began really enjoying herself. And now, even though work is done, she continues to go to "school" one day a week. Sometimes I feel guilty about this, but honestly, I think it's great for both of us. She loves it, gets a full day of socialization with her friends, and I have some time also. I've had two of her school days so far and both have been spent primarily cleaning, but I did spend a bit of time reading on Friday and it felt so nice. And I knew she was having a good time too so I didn't feel badly about it.

So how was working? Well ... I'm not rushing back into it. There were times when it was rewarding, times when it was frustrating, and times when I just couldn't figure out why the heck I was doing it other than I wanted to give it a try and I believed in the project. Overall, it just isn't worth it to me at this point. Even though I enjoyed the work, my life wasn't any more full, any more complete, with me going to work three days a week. It was cool to see Bill Clinton speak in Saratoga, and I felt privilidged to meet two Cabinet members (secretaries of agriculture and commerce), but I would rather be home with Piper most of the time. I'm not going to say that I won't go back to work - and if a unique project presents itself again, I will certainly take a good look at it before I decide how to proceed, but I'm not going to be sending out any resumes anytime soon.

Piper's just a blast. She toddles all over the place, and probably her favorite type of activity is an art project. She loves to color (especially with markers), finger paint even more, and sidewalk chalk on beautiful days is a must. She makes me laugh (like her daddy) so many times every day and I'm simply just crazy about her still. She's super vocal, although most of what she says is still incomprehensible, but every once in a while she totally surprises me and will come out with a complete sentence. The other day, she walked to the coat closet, stood in front of it, pointed at it and said: "This is a closet." Why yes it is, Piper! So cute.

Oh, and today, she peed on the potty. When I went to the bathroom this morning, she showed interest in getting on the toilet too, so I went and got out the frog potty we had from the basement. She sat on it, but nothing happened. Then after breakfast out at Papa's diner, and Church, we came back home and she again showed interest when Reid had to use the bathroom. So I put her back on the potty, and low and behold, she peed! And peed a ton. She was greatly rewarded with several chocolate chips, and has since sat on the potty multiple other times without any activity. I know she's too young to be potty trained, but hey, if she's into it, we'll give it a shot.

I'm sure I'm running out of time as Piper has been sleeping now for an hour, but one of my favorite things that we did this fall was to go to Ellms Family Farm in October. It was a bit chilly, but it was SO fun. I'll end this blog with some of my favorite pics from that day ...

She kept pointing at the cow's head and saying "mooo."

At the bottom of the 70' slide:

Giant bouncing pillow!

Riding bikes with Daddy...

Going down the 15' slide all by herself! Daddy watching over ...

As much as we tried to get her to stand still, this was the best we could do ...

It was so much fun and I can see it getting even better when she's bigger. We'll be returning next year!

3 weeks in and ...

I remember going to Sky Acres Girl Scout camp for a week when I was 7 or 8, and on day 3, hating every minute. It was night time, I was supposed to be sleeping and couldn't, and found myself crying in the counselor's tent, begging them to let me call my parents. "They're night owls, I promise they're awake until 11." Needless to say, they didn't let me call, so I finally went back to my tent and cried myself to sleep.

I also remember getting home after having the BEST time ever. So day 3 sucked, but from then on it was all fun and games and was well worth the one night of being homesick.

Three weeks into this part-time job, I keep waiting for the day 3 feeling to end, and for Piper to move onto the next stage of transition - acceptance and happiness! Starting the first night of my job, and thus, day care, she stopped sleeping through the night. Every night since 20 nights ago, except for two days on a weekend (and one was at my parents' house when we weren't there), she has been up multiple times, screaming her head off, absolutely pissed off at the world. We're all exhausted and could use a good night's sleep. I had forgotten how debilitating sleep deprivation is ... there's a reason why this is used as torture because it makes everything else about the rest of the day more difficult. UGH.

My first day was a Friday, and that whole weekend she was so mad at us that she would crawl away from us and try to hide. That Sunday, I picked her up from a way to short nap and she tried to wiggle out of my arms, so I put her down and she crawled into her closet and started banging her head into the wall. All I wanted to do was cry. I couldn't soothe her, she was clearly emotionally distressed, and why was I doing this again? Luckily, she's stopped the head banging. She's still super clingy, which got worse with her being away from me three days a week, and now she cries at soon as we pull into the day care parking lot, but they tell me that she has a good day once I leave. Well, except yesterday, when her report said that she "Had a hard day and was mean to her friends." Specifically, she was hitting and pulling hair. I think it's because she had a 101.6 fever when I picked her up and was sick ... which brings me to my next subject.

As expected, Piper has been working on her immune system as a result of being in day care. I missed my third day of work because she had literally fountains of snot running down her face. And today we went to the doctor's where she was diagnosed with coxsackievirus.The poor little thing has sores on the inside of her mouth ... plus her molars are still wreaking havoc on our lives. Awesome.

So how's the job going? Fine, but like I said, I'm waiting for "day 3" to be over. And if it's not over by the end of this (November 2!), and we all aren't feeling well rested and happy again, then the odds of me going back to work again until Piper and her potential future sibling are in school are pretty much zero. It's simply not worth it!

One fun update is that Piper is walking all over the place. I'm trying to think of when this started ... I think it was a couple of weeks ago. That may be a positive development from day care - the peer pressure finally pushed her into the land of the walkers with crawling now a thing of the past!

And just so I always remember, the pic above is from the balloon festival last weekend and is one of my new favorites. I love how happy they both look :-) We had to be up at 4:50 to get there in time to see the 90+ balloons take off with the sun, but it was well worth it!

Working mama - day 1 update

First, here's a super cute pic of Piper from the track when we were on vaca. That smile is at a horse, of course.


Moving on, I've been asked by numerous people how yesterday went so here's a quick update ...

Yesterday went well. Reid and I dropped off Piper at day care and she seemed totally at ease. She sat down with her new friends and had snack while we got her stuff taken care of and said goodbye. No drama, no tears, no problem. We walked out and of course I was an emotional mess, but managed to hold it together for the 10 minute drive downtown. Then I had a few minutes to kill so went to Reid's office and cried. But after that, it was off to work - be smart, learn quickly, and rock and roll.

The morning flew by, and then Reid came to ask me to lunch. So we went out, and while waiting for our food, called to check in on Piper. We heard from one of her teachers that she was doing super well, and had only cried when she had a poopie diaper change. Even more than that, she had buddied up with a boy named Finn (the two must have found their hippie names something to bond over) and they hadn't left each others' sides. So cute. We both felt better, of course, and after lunch, I went back to a crazy afternoon of feeling overwhelmed and exhilarated. Excellent.

Then I went to pick her up ... and this is where the guilt returns. Piper heard my voice before she saw me because the Director had engaged me in conversation when I walked in, so by the time I got to her room, she was sitting there, huge crocodile tears running down her face, sobbing her little heart out. The teachers said that she had a great day, but had been watching like a hawk as kids had started leaving over the past hour. With every parent that came and wasn't me, she was disappointed. Ugh ... so she was the second to last to leave (Finn was still there!), and clung to me like a stronger piece of velcro than we'd previously experienced. I knew she was tired, hadn't napped well, but she had produced a cute coloring project, a positive daily report, and was still in the same outfit. I think it probably was a good day for her, but I still felt guilty.

And then we come to today - a TERRIBLE day. Piper clung to me and cried nearly the entire day. She didn't really nap - maybe she was afraid she would miss something? - which didn't help matters either, but her mood was awful, and at so many moments of the day, she was completely inconsolable. ARGH .......... it made me feel terrible and question my decision to take this on. Was it fair to Piper? I thought working would make me feel good, but today it just made me feel like crap. I know there's an adjustment period, and I am hopeful all of this will get better, but I'm definitely dreading Monday's drop-off as much as Friday's, if not more, because I know Piper's going to realize what she's getting into as soon as we pull in the parking lot. Let's hope for a quick transition! Otherwise this guilt is going to eat me alive.

A new adventure

I look back at the last 6 or so weeks and can say that it was filled to the brim with activities that are cherished during a northeast (read that as too short) summer: swimming, boating, playing outside, getting tan and lighter hair (Piper too!), and eating delicious summer food. We went to Burlington, I had a girls' weekend in the Hamptons. We took vacation and went to Essex, Lake Placid, Middlebury, and a Sugarland concert in NH. There are literally hundreds of pictures from the last part of this summer (one of my favorites being the one above) and we're going to love looking through them for years to come. Here are a few more ... (and if blogger wasn't such a pain to upload to, there would be WAY more, but I digress ...)



So now summer has pretty much come to an end ... what better time to start a new adventure? I wasn't looking for a job, but one was offered to me last week. At first, my reaction was no way. I love staying home with Piper - and what if I miss when she finally turns into a full time walker? That transition, by the way, has taken forever! She will walk for literally an hour (and did so at the Hyde Musuem last week) with one finger, but still maxes out on 10 or so steps on her own. Anyway, I also have learned in life that even if the initial reaction is no, you should always learn more. If we hadn't, we wouldn't have moved back to NY almost four years ago! So I learned more, and once I did, I got really excited about the position. And almost immediately after that, really guilty. I felt terrible for wanting to do something else other than care for Piper, which may seem rational or irrational, depending on the reader. That was almost a week ago, and today I accepted the position. It's great because it's three days a week and ends with the upcoming election so I can dip my toe into the water of being a working mom and see how it goes. It was a really hard decision to make because of the back and forth feelings, but in the end, I think it'll be fun for me to see if my brain still works and I do think day care will be a great experience for Piper. We checked out where she'll be going today and it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. She cried when we left! To me, that cleared the guilt away. So starting Friday, I'll be the new communications director for our congressman, Scott Murphy. I'm really excited about the opportunity and curious about how the next eight or so weeks will go. So please wish me, and more importantly Piper, lots of luck!

First steps!

I had a feeling it would be soon, but not only a couple of hours after I posted ... Piper took her first steps today! We were at a play date with our friends Scotty and Eliza, and Piper stood up, took three steps, and then plopped down. Then she took a couple more steps in our kitchen when I was making dinner. So exciting!!! Bring on the walking!

1-year visit stats!

Yesterday Piper had her one year well visit so we have her latest stats! Yes, she has grown a ton ...

Height: 31 inches - 92 percentile
Weight: 24 pounds, 3.5 ounces - 90 percentile
Head circumference - 18 inches - 60 percentile

I thought she had actually slimmed down a bunch with all of the stretching out that she has done, but the numbers don't lie. She's still a very well-proportioned big lady :-)

She also has a new trick! I think she felt like she had to step it up a bit because her cousins came to visit last week, and Ravel took her first steps while she was here. Piper, feeling behind her younger cousin, decided that it was about time that she started standing up in the middle of the room (without pulling up on anything). I wish I could put into words the pride that's in the smile on her face when she stands up like a big girl, but I don't think I can. It is hilarious and makes me proud all at once! Next step will likely be steps, and likely soon. Yesterday, she shifted her weight to one foot and picked up the other, but then promptly sat down hard on her fanny. I think we're about the enter the stage when she's covered with bruises all the time from her learning bumps, so if you see us and are concerned, I swear we don't beat our child.

Back to the cousins visit! It was great, and so much fun to see how they've all grown. Like the last visit, we were reminded that it's nearly impossible to get a picture of the three of them smiling. In fact, we were completely unsuccessful, but they are all sitting on the same step and you can see their faces so that's as good as we're going to get this trip. Maybe next time!

Even cuter though was Piper showing Ravel love before our photo shoot, with a big kiss and a hug for her cousin ...

We swam in the pool a bunch, went boating and worked around three different nap schedules. Here are a couple more pics of the kids on the boat.


I swear there were smiles, although I seem to have missed all of them!

Last quick update for this post ... Piper seems to have become a napper! She still takes her one snooze a day, but it has begun to stretch out to where it's consistently more than an hour. It's amazing what I can get done in that time, and also amazing how much better her afternoon is after a good snooze. I LOVE it.

Okay one more update, which Reid reminded me of after my last post. One of the cutest things she does right now is play the "Hello" game with Reid. She says, "Hi Dad" or "Hi Daddy"; he answers, "Hi Piper". And it goes back and forth many many many times. I know it's a highlight of his day - and seeing the smiles on both of their faces is certainly a highlight of mine.