Everything Changed

December 4, 2006.

We went in for a {regular} 16 week check up hoping we might get lucky and find out the sex a little early. Everything had been picture perfect so far, we had no reason for concern. That quickly changed. The doc's mood slowly changed as he was performing the ultrasound. He didn't seem {too} concerned, but concern was there nonetheless. Maybe he was just being guarded. Not sure. But he told us there was "some fluid around the head and some behind the ears." My first thought... "Fluid around the head? Isn't his or her entire head surrounded by fluid?" The wording just didn't make since to me. He said it could turn out to be nothing but that we would need to see a specialist with better equipment to determine if there was a legit problem. Okay, fine. We would go to a specialist in a couple of days. It would turn out to be nothing. My faith was high. I had just gotten all cleaned up from the lovely jelly they plop on your belly when the doctor came back in. He informed us that he had made us an appointment with the specialist and we were to head over there right away. What?! Right away?! My faith suddenly came crashing down. {Now} I was worried.

On the way to the other doctor, whose name I can't even recall (is that bad?),we were busy praying, and making phone calls to our family asking them to pray. I {tried} to put on a brave face, or voice in this case, and tell them it was no big deal and could easily turn out to be nothing. I tried my hardest to believe the words that were coming out of my own mouth. I wasn't very convincing.

We sat in an awkward silence mixed with the slightest bit of small talk while we waited in the waiting room. We were both scared, nervous and praying. Neither of us had the words to say. What do you say in that situation anyway? We were finally called back and met the doctor. Still don't remember his name. Thick accent, salt and pepper hair...yeah that's all I've got for ya. He was nice enough, I suppose. Very professional and not very personable, but not rude. Just very matter of fact. His super thick accent didn't help things. He dealt with high risk pregnancies and genetic disorders all day, every day. He came across very {calloused} and accustom to this process, but again, not rude.

The room was dimly lit, making it hard to remember much about it. There was the table/chair thingy you lay on, high tech ultrasound equipment, a couple of chairs, a long row of counters and counter tops, along with a TV monitor. The monitor mirrored what was on the ultrasound screen so I could see it without getting a crick in my neck. The room itself made me sad. It wasn't a place I would have ever pictured myself and it certainly wasn't a place I wanted to be. But it would be a place I would become very familiar with over the next several months. The doctor came back in and turned off the lights, making the already dimly lit room seem pitch black. The only light came from the two screens. Creepy. Scott stood by my head and held my hand as the doctor began the ultrasound. He took his time, took lots of measurements, and was very quiet. {Too} quiet. He finally broke his silence and began to talk about everything he saw. He confirmed what Dr. S had told us about the fluid. There was fluid on the baby's brain and some behind the ears. He also noted that the arms and legs were measuring a bit small. He then informed us that we would have (I'll get into that more later) to have an amniocentesis to determine what was really going on. He wanted to schedule it for the next day, which happened to be my birthday. Not happening. So we scheduled it for the sixth instead.

And thus began a whirlwind of testing on this new journey we had now been thrust down.

The first half of the pregnancy....

"Are you saying what I {think} you're saying?!"

Why, yes, we were. ***disclaimer: This again, is talking about our first pregnancy with Elli, not the one with McKinnley or a current one...as we are not pregnant. Continue*** We were pregnant with our first baby and we were ecstatic. The first grand baby on my parent's side, the 3rd (which ended up being the fifth...two more adoptions during the pregnancy!) on Scott's side. Everyone was so excited to meet this little bundle of joy.

I didn't have much morning sickness, but when I did have it, it was ROUGH! Starting at 6 weeks, I woke up in the middle of the night, every 2 hours on the dot. I thought {death} was knocking at my door.

I kid. Sorta.

Honestly, I have never felt so sick. There was no relief. I would have felt better if I had thrown up. But not once during the few weeks that it lasted, did I throw up. I know some people might say I got lucky and shouldn't be complaining. I mean, after all, it only lasted a few weeks and I never threw up, but man oh man, it was BAD!! (And I can say this now because I have since had another precious baby girl, had morning sickness all day, everyday for months and threw up every.single.day. And strangely enough, I would take that over what I dealt with the few short weeks of morning sickness with Elli.)

Enough about that. :::grin:::

Two words. Dairy. Queen. A Dairy Queen 1/2 chocolate chip cookie dough, 1/2 Reese's blizzard to be exact. If there was one thing I craved over everything else, this was it. Yum. I could have eaten one every day, but I was a good girl and refrained. I only had one once a week. ::grin:: Other than that, I didn't have many other cravings. I did start liking {some} vegetables and watermelon though. And if you know me at all, you know that in itself is HUGE! I hated veggies!

Scott went to every appointment with me. He didn't want to miss out on anything. He loved seeing her move and flip and whatever else she was doing in there. The look on his face when he heard the heartbeat each time was the best! Pure joy. The pregnancy was going smoothly and everything was measuring right on schedule.

And then we went in for our 16 week appointment on December 4th, 2006...and {everything} change...

What I do all day...

***I wrote this several weeks ago and never published it. I had a photo attached of all of the kiddos, but I keep forgetting to ask the parents for permission to put their child's picture on here. So I just took the picture off and decided to post it without it. :::grin:::***

Well, let's see, a {normal} day would look like this...

Play with kids
Feed the kiddos breakfast
check for dirty diapers
(change dirty diapers if needed)
put 2 kids down for a nap
play with the rest of the kiddos
start getting lunch together
get up the babies from napping
feed the kiddos lunch
change diapers
play some more
put {everyone} down for a nap
try and sneak a nap in for myself
(less than 50% success rate with that...)
get everyone up from nap
change diapers
feed the kids a snack
play even more
Parents pick up their kids
}Repeat{

So all of that summed up....eat, sleep and clean poop.

Today, however, has looked like this.....

play with kids
3 kids fed breakfast
1 given breathing treatment
retrieved toy microphone and potty seat from {toilet}
cleaned the kid playing in toilet
wash the kiddo's shirt since it was covered in toilet water
clean toilet
throw away toy mic that was now {filled} with toilet water
clean potty seat
take 1 potty twice
put 2 down for nap
take 3 outside to play, color and burn off some of this crazy energy
sent 1 inside with hubby b/c she didn't want shoes on
play with 2 outside
bring them inside and tell them "hands up, don't touch anything."
they immediately wiped the sidewalk chalk on the walls and furniture
clean chalk off of the 2 and EVERYTHING they touched
:::::::::::::::::::::::::
pause here for a moment. It's only 9:45 am at this point. ::grin:: Continue.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::
play with 3 kids still awake
break up at least 5 "fights"
get the 2 up from nap
start prepping lunch
change 2 diapers
feed all five kiddos
another breathing treatment
1 given a bottle
break up at least 5 more "fights"
1 sat in time out twice
check for dirty diapers
change 2 more diapers
1 taken to potty again and changed pull-up
all 5 put down for a nap {!!!}
finally eat lunch for myself
sit down to write this post at 1:15 pm
2 wake up way too early
put two back to sleep

It's now just a bit after 2:00 pm...

I still have the "after nap" routine left. We'll see how that goes! :::grin:::
}hopefully not repeat{

I love what I do. And I would today over again a million times if it meant I would still get to stay at home with McKinnley. I love the kids I watch. Some may criticize that I have no life and I'm "stuck" here at home, but I don't agree at all. Sure, it definitely has it's challenges and some days I just want to pull my hair out and cry, but it's so worth it. Not only do I get to stay home with my baby girl, but I get the opportunity to shape and mold 4 other beautiful children.

Thank you Jessica and Nick, Aimee and Ryan, and Mark and Sara for trusting me with your precious kiddos. I love them so much...even on days like today.

::::grin::::

Snow, glorious snow!!

I.Love.Snow.

Seriously.

There's something {majestic} about it.

It's so beautiful and makes me feel like a kid all over again. I have always been enamored with it and I get all giddy inside. I could sit and watch it fall for hours, and that's just what I did.

I needed a snow day...or two. ::grin::

When you're playing in the snow, you're not thinking about the bills that need paid, the debt that's ever-looming, the money you don't have, the house that needs cleaned, the laundry that needs done. No, you're not thinking about any of this at all. You're just playing. Carefree, like a {kid}, full of pure joy.

{bliss}

We could all use a snow day or two every now and then.......
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I had {grand} adventures planned. Snow angels, snowmen, snow ball fights, snow walks, snow ice cream. Oh the adventures I was going to have.

...........a girl can dream can't she?! :::grin:::

Well, I did set out on every adventure, they just weren't on as grand of a scale as I had hoped. And that was perfectly okay, because all in all, it turned out to be a perfect, much needed day with my family.

:Perfect:

The day we found out...

...we were pregnant, we were {beyond} excited. The line was so faint, I took 3 tests just to make sure!! We weren't trying to get pregnant so it definitely came as a shock. We hugged, we laughed, we cried tears of joy....and then I thought, "Oh my, can we really do this? Can we afford this? Are we ready? Where will we live? The apartment is WAY too small for a baby!" And fear of the unknown gripped my heart...for about 3 seconds. Then Scott grabbed me, hugged me and whispered, "Babe, we're gonna have a baby! {Everything's} going to be fine. It's okay!" I laughed. I couldn't believe I went from excitement to fear back to excitement in 20 seconds flat! We wanted to go to the doctor and confirm the pregnancy (remember the faint line...) so we decided to wait to tell our parents. It was SOOO hard to keep it a secret from them. Luckily, we didn't have to wait too long. We made an appointment for the next day. :::grin:::

Dr. S was great. He made me feel so comfortable and we laughed pretty much the whole time. He's such a character! He, of course, confirmed that I was {indeed} pregnant....barely 5 weeks, but still, PREGNANT!! He even joked that I was just barely pregnant. I couldn't believe it. We were going to have a baby! He gave us a sonogram picture of what looked like a BB and scheduled an 8 week appointment. So off we went, still on a high, not believing what was happening. We sat in the car for a little bit and discussed back and forth whether we should call our parents.

We decided to go to Target.

Once we got inside Target we went straight to the greeting card section. We scanned over the cards for who knows how long until we found the perfect one. We snatched up three of them and went to the baby section. What to buy, what to buy? We looked at everything and just couldn't decide.

So we bought Gerber baby spoons. Exciting, I know, but we loved them and they were perfect!

We mailed out the cards and waited for our parents to call. My parents got the card first since they live closer and then finally Scott's parents called. Everyone one had the same response..."Are you saying what I {think} you're saying?!?!"

A few things I don't want to forget....

I'm horrible at writing stuff down in McKinnley's baby book...In fact, I'm not sure if I've written anything in it. Horrible, I know. I always just take a picture of the certain event or milestone and *plan* on putting it in her book. I haven't quite got to the "putting it in" part yet, but I guess I at least still have the picture and can put it in later, right? Right! At least that's what I keep telling myself! ::grin:: So it's really not that big of a problem that I haven't officially documented rolling over, sitting up, first steps and so forth since I have the pictures with the dates. (Or at least that's what I keep telling myself!) But now she's is learning stuff left and right, most of which I can't document with a camera, so that {is} a problem. Which brings me to the point of these ramblings ::grin:: Here are a few things about my precious Kinnley-boo that I don't want to forget.

McKinnley Grace
{20 months old}

-You can and do say pretty much anything
which always tends to shock people
-You can form complete sentences, short, but complete
::grin::
-Your favorite phrases right now are:
. oh no! what happened? (or "huh happen"...depending on how fast you say it)
. where daddy go?
. where kinnley go? UH! there she is!!
. hold you manda...to which I correct and make you say momma :)
. you point and say "you" if you see a picture of yourself
. soshun (lotion)
. oh my gosh...we're working on that one :-/
. oh my goodness
. bless you (when we sneeze or blow our noses)
. you pronounce your "k" and hard "c" sounds like "t's" most of the time
{example: kitty cat = titty tat}
::grin::
. Jesus, Hallelu
. apple {nipple...yeah I'm not thrilled about that one. You can thank your daddy for that}
. awww, it's tute {cute}
. lay down, look at lights. Pretty. Pretty lights momma (This of course was at Christmas time when we would lay under the tree and look up at the lights.)
I'm sure there are many, many more cute phrases and sayings, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

-Since we got back from Christmas vacation in IA, you have a new nightly routine:
. you now refuse to lay down without out being rocked and sung to
. you say "rock you momma. Jesus, hallelu. Twinkle star" or any combination of the three
{Jesus, hallelu is "Jesus loves me" just a different version}
. you tend to add a new stuffed animal to the mix every night...I keep having to hide them
{baby, blanket, puppy are the norm with different ones thrown in}
. You have to tuck in Mousey {Minnie Mouse}, Baby and Dora every night. You usually do this to stall having to go to bed.

-Some of your favorite toys and books are:
. any stuffed animal or baby doll
{You love to rock your baby and sing "Jesus, Hallelu" to her. Cutest. Thing. Ever.}
. Dora doll and prush (brush)
. keys, real or pretend
. puzzles
. rocking horse
. balls
. bubbles
. coloring
. your bouncing zebra thing (descriptive, I know)
. microphone
. phone...iphone to be exact. It's scary how well you know how to use it...
. Noah's ark
. blocks
.you love for me to draw handprint turkeys on your magnadoodle
. Daddy hugs
. Pajama time
. Five little monkeys
. Where is baby's belly button
. Twinkle toes
. either of your Elmo books

-Your favorite things to eat right now are:
. chicken
. mac & cheese
. Cheese. period.
. pretty much any fruit
. NOT any vegetable...and oh does that frustrate me!
. fraphers {crackers}
. bacon
. cereal
. oatmeal
. yogurt
. applesauce

-You can count to 3. Sometime 5, but you usually skip 4
-You can recognize the letters {capital} A,B,C,D,E,F,G,I,T and are learning at least one new one everyday
-You've been able to sign "more", "please", "eat" and "all done" since you were 9 months old. You can now say all of them, but you occasionally still sign it as you say it.
-You make associations really well, especially with people. You know who belongs with who.
{example: gram, nathan, roxie, abby and jax or papa jack, nana, sissy (Kinsey) and trudy}
-You can recognize people in pictures very easily

-Your favorite cartoons are:
. Dora
. Wow wow
. Backyardigans
. Wonder pets
. Veggie Tales

-You love to climb...anything and everything
-You love to dance and do the {cutest} booty shake and ~everyone~ asks you to do it. It always makes them smile/laugh

-You've pee peed in potty twice and will {hopefully} master it soon!!!

McKinnley, I love you so so much. You light up my world everyday. I can't wait to see what your next {new} thing is!

............did I say a {few} things...oops!! :::::::grin:::::::

Ready, set, go

Figuring out where to start (or in this case, how to start) has always been a challenge for me. Whenever I would write a paper in high school or college, I would always know what I wanted to say, but it was the figuring out how to start it out that got me every time. (The same holds true when it comes to cleaning/organizing my house....but that's another story! :)) Thesis statements, ugh, those where the worst! I hated them! Anyway, my point is, I'm finding it difficult to figure out what to say or where to start. Most people tend to journal as things are happening in their lives. I, on the other hand, refused to. I didn't want to face it and wanted to think everything was okay. So going back almost 3 years seems kinda silly, but necessary.

I thought about just starting with telling you about how I met my husband, seeing as how he plays such an intricate part in this process as well, but it just felt too random... Does that even make sense?! I have had this post in my draft for weeks, but I've still yet to complete it. Not sure why really. I think I've just been so emotionally drained over the holidays and since then that I have not had the energy to open up the can of worms that it will inevitably be. (not my husband, but writing about Elli! :)) That being said, this is going to be more difficult, draining, and time consuming than I thought. I suppose it doesn't help either that I've been staying up WAY too late...it's currently 12:25 a.m. Which probably and almost definitely contributes to why I've not had the energy to write lately.... hmmm....

Anyway, I will write. I will. I will lay my heart out there. I will be transparent. I will try to put into words what I'm feeling, thinking and going through. I will write how it's affected us in every aspect of our lives and still does. I will write about my amazing husband and my sweet McKinnley and the {absolute} joy they bring me each and everyday. I will. I will, I will, I will. But first......sleep! :) (12:57 a.m. I'm just saying...)

I will leave you with this, however. Tell me that doesn't make you smile!