Cousins

Yesterday Mia got to hang out with cousins Cara and Emie at Nana and Papa’s. The girls get so excited with anticipation, so it’s a lot of fun when they actually see each other. There is lots of squealing and leg kicking. There was a small bit of jealousy at first, because each girls assumes Nana and Papa are “theirs”, and Mia did not like it when I hugged and kissed all over Cara, but they got over it.

They are really cute together. Emie watches over them and is such a good babysitter, and Mia and Cara just laugh at the other’s antics. I was only there with the two of them for a little while, but they were taking turns pushing each other in the rocking chair and then playing baby, where Cara would lay on the floor on her belly and Mia would cover her with a blankie and pat her back while she went to “sleep”. It was so adorable!

Since both girls are crazy about Elmo, their birthday will have an Elmo theme. I’ve heard a rumor that SP is looking for an Elmo costume. I soooo hope that pans out!

Mia's second Christmas and beyond

It’s been ages since I’ve posted. Not because nothing has been going on, but because we’ve been so busy. Christmas was absolutely wonderful. Despite the fact that Santa only brought Mia three gifts at our house, her toy room is packed full thanks to her grandparents, aunts and uncles and great aunts. Although she really didn’t get the whole concept of Christmas, she was very excited about all the toys. On Christmas Eve Santa visited at Granny and Grampy’s and at Mamaw and Papaw’s. By the time she woke up Christmas morning, she knew exactly what was coming when we told her Santa had been here and brought her presents. She padded out into the living room and got so excited when she saw her toys. She turned around and exclaimed, “Thank you Santa!” It was one of the sweetest, most sincere things I’ve ever heard. We then went to Nana and Papa’s where she was spoiled some more. I planned to take some of the toys downstairs to pull out later in the year, but there isn’t really anything she doesn’t play with right now.

Mike and I stayed home New Year’s Eve and hung out with Mia. The following morning we all went to the annual pajama party at Lynn’s Paradise Café. Mia was wild, not wanting to sit still. She is definitely a toddler now, curious and independent.

The UK/U of L game was on my birthday. We went to the Smithers’ and Mia was the youngest girl. She was also the only child there without a sibling. I’d gotten her all excited about going, telling her all the kids that would be there. But when we got there, the older girls really didn’t want to play with her because they were doing “big girl” things, and she was so upset she cried. It was the first time I watched my girl excluded and it made me so sad I almost cried myself! It also made me decide that I will proceed with another pregnancy, no matter what the risk of multiples. I want her to have a guaranteed playmate and if it means I also risk going through another loss, so be it.

I’ve followed all the advice I’ve seen in books about toddlers needing routines for comfort and consistency and we now have a pretty set bedtime routine. We start her bath at 6:50 and put on pj’s by 7:10. We dry her hair and brush her teeth, kiss daddy good night, then read two books. We talk about her day and then pick out a book for her to “read” to her babies in bed. She then walks to her bed, I kiss her and put her in and she lays down and goes to sleep. Most nights she will sleep until 6:30 or 7:00. For awhile we were listening to other parents talk about how their kids stay up until 8 or 8:30 so we were trying that. After all, that would allow us more time with her. But she was waking up throughout the night and was getting up sometimes as early as 5. So we went back to this routine and it’s perfect for us.

Over the past few months I’ve watched Mia really grow in her vocabulary and comprehension. She will repeat anything we say and appear to understand it all. She is also getting good at recognizing emotions. I’ve been working with her on empathy, so we look at the facial expressions of the characters in her books and talk about their feelings. Of course like all toddlers, she is struggling with her own emotions now. She is definitely two, and much more frustrated about all the things she wants to do but can’t or isn’t allowed. She throws far more fits now and screams and shrieks when she doesn’t get her way. We are surprisingly patient with her and she gets through them and we move on.

Mia loves to color. She asks to color almost every day. Our stainless steel refrigerator now has crayon marks on it (a quickly learned lesson on our part!) but we still try to allow her to draw and color as much as possible. She also likes to sing and dance and will break into a rendition of ABCs to impress strangers and new friends. Like mommy and Aunt Miss, she also is quite theatrical. She loves to dress up and watch herself in the mirror. She does these grand tosses of her head, and will talk to herself in the mirror using elaborate hand gestures. Last night she was walking in circles around the living room with her arms crossed, eyes closed, rolling her head around and talking to herself. She looked like Stevie Wonder.

She’s back in swimming lessons thanks to Granny and Grampy. She is doing great, even better than last year. She’s now jumping in and turning around under water to reach for the side. She also went underwater to grab a ring last week. I’m so glad she’s comfortable in the water and even more happy she’s learning skills that will hopefully help keep her safer in the future.

Mia amazes me every single day. I find that I’m even more in love with her the older she gets, something I could not have imagined possible. She and I have a special bond, as I’m sure all mommies have with their girls. We have so much fun together. She has an outgoing, silly personality that makes me laugh and she’s so sweet she makes me want to hold her in my arms all day. She loves to play hide and seek with my hair. She’ll pull it over my face and go “Where’s mommy?” then pull it back and go, “Here she is!” and kiss me. She’ll also exclaim, “I wuv YOU!” and giggle. And when she is sad or sleepy or when I get home from work she’ll raise her arms and say, “Hold you mommy.” I absolutely treasure every moment with her, and I wonder if she’ll ever know how much she means to me, how full my heart is with love for her. I guess she will, once she has a daughter of her own.

Who's that girl with the hot young eggs? It's me, it's me!

I had a saline ultrasound on Monday to search for any irregularities in my uterus. All looked well. He also checked my eggs and my ovaries, which were slightly polycystic but nothing to worry too much about. As he was looking at my eggs he asked how old I am. I replied that I will be 37 in less than two weeks. He said, “Your eggs don’t look 37. They look much younger,” to which I replied, “Like the rest of me?” Ha! He said they are in different stages of growth, and perhaps they are ovulating irregularly, which could cause the miscarriages. If so, that would be corrected with the ovulation stimulation. He is still waiting on blood work testing our chromosomes and any blood clotting issues, but he thinks those will come back okay. He basically said he thinks I’m a great candidate for the ovulation stimulation, coupled with strong progesterone support and possibly aspirin to help with blood clotting. He said we can start as soon as possible.

I told him I’m not really ready to start just yet. The past week or so I have found myself really sad and grieving for those three lost babies. I don’t know that I ever really have gone through the grief process for them. I’ve just focused on the beautiful, happy, healthy baby I already have and have felt like I’m blessed to have her so I shouldn’t dwell on the losses. But I’m still sad and I’m finding I need to go through the grief process despite my best efforts to avoid it. The doctor said that waiting will have no impact, because everything looks young and healthy. So we’ll wait until I’m ready.

We did discuss the possibility of multiples, which totally freaks me out. He said he rarely sees quads or more, but does see his fair share of triplets. I asked him to quantify “fair share” and what that would mean in terms of my possibilities, and he said that given my history and age it would probably be very slight, but that twins is very possible. Now that he knows my fear of multiples, he will administer the medication differently though. He will do a lower dosage over a longer time period, carefully monitoring the eggs to make sure we only get three good ones. Then we will attempt to fertilize those three. With my history of miscarriage he thinks it likely that I will lose at least one, so hopefully at least one more will have been fertilized. But there is still a chance that two, or even three, will have been. Good lord! If any of those double on their own, I will need to be committed to a mental institution.

Ca Cause

Miss Mia is so excited about “Ca Cause”. Although she is not so interested in sitting on his lap (“No, Ca Cause. No, Ca Cause.”), she talks about him and “toys for Mia” every day. We talk about Christmas being Jesus’ birthday and we practice singing Happy Birthday to Jesus. Each night I rock her while we look out the window at all the Christmas lights. I can’t wait to experience this Christmas with her, because she “gets” it a little more this year than last. I’m really looking forward to starting our own Christmas morning traditions, tucked in between the chaos that is our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations with our families. Not sure what our “own” traditions will look like just yet, but I look forward to watching them evolve over the years, so that one day she looks back on Christmas morning as the special time Mike and I do.

My girl

I am not sure how I would ever get through all this without my Mia. If I never have another child, she will bring more joy to my life than I ever deserve. She is the silliest thing in the world, and I just eat it up! She talks non-stop, and is always ready to entertain. I can't begin to list all the things she says now, but some of my favorites are:

• "Bye guys, see you 'morrow." This as we leave daycare each day.
• "Oh my goo-ness" when she sees Christmas lights.
• "Mickey Noooo-se," her reference to Mickey Mouse.
• "Big cock. Daddy, that's a big cock. Big cock Daddy." When she sees a big truck.
• When the sun is in her eyes, "No, no, no sun! No! Hurt Mia's eyes!"
• "Hi kids!!! Play with Mia?" She screams this out to the court when we get home.

Reproductive endocrinologist

I haven't written in well over a month. I've just been too sad. On November 9, Mike and I went in for our ultrasound and there was no longer a heartbeat. I knew it as soon as we saw the sac. There was no movement, it was just there. We were devastated, as you can imagine. On that Thursday I had a D&C, and spent the weekend recuperating. Since then we have just been coping with it all. I've had feelings that I'm not sure I ever want to get pregnant again. I've felt like I wish I could just take a long break. But the docs tell me that with my age, I really need to at least look into what's going on. So today I saw a reproductive endocrinologist.

It was a very informative appointment, and I just loved the doc. We'll do blood work to rule out many things, we'll do chromosomal testing on both of us to see if that's an issue. We'll check my glucose and insulin levels. We'll do a saline ultrasound of my uterus to check for any abnormalities or scar tissue that could be causing trouble. He said that less than 1% of women have 3 or more miscarriages in a row, so this is a big deal that it's happened. He said that without treatment I will likely just continue to miscarry. But he also felt confident that based on the information he received from my history and previous blood work, a procedure called ovulation induction should work for us. That's where he takes over the timing of everything in my cycle and we induce ovulation, then inseminate me at the right time. We would do various medications prior to insemination and during the pregnancy to help retain it. We'll have to think about all this and decide what's best for us, but he seemed really hopeful that this procedure should work.

Silly girl

Mia has been quite a character lately! She definitely keeps us laughing! Here are some of our favorite moments from the past week or so:

• The other night at dinner, she “painted” her fingernails using a French fry and barbecue sauce. She was very meticulous, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration.
• When I picked her up from daycare one day, her class was just coming in from the playground. They were all lined up as they entered the room. When she saw me she started squealing and running in circles around the room – while the rest of the kids stood calmly in line. She finally ran up to me, flinging her arms around my legs and burying her head in my knees. When I told her to say bye bye to her friends, she turns to them and says “Bye Bye”, blowing them all kisses. Then she kisses her hand again and puts the kiss on the nose of a boy in her class. Then she grabs him, pulls him to her and kisses him on the mouth! The teachers and I went nuts, asking her if she has a boyfriend and laughing. She got embarrassed, and buried her head in my knees again. Now we ask her every day about her boyfriend Lincoln.
• When someone is in her way, she now says “beep beep” to get them to move.
• She loves trying to put my hair in pigtails. She pulls it all into my face and squishes it together in bunches on the top of my head.
• When Mike and I are talking, if one of us gets too loud she says “Mommy stop! Daddy stop!” I don’t know if she thinks we’re arguing or what, but it definitely makes us stop!
• She had a low grade fever earlier this week and we had to take her temperature rectally. So all this week she has been holding things to the bottoms of her dolls, saying “m-pa-ture”. She also tries to suck boogers out of their noses, pushes them around the house in a stroller and rocks them while patting their bottoms. She’s a very good mommy.