4 years ago...almost

October 15th is international pregnancy and infant loss awareness day. Or something like that. I know some cynical ladies who refer to it as "Dead Baby Day" and having used cynicism, sarcasm, and blunt honesty to survive my own losses, I certainly can not judge them. Basically a day to remember all of the babies that died too soon, either from a pregnancy loss or an infant death. There are ceremonies on that day and at 7pm (or 730 - I can't remember!) everyone lights a candle for their sweet babies in Heaven. So this was the first year I was going to make it to a ceremony - the closest one the last few years has been in Tampa. But this year there was one in Naples. But my sweet Rachel was really sick and although daddy is perfectly capable, I just hate leaving the kids when they don't feel well. So I didn't get to go. I was going to light candles for my babies and a sweet friends two babies in Heaven as well. But a dear friend lit a candle for my babies and I remembered everyone for a few minutes at the appropriate time while rocking my screaming rainbow to sleep. Is that irony? Or a miracle? Maybe both. Having a rainbow is a miracle for sure.

But that's not what I want to write about tonight.


4 years ago I was around 7 or 8 weeks pregnant with our second baby. And it was International Baby Loss day. And someone posted something on facebook about it. I remember thinking "oh how sad. Kinda awkward to put it on Facebook..." and scrolling right on past. Funny that I thought it was awkward for Facebook b/c Lord knows now how many times I've been all kinds of awkward about baby loss and infertility on the Facebook in the last couple of years. Anyway - I kept scrolling, pushed it from my mind, b/c things like that just don't happen to me ya know? Miscarriage happens to other people...blah blah blah. News flash guys - something like 25% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. 1 in 4. They don't just happen to other people. Scary thought huh?

So three weeks later I was 10wks and a day and went to my first OB appt. Tried to find the heartbeat and couldn't but it was early yet and they didn't see the need for the ultrasound at that point. I wonder if the midwife knew then and just didn't want to deal with it? That's mean I know, but would you want to deal with telling the excited pregnant woman her baby was dead? No. Me neither. Anyway the next day I began having some complications and ended up in the ER were I learned the baby was dead, completely flipped, got a nice shot of ativan, and went to sleep. They sent me home to follow up with my doc on Monday (this was on a Saturday). Said he would do a d&c then. Well I didn't make it that far and on Sunday I was back in the ER for an emergency D&C and was one of "those women" that miscarriage does happen to.

Since this was an unplanned baby, we did not start trying for another one for over a year. There were a lot of reasons for that, but looking back I'm glad we waited b/c the person I was then could not have walked the road of recurring pregnancy loss without ending in the looney bin.

A few months after my loss, a sweet friend showed up at my door step crying. She had just found out her baby was dead too. It was her third pregnancy. While I hate miscarriage and hate that we both experienced it, a wonderful friendship came from it and I thank God every day for her.


We all know the rest of the story. If you don't read my blogs from 2010. They're really uplifting. Or not. But they're honest and were I was in the moment.


Anyway I don't know where I was going with this. I don't want to be the bearer of doom ("oh don't think it'll never happen to you b/c it may!!! BEWARE!!") b/c that's not what I think. I pray none of my friends have a miscarriage. It sucks. I worry from the day a friend announces a pregnancy until that baby is here. For all of my friends. It's a bit overwhelming lol! But for real I never thought I would lose one baby, let alone 4. Did you know recurrent pregnancy loss only occurs in like 3% of women? It's a pretty small chance that it would happen to me. But it did.

I will say I've met some wonderful people through this. In addition to my above mentioned friend, I have a whole group of women who have struggled with different forms on infertility. They're awesome and I would have never met them if I hadn't had my second miscarriage. Honestly if I hadn't had my third - when we lost Pepper - I probably wouldn't have gone back. So there you go. There's some of my bright side. And I said when Rachel was born, it was all worth it. And it was.

Anyway - I guess don't just scroll past the baby loss stuff b/c you don't know what to say or you don't think it could ever happen to you. It could happen to anyone. But more importantly - it did happen to HER. That person on the other side of facebook over sharing her personal business b/c she just wants someone besides her to acknowledge her baby, no matter how little time it was with her. And that's what the day is about. Yes it's an uncomfortable thought, but if nothing else, say a prayer and hug your babies tight.  A day of remembrance for babies gone to Heaven should remind all of us how blessed we are to have babies on Earth.

What we've been up to

Just an update on the kidlets...

  Rachel turned 6 months on 9/29. Craziness! So what can my 6 month old do??

1. She can roll both ways all over my house.

2. She is a master of the backwards scoot.

3. She can "tripod" sit. Not very long though, she tends to flop over a lot. We're practicing lol.

4. She can get up on her hands and knees and rock for about 10 seconds.

5. She is eating lots of yummy solid food and enjoying most of them. Green beans took about 20 tries (seriously!) and she's not a huge fan of homemade squash, but will eat the Gerber squash. Silly girl.

6. She can laugh hysterically at her big brother. If no one or nothing else can calm her down, all Corbin has to do is look at her and she's cracking up. It's so fun to watch their relationship develop as she's getting older and more interactive.

  Last week we saw a GI for her reflux. This was good because her pediatrician (who I have loved for everything else) would not increase her reflux medication. She told us to thicken her formula with rice cereal. We did that for about 2 months. At first it helped a bit. Then it kind of stopped helping. Since she's eating solids from the spoon and I didn't want her to decrease her formula intake anymore (she eats around 22oz most days now) and the cereal wasn't helping much, we decided to just stop thickening the formula about 3 weeks ago.

  In August, Rachel developed this cough that she just could not shake. It wasn't a bad cough, just  throughout the day she would cough frequently. Then 2 weekends ago, she woke up a couple of times gasping and flailing and wide eyed and then threw up everywhere. After a quick google search, I realized the cough may be because her reflux wasn't being controlled properly. I called for a GI consult referral and they were able to see us two days after I called the pediatrician.

  So the GI said since Rachel is growing well (she was 18lbs 9oz and 26 inches at that appointment) he didn't think there was anything physically wrong causing the reflux. We have nothing to worry about and she will most likely outgrow it. He did mention it could keep on until she's closer to 2 (oh joy), but most kids stop spitting by a year. But he said it sounded like Rachel was a baby that spit up a lot and she was a baby who was bothered by it, as opposed to a happy spitter. So we got an increase in her zantac and an rx for prevacid in case the increase didn't work. We ended the appointment  with her puking on the floor.

  It's been a week and it seems to have helped quite a bit. The cough has lessened and she hasn't woken in the night even just chatting in 3-4 nights now (she often wakes up, talks for a few minutes, and then goes back to sleep, but in the couple of weeks before we got her meds changed, she was waking up hysterically crying). She still spits, but a bit less and it's not bothering her as much. So that's about it for Rachel. 

So on to the BIG kid.

I can't believe Corbin will be 6 in just over 2 months. So not cool. He's growing way too fast. It's insane.

Corbin started Kindergarten in August. He is at Three Oaks Elementary and his teacher is Mrs. Addison. IT has been a big adjustment for Corbin and there have been some bumps in the road, but mostly he is loving school. He loves PE and media and art and music. Apart from the fun stuff, he's really doing well with math. The concepts just click for him and he really enjoys it.

  Corbin has gone from unable to read and really not interested in it, to knowing 20 sight words and how to sound out any word that's not a sight word. He read Are You My Mother? last week and barely needed any help from me. He basically read it on his own. It's so fun to watch him figure these things out.

  Corbin's least favorite thing to do is practice his handwriting. We both dread the days when his homework is writing his name over and over in order to practice writing because he makes it difficult on both of us. But his handwriting is getting much neater and maybe someday he will hate it less.

  Today was a big day because he got to check out a book from the school library and bring it home with him for the first time. He was so proud of that book and is taking this responsibility very seriously. It's really cute. 

  About 3 weeks ago, Corbin tried out for swim team. He is now swimming 3-5 nights a week and loving every second of it. He wants to do a swim meet so bad, but his coach and I agree that he needs to get another month or two of practice under his belt before it's time for a competition. He has a bit of work to do before he catches up with the other kids, but he's come so far in a short time. When he first started, he had to swim the length of the pool twice (50M total) to make the team. He did it, but it was a bit of a struggle and he was worn out at the end. And he had a hard time keeping up with the other kids. We are ending our third week and he's swimming that pool back and forth for an hour and doing great. He's keeping up with the other kids mostly and he's picking up on the right ways to do the different strokes. And like I said, he LOVES it and that's the important thing.

So that's it for us. We're busy, but it's fun and the kids are doing great.

Rachel's birth story

Where does the time go???? I kept saying "I'm going to blog Rachel's birth story soon!" 

And now she's almost 5 months old (in 9 days!!!) and no birth story blog. The adjustment from one kid to two was a bit difficult. I would say she was almost 4 months old before I really felt like we had some sort of a routine and I wasn't in over my head lol. Then we went on vacation, came back, Rachel had a tummy bug, Corbin started at one Kindergarten and a week later switched to another one (a very good thing - he was able to get a spot at our first choice for Kindergarten), and now here we are (almost) 5 months later! 


So first things first....a birth story....


On March 29, 2012, at 1:55 PM, Rachel was born (Corbin was born at 2:15 PM...around 5yrs, 3 months, and 6 days (give or take) before). We were told to be at the hospital at 10AM, no eating and drinking after midnight since I was having a repeat c/s. My surgery was scheduled for noon. So, just before noon, they wheel me back, the anesthesiologist comes in, my nurse sets me on the table, they rub disinfectant on my back, get ready to put the spinal in, and.....the OR door flies open. There's an emergency C/S coming down the hall. They had totally lost a baby's heart rate on the monitor and obviously that c/s was way more important than mine (seriously...I wouldn't have had that any other way). So we go back to our room to wait and at 115ish the nurse comes in. Of course we asked about the other baby and of course she couldn't tell us much - but she did let us know it was a happy ending, so thank God for that.

So back to the OR, back on the table, back to getting a needle in my spine. At this point, I kind of lost it. James couldn't come in until the spinal was in and so I was all alone and scared to death of this stupid needle going into my spine. I'm shaking and crying and completely overwhelmed. Not only by the spinal, but by the fact that we were finally getting our rainbow baby after so many years and disappointments. It was very surreal and overwhelming. 

Anyway, James came in, and it took me FOREVER to numb up, and my OB told some dumb (and slightly off colored) jokes to take the edge off. It worked pretty well. They made the first incision at like 150 and she was out 5 minutes later. I won't lie - it hurt! I couldn't feel the incision or the cutting - but the pressure! Oh dear Lord, the pressure was intense. I thought my ribs were going to crack, I couldn't breath, it was like an elephant was on my chest. Then I got a horrid headache out of nowhere, so they hit me with a shot of fentanyl. Then I got nauseous and got a shot of zofran. And more fentanyl. They're incredibly generous with the drugs when you get a headache and threaten to puke in the middle of surgery. 

I saw Rachel briefly and she was so sweet and little and LOUD! The first thing I said was "is she still a girl?" then "Does she have hair??" and then "she doesn't look like Corbin...she looks like my sister!" I kissed her and then James went with her to the recovery room to be measured and weighed and cleaned up while they stitched me back up. 

Would you believe this - halfway through my stitch up - as the doctors and nurses are telling more jokes over my gaping abdomen - in runs yet another nurse for yet another emergency. So they stitched me up insanely fast and off we went back to my room. We tried to go to recovery, but for some reason - I don't remember why? - we couldn't. So I recovered in my room. 

I got to hold Rachel as soon as we got back in the room and just kept saying "we're so glad you're here!" And harassing my poor nurses about when I would get to nurse her. They were trying to get my situated and I'm sure I drove them half crazy, but eventually they got my morphine pump hooked up, decided my low heart rate wasn't going to kill me, and helped me figure out the whole nursing thing. Which Rachel was a pro at so it didn't require a ton of work from me other than making sure she was awake and not getting lazy with her latch. 

I had a slight reaction to the spinal and my heart rate hung out in the low 40's for several hours. But it eventually came back up. I also had a reaction to the morphine pump. I have never itched so much in my life. They finally started to give me benedryl every 4 hour and it helped a bit. But then I was a hot drugged up mess. So the first 24 hours is a blur lol. After the night nurse came in, I got them to pull my IV and catheter and start me on some oral pain meds. Much better! 

We went home on Saturday and my sister was there to help us out! And Rachel was home in time to watch her very first UK Wildcat ball game. And of course they won the NCAA tournament this year - so she got to experience that in her first couple of days of life as well! It was a good week around here :)



So I'm going to skip all the fun stuff in between - she cried a lot, got diagnosed with reflux and a milk soy protein intolerance, got put on meds and I stopped eating soy and dairy (now she's on hypoallergenic formula and hopefully will outgrow the mspi within the next year), she got happy and more happy and then even happier. Started sleeping 12hrs at night at 14wks and is just generally an excellent baby. 

And now pictures:

 Rachel just born

Holding my baby for the first time

Corbin meeting his baby sister

Go BIG BLUE!!! 

Hello people. It's been a LONG time.

So....

I'm 38 wks pregnant - tomorrow. Or today. Depends on which nurse is using which wheely thing? Why don't all the wheely things agree?? They put my EDD (from the ultrasound) on the wheel and then check the date of the day it currently is to tell me how pregnant I am. With Corbin, they put in my LMP and then looked at the 40 wk and gave me my EDD at every appt. And it was also either 12/15 or 12/17. So I guess really the wheels suck. Whatever - 38wks pregnant. Woohoo.


It's all very surreal still. I'm contracting as I type. Not real labor. The obnoxious "pre-labor" that can last for weeks and drive you crazy in the meantime. I refuse to time contractions or believe I'm in real labor until these suckers are 5 minutes apart and I can't talk through them. Which isn't gonna happen before the c-section date next week lol. But with the hospital 45+ minutes away and gas prices through the roof, I'm not driving up there unless I'm sure I'm coming home with a baby lol!

Ok anyway - surrealness. Seriously - I'm having a baby in 8 days. And the nursery's done (practically - the husband has to finish painting a tree on the wall!), the carseat is in the car, there's a swing in my living room, and I'm sleeping next to the pack-n-play. I had a very nice baby shower. And it still hasn't sunk in yet. Weirdness.

A successful pregnancy after recurrent pregnancy loss is...interesting. It's marked by things like the fact that I'm not ready to call it a successful pregnancy until the kid comes home with me - even a week from baby day. And a near panic attack before an ultrasound at 37wks pregnant. When I can FEEL the baby moving before the ultrasound and I still wig out. I hate ultrasounds. I hate them for everyone lol. Anytime a friend is getting an ultrasound, I worry about them until I hear it's all ok. I'm freakin insane. Seriously. INSANE. 

I haven't blogged about it because I'm insane enough to think I'll jinx things. I don't even BELIEVE in jinxing things lol.


So we're a week out from the big day. I am starting to get excited about it all. Corbin asks a million times a day how many more days until his sister is coming home???? We've been counting down since like 200 days left lol! That's a long time - especially in 5 year old world. He's super excited. He's gonna teach her "tricks" lol. I'm a little nervous about that one lol.

The cat won't stay out of the pack n play. He's gonna be pissed when he tries to get in there next week and there's a baby in it. I don't think he's gonna be a huge fan of a baby lol. And Bella dog has been attached to me hardcore the last couple of days. Cracks me up. She knows something's up and she's not sure how she feels about it.

Every time I move, grimace, whine....my dad gets worried that I'm in labor. I took a nap on Sunday and he was sleeping when I woke up. When he woke up at 8pm, he looked all disappointed and said "oh I thought we'd have a baby today"

James answers the phone "are you in labor??" every time I call him. Makes me laugh.

So there ya go. That's what 38wks (? 37w6d?) looks like in the Murphy house. I promise...I'm the only crazy one lol.