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.