When Time is of the Essence

Or not.

Time is a weird structure that we live in a mostly linear fashion but Heavenly Father does not. I've just reread a handful of my previous blog posts, looking for a specific set of emotions I had described.

I am grateful that I described them when I did because in rereading, so much of that pain is gone. There's a remembrance of it, like a scar, but no pain.

In June of 2020, I had that last miscarriage. In the months that followed, my husband and I looked into IVF in Belgium. The out of pocket, uninsured costs were the equivalent of $7,000 and that included meds and multiple rounds of treatment. This would have been done through the University of Leuven hospital, a teaching hospital that uses statistics to run its fertility clinics. Because the government subsidizes their national health care, success and failures are carefully monitored to ensure the fastest, most monetarily efficient ways to succeed.

My husband was in Iraq at the time, which wouldn't have been an issue since his testing could easily be completed during one of his R&Rs (three week visits to see us). After a full month of individual contemplation and prayers, we both knew that the decision to pursue IVF was ours alone. And we carefully chose not to do IVF.

About 7 months later, during his second of three R&Rs, I found out I was pregnant and announced it in the most dumbfounded way possible. The nurse at the embassy had called me at 7pm on a Monday. I ran upstairs, paced while she gave me my beta and set a plan in motion, then walked downstairs, where everyone was sitting on the sofas.

"What was that about?"

"I'm pregnant."

And then everyone's jaws dropped open, followed by "WHAT?!?"

In the following months, my husband went back to Iraq and I packed up all of our belongings and moved us back to Virginia. I returned to my old OB/GYN and was delighted to see Dr. Hamersley again. 

The pregnancy was not without complications. Initially, my beta was tripling and there was some concern that there was an issue with the pregnancy and then the ultrasound measurements were behind where I knew I was in the pregnancy. The hematologist was a little reluctant at first to prescribe me the lovenox I had used before but said that as long as my anti-Xa stayed in range, he'd let me take it.

At 8 weeks, when another ultrasound was showing slow growth, I began twice a day shots without checking with the doctor first. I mentioned it at my 9th appointment with my Belgian OB/GYN and she was okay with it and noted that within that first week of the new dosing, the baby's growth was now on track. At that point, I had an appointment at least twice a week with either the OB/GYN, my cardiologist, or the hematologist.

It was a lot.

When my husband returned to Belgium for his final R&R and to help us pack out, the genetic screening information arrived in the mail. He was the usual "mail getter" and opened the mail, reading the French without difficulty.

"IT'S A BOY!!" He knew before anyone else did. I had my hunches, especially at that most recent ultrasound, but now we had the DNA that indicated clear, perfect, XY chromosomes.

After arriving stateside, my cholesterol was really high (thanks, pregnancy and living in a hotel). My new job was super stressful. I lacked the experience to work in the position I'd been hired for and although I'm a quick study, my new boss was . . . not a nice person. The stress had created a placental bleed so I was monitored closely for that, too. 

Ten weeks into the new job I was "stepped down" a level at work and although it was a bit demoralizing at the time, it was truly the best thing that could have happened. The new position came with regular telework, amazing co-workers, a support team to assist in training me, and a really fantastic supervisor.

 And just like that the placental bleed healed.

My son arrived at what the doctors believed to be 37 weeks but was likely more like 37+3 because of when I ovulated. He was a solid 8 lbs 4 oz and had all the tongue-ties I'd come to expect.

Having a baby in your 40s is hard. Doing it with a full-time job that doesn't allow napping (oh, I missed those daycare naps!) was harder. Going back to work after a couple of months home was hardest.

And our son has a few health issues. One is genetic and permanent. The other is digestive and he has a decent chance of outgrowing it.

The genetic one is biotinidase deficiency. It's easily treated with over the counter biotin, but no one likes hearing that their child will have to take medication every day for the rest of his life in order to life. And we sure didn't expect that diagnosis after we had BOTH had genetic screening done in 2013 and were told there were no issues our children could inherit from us. If I have time, I'll write another blog post about this--the condition isn't going anywhere and it's rather fascinating if/when the mutation is caught very early on like our son's was.

The digestive issue is FPIES. He cannot eat oats without massive amounts of vomiting that starts about 2 hours after he eats them. It's miserable for all of us. He'll probably outgrow it but we won't know for quite a few years. In the meantime, no oat or oat products for him!

Having a little, dimpled boy running around the house has flipped our lives upside down. He was an excellent night sleeper from early on but a series of ear infections upset that pretty badly and he's only just starting to sleep through the night again. 

So here I am. With my oldest daughter applying to colleges, a newly minted teenager, Dash--who continues to live up to her nickname, and R2. Our mid-life miracle.

Heavenly Father knew all along that R2 would be a part of our family. He always knew. So when we were praying about IVF, our son was already waiting to join us, one way or another. And that's a miracle and a blessing I'll never forget.

Halfway through 2020

Type up six paragraphs. Delete. Type seven new paragraphs. Delete. Type, delete, type, delete.
There's really no other way to say this and I really don't think 2020 needs an introduction at the halfway point so here's the shortest version of my 2020 that you'll ever read: I've suffered another miscarriage.

There, I said it. Or typed it. Whatever. 2020 has just sucked on a million different levels.

To be fair, I wasn't pregnant for very long--just 3 days of beautiful, double pink lines getting darker and darker and then poof--gone. Three days of emotions so complex I'm still trying to unpack them three weeks later.

I've had so many miscarriages over the years that I've lost count. Based on my recent Facebook memories, I had one in mid-July 2009 but I have no memory of that one and haven't included it in any of my medical forms because I literally forgot about it. How sad is that?

My unsuccessful pregnancies look something like this:
2008--miscarriage discovered at 8 weeks, likely lost at 7.
2009--probably lost it at about 6 weeks but I really can't remember. I would have been far enough along to have told family but not friends and I typically share early on.
2011--Two losses this year. One at 5 weeks and another at 7 weeks.
2012--I definitely lost a perfect baby girl at 12 weeks. I think I lost another earlier in the year but I don't remember for sure.
2013--Miscarried on the way to a wedding. Just 4 weeks. I hate weddings to begin with so miscarrying on my way to one just added insult to injury.
2014--Jackson was stillborn at 21 weeks. Our only son. He'd be turning 6 weeks old in a couple weeks.
2020--loss at 4 weeks.

And these are the ones I know about. I may have had more but I lose them so early I may have missed them. In the medical world, they call me a habitual aborter. Isn't that a fun label to have? #sarcasm

I would have missed this pregnancy/miscarriage if it hadn't been for an agreement I have with my cardiologist to take a test every month before my period to make sure I stop my heart meds early enough. I'm not sure if I consider that lucky or unlucky. . .

We gave up on trying to get pregnant in 2017 and I haven't had a single positive test or anything close to it until 3 weeks ago. I'm still processing the fact that I was pregnant and that I lost it and thinking that this should be easier because we weren't actually trying--but I guess after 15 years trying to grow our family, that kind of emotional investment doesn't just "sit this one out" because we decided that we were done a few years ago. Emotions have memories, too.

I'd do it all again if I could and that's what I learned in that 3 days: I want another baby. Or two. I know I'm crazy but I'm forty years old and I'd go through the hormone therapy, the shots, the pregnancy-crazy, the 6 weeks of breastfeeding nightmares-until-we-figure-it-out, the diapers, the sleepless nights--all of it.

The last 3 weeks have been spent with me debating this and each time it comes back to, Yes, I'd do it again and I'd love it. Apart from my non-life-threatening PVCs, I'm healthier than I've been in years. I'm getting less sleep than I used to and not experiencing the afternoon "oh my gosh, I need a nap" slump.

But the thing is, starting over is such a huge emotional investment and any effort for another pregnancy could result in nothing more than adding to my list of miscarriages. Is that what I want? Is it something we want? Is it something I'm willing to risk? Is it something we're willing to risk?

I just don't know the answer to those questions but I do know how to get them: Prayer. So if you see me alone on my bike, taking a slow, deep breath, I'm praying and I'm listening.

The Month of May

     The month of May and I do not have a very good relationship. I'm not entirely sure when it started, but I know that as early at May 2004, I already had pretty negative feelings for the month as a whole.
     By 2004, I was already realizing that we had a fertility problem. Although I'd been off all forms of birth control for well over a year, I still hadn't gotten pregnant and wouldn't be for over another year. Sitting in church, or even watching tv, and seeing all the commercials and hearing all the comments about motherhood left a pretty bitter taste in my mouth.
     If we fast forward fifteen years, it is now May 2019 and my overall opinion of the month is significantly more complicated than it was then. Since 2004, I have succeeded in giving birth to three living daughters whom I love dearly and they are the only reason Mother's Day is allowed in my home. They want to celebrate me, so I allow them to do so.
     Mother's Day brings everything painful in my life to the surface because, truth be told, I've never experienced an extreme loss or pain that didn't involve motherhood. My own mother died in 2012 and my mother-in-law, whom I loved dearly and had become very close to since my own mother's passing, died just under two years ago. This will be my second Mother's Day without her love and guidance.
     Two days ago, I sat on the stand at church, having lead the Sacrament hymn and waiting until the next portion of the meeting to sit with my family. A wave of grief and pain swept over me as I watched the teenage boys bless and pass the Sacrament.
     I miss our son.
     I miss the hugs, the laughs, the conversations, and the chance to watch him grow from week to week. Those things that should have been, will never be.
     I will never get to watch as my husband places his hands on our son's head to ordain him to the priesthood.
     I will never get to sit and smile at him as he passes the Sacrament to me, to his dad, or to his sisters.
     I will never get to hear him ask questions about the world around him, about my job, or about the Gospel.
     I will never get to holler at him to take a shower because he stinks when he walks in the door.
     I will never get to do his laundry, tuck him in at night, or hold him tight when the world is simply too big for him to handle.
     I'll never get to listen as his dad reads Tolkien to him before bed or explains the intricacies of the Star Wars universe as it was when he was young.
     There will never be and pictures of my son standing in a historical battlefield, with old cannons beside him or pictures of him with his sisters.
     Most of the year, those "nevers" don't weight on me too heavily. I am able to accept them as a part of my life and with the understanding that if Jackson hadn't died the way he did, I would not have Dash and all the immense joy she brings to me.
     But May is different. Mother's Day is different. Year after year, May rips open the scars I bear then asks me to be grateful for them, demanding that I acknowledge them with each social media post, commercial, or overheard comment about Mother's Day.
     I have developed the habit of avoiding church on the most painful of days but I can't do that this year without seriously hurting the feelings of my very sensitive eight year old. Spitfire will be singing her first solo in church, something she is both nervous and excited about. It would crush her if I couldn't summon the strength to sit and listen as her beautiful, clear voice as it echos through the chapel.
     So I will go. I will sit on the edge of the bench with a giant handkerchief and listen as she alone sings the following words:

Maybe I'll never know the love it takes
To make me a happy home that's warm and safe.
And maybe I'll never see how you pray for my every need
And wonder what more you could do for me.

     And when the rest of the primary children join in for the chorus, I will likely get up and exit the chapel, making as little of a scene as possible but unable to sit for the rest of the song.

Will We Ever Be Healthy?

The last few months have been particularly grueling. It's not language barriers, difficulties at school, transportation, or finances, in spite of that five week government shutdown.

It's our health. The five of us cannot seem to get healthy and stay that way. Seventeen days ago, Dash started fussing loudly in her sleep. This is my clue that she's about to spike a fever and sure enough, she was running about 101 degrees Fahrenheit by 4 AM. She woke with a wet cough as well, so I figured she'd caught some virus at school.

Later that morning, a mother with twins in Dash's maternelle texted me a photo indicating that someone in the class had been diagnosed with scarlet fever. Well, okay then. Dash is coughing and her throat doesn't hurt, so it's not strep.

When her fever went over 102 with ibuprofen in her the following evening, I got worried and we asked a neighbor from our church to come and help give her a Priesthood Blessing.  I had also walked to the nearest open pharmacy to purchase acetaminophen. That proved just a bit trickier because the drug names here are different. I put Google to work when the pharmacists offered a specific liquid for fevers to confirm that what I was purchasing was, in fact, what I was looking for.

Shortly thereafter, I smelled it.

If you've had children with it before, you know that smell. The smell of strep throat.

Ugh. It was a Saturday night and the only thing open was the emergency room. I made a call to the Embassy nurse and she agreed to meet me the next morning to check Dash.

She did not run the strep test, mainly because Dash had the swollen lymph nodes, spots on her tonsils, and the unmistakable strep smell. So, we gave her a nice, juicy shot of penicillin and I expected everything to be okay by the next morning.

Nope. Thirty six hours later, Dash was still running a fever over 101 so I took her back in. By then, her throat wasn't red and the lymph node swelling was gone, but Dash was clearly still sick.  The clinical diagnosis we were given was "virus" and that I should expect the fever to last 8-10 days and the cough to persist for a couple of weeks after that.

Dash finally went to school for a half day a full week after she'd started showing symptoms.  The night before, however, The Reader, who is now 12 years old, started running a fever and coughing. From one child to the next . . .

Four days later, we were in The Netherlands at the Scoliosis Care Clinic, the facility we have picked to treat The Reader's scoliosis. She napped and coughed on the three hour drive up, survived the two and a half hour fitting, and then napped and talked with me on the drive home. It was a very long day. Dash came with us, still coughing, but in good spirits otherwise. On the return trip, the weather was rough. We drove through some snow but mostly it was a slushy rain. In California, driving in the rain wasn't much of a problem because they use reflectors on the highways that can still be seen in a downpour. In Belgium, they do not do that. The paint is minimally reflective so add on a frozen, slushy mess on unfamiliar roads on the outskirts of Antwerp and I was a wreck. I could not see the lines and my life and those of my children were depending on my ability to seeeeeeee. With one quick second of freak out, I maneuvered my van behind a big rig in the slow lane and just stayed there, using his tread marks to line myself up on the road. The lines on the road appear at certain points, but for about 10 kilometers, I was driving with my trust fully on the location of the truck in front of me.

I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the second scariest conditions I've ever driven through. I was so very glad to get HOME that night.

By the following morning, The Reader was running a scary high fever. When our mercury thermometer hit 105.1, I tamped down the immediate panic attack and called the nurse to see if I needed to take her to the ER or not. The verdict was for me to bring her in as quickly as possible, so I had The Reader put on a face mask and we made our way to the embassy.

It was pretty clear to me that she had the same virus as her little sister but because she has more sensitive lungs, it was having a greater impact. The nurse said she had pneumonia, gave her a breathing treatment, and would be willing to give an antibiotic, but since the initial illness was viral, it wouldn't do much but that what was really needed, was for The Reader to get hydrated. It was then that I thought about just how little my fever-running-daughter had drunk on our trip the day before.

Less than 12 ounces of water. 

So, with all the effort she could muster, we started having her sip water and an electrolyte beverage, sip by sip, until she was hydrated.  Her fever came down to a reasonable level.

Over the course of the next few days, The Reader was supposed to be increasing her number of hours in her new RSC brace. The brace applies pressure to one part of her ribs while allowing room for expansion in another part, helping to reverse the curve in her ribs and increase her lung capacity in the "squished" lung.

Wearing a brace while coughing cannot possibly be fun. Those first few days though, my darling child managed to keep adding hours of brace time at night.  First three hours, then five, then six, then eight and last night, she wore it for nine hours. On top of that, she has slowly been adding hours during the day. Today she wore the brace to our two hour church block as well as at least another three hours while we spent the afternoon as a family.

The clinic gave her a schedule to adjust but it seems my daughter is on her own accelerated schedule, which is fine by me!

The brace has a temperature sensor on it to monitor compliance, so The Reader also knows the clinic will be able to read how much she's wearing the brace when we return for her in-brace imaging.

The Reader has missed six school days with her illness and is still coughing but knows she really needs to return to school, so she is planning on that for tomorrow.

That said, Spitfire will not be going to school. She went to school feeling crummy on Friday but because she wasn't running a fever, I sent her anyway. She's now coughing and running a low grade fever, having caught that same stupid virus but not reacting as badly. We haven't had an actual flu test run, but late last week Belgium announced they're officially at "epidemic" level of flu in the country, so I believe it's what my girls have been fighting, one by one.

My husband has been on the brink of illness for over a few weeks, too. It's like he just can't quite get healthy.  None of them can.

In all this, I haven't had much more than a little stuffy nose and a mild, dry cough, but that's pretty normal for me no matter the season.

What's happened the last two and a half weeks is just an extension of what we have been dealing with since we moved to Belgium. One illness after another and then another. . . It's exhausting.  As I rest in bed at night, thinking about my day, I can't feel anything in my chest. My mind races but my heart beats so softly I can't feel it, and that's unnerving too.

When you go your entire life using your own heartbeat to rhythmically put you to sleep, and then all of a sudden you can't feel it in your chest or hear it in your ears, the silence is deafening.

So as my children get sick one by one, over and over again, I'm left wondering how long I have until my heart beats so softy it just "gives up" . . .

The cardiologist insists my low voltage isn't "that low" and I confess that on these meds, I seem to do pretty good three of every four weeks, but having lost my mother, both my grandmothers, and my mother-in-law at young ages, my own mortality haunts me as I try to sleep.

My First Belgian ER Trip

You all know my family moved to Brussels 8 weeks ago. We were not informed that we'd be in a hotel for more than a week until about 12 hours before the movers came and packed everything out, giving us little to no time to rearrange our stuff.

We moved in a smelly, gross hotel with the tiniest kitchenette I've ever seen (It has one functioning burner) and none of the restaurants are open for dinner because they only cater to the business lunch crowds. This has meant some serious challenges in trying to feed the family, as there is also only a teeny-tiny grocery store nearby and the prices are quite high.

This has been really stressful for me, apparently, and I've developed a heart condition thanks to all of it.

We finally move into our home on Thursday, but we won't have our household stuff, including sheets and towels, until Friday.

This heart condition is likely a part of me for the rest of my life. My mother developed a similar problem at the exact same age during a high-stress summer. She was on heart meds for the rest of her life and eventually died of heart failure at the ripe ol' age of 55.

I'm freakin' scared that the family decision we made has ruined my heart and will forever taint the wonderful experiences I have been having and will continue to have here in Brussels.

My sensitive 8 year old was so upset by my trip to the ER on Saturday that her stomach is all messed up and she's had to stay home to be near the bathroom today. The other girls are scared, too.

For those of you in the medical field, it's a persistent PVC with pretty low voltage. The PVC's are occurring at a rate of 8-20 times a minutes so it's pretty bad. All my minerals and other labs came back perfect so there is no medical reason for this to have happened.

Until I meet with the cardiologist next week, I have been told to be as sedate as possible (ha! we're MOVING again this week and it's a 20 minute walk from the metro to my kid's school, each way, twice a day until that move happens). The doctor at the hospital has put me on the European version of the same exact medication my mother was one. According to my father, she didn't have PVC but she would develop a very hard, fast heart rate. I am on the lowest dose possible and it seems to help, but is wearing off too soon. So I sleep great, wake up and have about 2-3 hours where I still feel good, and then my heart feels all wrong again for the rest of the day. The cardiologist is highly respected by the medical staff here at the Embassy so I am hoping he is as good as they say. I was sent to a specific hospital by the embassy health unit and it happens to be the nearest local hospital. I was worried that I was bankrupting us but my heart was beating so badly that I felt I didn't have any choice. I found out just why so many people love socialized health care! For the entire 3-4 hours visit, including being seen by multiple doctors, getting an x-ray, 5 vials of blood, and continuous monitoring, the out-of-pocket cost for us was under 300 Euros. In the US, that would have run well over 10 times that amount. I will not hesitate to go to the ER again!

But that said, as I sit here feeling my heart do flip-flops around itself, i'm frustrated and scared. This wasn't supposed to happen. I'm the healthy one in the family. I'm only 10 pounds overweight, my blood work is always perfect and other than infertility-causing autoimmune weirdness, I've always been pretty darn healthy. So a heart condition that makes it so I can barely stand on a metro, or walk down the street, is painful.

What I Mean by Clear Bathroom Doors

As promised, I'm including some photos of the bathrooms doors that I mentioned in my last post.

 In this first picture, the bathroom door is closed. There is a reflective coating on the glass that allows you to see the bed. I am standing at the foot of the bed, for reference' sake. Please note that you can
A) see the toilet
B) see the bathroom counter
C) see EVERYTHING in there

If I turn out the light inside the bathroom, it's harder to see through but still possible. The other bathroom is in the middle of the hallway, which is even worse. We're admittedly grateful that this bathroom is around the corner from where the kids are!

The kitchenette is quite small. Although there are 2 burners in that space, it only has space for one pot unless both are tiny. We're a family of 5, so tiny pots don't work. The movers forgot to pack one drawer of spices but that's ended up being a pleasant thing because those spices have already been put to use with several of our meals. Below the stovetop is the adequately sized dishwasher. In the cupboard above the stove is a microwave and then above that, the two pots and skillet the hotel has for our use. Below the spices is the fridge. . . on the other side, garbage and a handbroom is below the sink. The sink is tinier than the stove and set up so that if you try to wash a dish, it knocks the faucet and turns the water off, which is frustrating. Above the sink in the first cupboard is the dish supply (there are more wine glasses than dishes in that thing) and above that is a bunch of coffee equipment because apparently, the giant coffee maker on the counter isn't enough! The middle top cupboard is where we're keeping cereal and rice.

We're making it work, mostly because we don't have much choice, and trying to laugh through the chaos. It will be another 2 weeks before we hear if the gov't has signed a lease for a home for us and after that there will still be a delay before we can move in. I am hoping that delay is as short as possible.

Touring the City without a Phone

Since I last posted, my husband and I have given up on another pregnancy. We did several more medicated rounds, but with the stress of the death of my beloved mother-in-law and then returning to teaching, we couldn't keep it up any more.
If my spouse asked to give it another shot, I absolutely would, but I'm more or less at peace with our decision to be done.
It's strange though, because I'd always wanted four children and even now when I could kids or sometimes when I've set the table, I start to count out 6, rather than the 5 of us that there are. It's not upsetting, but there's a small piece of my family that will always be missing.
Either days ago I stepped off an airplane in foreign country, something I haven't done since I was 14 years old. That country was an English speaking one, so although the accent was fun, I knew what was being said around me and how to communicate with waiters, sales clerks, etc.
But here in Brussels?
Nope.
I have always tried to help those around me who couldn't speak English and am so grateful now to be having the experience where I am now the oddball. My children have been begging me to let them get ice scream and waffles (yes, it's a thing here) but I'm legitimately scared of trying to order such a thing from a street vendor.
We are in temporary living quarters for the next 2 months. Our location is pretty fantastic but the accommodations are pretty awful. It could be worse, don't get me wrong, but it's pretty bad. I'll post pictures when I get a chance, but imagine this: You're in a two room suit. One suit has a king sized bed with a gigantic picture of a woman with hair in her face over the bed. The picture takes up the entire wall. The bathroom has a near constant smell of fart or leftover fecal matter and there's no fan to clear it out. The shower stall is clear as is the door between the bedroom and the bathroom. Yes, CLEAR. As in, you can see right through it so nobody can go to the toilet in privacy. There is less than three feet between the toilet and the king sized bed . . .The second suit is similarly designed, although it has a decent sized tub in addition to the stinky shower. There's a tiny kitchenette and by tiny, I mean that although there are two burners, you can only use one at a time because you cannot fit two pots on there simultaneously.
Because we have a kitchenette, we do not qualify for the meal reimbursement we expected to get and really wish we had available to us. We're sinking about 100 euros a day into food because there isn't a decent grocery story nearby and nothing within walking distance is open for dinner. We could live off sandwiches from the local mini-mart style things on all the street corners, but each sandwich runs about $4 each and there are 5 of us and . . . sandwiches get really boring, really fast.
We've only been here 8 days and I'm already annoyed by the struggle to feed the kids 3 times a day. Dash had cereal for dinner last night. I've been a parent for 12 years and this was the first time I'd ever said anyone was eating cereal for dinner.  There are plenty of places to stop and grab lunch but the only places open for dinner are those that cater to city-living, meaning, hangout on  a patio and drink for a couple of hours. They are not kid-friendly at all.
We've spent hours upon hours on our feet, walking around the city, hopping on public transit, and walking some more. I'm getting to know the Metro here pretty well and will get better about the trains and trams as well with some practice.
Today I navigated several square miles without a working phone. Oh, did I not mention my phone problems yet?
Yes, we've been here 8 days but our phones were cut off on day 2, so I've been without cell service or data all week. This means I've been using old school maps to get from point A to point B. My kids gave me an A- for our adventures earlier this morning and an A+ for later in the morning. The minus is because I walked down one street too far at one point, but this actually allowed me to get some cash out of an ATM and let us walk down a busier street, which also felt safer. . . so maybe I deserve an A for overall navigation. Yes??
I'm heading over to the Embassy again later today with the hope that I can meet with the cell provider that will be there. A week without service (oh yeah, I signed up for service last week, so it SHOULD have been working 6 days ago) is rather ridiculous.

Autoimmune Testing

Back in April I was referred to a reproductive endocrinologist with experience treating infertility caused by autoimmune issues. I had a lot of blood drawn over the following 6 weeks. I know it wasn't record setting by any stretch of the imagination, but it came to 35 vials.

Prior to the first draw, I had been eating a decently strict grain-free diet. This meant no corn, wheat, barley, rice, etc. I didn't eat potatoes, either. My results came back with elevated cytokines and speckled ANAs but everything else was pretty normal, including the bloodwork that led to my diagnosis with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome several years ago.

At that point, I was pretty tired of having so many of my foods restricted, so I spent 2 weeks eating whatever I wanted. The test was run again and my level of ANAs doubled which to me was a pretty clear indicator that my immune system responds negatively when I eat grains. After a couple days of some hard introspection and a few discussions with friends who've treated immune issues with dietary changes and a friend I have in the medical field with Crohn's Disease, I decided to go beyond the grains and adopt the Autoimmune Protocol, an eating lifestyle that is highly restrictive in the foods consumed with the intent of healing the immune system.

A little over two weeks after making those dietary changes, I had additional autoimmune testing run by a rheumatologist.  The results came back and I got quite a shock: everything came back completely normal. Those speckled ANAs? Gone.

So as much as I absolutely don't like these restrictions, my immune system is now behaving just as it should and that makes it worth it.

For now.

When I say restricting, let me give you a list of the things I can't eat.

No: wheat, barely, oats, corn, etc
No seeds, including quinoa
No dairy (you know I love cheese!!)
No soy
No nightshades (things like tomatoes, bell peppers, other peppers, cumin, eggplant)
No spices made from nightshades
No nuts
No eggs
No foods made with preservatives like nitrates/nitrites
No sugar
Limited fruits (because of sugar content)

So what does that mean I can eat? Well, I can eat lots of meats and green veggies that aren't peppers. I can have uncured bacon, chicken, beef, pork, and fish but seasoning these is sometimes a challenge. I can have coconut, including coconut milk.
I can have zucchini, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, leaks, celery, and carrots.
I can have sweet potatoes. Did you know they come in white and purple as well? White sweet potatoes are very similar to regular potatoes in taste and texture so they make great hash browns.
I can have cassava flour, coconut flour, and arrowroot flour, all good choices for baking or thickening sauces.
I can have coconut aminos, which taste like a slightly sweetened soy sauce.
I can have berries. Strawberry season around here lasted almost 8 weeks. It has been heavenly!!
I can have broccoli and cauliflower, both cruciferous veggies that I enjoy cooked in a variety of ways.
I can have cilantro, oregano, black pepper, salt, ginger, onion, garlic and any other herbs that suit my fancy.
I can have avocados (um, yummmmm!)
I can have a "caesar salad dressing" made from avocados, oil, fish sauce, and a couple of spices. It's actually really good and is a recipe I will keep using even after I'm off this crazy train.

Breakfast has been my hardest challenge. I really do love eggs and veggies for breakfast so what I've found myself doing more often than not is eating leftovers from dinner for breakfast. On Tuesday I browned some pork sausage from a local farm along with some sliced purple sweet potato. That purple added more color to my breakfast than I've seen for a long time. So much of what I eat is green and that gets pretty boring pretty fast.

These dietary changes are not permanent. As much as I would love to be able to eat this way for life, I won't be able to sustain it for an indefinite amount of time. The psychological impact of "I can't eat that" is going to do long-term damage to me if I have to keep it up. Cooking meals that appease my family and myself is also incredibly complicated. Tom Brady eats AIP, I think, but he has a personal chef! I do not have good ol' Mr. Brady's budget.

That last paragraph might not be so true if I felt somehow healthier with these eating changes but the truth is, I don't feel any better. I am still getting those sucky headaches when I'm not visiting the chiropractor regularly, my bowels are still sluggish, and I've put some weight on because I'm overeating the foods that I can eat. My dreams have gotten really vivid and bizarre the last two months as well, too. I wake up in a near panic because of dreams of losing my girls, car accidents, planes crashing into my house, tornadoes, floods, and the complete collapse of our government.

The dreams are decidedly not awesome.

But . . .if it allows my husband and I to conceive and carry another baby into our family, it will be worth it.

In the long run, I can see myself possibly keeping with a modified version of this diet for longer term. What I'll need to do is add back one of the food groups and see what my ANAs do. For example, add back eggs and see if my immune system reacts. If not, then add back the night shades or dairy, working one at a time to see what causes the immune flare then avoiding those foods regularly but allowing myself a little wiggle room for special occasions.

Until then, I'll be sticking to AIP for at least another three months or longer if we're unsuccessful in conceiving before that two months is over.

Mother's Day

I have a less-than-life-shattering confession to make: I don't like Mother’s Day.
Why?

Mother’s Day is a full day of reminders of not only the best days of my life, but also the worst days of my life.

I don't have the strength to handle all those emotions in a single day. . .

"Least of These, My Brethren"

I think there are times in each of our lives where we look at the world around us and wonder how in the world we got here. Lately, that feeling has been on the verge of overwhelming but I am taking each day as it comes.

My husband was gone for work for the better part of 6 months, with a few short weekends home here and there. During that time, I took a prep course for the Math Content PRAXIS exam, the final requirement I needed to complete my Virginia teaching license with the math endorsement.

The short version is that I passed, with a little room to spare! The long version involves the hours upon hours that I spent reviewing Calculus, taking practice exams, and commuting to and from the prep course.

My score showed up immediately when I hit the submit button.I started to shake, the kind of excited, emotion-filled tremors that only something you’ve worked so hard for, after putting off for over a decade, can cause.

Three days later, all the excitement was gone as I watched the election coverage. This particular election season was very hard on me. I didn’t have my husband to bounce issues off, to muddle through after the debates, or to distract me in the evenings from the other mundane aspects of life.

My husband’s absence magnified the inconceivable.

I am now fighting in ways I never thought I’d fight before. If you’re asking “why”, then please listen with an open mind because I know that many of my friends and family voted for Trump, as is your right. I am speaking to anyone who takes the time to read this, no matter when or how we may or may not know each other.

There are two truly core principles in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The first is that he is our Savior and Redeemer. He suffered in Gethsemane for all of our sins, no matter how big or small. The second is a principle that extends from before the earth was created and that “thing” is the reason Christ atoned for our sins in the first place: we each have been given our own agency. This means we get to choose how to think, how to act, how to react, in every aspect of our lives.

We fought a war in heaven so that we could all come here and choose for ourselves whether or not to live worthy of entering the Kingdom of Heaven. In Moses 4:1-4, we are taught that “Satan rebelled against me (God, the Father), and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down.”

Satan was cast out because he wanted to take that gift of agency away and have all the glory of God for himself.

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” 12th Article of Faith

What does it mean to honor and sustain the law? In light of some of the immediate aftermath of the election, let me share with a few thoughts with you.

I don’t know when life truly begins—when the spirit of a Child of God enters the body and stays there. I can only share that I have felt that life before 10 weeks’ gestation and I have felt it leave, for good, as well. We have knowledge that the spirit can leave the body while the heart is still beating, based on the experiences of others both within the LDS community and those of many other faiths as well; a beating heart does not mean the spirit is in the body. Even within church policies (which are subject to change), a child is not given a name of record unless he or she is born and takes a breath. My experiences with Jackson aren't unique, as women though all of history have lost babies before birth or during childbirth.

The discussion from here in light of recent events naturally turns to abortion. Is it murder or something less grievous, such as simply not accepting the consequences of using your agency poorly? If it is murder, then does that make God the biggest murdered of all, given the sheer number of pregnancies that end each and every day since the dawn of time?

I don’t know and I’d prefer err on the side of life. In contrast to that, abortion is legal, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, so what does it mean to “err on the side of life?”

To me, this means changing how American men and women of every political ideology views life. The new administration may seek to outlaw abortion, but that doesn’t mean that abortions won’t happen. Women have attempted to abort their pregnancies throughout history and for a variety of reasons (if you aren’t familiar with this, please do a little research). Those same reasons exist today.

So how do we, as a society, prevent abortions from happening if we believe abortion is wrong?

I see two distinctly different areas to fight.  The first is free, reliable birth control for anyone who wants it and proper, detailed reproductive education for all genders at an early age. The latter was never an issue prior to the modernization of the world and single family homes that kept children apart from their parents at night. 

To those who are argue regarding the law of chastity, remember that your values are not those of others. We each have our own agency. The biggest key to preventing abortions is to prevent pregnancy in the first place! Reliable birth control is not the pill, by the way. I’m talking about options that are intended for longer term use and also for technologies that aren’t quite there yet, such as temporary male sterilization.  If a woman doesn’t get pregnant, then she’s not going to be seeking an abortion. 

The second line of defense against abortion is support for mom’s who choose to carry their babies to term. This support can come in many ways, but one very serious area is the cost of childcare. In the US, the average cost of childcare for a year is higher than college tuition. Families who plan ahead can save for almost 20 years for college for their children, but what about daycare? Should a 12 year old start saving her babysitting money so that she can afford daycare for the child she might have in 18 years? 

Absurd? YES!

I run an in-home daycare, so I am keenly aware of what it costs to put an infant or toddler in a small, safe, loving daycare. Daycare providers struggle to balance the cost of tuition with the number of children they can watch both physically and in terms of their mental health as well.

I don’t particularly like pointing out problems without also making a few suggestions that I’ve spent time mulling over, so bear with me for just a moment while I go completely radical on you: Grant new families paid time off.

*Gasp*

What are the drawbacks? Higher taxes, obviously. That money doesn’t come from nowhere. Those taxes can come from a variety of places, but how does using the interest on federally paid student loans sound for a start? 

Or taxing luxury items up the wazoo so that only the wealthiest spenders are hurt? 

For those crying out “It’s MY money” trust me, if you’re reading this, it is unlikely that I’m talking about raising your taxes. I don’t know anyone in the top 5%! Also, it’s not an income tax, but a tax on truly optional purchases, so if any single person doesn’t want to pay it, they don’t have to.

Providing for paid family leave for men and women allows those families to spend time with their new child, establishing breastfeeding, reducing exposure to illnesses that could be harmful, and provides a chance for moms who suffer from postpartum disorders a chance to get help, something a new working mom may not be able to do.

Years ago, politicians fought hard to provide funding to educate each child in America. The idea that an educated public was advantageous won and continues to be important today. That same "Greater Good" mentality is one I believe in as far as providing for new families.

The inability to afford a child is one solid reason for abortion, no matter the age or marital status of the mother. Providing help, in terms of daycare costs, day-to-day living expenses, a real living wage . . . these are all options that anti-abortion Americans need to look at because like it or not, abortions will happen.

These issues all revolve around our agency—our right to choose how we live our lives and just because someone sins differently than I do doesn’t mean that I don’t love them or want to do everything I can to support them.

With those thoughts in mind, I participated with my oldest daughter, my mother-in-law, and two of my sisters-in-law in the Women’s March on Washington on Saturday. It was truly a remarkable day and gave me the opportunity to show my growing daughter that we do not need to be silent. The issues that surround abortion can be fought so that abortion stays safe and the rates can continue to decline.

I also marched for religious freedom. That particular issue was a little further down on the list for the organizers, but it was there and it is very personal to me. My ancestors were kicked out of their homes, multiple times, because of their religion. They fled to Utah, which was a territory at the time. Where to religious refugees have to flee now? The opportunities here are still great and I want that religious freedom to remain . . . for all religions.

For the few of you who think, “Meh, I have what I want” I have one question: The things you have, how did you get them? Did someone march on your behalf in decades past?

Lastly, I marched for those who couldn't march for themselves. We took the Metro into the city and the workers there were hollering and cheering us on. It seemed like they all had a bounce in their step as they watched over a million riders walk on through, marching for equality, marching for women's rights, marching against a man who doesn't believe America is already great and the policy changes he had already implemented to remove the rights of others.

To conclude this not-so-short post about a lot of random related topics I say this: I marched for the future of the world and I did so because I can. . . and I can because others did so for me. 

I owe my present rights and responsibilities to those of the past and am paying it forward now. I marched for "the least of these, my brethren" and I'll do it again. And again. . . because I have been given the privilege to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. 

One (Minor) Way Education is Screwing Itself

My time is limited for this rant, so let's get right to the meat of it!

The educational system is failing itself. There is a very strong push for qualified teachers and in the United States, 32 states (according to my prep course instructor) require the Math Content PRAXIS exam.

This exam is a 210 minute exam that is 60 questions long and covers everything from the definition of an integer to Calculus II level courses.

What's wrong with that, you ask? Well, let me tell you!

Doing some simple mathematics, 210 questions divided by 60 questions is 3.5 minutes per question. Not bad, right?

WRONG! Because there isn't actually 210 minutes of testing time.  That window includes the time to get logged in and go through the practice questions on screen. Other teachers in my prep course have all said that the whole "introduction" portion takes 30 minutes, really leaving the test taker with 180 minutes to take the test . . . 3 minutes per question.

Students around the country are given unlimited time on their standardized tests because it's well known that pressure leads to poor results.

So why are adults expected to test differently? Hhmm? Thoughts? 'Cause I got nothin'.

Secondly, if someone decides to be a teacher, in most of the other subject areas, they are licensed for a specific course.  For example, you wouldn't go and get a science license. Instead, you get a license to teach Physics (it has its own PRAXIS) or Chemistry (own PRAXIS) or Biology (own PRAXIS) but for math, NO! A teacher is expected to know everything in all of the math courses.

In the social sciences, World History is a different endorsement than Economics or Government or Psychology.

This leads to a problem because there are a great many teachers who are incredible Algebra or Geometry teachers but who have never taken Calculus. If this seems odd to you, research career switcher programs.  There are also amazing Calculus teachers who suuuuck at teaching Algebra I because they are think at a different level than their students do.  And yet, each of these are required to take the same test.

To add to that, the vast majority of the teachers in my prep course are either middle school teachers who are now expected to get the high school endorsement because the lovely state of Virginia now pushes Algebra I and Geometry in middle school or they are high school ESL or Special Ed teachers who will never teach Calculus but who need the endorsement because of state mandates for teachers to have endorsements in their content area.

If the great Commonwealth of Virginia wants to have better teachers, they need to work on specializing the math courses.  This can easily be done by splitting up the licensing so that teachers can have varied endorsements like those in the social sciences and physical sciences.

By allowing Algebra I to be a separate endorsement than Geometry or Trigonometry, or Advanced Functions, or Calculus, teachers can focus on the content in their classes.  This would also increase the number of teachers endorsed in those classes, thereby improving the statistics that each school reports to the state.

But what do I know? I'm just an unlicensed former-teacher who runs a daycare, tutors a couple hours a week, and is now taking this test so I can get back into "the system" . . . because I'm crazy.

Or, I know I'm a good teacher and really miss watching a classroom of students have that light-bulb moment day after day and move from hating math to either loving it or at least appreciating its quirks and consistencies.

Day 1 and The Rough Draft

I did it!

What did I do?  Well, I completed the first day of my PRAXIS prep course and I walked out of there a lot less afraid than I thought I'd be. I was the only student there who was not either currently teaching or a student enrolled at GMU.

The odd woman out, if you will . . . but interestingly enough, I felt like I knew the material we covered today better than the other students did. That comfort comes a little from my teaching experience, but mostly from my experience the last 9 years as a tutor. Those hundreds of hours, working one-on-one with students, has kept the material fresh in my mind.

That content comfort will likely not last more than another week or two, but for today, it boosted my confidence and I needed that.

The other thing that I did today is something I should have been keeping up with for years but it's a task I truly despise so I have procrastinated for almost a decade.

I completed the first draft of my resume! Wooooooo hoooooo!

It will need some work but I'm really excited that I have an actual draft done.

Early this week my husband made the comment, "You're really doing this, aren't you?" meaning that I'm really planning on going back to teaching.

Yes, Yes, Yes. I don't know when I'll be back in the classroom, but it will be as soon as I can manage.

Two months? Two years? I really have no idea but I am preparing now for that to happen.

Fearless

One of the unintended consequences I have experienced because of losing Jackson and the quick arrival of Dash caught me completely off guard.

When my husband and I were dating and for the first year of our marriage, he made it clear that he wanted to live overseas as a civil servant, to show any children we had the world outside of our country, and to enjoy the benefits of living as an American outside of America, and so many more hard-to-put-to-words experiences like those he had growing up. After our first year of marriage, he interned with the State Department and had an absolute blast, getting the overseas-bug even worse.

I was nervous. Scared. Petrified.  I don’t speak anything other than English and can follow the tiniest bit of conversational Spanish so how would I go grocery shopping? Make friends? How would my children learn the gospel if we attended a ward that was in a foreign language? What if my children could learn new languages easily but I couldn’t? Would I be taken advantage of?
What if I had to drive on the left?!?!??

Fear of the unknown ruled my decisions in those early years and because I was too scared, my husband gave up his dream and went to law school, a very expensive endeavor that caused our marriage a lot of strife because our stress levels were so high and our communication skills sucked and that decision continues to feel more like a financial burden than it ever should have.
Fast forward a few years and one economic collapse later and he’s working in the job he wanted all along.

And he’s happy. And I am happy.

The man that I fell in love with 16 years ago came back when he switched careers but he’s different. And while I am not comfortable talking about his personal changes in a public forum, I am comfortable saying that my fears almost ruined us because of the decisions that followed when he gave up on his dream 12 years ago.

Losing Jackson changed all that.

Everything.

I am no longer afraid of living outside my comfort zone

. . . of living in a foreign country

 . . . of learning a new language

. . . of cooking with new foods

. . . of attending church where I don’t understand what is being said

. . . of raising my children away from their peers

. . .of living in an area filled with poverty and civil unrest

. . .of being alone.

I am fearless.

Not only am I no longer afraid, but I am eager to leave the country I have known all my life in exchange for experiences that can continue to help me learn and grow and be a better me.

I want my children to grow up seeing the world through eyes that have seen and experienced differences in culture and to walk with feet that have trod near hallowed ground, and to use their hands to serve others.

I want them to walk and talk with children of God who look different than they do and to recognize that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the same world-wide, even though the words we use to express our feelings are different.

It used to horrify me just a little that my husband didn’t know most of the primary songs because he so rarely attended primary in English but he knows the tunes and can attest that the Spirit can and will testify of the truth whether you understand the words or not. I want my children to feel that and I want to experience that myself.

I want my preconceived notions about freedom, equality, and economic stability challenged because I believe that living in a world outside my own will make me a better person.

I am ready for it. I crave it.

When you’ve lost your only son, and God reassures you repeatedly that everything will be okay, and you begin to see those changes all around, then it’s time to embrace the path you should have walked over a decade before but were unprepared for.

Losing my son prepared me for change and growth and I hope and pray that when I look back a decade from now at the current lull in my life, I’ll be able to smile and say, “Wow. Living overseas was everything I thought it would be and more.”

From a practical standpoint, it will be almost two years at the bare minimum before we move but we’ll have the assignment in a couple of months as long as everything continues to move in the direction it’s currently headed. During that time, we’ll probably give ourselves one last chance at growing our family. That’s one thing that we have discussed often in recent months but haven’t prayed about. We both really want another chance at having a son but also know that conception is very difficult for me and that my pregnancy would be high risk because of my clotting/auto immune disease and now my age.

I am getting old and even though I don’t really feel it physically, there’s no denying that my fertility is on the downslide. I was diagnosed with borderline Diminished Ovarian Reserve over 3 years ago. DOR is a fancy way of saying your eggs are old and there aren’t very many of them left.

But again, I’m not afraid.

Is that weird? Because it seems like after all I have been through, I should be a lot more apprehensive about giving pregnancy another shot. Instead, I feel a steady calm. I know my Father in Heaven has heard my prayers and that the next few years of my life have been very carefully placed before me. Whether that will include a child or not is yet to be seen but I’m excited for the adventure either way!

Six Weeks Later

Where do I even begin?

I miss feeling obligated to update my little journal/blog every week with pregnancy or developmental updates for Dash. That time in the afternoon to sit and evaluate my little life is meaningful to me but I have been so busy trying to take care of everyone else that I haven't taken much time to take care of myself.
That little problem won't be going away anytime soon, either. When I look at my schedule, I have work or family commitments M, T, and Th from 6:30am, when my first daycare client arrives, until 9pm when I finish tutoring. Tutoring just got underway last night but I can already tell that it will take a decent chunk out of my "me" time in the evenings.
I love tutoring though, and the money is very helpful for paying off outstanding debts.
How else can I earn $50/hr and maintain my dignity? There aren't many options, that's for sure.
Tutoring is good for my mind, too. I intend to go back to teaching soon. "Soon" is, of course, a relative term. I filled out my request for updated information regarding licensure in Virginia. I had completed almost everything when I left teaching but one thing definitely remained incomplete: The Math PRAXIS.
If you have any friends in education, specifically for math, you can ask them about it. I was reminded again by the local math chair for our county that the math praxis is by and large the hardest content area test required of public school teachers. The content goes so far above what a math teacher will ever teach as to be ludicrous.
To give you an idea of just how nuts this test is, take a look at the passing rates here. For teachers who are just finishing their degrees, and so have the most recent experience with the material, the passing rate is roughly 60% but for those who have 3 or more years of experience, the pass rate is 17%.
SEVENTEEN. As in, fewer than 1 in 5 who take the test will pass it.
Those scores are about 10 years old though, so let's take a look at some that are newer and from a specific university.
From UC Denver, The PRAXIS pass rates in 2013 were:

English: 82.6%
Social Studies: 94.5%
School Psychology: 95.1%
General Science: 89.2%
Mathematics: 57.1%

Yes, you read that correctly. A full 25.5% lower passing rate than the next hardest test. Why UC Denver? Because they published this data and it showed up in my google search. That's not a very scientific way to go about this, but it adds to my point that the test I have to take is going to be HARD. Well, hard for me, that is, because it's been such a long time since I grappled with higher content mathematics. My last college math course that wasn't an education course was taken 15 years ago and although I've kept up with content through the trigonometry courses via tutoring, I haven't touched calculus or anything beyond since my time at BYU.
I'm nervous!
I suppose this is going to turn into a bit of a rant. You see, finding good math teachers is pretty hard if my experience with tutoring gives me any credibility in that sphere. I have this personal belief based on nothing more than observation that the majority of the teachers and professors who understand the ins and outs of higher level mathematics make really crappy teachers! Why??
Because they can't understand students when they don't grasp the material.
When a student comes to you and says, "But I don't get it," a good teacher can back up and figure out why and where.
What step in the mathematical chain is broken?
How far into the process does the student understand?
Can the teacher relate to the students' frustration and use a little bit of empathy as s/he works towards helping the students learn?
And yes, I think empathy is an important trait in a teacher but I don't feel like going into the why of that right now.
The vast majority of the teachers I know who really know their math beyond calculus lack the ability to do those things.
And that opinion is based on my experiences as a student in high school, with professors in college, and with a small group of colleges that I worked with as well.
It's time for me to be back in education in a formal classroom setting but making that shift is going to take a little time and quite a bit of preparation.
I have to pass that PRAXIS . . .

Sitting

Most nights as I sit nursing Dash, I relax and play a game on my phone, glancing down regularly to smile at my sweet toddler and to stroke her blonde curls.
Tonight I put the phone down.
I don't do that often enough and I know that.
As I sat in my small chair in her room, Dash took up my entire lap and her bum rested against the armrest. In a very short time, she'll no longer fit in my arms that way and we'll have to find a new position to nurse in before bedtime. . .

My business has been struggling. Circumstances completely out of my control have me actively looking for 3 new clients to fill vacancies.
I lost one adorable little boy to a custody dispute. He was removed from the home he had come to love, had thrived in, by his grandfather with the sheriff's officers and Child Protective Services in tow. His family is devastated and I miss him so much. He was the kind of boy that light up the room when he entered because of the joy that emanates from him. . .
Another little girl is moving to another part of the state to live with grandparents while her parents close on their first home. Her move is temporary and I hope to see them again, but I can't rely on it.
The third client will be attending school with her big brothers. Her home life has become complicated by that awful 6 letter word: cancer. So her mother needs to simplify their morning routine as much as possible and putting all 4 children in one location is what will allow them to do that.
When my life feels complicated, I always want to talk to my mom. She may not have always had the best advice, but she knew how to help me set my priorities straight and that's something I really miss.
So as I sat nursing my sweet girl tonight, I thought about Mom. And money, and career changes, and I cried. Gently and quietly the tears fell down my cheeks, landing on Dash.
She let go with a loud shlurp, sat up in my lap, and gave me a big kiss and hug. That little girl . . . Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he gave her to us to raise. She could have gone to another family, but he picked us and I am so grateful for that.

Annual Physicals

All three of my daring girls were due for check-ups so 2 weeks ago, I took them all in.

Dash had her 18 month check-up and a couple vaccines, the Reader had her 10 year old check-up, and Spitfire had her 6 yr old physical as well.

I scheduled them for the same time and on a day where I only had one daycare client, knowing that it would be a longer-than-normal appointment.

A student nurse practitioner did the bulk of the appointment and my favorite nurse practitioner came to double check and ask/answer a few follow up questions.

All 3 girls are doing really well. The Reader has developed scoliosis and we'll start seeing Dr. Randy with Advanced Spinal Care for treatment in October. We'll need to come up with a long term plan for her but also for me, since I continue to have issues with my headaches.

The appointment, start to finish, was 2 hours long! It was definitely longer than I'd planned. Dash was awesome the entire time and even told me part way through that she needed to go to the bathroom, more or less showing off for the NPs. It absolutely put a big smile on my face!

Dash had xrays done the following morning on her hips and femurs, to check for any abnormalities because her feet overpronate quite a bit and it's causing some issues with clumsiness and has prevented her from learning how to run. At her age, she ought to be able to run already and she can't. She walks quickly, but it causing some significant stumbling and she's bloodied her face more than once because of falling.

The x-rays came back normal so at the advice of a friend, I'm trying something "out of the box".

Dash is walking around with her shoes on the wrong feet. It is changing her gait enough that her dad, who hadn't seen her in a week, commented on the change. We'll keep this up for a couple of weeks and watch for changes.

When the Reader and I begin chiropractic care again, we'll ask about Dash's feet. Because the rotation is all the way up through the knee and into the hip, I suspect there's some sort of sublaxation or a muscle that's too tight or too loose (a butt muscle or tendon?) that's causing it.

I could be totally wrong, but it's definitely something to ask about when we start seeing Dr. Randy.

Now for the fun part: Stats!

Each of the stats for the girls was a bit of a surprise for me because they've grown so much!

The Reader is 82.4 lbs, which is 70th percentile. She's also 5' 0.25" tall, which is 98th percentile.

Spitfire is 42 lbs, putting her in the 31st percentile for weight. She's always been tiny, so this wasn't really a surprise. Her height, however, was a bit of a shock. At 46" tall, she's 62nd percentile! She's pretty much never been above 50th percentile for anything other than intelligence, so she must have just finished a growth spurt of some kind.

Dash continues to grow nicely, too! She measured in at 27.4 lbs, 92nd percentile and 34" tall, which is 97th percentile. Now, how in the world did she grow that much?!?!??

If you recall, she's had some serious fluctuation in her growth percentiles since before birth. In her early appointment, I think the technique for measuring was the culprit. This time, unless their ruler is hung wrong, was an accurate reading. They use a pull-down tape measure that is suspended from the top of the wall and it rests on their head, parallel to the floor.

No marking the foot and head on a piece of paper then use a tape measure . . .

It is possible that when The Reader goes in for her 11 year old physical, she will be taller than me! Her feet are already bigger than mine, so I guess her height should follow that, right?!??

June Update

My time is quite limited today but it's been a couple of months so I wanted to take 5 minutes for a quick update.
Dash is now 17 months old, fully potty-trained, and starting to talk!!
She mimics quite a few words and signs a few others. Today in the car, clear as day, said, "Thank you!"
It made me want to cry. She's a little speech delayed, like her biggest sister was, so to hear something so simple really made my day.
She still won't call me mama, but I'll take progress with other words instead.
She'll get there.
The Reader celebrated her 10th birthday last week. We also found out she earned a perfect score on her Math and Virginia Studies SOL exams and a 520/600 on her Reading exam. Her Reading exam was interrupted by a raging case of hand, foot, and mouth disease so I'm quite impressed that she did as well as a 520. The first day of testing she was sick but we didn't know it. By the next morning, she had over 20 sores in her mouth. She missed a week of school.
Spitfire has her birthday tomorrow. I am having a hard time believing she'll be 6. She's reading up a storm and last night I had to tell her to put the book away during dinner. I don't allow reading at the table for dinner time. We use dinner as a chance to talk as a family and books prevent that.
Also, let's face it: There are 3 kids at the table and food gets spilled all the time. So for the sake of all our books, they aren't allowed.
I am hanging in there okay. We made a half-hearted attempt at ttc this month but I highly doubt anything will come of it and that's okay still. We have some unique challenges ahead of us between now and the end of the year and although I'm ready to be pregnant one last time, it would really be better timing if we waited until January.
But you can believe that come January, we're putting all our cards on the proverbial table. I'll meet with my OB or possibly Shady Grove before then to get the meds I need to ovulate. I'm already monitoring my BBT because I had surprises and my cycles aren't even close to regular, especially when I'm breastfeeding.
And breastfeeding is still going really well. Dash nurses 3-4 times a day is all and is finally getting her appetite back. She also had hand, foot, and mouth disease and refused to eat solid foods for several weeks afterwards. Her weight is down a full pound from her 15 month check-up and I'm hoping we'll be able to get it back up before her 18 month check-up in a few weeks.
She sleeps in a toddler bed now, too. One of these days I'll go on my parenting high-horse about that but not today!
I have dishes to wash, a floor to sweep, and a daycare interview to prepare for. Wish me luck!

Change of Plans

My husband and I will be celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary next week! Fourteen crazy years . . .filled with so many ups and downs it's rather hard to think of them all.

Our lives have, as I've mentioned before, a completely different shape and path than the one we both set ourselves on the day we said, "Yes."

We envisioned having 4 children fairly close together, I'd stay home once he finished law school, and by the time we were 50, our kids would be out of the house and we could travel with all the money he'd made.

HA! That's sort of the exact opposite of what's happened.

I've spent some time writing about attempting pregnancy again because that goal of having 4 (or even 5?) children to raise isn't something that I've given up on and it still feels like another child is in the cards. We had talked about it a couple of months ago and I had come to the conclusion that we could officially start trying this month but when I hit cycle day 1 and it was time to start my preconception medications, something felt off. Not horribly off, but just a small nagging presence. . .

I have learned to listen to that feeling and spoke to my other half about it late in the morning and we discussed it that evening and the following day as well, allowing time for both of us to pray about it on our own.  The meds I needed could be started on CD2 if needed, although that wouldn't have been as ideal as day 1.

One of the aspects of marriage that I truly treasure is when we pray individually for answers and both come up with the same, or at least very similar, responses.  Receiving the same revelation is comforting in a way that little else is, even when that revelation isn't what either of us wanted.

In the case of attempting pregnancy, we both got what I'd call the "non-answer," meaning that Heavenly Father wants us to decide for ourselves but He would rather we ask again later. Since I still haven't felt the overwhelming urge to attempt pregnancy like I experienced month after month since 2003, I put the meds back in the cupboard and we'll kneel together in a month or two to see if anything has changed. 

My husband still wants a son. The pain and frustration is still there. When he talks about having a son, I can see something in him that is unique to him. It's not something I've ever seen in him before and I've known him for almost 20 years. Imagine dreaming of something your whole life and then realizing that your dream may not ever come true . . . it's soul crushing.  That kind of pain can ruin a marriage or cause the sufferer to treat others with a lesser degree of love.

But not my husband. He cherishes his daughters, and me, and I see that in his eyes when he looks at us, in his language when he speaks to us, and in his actions as he serves us in all the ways he knows how.

I want to see him hold his living son in his arms, kiss his forehead, get peed on in the way only an infant boy can pee on his daddy, to build with Legos, watch football, and use a saw.

I want my husband to be able to teach our son how to serve God, how to follow the promptings of the Spirit, how to prepare for a mission and a temple marriage.

I want my husband to see his dreams fulfilled.

But not yet and possibly not ever and that's something we will both have to live with.

The gender of my children is not a big deal for me but having a son matters to me because it matters to him.

15 Months

Dash is 15 months old and potty trained. The last week everything truly came together. It's entertaining when she tries to tell me she needs to go. Sometimes she comes and grabs at my thighs but she's starting to try and sit on the potty by herself, almost always ending up with a foot IN the little potty! Today she even picked up the potty and brought it to me.

I got the picture loud and clear.

She had her check-up yesterday. Not only were the nurses shocked that she was in panties, but add to that her reaction to the vaccines and I'm pretty sure she was talked about for the rest of the afternoon. Three injections and not even a whimper, just a little pout where she curled her lower lip, stared at them for a second, then looked at me for reassurance.

Easy.  She slept a little rough for the first half of the evening last night but once midnight hit, she slept through to 6:00.

Truth be told, the band-aids they put on her bothered her more than the shots did.  She was not happy when I took those off her last night!

Based on her measurements, her height at her one year check up must have been off.  She measured 30.5" tall, placing her in the 48th percentile, closer to her measurements before birth and for the first 9 months.  Her weight on the other hand? Not so little!  She weighs 25 lbs 9 oz, which is 94th percentile for weight.

Since she's no longer wearing diapers I can gauge her size a little better. Her waist is clearly a size 3 and since we're now in shorts weather, this is perfect. For cooler days, her size 2T pants fit much better now without the diaper taking up a lot of room, but only the stretchy 2s fit.  Anything else is just too snug around her midsection.

There are 2 things we (doctor and myself) are going to keep an eye on in the next 3 months: Dash's speech and her turned out feet.

If she's not using 8-10 words regularly by 18 months, we'll be referred to the Child Find program for an evaluation. Since The Reader was in speech therapy, our doctor knows that I'd rather start therapy sooner if it's needed rather than waiting it out.

So we shall see!

What Loss Does to You

It's a nice, peaceful afternoon here. I sat with a few of the kids and had a picnic lunch in the yard while a couple of the babies slept in the stroller. The weather is so beautiful and that adds to the peace I have felt through most of the day.

The daycare children are napping and so are Dash and Spitfire.

I'm the only one awake and that is a rare occurrence.

I decided it would be a good time to call our bank and set up a savings account for Dash, as all the necessary documentation was right in front of me from finishing our taxes.

Our account doesn't have the option of doing ongoing automatic transfers without an end date, so I kept clicking the month forward button and picked a random day in 2019. You would think that's not a big deal, but this is what repeat pregnancy loss does to you:

As I pulled up my online calendar, making a note in 3 years' time to renew the automatic transfers, I thought to myself, "I hope she's alive and well because it's really going to suck when I see this if she isn't."

What parent actually thinks that when they have healthy children?

A loss mom, that's who.