Friday, June 14, 2013

Trying to move on by keeping busy.

Despite everything that has happened over this week, we're trying to "move on" by keeping busy. It's been a very long, emotional week since finding out about the baby last Friday. Micah has been enjoying a gift from his KayKay & Papa. This is his water table, and he absolutely loves it.


What summer is complete without drinking from the water hose?

He's live in the water hose if I let him, but we would have a very large water bill.



We've started the process of "making over" the front of the house. Plans this summer include replacement of the rotten wood followed by a new paint job.

My mom came over one Saturday to help with a major lawn project. At the time, I thought I'd be hosting my monthly bunko at our house. Unfortunately, the miscarriage kind of changed those plans.




A little video of our little guy outside helping us do some yard work.



He would stay outside all day and all night if we let him.




A shot of the flower beds in progress.



Daddy's little helper!


What day outside is complete without your very own toilet? #cuetheredneckjokes

KayKay was a great help with the yard and the flower beds. She's got some amazing flower knowledge!





Micah also enjoyed pretending to carry his lawn supplies around in his wagon like Daddy (who was using a wheelbarrow). 





Christopher was making fun of me the other night because I was folding laundry in the living room floor. "You know you have a laundry room now, right?"

We've tried some potty training. For like two days. I need to be more consistent because he did pretty well.
A video of Micah playing at my parents' house.









Since Mother's Day included my dad going to the hospital, we "redid" Mother's Day on Sunday night.




Micah has spent a lot of time at the local parks this summer. We took a two-mile walk to this park one evening. He loved it!

And what summer is complete without some tv watching? He's addicted to The Lorax, so I try to limit the amount of time he watches it. Hope you are having a happy summer!

Monday, June 10, 2013

Sometimes life is devastating. An unexpected event that has rocked my world.

Edit: So I posted this. Lost my nerve. Took it down. I'm still not sure that I want to post this, so I ask that you just keep mean thoughts or comments to yourself as I try to get through the loss of my child. Thank you.

Today I am in mourning for the loss of a child that I'm never going to be able to meet this side of heaven. I've gone quiet on the blog for many reasons, but one main reason is the pregnancy situation which came up in April. I found out I was pregnant in about mid April. We were ecstatic, and it took all I could do not to shout from the rooftops that Micah was going to be a proud big brother. Last time around, I kept thing so quiet. We didn't tell family or friends. This time, I didn't exactly tell everybody in the world, but I couldn't keep completely quiet. There was no Facebook announcement or anything However, I did ask some friends to pray for us because we had an ultrasound back in May that was just off. I don't know how else to describe it. It was just off. Maybe this is because mothers have these gut feelings about their babies.

In early May/late April, I headed to the doctor for an ultrasound. I thought I was about six weeks along, so I should have been able to see something. I've only been pregnant one other time, and I could tell immediately where my baby was on the ultrasound screen. This time? I saw my "womb" with nothing in it. I was alone at the appointment, and it was all I could do to hold back the tears. This was meant to just be the first check up, and it was honestly my "annual" appointment. The fact that I was pregnant very quickly changed the atmosphere of the doctor visit, and I was saddened that C couldn't be there.  I was quickly reassured by both the doctor and the ultrasound tech that "your dates could be wrong. Let's schedule an appointment for a month from now so that we can be SURE to see something. You're very early. Sometimes we can't see anything this early."

So for a month, we waited. With each passing day, I began to feel more and more pregnant. Morning sickness followed me. I began to gain some weight. My clothes were getting tighter. I just felt pregnant. This relieved me, and I stopped thinking about this impending doctor appointment.

As June 7th approached this week, I was a bundle of nerves. I went to my aerobics classes as usual. Tuesday or Wednesday night, I had some extremely painful lower cramps after leaving dinner at a friend's house. I would be lying if I said that didn't scare me. I was scared to death, but cautiously optimistic since I felt SO PREGNANT. Thankfully, my doctor has been honest with me since the start of this process. She did hint that something was a bit off about our ultrasound, yet she didn't scare me enough that I didn't think I'd have my baby.

So here we are at the doc's office late Friday afternoon, and this time Christopher is with me. We are both excited about seeing the baby, and finally are taken back to ultrasound. That's when we realized something was very wrong. I don't have to be a medical professional to read the tech's non-facial expressions. She was quick to say that the doctor needed to look at our results and would be talking to us about the scan.

I knew I had lost my baby at that moment. Or, I knew I was in the process of losing my baby.

I'm devastated.

Words can't describe how heavy my heart is at this moment and how I'm grieving for the loss of this child. A baby conceived but who didn't develop far enough for us to hear the heart beating. It seems like a cruel joke that my body continued to march on, fully thinking it was pregnant, but when in reality I lost the baby a while ago.

Per my beliefs, a baby is a baby at conception. Which even though I never got to hold, touch, feel, or hear his/her heartbeat, I believe my baby is in Heaven. For whatever reason, the Lord decided to go ahead and call him/her home. I'm not sure how much more I'm going to blog about this. I don't really want to talk about it, but yet...I think my baby deserves mentioning on my blog. This happened, and I loved that baby as much as I love Micah. I'm taking a Facebook break for a while. The pictures of my friends' ultrasounds and pregnancy announcements are too much for me. The pictures of newborns seem to taunt me. I know I shouldn't feel that way, but my emotions are still very, very raw. I'm still in the process of the actual miscarriage, so I know that dealing with this loss will take time.

Will you pray for me? I'm hurting so very much. I need prayer.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Looks like we've got some catching up to do.

Welcome back, my friends. I know I somehow took a blog hiatus without meaning to, but here we are. Time to return to capturing our memories for a lifetime. So where have we been? What have we been up to?

Let me tell you, moving will take it out of you. I'm not even quite sure how people move all over the place every few years. Eight years worth of junk in one house is enough for me to start purging. I've still got even more to purge, but I'm hoping to get through it this summer while I'm off.
Micah has enjoyed a whole lot of play time at the new house. His favorite thing to do is play in water. One day, I made a redneck "water table" out of a hose and the wheel barrow. He had a blast!

He enjoys doing his chores or pretending to be just like Daddy.

This son of ours is ALL boy! He idolizes his Daddy, follows him everywhere, and wants to do everything his Daddy does.

We started semi-decorating the new house. It's a long work in progress. We paid some piano movers in April to move the piano out of our old home (which closed April 26th--PRAISE THE LORD!) into the new one. Here is its new home in our "music room" (formal living room) at the new house.

We have two huge sliding doors in our den (which will eventually be French doors when we save up the money), so I can't put blinds on them. They are the only access to our backyard. I want to have privacy at night, so I settled for these curtains from Target which I can open and close easily.

I'm going with some bright colors until we paint the house. Here's the teal curtains in our new kitchen.

This is the crazy awesome teal shelf I found randomly that is also in our kitchen.

Sometime way, way back in April or early May, we met up with our friends Kate & Ashley to go to Touch-a-Truck in our little town. Love this little town we moved, too! So much to do, and it is all sooooo close to our house.

Micah loved driving all the trucks.

He had a big day!

In the ambulance.

Running through the FedEx Ground truck (rarely will you go to any event in the Memphis area where FedEx is not present).


Kate & Micah. This is the only picture I got of them together.

The dump truck was a huge favorite of our little guy!


Of course, what boy's dream of trucks is complete without the police car?

In May, Mother's Day came and went by very quickly. We did not go to church that morning because of traveling down to Mississippi to see the in-laws. So C took me to a local mom-and-pop bagel shop for Mother's Day brunch before we headed south to see his family. They have the best coffee in the city of Memphis, I promise you! Unfortunately, this was the ONLY picture I took of Mother's Day, and I'm not even in it! Our Mother's Day was horrible, actually. It included a. trip to the ER for my dad with a nose bleed that wouldn't stop b. two cars dying (that we own) c. Micah having an allergic reaction to medication d. three dr visits for our son who had a staph infection and e. my husband's uncle dying. All of these things happened within 24 hours. Somehow, we made it through.

Worst Mother's Day weekend ever. Another reason why I haven't blogged. Life just took over.


The week after Mother's Day, I was off for about four days taking care of our son while C took care of his family after his mom's brother died. Micah almost went to the hospital because he rapidly developed a very dangerous staph infection. We went to the doctor two times in two days because it was so bad.

He was absolutely pitiful! The staph that invaded his poor little body was swift and antibiotic resistant. It's also very common and lives on our skin. The doctor assured us that there was nothing we could have done. It is just waiting to get into a vulnerable system or through an open cut.  Let me tell you, there aren't much scarier words than, "I'm sorry Mrs. C, but if this doesn't clear up quickly, we have to admit your son to the hospital so he can receive IV antibiotics." 

Apparently, the only antibiotic that could kill this staph was one our little baby is highly, highly allergic to! We had no idea! I received a call from my mom after dropping him off to go to work one morning. She said, "Leah, get here now. Micah's face is swelling up, he's turning red, and he's splotchy." Sure enough, allergy attack. Meanwhile, my poor husband and his family are dealing with a sudden death in the family, my father is in and out of the hospital about his nose bleeds, my brother had a seizure, and our cars died. 

God is faithful, but some weeks are way harder than others!

After about two weeks of a keeping a close eye on him, we were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. Sadly, Micah missed his last week of school, his program, and everything going on at Faith. He was just too contagious and too sick the last week of school. Thankfully, we seem to be on the mend, and we can get out in public again.

So there ya go. School is now out, and we are moving forward with the month of June! More posts to come.