Halfway

Tonight while I was cleaning up the kitchen I realized we're halfway through this pregnancy, crazy! It's going by quickly. In less than a week we'll know what to refer to this little one as besides sibling. I asked Aaron to take my picture to document the day.

We love you baby!

Updates & More Questions

Porter:
We've been busy running around to Doctor's and Therapy Appointments this last week. I'm so tempted to just not schedule any more therapy until Christmas is over. Porter has a stomach bug that's upsetting his entire digestive system and I just feel so bad for him. It's not pretty and we've had to put him back on acid blockers because his reflux is back with a vengeance. I just hope the blocker works and he's not in pain anymore.

{P stayed home from church on Sunday because of the sickness and we made rice crispy treats. The boys were super excited!}

Other than that, Porter is walking more and more these days. He'll pull himself up and just take off across the room. He falls a lot because he's trying to run before he walks. :) Do you want to see a video? He's not a full time walker but he sure is practicing a lot.

Baby #2- I know I said we'd have an ultrasound this week; we had an appointment but Aaron and I decided to postpone until 20 weeks. We would have to have another one at 20 weeks anyway so they could get a good look at the baby's heart. It seemed wasteful to us to pay for an extra ultrasound. Everything suggests that this is a thriving baby so we're fine waiting if we can get a better look later and save some money.

On this note, I asked the Genetic Counselor what my statistics would be if I had never had a son with DS. I would have started at 1/1000 and with my hormone increase in my blood draw it would have gone up to 1/800. That made me wonder why having Porter has increased the risk so much. If you've ever read much about DS it's for the most part a genetic anomaly. I tell friends this that don't have children with DS and they still feel like 1/800 is high... I don't. There will always be that part of me that remembers being the 1, but I think my results might be getting blown out of proportion. A thorough ultrasound will be good to have done.{P likes to sweep -- a consequence for playing in the plant.}

QUESTION:

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm trying to decide when and how is the best time to transition Porter out of his crib or if really we need to purchase another crib. If we move P out of his crib we'll put him right into a twin on the floor.{Something like this would work, although I don't like the top one it gives you an idea. I'll need a good vinyl artist to help me with this project because I know what I want and I probably wont find it on Etsy.}

I know this may sound mean, but I've heard it's safer than using a bed frame. We'd change his room up so it's safe if he gets out of bed. However, I'd do my best to teach him to wait for me to come get him. I've read to keep kids in their cribs as long as possible. I've also read that the earlier they transition the better they take to it. Then I came across something that said the transition should in NO way be associated with the new baby's arrival. There are times I question this plan and wonder if another crib would be best, but I really don't want to have to buy another one. Needless to say I'm feeling a little conflicted. Once again I'd love your input and experience!

p.s. I deserve an update
Meg/Mom:
This Saturday Aaron was a great sport and let me leave for an entire day. I got to go to Time Out For Women. Basically, it was 4,000 women in one room listening to other women (one man) share inspiring presentations about HOPE. It was revitalizing. Thanks to my good friend Kristin for inviting me and her Mom for gifting me the ticket. It was a great day!

Happiness is... ( & a plan)

the everyday moments that cheer my heart!

This could also be classified as a phone photo dump because most of these are from my phone so forgiving judgment on the quality people!

{This is when we were staying with my Brother and his wife. Aunt Kaleena looked so guilty when I walked into the room...still makes me smile thinking about the look on her face. P's getting yummy cinnamon muffin batter.}

{You know, clothes don't always make it to the hamper after bath time and Porter was tired of the mess on the floor so he cleaned up. Hehe}

{Porter wanted to play in his exersaucer but didn't know how to get in without our help. Poor baby was getting pretty upset by the time we finished snapping this pic and got him untangled.}

{Um yeah, P found the Cheerios I'd snack on to help with morning sickness. They we're pretty happy with Porter's success!}

{Love this! Porter is constantly checking on us and chatting our ears off while we're in the car. He's much happier in his infant car seat and he's small enough so we let him use it.}

{Ball pit at OT.}

{I sent this to his dad looking for sympathy because this is what I'd been dealing with all day.}

{You know I like to make bread.}

{I sewed these for Porter from a scrap I had leftover! They make me so happy because I made them!}

{The pointing...love, love, love!}

{P watching the wiggles on our flight home from Cali}


I can always count on life finding a way to make me smile, laugh, and lift my spirits. Like Porter dancing to the John Mayer I have playing right now.

We have a plan for Sibling:

My doctor ordered a head to toe ultrasound as soon as she read the results, she's trying hard to get it done before Thanksgiving, but we'll see. If we see more markers we'll ask my doctor, "How will the care of this baby and Meghann change with the results from the Amnio?" If she gives us an answer that we feels justifies the procedure we'll go ahead and have it done. I've had moments in my life where news like this has paralyzed me with anxiety, I don't feel that way now. I know that decisions need to be made pretty quickly and that's stressing me a little. However, I'm not worrying that this baby might have Down Syndrome. My hopes are kind of up now that we might have another with Down Syndrome, it's just that DANG list of medical problems that scares me. Don't get me wrong either, it would be great to have a typical child too. So when I say, "Either way I'm going to be disappointed." it doesn't get more real than that!

The Results & Some Big Decisions

This is a very private/personal matter and yet I'd like to ask your opinion - especially if you've been in our shoes! I'm opening myself up here with the understanding that I asked for it.

Yesterday at my doctor's appointment I asked for the results from our integrated screening. She didn't have them but I knew they'd been completed so her nurse was able to pull them off of the computer network. My doctor was handed several pages and started interpreting the results. I could tell she was a little surprised. She walked me through the results and just by having Porter we had a 1% risk for Down Syndrome, but with the screening and ultrasound the percentage still increased. We're looking at a 1 in 70ish chance of this baby having Down Syndrome. Now those are pretty good chances. I bet each of us knows someone who's had a typical child with those statistics but this is extremely abnormal for someone my age (25). It's a red flag. These numbers puts us into the category where an amniocentesis is highly encouraged. Here we reach the decision part:

• The only information we'd get from an Amnio is yes or no, your baby has Down Syndrome. We wouldn't know if the baby has a heart problem, or weak muscles, or this list goes on and on!
• I would never forgive myself if we miscarry because we have this procedure done. I know that this risk is very low and it's even lower with the doctor who would be doing the amnio on me -- her stats are 1 miscarriage out of 1000. But I can't help but think about that 1.
• I'm wondering if by having the amnio if my pregnancy would be treated differently looking for problems, etc.
• If you haven't read my blog before you should know we'd never consider terminating a pregnancy for a genetic abnormality.
  

With that I'd like to ask when/if you had red flags go off in your blood work, what made you decide for or against the Amnio? Second, how was the procedure for you? Would you do things differently?

We're still processing all of this. It hasn't even been 24 hours yet so we haven't reached any decisions yet. On the way home from my doctor's appointment I started crying. I had been completely calm when she told me the results, she was extremely concerned about me and was just waiting for a breakdown. I was completely together when I called Aaron. I lost it when I called my parents. Mom does this to me for some reason; she's my safest childhood place, I think the little girl in me comes out when Mommy gets involved. As I was crying I kept telling myself to buck up and that this wasn't a big deal. I finally cut myself a break and realized that yes, this is a big deal. There's going to be a lot of emotions here: they've told me I could have a second child with Down Syndrome and wow that changes things. Either way, I'm going to be disappointed and overjoyed, no matter the results! This is going to be emotional and if I don't face that I'm not going to be emotionally healthy enough to welcome any child. Aaron and I know that if we're having a second child with Down Syndrome we probably won't have any more of our own because while it's rare there are parents who are balanced carriers of an extra chromosome. There is also the possibility of lightening hitting the same place twice, but it's not likely. We'd gratefully welcome this child if he/she has Down Syndrome but having 2 children with extra health, financial, physical, and emotional needs is a lot of responsibility.

We know whatever the outcome we'll be happy, we'll be blessed, the Lord will help us through it and one thing we know for sure...
We trust God!

p.s. This is a bit easier just because we sure do love our little boy with Down Syndrome! Just holding Porter makes me feel that everything no matter what is going to be okay.

"What Does Your Gut Tell You?"

A pregnancy #2 documentation. I know these posts aren't interesting to everyone so I completely understand if you skip. I just want to be able to look back and know what was going on with this little life we're adding to our family.

Last time I shared the belly...

{12 weeks}

Now-

{17 weeks}

My husband just left on a run and was extremely tired so I want to stay up just a bit longer to make sure he gets home safe. Who runs in the freezing cold at 10p.m.? That would be my Aaron, he's committed and I'm lucky to have him! Aaron did the dishes, played with P, bathed him, and got him to sleep tonight while I was out with friends. Back to my original thought...

Earlier this week Aaron said, "I know what you want, but what does your gut tell you?" referring to the sex of Sibling. To answer that question I have to go with BOY. Logically, my mind is saying "it's a girl" the sickness is worse; I've been experiencing headaches, my first migraine in fact, something that never happened with P. We will see come early December.

Other things that are happening:

• I've successfully been off the medication to help with morning sickness since Sunday. My doctor wasn't okay with me throwing up 3-5 times a day at all times of the day.
  
• The results from our genetic screening are complete. However, our genetic councilor has called 3 times and wont leave the results in a voice mail, making me wonder what's up. I'll be trying to contact him tomorrow and I also have a doctors appointment so she should have the results as well. I'll let you know what I find out.
  
• I'm feeling the baby much more consistently these days and I think it's safe to say this kid is as active as his/her brother.
• My belly isn't growing as fast now, but I think I'm rounding out nicely. I feel like the baby is moving higher up, which is a good thing.
  
• One of my favorite things about being this far along...our baby doesn't look like an alien anymore. I now go to babycenter.com and instead of thinking, "weird" it's more along the lines of, "ohh...".
• Aaron has created classifications for my behavior during each trimester and I guess I'm doing the exact same things I did while expecting Porter. According to Aaron's observations: 1st Trimester=Sick Meg, 2nd Trimester=Cleaning Meg, 3rd Trimester=Big Projects.
  
• I'm in limbo with clothing, particularly pants. My regular pants still fit my legs and bum, but I can't do up the waist. My maternity pants are saggy and slide down constantly... driving me insane because they go up so high I can't just adjust in public...awkward. I think belly bands would work great for me, but I don't want to pay $16 for each color. I'm planning to make my own I just haven't made it to the fabric store yet.
• I'm loving all that I'm accomplishing since I've been feeling better. I'll admit it's a little crazy. One afternoon I walked into our bathroom, dropped everything, completely reorganized, and deep cleaned it. Because it had to be done right then! Proof:

{I uses the S.T.A.C.K. system to organize and this is the first step "Sort"}

• With this baby developing and reminding me of his/her existence several times a day it's really starting to sink in for me. We're going to have another baby! Which is crazy, wonderful, exciting, terrifying, and a miracle.
  

"You're Getting Fat" (An Announcement)

That's what my 2nd graders would say to me when I was expecting Porter. I actually loved it when they'd say that to me. I'm getting bigger these days since we're expecting our second baby!

{For now this is what we refer to #2 as "Sibling".}
{{P.S. Sibling's hand is up by his/her face - that's not a nose. Aaron enjoys laughing about such things, though.}}

If things go according to schedule the baby will be born on his/her Aunt Karli's birthday, the 27th of April. But we all know things never actually go according to "schedule".

This blog serves as our family journal and because of that I'll be documenting some things in this post. It may not be interesting to you but it's important for us to remember these things down the road.

I've mentioned a few times starting in January of this year that Aaron and I were thinking about having another baby. If you feel so inclined, you can read about it HERE & HERE. After lots of prayer we decided to put our trust in God's hands and timing. If anyone knows when things should happen it's Him! After that move, I quickly realized that the idea of having another child frightened me greatly but peace would always return when I would turn to the Lord, especially after what we believe was an early pregnancy loss brought on by an anxiety attack in July. As a note: It wasn't an anxiety attack about having another kid, just something that got blown up. It was such an early loss we didn't struggle with this much. It was weird to come to the realization that I had been pregnant, but we felt very peaceful. Our feelings were that we had turned the matter of baby #2 over to God and we weren't going to falter now. With that I had resolved myself to theses ideas: maybe I'm not healthy enough to have a baby yet; perhaps this will take some time; maybe we were wrong, maybe we aren't suppose to have a baby right now. I was okay with all of this and actually a little excited for the extra time as 3. Then a few weeks down the road I was feeling very pregnant and asked Aaron if he thought we should test. I had looked at my calendar and thought it was a little early to test, but couldn't shake the sick feeling. We decided to ask Porter what he thought and he was very much in support of the idea! Honestly, he gave us a very cute and reassuring "YES test!". I don't know what it is about my husband always needing to know the results before for me, but he came and took the test from me while I was waiting. Before I could finished protesting for him to return it, a positive result came up and he was jumping up and down with a big smile across his face. I was so excited but was in a bit of shock after convincing myself that we were in for a long wait, it was and still is sooo surreal! We just kept saying to each other, "We're going to have another baby!" After things settled down a bit I decided to look up my due date only to find out I'm a bad counter and was already 5 weeks along... no wonder I felt so sick!

This pregnancy has been very different for me than the first. The first I was anticipating with great expectations, this time I was trusting God and going with the flow. I'm not the best at going with the flow without having some questions. The whole first part of this pregnancy I had overwhelming feelings of inadequacy and fear. However, when I'm at church, studying my scriptures, or at peace the calm confirming feeling returns that this is right, this is exactly what God wants for our family, that He'll help me through it, and that this addition will make all of us very happy. While I'm sure my feelings of turmoil will not entirely disappear until I cradle this little one in my arms, I know this is God's will for us.

If Aaron is nervous he's shown no signs of it to me. This man accepts things quickly taking them on with love and diligence. He's been so good to me, I'm definitely complaining more this pregnancy because I don't feel good. I've tried hard to stop; I don't know how my efforts have been, but he's kind about reminding me that I promised to try hard not to complain because it's a gift. Some of the things Aaron has change to help me out is that he takes care of Porter when he wakes up at 6:30 in the morning when I'm normally in the bathroom indisposed, changes the stinky diapers whenever he's around, then after work he does the dishes for me if I couldn't stomach them that day. Seriously, he's my HERO!!!

Here are the details my mother-in-law would ask about:

• Has my morning sickness been different? (trying to predict boy or girl) Yes, it's been much more persistent. I was sick every morning with Porter but it usually passed by the time my 2nd graders came to class at 9. I'm very sick in the mornings with this pregnancy, feel yucky all day long, and get really sick again in the evenings.
• You're not still nursing Porter are you? Yes- I did/was. I nursed Porter the first 10 weeks of my pregnancy. He wasn't ready to stop and his needs will always be important. We researched it just to be sure, but nursing while preggers isn't dangerous to either baby. However, it can be a little hazardous to Mom. The body is an amazing thing, there is a hierarchy - fetus, baby, then Mom - and the babies will steal whatever they need. Lucky for us Porter started accepting his sippy cup with lots of our support, so he can get the fluids he needs, and he no longer needs to nurse. Nursing caused early contractions and unfortunately they've decreased with the change, but they've haven't gone away completely . Bummer.
  
• What's the baby's heart rate? 1st time- 168 2nd time- 169
  
• Do you have any feelings about it being a boy or a girl? I had several dreams about having twin girls that we affectionately refereed to as Baby A & Baby Z because of the girl names we like. However, I think these were a product of my fear of twins and girls. We had our first ultrasound on Monday and we're only having 1 baby! PHEW! I had a dream about a little blonde boy that we couldn't decide on a name for; he was very cute and chubby. Despite the difference in my sickness I generally feel that it's a boy. Aaron thinks it's a girl. Do either of us have great confidence in our guesses...NO!
• Cravings? Sweet and Sour-- Sweetarts are a must these days, pickles, chocolate mouse, Pizza Hut. But most of the time I'm just dealing with food aversion and nothing sounding good. I eat tofu like 3 times a day and with Porter demanding I share, we go through the stuff like crazy.
  
• Other differences? I'm super fatigued, I'm growing & showing way faster than last time, and I've been feeling this little one wiggle already.
• Cold feet? I don't get this one, but yep my feet are always cold. The rest of me is overheating but my footsies are freezing.
  

I also just wanted to share the ordeal it's been having a child after giving birth to a baby with Down Syndrome. At my first appointment we had to firmly state that we would not be doing any invasive genetic testing, that even if the results showed the baby had Down Syndrome we would not be terminating the pregnancy. I know it's their job and it's their legal responsibility to make sure I understand it's legal for me to terminate such a pregnancy but I was ready to strangle something if I heard the word "TERMINATE" one more time in reference to any of my children! We're in the process of having an integrated screening done, a combo test of an ultrasound and 2 blood draws that's 90% accurate. Even at the appointment the genetic counselor was pushing us to have an amnio done. We'll finish the process with this pregnancy, but we both agree... we're not doing this again. It doesn't change a dang thing for us! The only reason we went through with this test was so we could be prepared for any health concerns but honestly big things should show up on an ultrasound. I'm just very frustrated with the push to abort pregnancies.

{We celebrated our news over a cup of juice -- we didn't have any sparkling cider.}

{Aaron brought me home some congratulatory flowers}

{They blossomed beautifully and I was able to enjoy them for a good 2 weeks.}

We're excited to watch as this pregnancy blossoms and we welcome Sibling into our family in 6 short months!