I had an experience today.....

An experience that just kind of struck me.

Since March, I've had this really crappy thing happen every time I go shopping. The vast majority of my shopping is done at Walmart, and at our Walmart the baby section is smack dab in the middle of the store. It's pretty hard to miss if you have to get to anything in the back half of the store from any direction. And every time I've walked past the baby section, or gone to buy diapers or wipes for Charlotte, I've had to stop and take a deep breath and make sure I was ok to do so.

It's really hard to walk past the baby section when you don't know if you get to have your baby.

I'm one of those people that adds newborn diapers to the list and buys some each time I go to the store for most of my pregnancy. A few things here or there and that whole getting ready for baby thing doesn't seem so overwhelming. And when you're baby obsessed the way I am, it's entirely too much fun.

It's really been hard to not do that this time.

To walk past all the little things and try not to look. Or try not to cry when I did look.

It's been months since I could walk past those aisles and not feel sick to my stomach.

Today I was at Walmart (again-for the third day this week-don't ask), and just because I could, I walked through the baby section. And felt all giddy inside. Just like yesterday, when I bought some onesies.

Today I bought a crib sheet.

Because it dawned on me this afternoon that I will have a baby, most likely sometime within the next month. Maybe I'll earn a week or so beyond that, we'll see.

And as I choked up at the excitement of the opportunity to get out the baby clothes, and wash up the car seat, I realized that I have done pretty much nothing to prepare for a baby.

Charlotte is still in the crib. Though she did start regularly climbing out two weeks ago, so it was about time to get her into a bed anyway.

I don't even know which storage tub has baby boy clothes in it. I guess it's time to look for those, huh?

The bassinet is tucked away downstairs in the storage room. Somewhere. Better find that too.

Today it really struck me-I have a baby to prepare for!

MRI Results-FINALLY! Looking to the future....

Two weeks is a long time to wait for such pertinent information.

Let's hope and pray that I am learning some patience through all of this. I think I'm getting there.

We finally have some answers. Not all of them, as some will be years down the road, but some of them.

One of them being that we can talk of “years down the road”.

After two very long weeks of waiting, we finally had a chance to discuss the MRI results today.

First, the good news.

Sam’s diagnosis is not lethal!

We get to plan on having a baby that will live!

I think I shed more tears out of relief over that information than over anything else this morning.

There is no evidence of bleeding in his brain, or any other events that may have caused further damage than what he is already dealing with. This is also good!

Now, the nitty gritty details.

Samuel does have a form of holoprosencephaly (HPE). Thankfully he sits on the mild-moderate side of the spectrum of an HPE diagnosis. There are a few different degrees of HPE; ranging from lethal to there are problems, but we don’t know how severe they will be. Sam sits down on the problems end of things. When a brain forms in the very early weeks of pregnancy, it divides into the two hemispheres with a dividing line in the middle. Sam’s division does not span the length of the brain the way it should, so there is indeed merging between the lobes of his brain. We know that he will have mental and physical delays, but as has been the case through this entire process, we don’t know how severe they will be, we just have to wait and see.

The ventricles in his brain-which is what we have been watching closely with the hydrocephalus-have merged. This is not a good thing, they are supposed to stay separate. We do not know what effect this will have on his brain and his development. The one piece of good news in this factor is that since they have blown into each other, the pressure against his brain is not as severe. There was more pressure on his brain tissue as each of the vents was expanding on a continual basis. The last time we were able to get good measurements on his vents one was measuring roughly 30mm and the other about 20mm. They appear to be the equivalent of roughly 20mm each at this point, so obviously the amount of room they are taking up (if they were still separate) is less than a month ago when they were each expanding at their own rate. Hopefully with less of that continual compression he was getting, there may end up to be a little less damage to the capabilities of that brain tissue.

Sam also has what is called Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum. This essentially means that the fibers that span from the right to the left side of the brain so that the hemispheres can communicate are not there. In and of itself, this is interestingly not necessarily a huge deal. There are actually adults that function normally and find out for whatever reason (typically an accident or injury that requires a head scan) that they have ACC, but have functioned normally through their lives. So alone it’s not necessarily a big deal. Obviously this is not the single diagnosis here, but part of a number of things, so again we wait to see how this plays into everything.

So while we are looking at some likely significant mental and physical challenges for our little guy over the coming years, we can say years!! The perinatologist went so far as to say “maybe 20-30 years?” when Aaron asked what she meant by years (if she meant 3 or 4yrs or 10yrs). The sense of relief is tremendous!

The other good news from today is that Sam’s head has just barely increased in size (both BPD and Circumference) over the past two weeks. Dr B is optimistic about delivery still, especially if his head doesn’t have a big jump soon. There is still the chance that there could be a big jump in head size, in which case if we see that at the next appointment in 2 weeks we will start steroids for baby’s lungs and plan the delivery within a week or two of that point (putting me at 35 or 36 weeks). Otherwise, we might just make it to August after all!!

Also, I got to see my adorable little baby's chubby face today. As soon as I get it online I will share it. The boy has got some cheeks! And the same nose as a couple of his siblings too.....

"And if you ask her why she is still running....

....she'll tell you it makes her complete."

Sometimes is just feels good to indulge in something you love.

My daily fix of M&Ms for example.

Or my run this morning.

Oh. my. goodness.

It was short and it was slow. But it was HEAVENLY!!

I've been having some pain in my left foot-ironically the same leg that has knee issues (aren't I WAY too young for this kind of garbage??), so I've not run for a little while.

But I gave that foot a little test run from the store to the car at the back of the parking lot the other day and it felt great. Of course that meant I needed to test it for a slightly longer distance than the length of the Walmart parking lot.

There was a 5K this morning that I desperately wanted to do (proceeds benefit newborn hospice), but Aaron nixed it. I think he's going into protective mode here and worried I'll overdo things.

It's like he's watched me go through seven pregnancies before and knows I get a little stir crazy or something.

Anyway, with that off the calendar, waking up to a pristine perfect morning was just too much.

The Mizunos were calling me from their box. They just needed to get out.

And so did I.

And it felt so good!

Since I'm such a numbers focused person, I left the Garmin at home. That way I was paying more attention to how I felt than what my pace read. So I don't know how far I ran. Somewhere between about 2 1/2-3 miles. (Hey-when you run the same course very frequently, you kind of come to know the landmarks that make decent mile markers)

And pace? Well, I know I hit around 10-10:30/mi at one point for a couple of tenths of a mile, just because I know how my body feels when it settles into a 10min pace. But that didn't last too long until slowing down a bit more felt better. But still enough to get that satisfaction of breaking a good sweat. Why does that feel so good??

It was so nice to run. To feel the sun beating down on me and my feet beating the pavement.

Coupled with the bonus that my running skirt still fits.

The looks I get from people now are priceless too. There is something fun about running with a big old belly!

I was afraid I'd end up on a walk this morning. That wouldn't have been the end of the world by any means, and I'll be there mighty soon I think.

But today, to still feel like I can say "I went running" at 30wks and 4 days pregnant AND have a smile on my face.....well, that my friends feels almost as good as the little toes dancing on my ribs.

Almost.

Promptings

Please remember to listen. Or learn to listen. Or be willing to listen.

Wherever it is you fall right now.

Last night Charlotte was having a horrible time sleeping. I chalked it up to the fact that she had napped longer and later than normal, and I had then kept her up later than normal. Typically she goes to bed around 7:30, last night it was a little after 9. Between the time that she went to bed and the time that I went to bed, around 11, I had gone back in to settle her down and tuck her back in two or three times, and Aaron had gone in once. Each time I went in she had thrown something out of the crib, so I figured she was just getting super tired and realizing that whatever it was that she ritually sleeps with was missing from her reach.

I stirred a few times in the night when she started crying again, but she was settling herself down within just a couple of minutes, so I would drift back to sleep each time.

And then around 4am I was wide awake.

Being in the pregnant state that I am, this automatically defaults to a trip to the bathroom, after which I laid back down in bed. Wide awake.

And then she started crying again.

And I knew INSTANTLY what was wrong.

She had a hair elastic around her wrist.

You may call it intuition, or a hunch or coincidence, or whatever you'd like.

But really-what are the odds of that randomly occurring to me at 4am all those hours later?

I know without a doubt that I was very specifically prompted to get in to my daughter and get that off her wrist.

Quite frankly, I do not know how her hand was not completely black. I do not know how in the world she found one of her teeny tiny hair elastics in her crib in the dark, or why there was even one in there. But I do know that judging by when she started crying last night, it was on her for at least 6 hours. It was tight enough that it was cutting in to her skin. Her hand was swollen to nearly twice it's normal size-so big that it was almost hard to the touch.

She likes to wear the older girls' hair elastics as bracelets and has recently taken to using her own for the same. Problem being that while the others are big and loose on her, hers are tiny and even on her very petite little wrist they are too tight. The times in the past when she has put them on, her hand is purple within a matter of minutes.

She has always come to us and shows us her hand when she has put one on so that we can take it off, as obviously it hurts. And despite the fact that she doesn't talk much, she uses the word "hand" frequently. Why she didn't show me her hand any of the times I went in to put her back to bed or even just tell me "hand" like she normally does, I do know not.

What I do know is that I am grateful for the stillness of 4am, the prompting to check for a hair elastic, and that I didn't blow it off. Who knows what would have happened to her little fingers had I waited any longer.....

(and grateful for my husband who happily got up to help me just a few minutes after 4-giving up his last 30min of sleep this morning-since I could not for the life of me decide if I should go with a cold compress to reduce the freak amount of swelling, or a hot compress to encourage circulation)

Life is always so loud.

Don't forget to listen.

"Uh, hey mom?"

"Yes?"

"Sometimes I eat bugs."

"Uh...sometimes you eat bugs??"

"Yep. But I didn't give Jacob my blue marker."

"Ok."

"Hey mom-you need to be quiet now so I can draw my things. If you talk I will get marker on my fingers."

"I'll be quiet."

"Sometimes I eat bugs."

"That's pretty gross, don't you think?"

"Yeah, it is. Ok. I drew this for you."

"Thank you."

"And this is for Dad."

"I'll give it to him."

"And there is two for each of you. So NO fighting. Do you know what happens if you fight? I take them away from both of you. And you don't want that. So no fighting. Dang-there is marker on my finger."

Life is Good

I slept in.

I spent the last 40 minutes just lounging in bed.

Most of that time I watched my belly jumping around as my little man said good morning.

The kids slept in.

In fact most of them are still in bed. And it's nearly 8:30. And there is nothing they have to get up for!

The kids that are up are playing in their rooms.

With any luck the sun will come out and we can spend the day with the Slip n' Slide and the kiddie pool.

Hubby gets a day off work and school.

I am about to go start a big waffle breakfast. And break out the whipped cream and sprinkles.

Because today is a whipped cream and sprinkles kind of day.

Now I can do one better

Than the snow on the hills a few miles up the road on Saturday....

How about snow all over everything?

It's May 24th and it's snowing. Not snow floating down and not sticking snowing, but real live big fat flakes snowing. And we lucked out-a little further up the road from here, it's coming down even harder. 3-6 inches! Ack!

It's like one big bad joke. Let's hope those water walls in the garden do their job....

But the good news? It's supposed to be 80 degrees on Wednesday.