Goodbye 2009...

I am really ready for this year to be over. I guess if you look at it overall, it wasn't a bad year, but these past four months have probably been one of the roughest periods that I have ever been through. In September I started back to work which was a really tough transition. I am still having a hard time with it and wishing that there was some way that I didn't have to work full time. In October, I had a miscarriage and then a few days later my grandfather got sick and went into the hospital. November Grandpa passed away, and then December I had another miscarriage. I feel like these past few month have just been a blur of sadness. Yuck. :(

And...to top it all off, within just this past week, our camera broke, our furnace broke, and the alternator on Joe's car went. I feel like we just can not catch a break. Ugh!

So... needless to say, I am looking forward to putting 2009 behind me and hoping for good things in 2010. I am hoping that we will be able to figure out what the heck is going on with my body so that I can finally have a healthy pregnancy for baby #2. And I know it's still a ways off, but I'm already looking forward to this summer for my sister's wedding, and our family camping trip to Letchworth. Also, we have been talking about trying to sell our house and move into something bigger because we are quickly outgrowing ours and hopefully soon we will be adding another member to the family!

So, here's hoping that 2010 will be a wonderful year filled with lots of happiness and exciting changes.

The club you never want to be a part of...

"Women who suffer recurrent pregnancy loss"

Unfortunately that is a group that I now belong to. Over the weekend, I had my third miscarriage within a period of just over two years. Never in a million years would I have imagined I would be here. I remember shortly after we got married, and talked about when we wanted to have kids, I was naive enough to think that it would be as easy as just going off the pill. Well, that did not turn out to be the case. After 14 months off the pill, and one miscarriage, I was finally pregnant with a healthy pregnancy. After Zoey was born, I finally felt like I was at peace with the pregnancy that I lost because I knew that if I had carried that pregnancy to term, we would not have ended up with Zoey. So, it put a whole different perspective on things, and I was able to somewhat put it behind me. So I just considered it to be dumb, crappy luck since 1st tri miscarriages are unfortunately very common.

When we started trying for baby #2, I was not overly concerned about having another miscarriage. It was always in the back of my mind because after being through it once, the bliss of ignorance is gone since you know that something can go wrong. But, still when I found out in September that I was pregnant, I tried to be optimistic about things. I didn't request early bloodwork to monitor my HCG levels, or an early sonogram - I just scheduled the "normal" first pregnancy appointment for 8 weeks. But...I never made it that far and lost that pregnancy in October at around 7 weeks.

Then, I found out in December that I was pregnant again. It was the 4th time that I had been pregnant. When I got the positive pregnancy test, I really believed in my heart that this was "it" and would be our healthy baby #2, born in August.

I was wrong.

On Saturday morning I woke up to bright red bleeding and I just knew that it was over. By that afternoon, the pregnancy test that I took was negative and I had to once again go through the process of "untelling" people about the pregnancy. The look on my husband's face when I told him was heartbreaking when he just said "No..." and started to get choked up. I hate that this is happening. I know that it isn't my fault, but I can't help feeling like since it is my body that is doing this, that it means that I have failed - my husband, my family, and myself because I have not been able to keep our babies safe and healthy. The rational part of me knows that is not the case, but it's not easy to stay rational in a situation that just does not make any sense to me.

So anyways, when I was finally able to talk to my doctor about everything,he told me that with this 3rd m/c I am now considered to have "recurrent pregnancy loss" and he also mentioned something about me being "high risk". It was hard to for me to understand and process everything that he was telling me. I think a part of me is still in shock that this happened again.

So now I will have to go in for some bloodwork and testing to see if all of my hormone levels are where they should be and to test me for a blood clotting disorder, and try to see if there is some underlying reason for these losses. So I have an appt for Jan 14th, and he said no TTC until after the testing. So now I'm feeling really scared and conflicted. Part of me wants them to find something, so at least there is some reason that I have gone through this, and part of me is terrified that there really is something wrong.

Blah, this sucks. Nothing else to say about it, it just plain sucks.

Recent Developments

I feel like Zoey is changing and growing and learning so much every day, so I just have to brag about some of her most recent accomplishents and developments.

*Her language development is really taking off and it seems like she is learning a new word every couple of days. So right now she has a vocabulary of about 15 words. She is saying - hi, bye, mama, dada, baby, kitty, doggy, bubble, apple, flower, teeth, down, shoes, ball, and tickle. And she also says "woof woof" for doggy, "quack quack" for duck, and "moo" for a cow. She also continues to use a lot of her signs like nurse, eat, drink, more, all done. So it is really exciting that she is able to communicate with us and it's cute because she gets so excited and proud when she sees something and is able to tell what it is.

*She really likes books and reading and loves to pick out a book, climb up on the couch, and "read" to herself. She will turn the pages and point to things and babble to herself. It is the cutest thing ever!

*She recently discovered the concept of "no" and will shake her head and say "na na" if she doesn't want to do something.

*She can identify most of her body parts and point to them if you ask where they are - eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, ears, hands, feet, tummy, belly button, hair.

*She likes to try to help me do things around the house. When I vacuum, she will get behind the vacuum and push it. When I unload the dishwasher, she will take the silverwear out and hand it to me, and she LOVES to scoop out the dog food and put in into Lexi's dish.

*Now that she understands what lots of objects are used for, she likes to try to use them herself. She will try to brush her own hair, brush her own hair, clean her ear with a Qtip, put on chapstick, put on her shoes, clean her high chair tray with a napkin, put on her shoes, etc.

*And, one of the best, she is so lovey and loves to give kisses. If you ask her for a kiss, she will grab your face give you a big smooch, and make a big "mwah" sounds. She also will kiss her baby dolls, toys, books, the dog, etc. It's adorable! :)