The Hand I'm Dealt

Baby Theo has been hard on me. Hard on us, I should say. First trimester was full of puke and headaches and so far the second trimester has been the trimester of exhaustion and pain. While I am looking forward to the third trimester, I'm looking more forward to April 23.

I haven't been feeling awesome, and in turn, my emotions have taken over. It's hard to make it through the day without welling up with tears or, more likely, overflowing with tears. My pregnancy with June made my emotions so level but this time I'm quite a wreck. I don't know if it's because I'm having a boy or because I feel exhausted every minute of the day but I'm feeling pretty emotionally drained.

My doctor has taken note of my physical discomfort and how that's wearing me thin. He highly recommended I go on disability and even more highly recommended that I get more help when on disability. Apparently he knows you don't rest much with a 15 month old. So January 14, I go on short term disability. My mom will have June two days a week and my mother-in-law will have her one day a week. I have quite a bit of guilt regarding this but frankly, I'm on the brink of an exhausted breakdown.

To be honest, I'm ready to rest but still worried about work/money/life in general. I don't quite know what will happen with my job. I do get a portion of my pay while on disability but after 22 weeks of being away from work (14 weeks until he gets here and 8 weeks maternity leave because of the c-section) I just don't know where I'll stand with my company. I hate the thought of leaving a 2 month old but at the same time, I do enjoy working.

So friends, I'm in need of some good thoughts, prayers, vibes, voodoo, whatever you believe. This transition is proving to be more stressful than I expected and I wish I could sleep for the next few weeks.

Also, any suggestions for good books? I'm going to attempt to read and truly rest as much as possible in the next 3 months. Wish me luck!

15 Months Old, 22 Weeks Pregnant and Christmas

We've got a lot going on in the Kellogg home. June is officially 15 months old, baby Theo has been in my belly for 22 weeks now, tomorrow is Christmas and yesterday was Thomas' and my one year wedding anniversary. I wanted to write a quick blog about it all but I have a feeling this will turn into something longer. You can pick and choose what you read, I promise I won't be mad.

June is 15 months old. It blows my mind how she's like a real mini human now. She's had a pretty bad cold for the past week and it's very sad. This is the first time she's been sick like this and while it's not quite as bad as the Hand Foot and Mouth sickness went through (thank God!), she's miserable nonetheless. She has a wet cough that sounded a lot like croup to me so I took her to the doctor last week and it's just a virus so we're doing Motrin, some Benadryl to dry her out and lots of cuddling. She's started sleeping in our bed and while I always dreamed of co-sleeping with my kids - it's much different than I expected! She's not a cuddler and takes up most of our king size bed. Most mornings I wake up with a foot in my face or a head in my shoulder blades. I really don't mind it but I do worry a little about when Theo is born and how our transition will go. I planned on co-sleeping with him because I'll be nursing but now that June has invaded our bed I don't want to have a newborn and a toddler in there at once. Any advice? 

Let's take a look at our Baby Center Milestone Chart. 

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)

Plays with ball Uses three words regularly Walks backward

Scribbles with a crayon Runs Adopts "no" as his favorite word

"Helps" around the house Puts his fingers to his mouth and says "shhh"

(Can I pat myself on the back real quick for not messing up the chart this month? Holla!)

So June LOVES throwing and kicking balls. I wish I knew how to link to a video because our dear friend Leo was cracking her up by kicking a soccer ball the other day. It was possibly the cutest 4 minutes of my life. She uses the words Momma, Dadda and yeah. She's starting to babble a lot more but still doesn't have a ton of words. I'm not too worried though. Walking backward? Honestly, I don't know that we've ever had a need to do that. I guess I have seen her playing with her cousins and if they push a toy with her standing at the back she will walk backward with it. But does that count? 

June LOVES crayons. We just started coloring this month and she's really into it. She's been running for two months, wild girl. I don't think she says no yet. Thank goodness. I'm sure that's coming.

She does help around the house. We can tell her to put her clothes in her hamper and she will do that as well as kind of picking up her toys. I'll have to test her with the "shh" thing. I don't think she's ever seen us do it so we'll see!

A week ago we had our official gender scan for baby boy. Our perinatologist was easily able to confirm that Theodore is a boy! Baby boy wasn't shy and gave us a show! He was also much less active than June was at this point. I'm praying that holds true for after he's born too. The ultrasound was amazing. As many of you know, I have a syndrome called Asherman's. I'm not going to go into it again but look around the blog and you'll find lots of info about it. So Dr. Risky (not his real name, I'm dubbing him this because he's a high-risk doctor...and it makes me laugh) showed us all of Theodore's body and his organs working in perfect form. These ultrasounds are my favorite because you get to see, in depth, the inner workings of their tiny bodies. It's absolutely amazing to watch them stretch their muscles and rub their eyes but then to see their heart beating away and their kidneys flushing fluids. During this ultrasound we also saw that the gestational sac grew around the scar tissue I have left. I only have two strands of thick scar tissue left in my uterus as this sweet baby has opened it almost all the way but there's one larger one that the baby is growing around. It's hard to explain and Dr. Risky had to show us from several angles for us to fully understand what was going on. But, basically, the baby implanted in a great spot and then grew around the scar tissue which slowly pushed all of it open. So this last hold out strand of tissue is being pressed on by the sac. He said it may open and stretch or it may be too thick to get through. Either way, the baby is growing perfectly and using the space he has to keep moving and growing. It was all pretty insane to see in front of us. 

Our c-section is officially scheduled for April 23 at 715am. That's my dad's 50th birthday and he is very excited to share his special day. We also have more than a few double (and triple) birthdays on each side of the family so this is an exciting tradition. My sister was born on my grandmother's 50th birthday too! April will be here before we know it! 

Christmas is upon us and I am so excited to see June's reaction to presents. She wasn't interested in opening things on her birthday but we'll see this time! We even have a few things under the tree for Theo. 

I hope everyone has a safe and fun Christmas! 

June looks so sad. At least she's showing emotion! (Also, my Grandpa is a real beard Santa - he is the best Santa ever. Seriously.) ((Also, why does my belly look so weird?!))

June and Santa having a staring contest.

SHE'S ALMOST SMILING.

(From L-R) My mom (Lisa), my dear friend Stacy, me, my sister Emily and my sister's dear friend Kelsey. We made the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls and they were incredible!

It's A...

BABY! 

With June I had dreams, lots of dreams, that she was a girl. I had one dream where we found out at the ultrasound but not through her genitalia but through her teeth. It was weird. This time I have only had one "premonition." I was falling asleep and lightly dreaming (I could write a whole separate blog about dreams), a baby was placed into my arms and I just knew it was a boy. 

And I was right. 

Theodore Louis Kellogg will be joining his big sister on April 23, 2013. We're going back and forth on his nickname - I like Teddy and Thomas likes Theo. I think we'll see what fits him best when he arrives but for now we've been calling him Theo. And Theo is a very, very low kicker!

I believe that we have the best model for raising opposite gender siblings close in age - my brother and sister. Emily was born November 28 and not two years later, on November 12, Ian was born. Emily was tiny, Ian was big. They were mistaken for twins nearly every day. Emily and Ian did everything together. They played with toys designed for one gender or the other but more often than not, they created their own games. Emily often called herself "Big Sally" and Ian was "Little Nick." Their games required very little - just one another and imagination. Growing up and playing sports together, they had each other on the field to keep each other company.

I cannot wait to see June take Theo under her wing. I'm excited to see her show him the world through her passionate eyes. June has my very strong personality and I'm so curious if Theo will have Thomas' laid back attitude. 

We are so excited to meet baby Theo. 

Baby Theo at nearly 12 weeks. His nose is what tipped us off that he's a boy...

Emily and Ian at probably 3.5 and 18 months. They have such a special bond.

Boy or Girl?

I want to write a whole blog about the old wives tales and make this fun declaration of what the tales tell. But frankly, I'm so worn out. Holy moly, I went to Walgreens and barely made a lap around and had to sit down. It was so silly! I do have this side by side picture of me at 19ish weeks pregnant with June and this picture from yesterday (19 weeks 3 days). I feel like I'm carrying super low, like incredibly low. I promise I'll announce the gender next week! 

So make a guess! 

Oh belly.

Keeping Up with the Kelloggs

I'm sitting here writing this from the comfort of my couch, a heating pad at my back and our Christmas tree all aglow. From this idyllic picture you would never know that I'm also contracting like I'm in labor. That would be super cool if I were 39 weeks pregnant. But I'm not. I'm 19 weeks and 3 days. And actually, labor would be bad for my body even at 39 weeks. That's beside the point. 

Back to my contractions - they got bad enough last night to send me to the emergency room. In addition to contractions I was also feeling light-headed, a little short of breath and just not right. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. At our local hospital they don't send you to Labor and Delivery until 20 weeks. I'm a few days shy and L&D didn't want me up there. Super sad face. I waited, had blood drawn, waited, had an ultrasound, went to a room, waited, had my OB check my cervix, waited, had a shot of pain meds, waited and finally came home at 1am. 

The outcome of this little jaunt was kind of a question mark. Dr. Man has never had a patient with Asherman's syndrome nor has he ever heard of a patient with Asherman's syndrome getting pregnant. All of this was pretty funny to me - Dr. Man had never really addressed my future fertility while I was going through all of my surgeries and now it seems that he was trying to figure out how to tell me that we would never get pregnant. I think he was hoping that every surgery would fix the problem but as it got worse I questioned it less and he was less reassuring. I knew the diagnosis of Asherman's was pretty bad and that fertility was pretty slim. According to Wikipedia's page on Asherman's the pregnancy rates are as follows, "Pregnancy and live birth rate has been reported to be related to the initial severity of the adhesions with 93, 78, and 57% pregnancies achieved after treatment of mild, moderate and severe adhesions, respectively and resulting in 81, 66, and 32% live birth rates, respectively." My initial adhesions where somewhere between moderate and severe. So those rates aren't great. And the live birth rates are even worse. (Why the hell did I even choose to read that again NOW?!)  

<sup>The point of all of this is that Asherman's is rare and I'm basically a guinea pig in this pregnancy. Now at 19 weeks and a few days they think I'm in preterm labor. The major theory in why this is happening is because of the extensive scar tissue in my uterus. While the baby has completely opened my uterus, there is still quite a bit of scar tissue lining the top. I had over 30% of my uterus that was scarred shut so when that opened it created a scar tissue covering that's now starting to stretch. A normal uterus stretching can cause a little bit of pain and discomfort but scar tissue stretching can be very painful. My poor uterus is in a ton of pain and is very irritable. For normal preterm labor they can give a myriad of drugs to stop contractions but because I'm only 19 weeks they're really not sure what to do. My "prescription" is for bed rest as much as possible and pain medication.  I'm still going to work during the morning as I was and rest in the afternoon however I can.  

So friends, please keep up that good juju for us! We had a great ultrasound where baby showed us their gender and is still measuring a full week ahead. We're keeping the gender close to us for now but you're more than welcome to take a guess! We'll probably "announce" it sometime next week. We're keeping our fingers crossed that our sweet baby continues to grow and stays put for 20 more weeks.</sup> 

^{Really not the best picture of me but a pretty cute one of the belly. Take note of the size, shape and general highness or lowness.}

 

Supportive Mommas

This evening I was doing some light reading and researching on breastfeeding. When Junie was a baby I was under an insane amount of duress and breastfeeding just didn't work. You can read about that here. I still have some trace of guilt about that especially because my supply was so amazing. I breastfed her for three weeks, developed mastitis, then had my first surgery, then a blood transfusion, then mastitis again and after 2 weeks of exclusively pumping I had had enough. My body needed my attention to be on my own health and after one more surgery and having to pump every three hours just to dump all of that precious milk, I broke. I was done. I could not possibly dedicate one more tear filled hour to trying to feed my baby. I woke up dreading June waking up and having to feed her. I didn't do much research about breastfeeding before she was born because I was very focused on the birth rather than the food. I assumed it would come naturally and that we would be a professional breastfeeding team. None of my plans came to fruition. Not a drug free birth and not breastfeeding.

So this time, knowing that I will have a c-section, I am doing more research. I am taking classes. I am reading books. I am chatting with other moms. In looking for a good nursing bra I came across a great resource - Bravado. They have gorgeous nursing bras (even in my size! woohoo!) and a wealth of information. The article that really caught my eye was this one about the role that your own mother plays in your breastfeeding success. My mom was amazingly supportive of me while I struggled to breastfeed June. She called her friend, a former lactation consultant and baby nurse, to help me with our latch. She called my doula when my nipples were cracked and bloody. She brought me food when I was crying in the corner trying to feed my baby. She had nursed all three of us (my brother was breastfed until 13-14 months and she only stopped because he wanted to) and loved that special bond that it created. Just the other day she said, "I really hope you can breastfeed this baby. It's so special!" All of this support and love without the passing of judgement when I made the hard decision to bottle feed June. I wish everyone had this same level of support that I had.

I rarely faced any negativity when it came to breastfeeding. The closest I came to that was an older family member telling me that it was okay to feed June a bottle and that all of her babies were fed with formula and they were fine (which was debatable). It came out of a place of honesty and care though - she saw me struggling and I'm sure was trying to be reassuring. 

So ladies, what are your thoughts on that article? Was your mom supportive of your breastfeeding? Were you breastfed as a baby? Do you agree that beside your partner your mother is the biggest important supporter of breastfeeding? Let's get talking about boobs!

I at least know this much.

18 Weeks and Some Change

Not literal change like things are changing but change like "and a few days."

I guess literal change too. My body is definitely changing, so there's that.

After I had June I lost all of the 47 pounds I gained fairly quickly. I was breastfeeding as well as on the verge of death so that helped shed the weight pretty fast. The only problem was that after that initial loss, my weight stayed the same for a while and then started creeping up again. Having a baby plus stress plus more stress plus a brand new job apparently leads to a little weight gain. My official starting weight was 179. 

The first trimester was rough on me. I was pretty sick all day, nearly every day for the first 12 weeks. One morning I was sitting on the couch struggling to get ready for work, crying and having a small pity party. Thomas asked what was wrong and I replied, "I just don't remember it being this hard!" His response, "I do." Poor guy. He didn't forget watching me throw up every morning and evening, trying to find food that tasted okay and keeping my body fed. At my 8 week appointment I had lost 5 pounds. At my 14 week appointment I was still down 2 pounds.

Then I got the flu, twice. The first one wasn't so bad, beside the constant puking for three days straight. I didn't quite feel sick but I couldn't keep anything down and was quickly becoming dehydrated. This was around 15 weeks. I stepped on the scale at the hospital and I was down to 172. 7 pounds from when I got pregnant. I started feeling better but got hit again with the flu this past weekend. Friday was a day of vomit for me and a day of runny tummy (diarrhea) for June. It was rough. Luckily it was only a 24 hour bug and we both felt okay by Saturday. My appetite was somewhat back by then. 

Today I had an appointment with Dr. Man. I was convinced that I was going to have gained at least 8 pounds from my 14 week weight. I just feel my belly betting bigger and my hips expanding. Imagine my shock when I stepped on the scale and I was only 180! I've only gained one pound, officially. I truly want to watch my weight during this pregnancy and would love to stay under 200 pounds. That would mean I would have to keep my weight gain to 22 pounds. I know this can be done. Dr. Man suggested I look into the diet that gestational diabetics follow. It's basically a low carb, high protein diet. It sounds hard to me only because I love sugar and that would be something I have to keep in check but at the end of the day, if that means that I keep my weight gain to a minimum and still grow a healthy baby, I can do it. 

Has anyone ever been diagnosed with gestational diabetes or followed the diet? I will be officially tested in about 10 weeks but with June I failed the one hour and passed the three hour. I would love any advice or suggestions you have from experience! 

And now here's a little timeline of my belly:

I somehow lost week 16. I just cried about it. Don't worry. I'm okay. Just an emotional wreck.