Where We have been...

Its been the beginning of an interesting year and we are very happy to report that after much trying, much failure, and several miscarriages that we are expecting a so far healthy baby in September of this year!

Around week 5/6 I had some "spotting" which had sent us to the ER. We later found out that Rob and I have incompatible RH factors and that gives our babies specifically a blood disorder (50/50 chance of not developing) which causes my body to expel any pregnancies it does not feel are viable. After this information was found I was relieved and upset. Upset that we had these tests done, supposedly with our fertility specialist at Kaiser and it was never brought to our attention. Furthermore that they had me thinking I was O- in blood type and I am not I'm actually A-.... Now that we know treatment is relatively simple.

Other than having a mild case of Hyperemesis (Uncontrollable Vomiting and Nausea to the point of weight loss) It has been a pretty routine pregnancy... I am 13lbs down and we are almost ready to start our second trimester! The nausea is getting better and I am feeling relatively human again.

Rob is working about 80hrs a week still running his store in Walnut Creek and is very excited about this baby. We are so thankful to all of you that have been with us through this journey, all of your prayers and thoughts that have been with us are so very apprecitated. We have our NT and CVS coming up this next week and we will keep you posted!

(The picture is our future LO (little one) aka Cubbi, bebe, Tweety Bird, Evie at 9w5d)

The Lost Pearl...

This is a story I read in a book but I feel like it highlights my life right now...

One day my family had gone to the shore on a day trip. My brother and I were playing in the water while my parents read on the beach. Soon after playing in the water we found an oyster bed. There were dozens and dozens of shells some living and some already dead.

We had accumulated a small pile of shells and one that I thought was perfect it was slightly open about an eighth of an inch and something was rattling around inside, I wanted to keep the shell so I tried to shake it out, the oyster innards spilt all over my hands and I went to throw it into the ocean off of the pier. As I threw what I thought was waste off of the pier I saw a small glint in the middle of it. I was young enough to have a firm objective of wanting the perfect shell but old enough to know what I had just thrown away.

I marked the spot with my eyes and swam to the exact spot, I told my brother and we furiously searched the bed where I thought the pearl had landed. Soon enough my parents had told us that it was time to leave soon I frantically told them what had happened and we were now all searching for the pearl. But it was gone and we had a schedule that demanded that we leave almost immediately, we had to go and I left the pearl there in the ocean a gift from the perfect shell that I had thrown away...

Years later after I had been married the subject of children came up and I just wasn't ready in my mind there were things I wanted to do, things I did not want to give up between my husband and I and for seven years of our marriage I tried to find a reason to not have children. Shortly after i had given in and gave birth to our first child we had found out that the days of my childbearing were over, and our brand new baby even at that was a miracle. Eight years I had wasted that I could have had children... A gift from a perfect shell that God had given me I had again thrown away... I tried to make Gods timing my timing

~makes you think doesn't it?

Privileged

So many thoughts come to mind when you say the word privileged. So many different things can be taken the wrong way... I'm not talking about the privilege of being born in to money or being genetically gifted... well maybe I am...

Rob and I have suffered so many fertility problems over the past three years... All resulting in the death of an infant son and three miscarriages.

I noticed myself becoming bitter the other day. I mean truly bitter in every sense of the word when the fourth person in my life said something to the effect of "Oh and we weren't even trying to get pregnant"

It stung me to my core...

Its hard enough to be thinking about it every day, every moment of everyday really, and to be blindsided with the face that you don't really hurts. Not that I am upset by people that can because I cant, but I am.

Its not logical and its purely emotional and its an obsession that I don't think will be quenched until we have a baby in our home...

I guess I just wanted to touch on that note of privilege...

Some Mothers

I don't know what it is about some mothers that just irritate me. I guess its just like politics the two extremes are both irrational and sometimes both as equally ignorant. I know that I am not one but in the same sense I am one. I make decisions for a child in my household every day, I bathe, diaper, rock, feed and clothe one every day... So yes I am a mother and have given birth to a child; now that that's out of the way.

I had my mother in law tell me the other day that she thinks she will never be good enough for her daughter. This bothers me so much because my Mother in Law is a wonderful grandmother and she almost never sees her grandchildren.

There is something about the mother that is "called" to be a home maker that just screams "I'm so much better at this than you"

I don't know if the whole home maker mentality even really exists any more or if it is just the scaled down boob job. Look my house is cleaner than yours! Look my kids know french! Look I make my husbands life easier in every way accept I wont give head! OK the last one was a little vindictive, BUT truly, that's how I see it.

I think that it is a total cop out for some one to say they "choose" to be a "stay at home mom" and I am finding empowerment behind that title. Its not a title its the way God designed it to be. though women are just as smart, just as capable as a man at most everything. But men cant breastfeed or give life like we can we are just built for it. So to "choose" it is a fallacy... You cant choose something that you were created to do so why make the rest of us that choose to work feel bad about it?

And furthermore, stop scaring the hell out of those of us that haven't made it there yet!

I am in my mid 20's and terrified that if I am not a mother to a biological child by the time I am 30 I will not have the energy to be good enough, happy enough, clean enough or holy enough... That id I choose to wite my book my children will some how one day go to therapy with one of my husbands colleagues and tell them that they missed out on my homemade baby food, or if I decided to teach that I was to busy grading papers and it scarred them for life that I bought pizza and made sandwiches for more than one or five meals a week.

Why does it have to be a terrorist operation? Why cant we just leave it at every family is different and some families are better off if Mom doesn't cook! I know my kids might feel that way. Or if some Moms don't stay at home, I personally feel that my husband has a more maternal quality than I do. I attribute that to my wonderful mother in law... I on the other hand have a more masculine quality and am OK with that, and have embraced it...

I guess I just want to stop the fighting. Stop the stare down and Babies R Us and the play ground or doctors office...

Because lets face it, no one, is or ever will be the Perfect Mother...

Why Crisis

I really did want this blog to have a more upbeat tone and I wanted it to be about my husband and I but this life of ours it involves so many people from so many walks of life and I am not positive all the time. Not even half of the time. At this point in my marriage of year three of being together with Rob, we have been rocked to our core and I just have to ask why... Why? Someone for the sake of God tell me! WHY?

We did everything right, we went to school first, met each others family and talked marriage got engaged got married went into debt got pregnant and here we are today basically homeless no child and two dogs... Why?

I would like some one to explain to me how all of the idiot parents out there still have their children and I don't have my son with me today... How mothers keep coming back for more with the foster care system and yet I don't have a child and cannot get pregnant... 8 months and nothing...

I mean of course there are bigger whys like Why are there starving children in Africa, or Why is there AIDS or why havent we cured world hunger if 60% of Americas population is over weight? I get those whys...

I just cant put my finger on Why I am not a mother. Here I am in my mid twenties and there is no baby in sight. No reason why I have not "given my husband the greatest gift a woman could give a man".

Its becoming an obsession...

I am having a Crisis of Why...