Well Kate pulled it off! For the second year in a row she was awake when the clock hit midnight on new year’s eve. She and her friend both took late naps and then were playing all evening together, climbing on and off his trampoline and running around giggling. They are just so adorable. At around 11pm you could tell they were both tired but they weren’t whiny in any way so we kept them up – mean mommies. :) After the midnight countdown and pictures when we finally gathered our stuff and left Kate was so tired. She fell asleep in the car on the way home and didn’t wake up when I unstrapped her, carried her in the house, and laid her in the crib. The next day she was up at 8 but took a 3-hour nap. Too bad she didn’t sleep in, but Den was awake anyways.

Unfortunately that was not the only night she was up late for some reason, the night before she woke up while we watched a movie and ended up staying up for a little bit before going back to bed. Now she seems to have bedtime a little screwed up. Last night she went to bed at 7 and then was up from 10 until 2am. (I was so not a happy camper. She was happy and perky and playing with toys after her “nap”.) Today she tried going to bed at 7 but I am not that stupid, I was not going to have a repeat performance. So I kept her up until bedtime, but by then she’d changed her mind about the whole sleeping thing and kicked and screamed. I just got her down at 11pm. Well, it’s an improvement over 2am.

Guess she likes her routines a little more than I thought. Oops!

::

I am 20 weeks pregnant today! I let out a little breath I’ve been holding, because – as with last time – my first thought is “At least if I lose the baby it won’t be a miscarriage.” So I’m on to the second half of my pregnancy. In some ways it seems like it went really quickly!

Baby girl is quite active, putting even Kate to shame at this early point. Of course Kate had an anterior placenta, this one doesn’t, which probably explains it. Still, it’s amazing to me that I feel this baby kicking me pretty much every time I sit down and relax. (Granted that’s not often, but if I watch TV or sit at my computer or sit to eat, she typically starts thumping.) Movements are definitely getting stronger, it’s no longer figments of my imagination but clearly a growing baby. Unfortunately Den still hasn’t felt her because she’s taking after big brother Devin – she stops every time anyone lays a hand on my belly, whether it’s Den or me. I keep cautiously trying to feel her, but she’s usually kicking at my waist band, where my hand is blocked. And if I move my elastic she stops. I’ve caught her a couple of times, but Den hasn’t had as many opportunities.

And I have started getting heartburn. Already. This is not a good sign. I had heartburn with Kate, but only the last few months. And I’m still not over my nausea 100% which means the heartburn is making me gag and throw up. Ugh. It’s nasty.

::

I really need to write down some of Kate’s more hilarious personality traits and mannerisms. We’ve been pulling out the video camera often to try to catch things to remember.

Like how she runs. Kate’s never really been a runner, though she’s been walking for what seems like forever. But she’s started this new “fake fast” run that cracks is up! She makes lots of quick little stomping footsteps and pulls her arms up and swings them back and forth dramatically as if she’s running really hard, but she’s actually moving about as fast as her normal walk. It is just so silly! And now that she sees that it causes howls of laughter she does it just for effect.

The kid is definitely developing a ham personality, giving big huge toothy grins at us and throwing her head back.

She loves it when I run to catch her, then tickle her. I love the peals of belly laughs I get from her. She’s ticklish under her arms along her sides and also her thighs for some reason. She always gets the hiccups if she laughs too hard – always has. And if I stop too soon she has started looking at me and saying, “Tickle tickle?” How can I refuse?

She is talking so much more. She doesn’t do the “EH EH EH!” thing anymore, she asks for things by name: “Pa-ee” is her paci, “Fo” is my phone (which I don’t give her, and immediately causes a tantrum), “Ee” is eat, “Cah-ceh” is cracker, and so on. She’s also now started asking for “Ehhh-mo” (Elmo) which causes my heart to drop ten stories. (Why is Elmo so damn addictive? How? She just watches Sesame Street, but she latched right on to that bugger.) I am really appreciating being able to communicate better with her. I noticed she’s dropping many signs as she replaces them with words, but that’s all good to me – as long as she can tell me what she wants and needs then we have done what we need to do. She does still use signs for certain things she can’t yet say, like train, or some words that apparently need extra emphasis, like “wa-wa” (water).

This entire week Kate has woken up at 7am. This doesn’t sound like a problem to most people, but she always woke between 8 and 9, and she doesn’t go to bed until 9pm. So she’s been taking early naps and getting tired early and I’m dragging my ass. I dislike 7am. And don’t talk to me about the 6:30am she pulled yesterday (after I stayed up until 1am – stupid!). I’m torn between putting her to bed earlier (which raises the probability that she’ll keep this new 7am wake time) and trying to keep her up to her normal time in the hopes that she goes back to normal.

Plus last night she woke up at 11pm crying (dogs woke her up while we were watching a movie) and she was running around for 2 hours. Even then when I said, “ENOUGH! Bed!!” she still cried and pushed at me and fought it. Thankfully she did pass out pretty quickly, but this morning she was up again at 7am and is clearly tired. Kid, here’s a hint…. if you’re tired, SLEEP!

It’s new years eve, which is super fun because while we had no intention of staying out until midnight with the child we are going out for dinner at a friend’s and now I am having visions of her melting down while there so we have to come home. Though she could always hit a second wind and run around like a crazy person. I hope she gets a good nap in today.

::

One of the little things Kate got for Christmas was a piggy bank. Actually she got two: one ceramic, one plastic. The ceramic one is adorable and matches her room perfectly. The plastic one, however, has become a good friend of hers. She takes him off her toy shelf and says, “Pig!!” I got an idea the other night so I ran off to grab all the coins from my purse and put them in a pile next to Kate and the pig. We then spent a good half an hour feeding coins into piggy. Clearly it’s not something I can just let her play with on her own, it’s a supervised-only activity, but she totally loves it! It keeps her very occupied. :) I told Den to give me all his coins he gets, so hopefully soon we’ll have enough to roll some and deposit them into her savings account. I need to take another trip to the bank (where I worked) anyways, so they can see her.

::

Pics from Christmas!

I am just so happy today. Christmas was wonderful. We woke up when Kate did, and I got her changed while Den got the video camera. She walked out to see the tree, she was tickled to see it on the floor, and then opened her stocking stuff. Which took a while. The girl is, err, slightly dainty. She’d rip off one little piece of tissue paper, then hand it to me, repeat. She only made it through a few small things before she ran over to her highchair and announced “Eat!” So she got cheerios while we opened some gifts.

Den and I got her an aquadoodle and the meowsic keyboard. I apparently made a slight miscalculation because I saved the keyboard for the last gift, but when she got the aquadoodle that was the end of it for her. We let her play with it for a bit before I gently tried taking the pen away and redirecting her to the presents and she just started crying. She opened several presents holding the pen. Needless to say she really likes it! She likes the keyboard, too, so apparently I did good picking those out.

From friends and family she got the Little People Amusement Park, which she will occupy herself with for some time, she likes putting the car down the track and clapping. I like that it’s a toy that she will find new ways to play with as she grows older. The other big hit was the Fisher Price Tea Set. It has pouring sound effects and last night she sat at her table and just kept pouring into the cup and saying “ahhh!” as she pretended to drink. So adorable!

She also got a bunch of clothes and books, which is great because she never has enough clothes and she can never have too many books! The pajamas we got were in 18M size, which is what I told them she was wearing. I’m quickly realizing she’s already outgrowing that size though. Holy smokes, what the heck? She really must be having a growth spurt. I don’t feel too bad, though, because everything she outgrows is going to be re-used by her sister. (Which is kind of exciting, considering some of the adorable dresses Kate wore only once for special occasions!)

Unlike Thanksgiving, after which Kate had a most horrible meltdown that lasted for days, today she was in a ridiculously funny mood. She was running around playing “get me” with us in her new style of “running” – which consists mostly of stomping her feet really fast and moving really slowly. And then collapsing on the couch or on pillows in fits of laughter. When I tickle her, causing shrieks of laughter, and then stop she’s started looking at me and saying, “tickle?” so I’ll do it again. The funny thing about this kid is that she’ll be running around shrieking and gasping for breath one minute, and then she sits down and plays with her keyboard or little people for 10 minutes, as if someone flicked a switch in her.

My tree is still up, my lights are still on, my music is still playing… I refuse to let go of Christmas so quickly. It’ll take me a few days to resign myself to packing it all up. :)

::

It has been really nice to decide on a name for the baby so quickly, and to be able to call her by name at home. Ember. It just feels right.

I’ve started thinking about the girls’ room and what I’m going to do in there. Den is relieved he doesn’t have to re-paint it something more gender neutral, since it’s pink and cream right now. It’ll be a tight fit with two beds/cribs and two dressers, but I measured and it’s definitely doable. We’ll have to lose the big bookcase but I’m honestly not upset about that since the bottom half is unusable anyways, thanks to Kate’s proclivity towards pulling every single thing off the bottom 3-4 shelves (grrr). I’ll be getting a second dresser exactly like Kate’s, and hopefully putting a couple shelves above each for storage. There is a small closet that we use for some storage, but it really really needs shelves put in it. (I don’t know why people in the 50’s thought closets didn’t need any shelves at all. How is that useful?) Decoration-wise I really need to actually get some more framed pictures up on the wall, and maybe even the letters I bought for Kate over a year ago. I’ll have to get some for Ember too.

I picked out a baby book for Ember, which took longer than it should have mainly because I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Apparently no one makes a simple yellow gender-neutral non-character baby book (the two I found were Winnie the Pooh). Kate’s baby book I really like, it’s pink with a giraffe on the front (Pepperpot Molly’s Nursery). I wanted them to be the same size, a similar style, but I wanted Ember’s to be yellow to differentiate. Well I ended up finding a pink one with birds on the front that is really cute… I just didn’t really want both to be in pink, but oh well, they’re not exactly the same. At least the scrapbooks I get to pick out whatever colors I want.

:

I’m getting used to this idea of having two girls. Still so unexpected, but I can see a lot of positives in it. Especially when I look at Kate running around and think, best case scenario we get two like her. Of course Ember will have her own personality – it’s so strange to wonder at this blank slate, this unknown. That’s what really kills me about Devin… the not knowing who he would have been. I guess in some way I thought that having a living boy would give me a better idea of what Devin might have been like… even though of course they would have been different too. Kate is so thoroughly girl – sensitive and quiet (usually) and communicative and gentle. Not that boys can’t be those things too, but most of the boys I see running around are into trucks and running full-force and bashing toys together and yelling loudly. It’s really kind of shocking to see how early those differences show up. So, yes. It will be interesting to see how this girl’s personality develops.

I love Christmas. Last year we were at my parents’ for Christmas, which is special in its own way because of all my memories and being with my family for the holidays. But it’s also no longer home, either, and I found out that travel with a child can be a little less of a vacation than I had hoped.

This year we are home, with a tree up and lights on the house. Our tree this year was not our normal big tree, which the cats always get into at night, but a smaller tree that I set up on our table to keep it safer. It is cute, but not quite right either – but still better than picking up ornaments and fixing garland every single morning, and then trying to keep Kate from pulling things off it. So it’s sat on the table, gathering presents beneath it. For Christmas morning, however, I moved it down to the floor in the living room so we can sit next to it and open presents. (The cats of course now seem to take more of an interest in it, which I don’t understand. It’s been in the room the entire time!) It doesn’t have many presents under it, and at least half are from my parents. But that’s okay. It’s cute. It’s perfect.

Mostly I sit here and marvel that Christmas isn’t just about Den and I exchanging gifts and me dictating to him how to fill the stocking and wrap the presents. This year we have a kid; next year we’ll have two! It’s now about building memories and traditions for my children, so that hopefully one day they can sit in front of a Christmas tree and laugh and reminisce at how mom used to do things every year… so that they can have this sense of joy like I do. I wonder how they’ll remember it, what memories we’ll make for them – I wonder how differently they’ll see it from how we do. I know this year Kate is too young to really remember anything, but I think she’ll have fun opening presents and playing with her new toys.

It’s just so exciting. I love Christmas morning!

I really thought naming a girl was going to be a long drawn-out process. Den hates pretty much my entire list of names (too foofy, too hippy), and I dislike most of his (usually too old-fashioned, except for his favorite choice which was a little too unusual even for my tastes). Katherine was a one-off, and it was just the perfect name for our little girl. So we really didn’t discuss names at all this pregnancy, other than for me to confirm that I still don’t agree with his favorite choice.

We walked out of the ultrasound and said something offhand about names. I said, “Well there’s still that name I tossed around last year, you said you liked it.” He said he’d put it on the short list. Later that day he called me and said, “I’m in on the name.” I asked him what the rest of his short list was, just out of curiosity; “Just that one.” Well then, that doesn’t leave much options! I’d already gone through a bunch of names list only to confirm that there really is nothing else that jumps out at me. Just the one. So I guess we pretty much have a name!

This little girl will be called Ember Cailet. (See, he got his choice in as the middle name, it works nicely!) Ember. Our little spark. I think it’s rather fitting. It is a different style completely from Katherine and will likely throw off family, but it fits well with Kate and Devin.

::

Baby girl has gotten wicked active this week. I’ve been feeling movement for weeks now, and the ultrasound tech did confirm that my placenta is posterior (not a suprise!), but the last few days there have been dance parties in my belly. Last night I could feel her rolling and stretching and pushing in a much stronger, bigger way than I expect for being only 18 weeks along. I’m feeling bigger kicks too, it seems every time I sit down she whacks me. But as opposed to how Kate would always kick like crazy whenever anything pressed against her, be it a counter, tight pants or a hand, this one seems to quiet right down whenever I try to feel her. Last night when she was moving around I put Den’s hand on my belly and of course she stopped. As soon as he rolled over and fell asleep she kicked it up again. Funny how they’re so different.

::

A commenter was right though: I have felt very disconnected from this pregnancy. I don’t know if it’s because I’m still not over the surprise of it all. Or if it’s simply because I have Kate running around so I can’t lay in bed rubbing and talking to my belly all day like I did with Devin and Kate. Maybe a little bit of both. I feel guilty about it. Like I should be feeling more, doing more. I take belly pictures every other week (which, I know, I haven’t posted. I’ll get them up shortly.), I write in here about stuff when it happens, I have bookmarked little things to buy for this baby. But it still just doesn’t feel real. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the miracle of it. I’m just still a little slack-jawed over it all.

I don’t know how much I really wrote about it at the time, since I was kind of distracted and busy, but when I gave birth to Kate I was overwhelmingly relieved and…. numb. I felt extremely disconnected from the child in my arms. I had bonded so much with the baby in my belly that it was hard to fit the two pieces together, like I had lost the baby I knew so well and gained this tiny little infant that felt like someone else’s. Being in the hospital with her was extremely disconcerting because it really felt like she was the hospital’s baby, that someone would come take her away. I worried why I didn’t feel more, where was that overwhelming love and bonding that people talked about? Den was crying all the time when holding her and going on and on about how beautiful she was and I just… didn’t feel it.

Granted it didn’t last long, less than a week I’d say, and holding her against my skin helped a lot. Bringing her home was the first time I really felt like I was holding my child. That overwhelming love and bonding certainly came, but it came on slowly, not all at once as I gazed at my newborn for the first time the way I expected.

How I feel now about this pregnancy feels a lot like that did. Like I’m still waiting for someone to realize the mistake and take this pregnancy back. I feel guilty sometimes, and very frustrated, because it the last two weren’t like this. But I also have faith that when the baby is born, whether it happens right away or slowly like with Kate, that it will all seem right with the world.

::

I think it’s important to remember that a loss leaves you with a lot of extra baggage. After a while that baggage gets safely stowed somewhere, but once in a while something drops on you unexpectedly. My ultrasound was like that. I haven’t cried for Devin like that in a long, long time. I never consciously thought that this baby was replacing him – how could it? – but I guess part of me was hoping for some kind of healing. But my family will never be complete, because Devin is not here… will never be here. My two daughters are supposed to have a big brother running around looking after them. As amazing as my life is, as happy as I am day to day, as wonderful as my family is, there will always be a part of me that is broken.

Thank you girls for listening to the last post. I’m fine now, but I just really needed to write it out. It was really unexpected how my grief for Devin came bubbling up like that, but not totally surprising I suppose.

Ultrasounds are still just so terrifying to me. Baby was kicking as I drove to the appointment, and I thanked it for helping me out. But still I get sweaty and my heart rate goes way up, as does my blood pressure (they tried taking it before the ultrasound… yeah, not good). I just kept thinking how I haven’t seen this baby since I was 6 weeks and it was a tiny blob. There is so much that can go wrong in there. I don’t like to dwell on that, but if anyone knows, I do. I could see the screen the whole time and she while I did see the baby as she scanned through, and saw it moving, she scanned my uterus and ovaries first. It’s hard not to ask, “Hey, can you just show me the heartbeat first?” (They usually do… from what I remember.) But I was patient and soon enough she was scanning through a very curled-up little baby, and we got to hear the heartbeat out loud. And saw it on the screen, too, the little peaks and valleys. (Nothing will ever erase my memory of seeing Devin’s still heart and flat line. Seeing a beating heart always makes me cry now…. with Kate and now this one.)

Baby was really curled up and seemed to me to be really low, which it made it difficult for her to get any good shots. She was really pressing into my belly with the probe, not always so comfortable, but I wanted her to get those shots. But we saw the brain, the renals, the 4-chamber heart, the 3-vessel cord. I kept looking at what she typed and nodding because that’s what it should be. Spine looked beautiful, so amazing. Little hands and feet – feet over head most of the time, kicking upwards. Hands were beside the face moving around. It wasn’t the best ultrasound I’ve had – I remember with Devin just being so amazed at seeing the movement and how he’d stretch. This one was moving, but not a ton, and stayed curled up like a little shell. I remember thinking is that okay that it’s like that, it’s not going to hurt itself will it? The tech told us it was a girl, and that was it. But she told me to stay put just in case the doctor wanted her to get some more pictures. Normally that would make me worry, but after seeing how she struggled to get the right angles I didn’t worry (much).

Kate is sick and not feeling well today so she was not really cooperating. Den was holding her and she was squirming and whining the whole time. I don’t know how much of the ultrasound Den actually got to see, because he was trying to occupy her by playing games and such. By the time the ultrasound was over she really was just done and was whining. She wanted to go running down the hall, and there was no door just a curtain across the doorway so Den was blocking her from leaving. She was alternating laughing at him and whining/crying. The tech poked her head in to say she was still waiting for the doctor to have a minute to look at the pictures, but it would be a few minutes, and if Den wanted to take her for a walk or even keep her in the waiting room… Ummm? What excuse me? Den was pretty ticked at that, but Kate really was done with being there.

The tech did finally come in and need one more picture of the cord insertion that she couldn’t get before, and that was it there. I went to find Den and then into see one of the Midwives. My appointment, as always, was very short. Report from the ultrasound says everything looks normal. How are you feeling? Any concerns or questions? She did a quick feel of my uterus (I believe it’s right about at my belly button now), heard the heartbeat again (can’t argue with that) and off we went.

First things first: baby looks healthy. It was curled up with knees above head, which made it hard for the tech to get all the pictures she needed. But everything looks completely normal, heartrate is great, all the parts are there. Baby was kicking me on the way to the ultrasound so at least I knew it was alive. But still I cried in relief when I saw the baby’s face and hands and legs, all moving about.

She took a look between the legs and said, “Looks like a girl.” And I just couldn’t help it, but I started crying little tears. I’ll be okay for a little bit and then start crying again. And it feels totally selfish and ridiculous to me, but my heart hurts. A part deep down inside me wants to yell, but I don’t WANT another girl, I want Devin back! If he had lived we would have a boy and a girl and now… now. Now he’s gone and I’m going to have two girls and I just totally can’t wrap my brain around that. Nothing has brought up this much old grief in years. I just keep sobbing over the boys outfits in the basement that now I have no idea what to do with, and mostly over this picture I had in my head of what this family would be.

And making it worse is that we had a name picked out for a boy and for a while I was tentatively calling it “he”. I went into this ultrasound really hoping to connect with this baby and instead I feel totally knocked off my feet and more alienated than ever. I can’t even picture a girl. I already have Kate. I am irrationally angry at this baby for not being what I thought it was… hoped it was.

I know I’ll be fine in a little bit, it’ll just take some time to process this. I know logically that I’ll love this child and bond with it eventually. But right now my heart really hurts. I really miss you, Devin.

My ultrasound is 2 days away. I’m excited, but anxious too. At least the baby is kicking me quite regularly so I don’t have to worry that it’s dead… but I still worry that they’ll find something wrong.

I’m starting to prepare myself for the reality that this may not be a boy. We’re pretty sure this is our last kid, for many different reasons. Having two in our home was always what we envisioned, and there is a long list of reasons that we feel two [living] kids is a good number for us. It just feels right.

But. This may not be a boy. I wouldn’t be upset about the fact that it’s a girl – Kate is fantastic and it’s hard to argue with that. Girls are wonderful. I would love her just the same, that’s not the issue. But… Devin. How am I going to give away those boy clothes in my basement without ever having used them? How am I going to adjust to peoples’ comments and well-intended (but missing the mark) jokes about having all girls?

A boy would heal some wounds – certainly not all, but some. It would be a relief. It would be scary it its own right, carrying another boy, but still.

What we really want is closure. And we’re not sure we’ll get that with another little girl. Maybe we’ll always wonder if we should try again one more time. If this is a boy then we know we are done and it would be a huge relief.

As for gut feelings… well in the beginning I thought this was a boy. Now I think it could be a girl. I’ve never been this unsure before… with both Devin and Kate I was very positive I knew who was in there. This little one is a mystery to me.

I am really looking forward to finding out who it is, though. I’m still feeling quite disconnected from this pregnancy, whether it’s from having an older child to care for this time or still dealing with the shock of actually being pregnant, I really haven’t felt all that emotionally connected yet. I think being able to know who it is, to name it (though we have no name picked for a girl), will really change that. I hope so, at least.

Soon!

Driving to my friend’s today I had the music turned up, my sunglasses on (it was bright!), and I was bopping to the music thinking how cool I must look in my pajamas and all.

I started thinking about just what a good life I have. My kiddo was home with her very competent daddy in our small (and somewhat messy) but cheerful house, I’m driving my nice (though older) SUV with a baby in my belly going to visit some friends for the afternoon. My hubby has a good job that brings home good money, so I get to stay home with our kids. We own our home. We have two vehicles. We have lots of toys and books for our child. Our kid is healthy and brilliant and happy. We’re somehow expecting another hopefully healthy little one. We have all kinds of tech gear and gadgets including a laptop and an xbox and big screen TV. (We don’t have a new kitchen or bathroom and our garage is not functional, but at least we have the tech stuff – priorities, you know.) I get to take college classes and work on my next degree.

And we are happy. Not every day, not all the time, but I really like my life. I have a lot of fun being a mommy. There is a lot of laughter in our home. I have intelligent conversations with my husband and non-intelligent conversations with my toddler. I have friends. I have extended family.

We are so very blessed.