Christmas! And my least favorite week ever to date….

December was a lot of fun. We had a big christmas celebration at our house. First we had Colin's parents over and opened up gifts with Finn and had a breakfast casserole. Finn was overwhelmed that all of his shiny new toys were in boxes and not accessible so we had to put him down for a nap, and then when he awoke he ran out of his room towards his new toys that were set up for him in the family room. He got an outfit, a couple of books and coloring books to read, and then a toy train set from Mommy and daddy for christmas. Then he got a little ride on toy from my mom, and a lego car from his grandparents. He had a lot of fun running around from toy to toy. Mommy got a Cannon Rebel DLSR from Daddy, which is what she has been hinting about for years - and I got Colin a couple of tickets to see Blue Man group (he's always wanted to go!), and some Celtic PJs (his favorite B-ball team!).

December, we also found out I was expecting a baby! Last time we waited to tell people until my second trimester, but this time we had been trying for over a year for baby two, and it was christmas time, I was too excited to hold it in! We wrote on a christmas card,

Jingle bells, Jingle bells, Jingle all the way…
oh what fun it is to say, there is a baby on the way!
HEY!

That I stole from the internet. Everyone was excited.

Then we had my brother, and his children and fiancee over for diner, as well as my mom, Colin's parents and a guy from church who didn't have any christmas plans. My father didn't come because he thought I didn't give him enough notice on the time dinner would be, even though I told him at the same time that I told everyone else. We had a lot of fun! Finn went to bed exhausted, and I think we did too.

In December we also got a fish for Finn. It's really the only kind of pet he can have at this point, because Colin's mother is allergic to pet dander. We never really named the fish, Finn just calls it "ISH!!!" He was really excited about it when we first got it, but that was before he learned he isn't actually allowed to reach in and take the fish out to play with it, now he's more indifferent.

January, so far, isn't as awesome as December was.  At least, this past week hasn't been, my favorite week ever to say the least.

First I had deleted all the music off my computer because all the space it was taking up on the computer didn't allow for enough space for new pictures of my Kid. So my husband was kind enough to buy me an iPod so that I could transfer all my music to my iPod manually, and delete it all off of my laptop. However, I accidentally forgot to click the "manually manage music" button while I was synching my iPod and accidentally deleted 12 thousand songs that were directly purchase from iTunes. All of the CD's I have ever owned, purchased and ripped, or ripped CDs I had borrowed from friends, or downloaded by other means - ten years of my life spent gathering music that meant a lot more to me when it was all that I had in life was deleted. It was a sad day, but I decided at least it was the music, and not my kids pictures!!

Then, I went for my first OBGYN Appt., and was surprised when they walked me into an ultrasound right away. I remember getting ultrasound the second OB appointment last time, and wasn't expecting one so early! I immediatley felt panic that Colin wasn't with me for the first ultrasound, and considered refusing it until he was with me. However, I decided I would just ask for some pictures of the ultrasound and bring them home for him. I started to panic a little when they did the abdominal ultrasound because all we could see was the gestational sac, we really couldn't find a baby. They did an Internal scan and we found the baby, but it was TINY, and I could tell immediately that the heart was not fluttering like it was with Finn and that the baby was much smaller than I expected. I was already crying when the ARNP came in to give me the bad news.

She said the baby has probably been dead inside me for the last three weeks, and that I should have a D&C to prevent complications or hemorrhage, infection, ect., but I refused. My fear, is that the baby is still developing, and just younger than I thought and hasn't yet developed a heart beat. Though, I know the odds are not in my favor for a favorable outcome, I couldn't live with myself if I aborted the baby without knowing for sure, so I am going to give it a couple more weeks.  I have read other stories of moms who didn't have a hear beat at 6 weeks, but a couple of weeks later there was one.  If I don't start miscarriage naturally, I will request another scan before I agree to a procedure.

I was crying the whole day until my husband got home, but then he gave me a blessing and we prayed that the baby would continue to grow and develop a heart beat. Now, I am more at peace and just waiting to see what happens. If this isn't our time to have another baby, then I will just have to trust in God. It's hard though, because even though I thought I had prepared and steeled myself against just this scenario where the ultrasound would show no heartbeat, I want this baby so much! And, I wasn't prepared for the ultrasound this soon, and without my husband there.

And if that wasn't enough, I got slapped down hard with some sort of bug that has given me fever, chills, body aches, headaches, congestion like I've never had in my life, and set my lungs on fire. I am trying to isolate myself from the rest of my family, because I really do not want Finn to get it. I called in sick from work, which I never do, so that I could sleep for the last 24 hours, and I plan on sleeping for another 12 hours tonight, then hopefully I will be feeling a lot better by morning, because, man Am I falling behind in school!

Short term goals to get through the next couple of weeks are to feel better, catch up on school work, and be able to cuddle with my baby again. He has been so clingy today, but I have had to mostly refuse an attention to him because I don't want to breathe on him or cough or sneeze in his vicinity so that he can hopefully avoid this bug!