Please help me get out of here

A couple weeks ago, after the pee meltdown, I told my husband all about my dreams for a vacation. I presented him with some fabulous options, including a weekend in Sonoma, complete with limo rides and wine tastings (this was before the positive pregnancy test).

His response? “Isn’t that all a little too fancy for Kendall?”

::head explosion::

“WE ARE NOT TAKING THE CHILD!”

I showed some all inclusive beach resort type things to him, ones that include all the pina coladas you can drink on a beach.

“You know, we don’t have to go somewhere and just drink all day, ” he said. “We need to find something that we enjoy doing, just the two of us, and make a vacation out of it.”

“Uhhh…. that’s the problem. We haven’t done anything ‘just the two of us’ in a REALLY long time, and back when we did, it mainly consisted of drinking,” I replied.

“What about cheese?” I suggested. “We like cheese. We could go to Vermont and do cheese tastings.”

That’s how lost we are when it comes to taking a vacation. It took me less than an hour to become desperate enough to suggest cheese tastings for our romantic getaway.

We have NEVER been on a vacation that doesn’t involve visiting family. And I’m not counting our “mini moon” after our wedding because it still wasn’t long enough or far enough away from family (nothing against family!).

After the miscarriage last week and all the other stress that came with it, I brought up the vacation to Scott again. I don’t think he really took me that seriously the first time around, so this time the request came with lots of tears, some yelling and phrases like “I don’t think you UNDERSTAND,” and “My life is the same EVERY DAY, ” and “I know it’s work for you, but at least you get to get out of here!”

It was a long day/night, but we finally came to an agreement, an understanding. My husband, forever frugal, is petrified to spend money on a vacation that might suck.  And all the vacations he knows will be amazing are out of our budget.

I, on the other hand, feel like 1. there are sacrifices we can make to make a vacation happen and 2. an amazing vacation (or at least one that doesn’t suck or revolve around cheese) doesn’t have to be expensive.

So here’s where I need your help. I need suggestions. I need you all to tell me about places you personally know don’t suck and won’t suck up our budget. It can be anywhere in the country (with a few exclusions). We’re pretty open to all suggestions. We were really close to booking a 3 day weekend in San Francisco, but I thought I’d do a little more research before we do.

What are we looking for?

We hope to travel at the end of April for 3 or 4 nights. We’ll be coming from Dallas. I really don’t want to do anything in TX, since we live here. Nor do I want to do anything in DC or Chicago since we also lived there. There *can* be drinking involved. That’s MY executive decision. Like, if we go to SF, I’d still really love to take a semi private tour up to Napa for some wine tastings. The budget is max $1,500, and that needs to include everything.

I don’t need you all to go surfing Priceline for me or anything. Just give me some suggestions of areas/specific places in the country you think totally rock for a romantic vacation for 2, and I’ll do the rest. I really, really appreciate it!

Kendall is one week shy of 23 months and I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to commit to a kid free vacation

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Laughing because…what else can I do?

So… as many of you know, negotiations for the second kiddo commenced a while back. I’ve received many fabulous bottles of wine out of the deal, and many late Saturday and even Sunday mornings. It took us three solid months of “trying” before I got pregnant with Kendall, so I was expecting as much this time around. Imagine my surprise when last Sunday morning I woke at 6 am, queasy and 2 days late on only our 2nd cycle.

I quietly snuck out of bed, grabbed the lone leftover test from last month’s pee-on-a-stick-a-thon and discovered minutes later my urine produced 2 pink lines. The second wasn’t very dark, but definitely noticeable and not much lighter than the first one I got with Kendall. I hopped back in bed, abruptly woke Scott by shoving the stick in his face while saying, “Turn on the light. Are there TWO lines?” I’ve never been able to pull off the well executed reveal,  complete with pink and blue balloon release and encrypted map that leads to a bun in the oven.

We squealed in bed together, but it was obvious we both kept our level of excitement at bay… guarded a bit. It was really early. I promised myself I wouldn’t think too much about it until the end of the week, but quickly broke that promise by downloading various Iphone apps that tracked out each milestone for me and revealed the due date would be the week before Thanksgiving. I mean, could we have planned it any better?

Scott left for a week long business trip Monday morning. On Tuesday morning I started spotting.  Surprisingly, I wasn’t that alarmed by it. I spotted so much with Kendall in the 1st trimester I figured maybe that’s just my body’s way of dealing with pregnancy. By Wednesday morning it was much worse than I ever experienced with Kendall and I began to come to terms with this pregnancy not ending well. Really, I wasn’t that upset. I mean, I wasn’t happy. I was incredibly irritated and hormonal, but you know, now is SO much better than later.

Never having been through this before, I called the OB/MW office. They insisted I come in. That was at 11:30 on our way home from the bounce house for lunch. They wanted me in at 1:30. It’s a 30 minute drive from  here. It had already been a morning that tested my patience. Kendall, as of late, thinks it’s totally acceptable to hit random kids at the bounce house, which was all SORTS of fun. He was pissy, I was hormonal. I barely had time to make him something to eat while I frantically tried to fill out my insurance information online. Lo and behold, my insurance card was lost. Oh, it was one giant clusterfuck just trying to get out of the house. Then we drove 30 minutes only to end up at the building the office used to be in 4 years ago, thank you very much you DUMBASS GOOGLE. Then it took me another 20 minutes to find the correct location.

We arrived at the (seriously gorgeous) office nearly an hour late at 2:20. Did I mention Kendall normally naps from 1 to 4? And something odd happens to my kid when he skips a nap. He doesn’t become sleepy. He’s never been one to just fall asleep wherever he’s at. No, he becomes some sort of psycho, cracked out, hyperactive animal. This office looked like it could have been a spa, and here’s my kid, tearing the place apart. I was dizzy just trying to keep him from scaling the ornate tables to get to the intricate “wower” arrangements. Did I mention I didn’t have time to eat anything? Did I mention the whole nausea thing was still going strong? Since I was an hour late, they, understandably, had to make me wait so they could work me back into the schedule. It felt like an f-ing eternity. I know I got all kinds of “my kid will NEVER” looks from all the newly pregnant women. 

I had to give a urine sample,which was a whole new level of awkward and challenging with a toddler in the bathroom. I was literally holding the cup of pee over my head while my son pointed and shouted, “Juice!” He was trying to climb on my lap to reach the cup, I was trying to get my underwear back up without getting any bodily fluids on him or me. He played with the stack of clean cups, then reached for the Sharpie just as I was buttoning my pants.

We burst out of the bathroom, visibly unsettled, and the nurse called us back to the room. She went over my history with me, asked some questions, and pretty much told me what I already knew – that this was most likely not a viable pregnancy. Then she left me alone in the room with the table and the stirrups and lots of drawers full of off limits things and a toddler for what seemed like another f-ing eternity. When the nurse practitioner finally made it in, Kendall was playing with/chewing on two giant q-tips they use to swab vaginas. Clean, I promise. She told me she wanted to do an exam. I raised my eyebrows and looked over at Kendall as he chewed on the blown up glove she just handed him while running circles around the table.

“Do you think we could give him a lollipop?” she asked.

“I don’t care if you give him a bowl of sugar. Whatever you’ve got to keep him occupied for a minute. That would be great,” I replied.

Apparently, she took me seriously and came back to the room with two giant frosted sugar cookies.  Luckily, she also brought another nurse to use as a babysitter. At one point soon after, I’m laying there with my feet up in the stirrups, surely bleeding all over the place, and the NP asks the babysitternurse to hand her some stuff. Kendall takes the opportunity to walk over to the side of the table, look up at me, face covered in frosting, smile and say “Momma! Owie? Momma! Cookie?”

Wow… this is so not what I ever, ever thought would ever be a scene from my life.

“At least he has no idea what’s going on,” the nurse said. Yeah, at least. This was totally one of those moments in life that you have to laugh at, or else you’ll just fall apart and go crazy.

We left the room a complete and utter mess. I’m fairly certain they’re going to have to send the plush chair covers off to be dry cleaned to get all the green frosting off of them.

OH, and then I had to get blood drawn… with Kendall… in my lap. Luckily the tech was swift with the needle and he didn’t have any sudden movements at that very moment.

I’m going back in for a second blood draw tomorrow, and am so happy that a friend will be able to watch Kendall for me this time around. I guess we’ll just see where to go from here. Really, I wouldn’t know this to be any different from a late period if I hadn’t known to test as early as I did (just a little past 4 weeks, I think). So it’s not devastating or anything, just a bit annoying, I guess. But, 2 good things came from it. 1. I got to know my new OB/MW office very well, and am SUPER happy with them. They were so amazing with me and with Kendall. and 2. I got a tiny taste of pregnancy boobs for a few days, and momma liked it. Bring back the boobies!

Kendall is 22.5 months old

The hardest part about all of this was  not being able to blog about it! Things are so different this time around with TTC. This blog is no longer the anonymous sanctuary it once was, which leaves me trying to strike a balance between using this as the outlet I intended it for and keeping stuff private long enough for those close to me to find out from me and not my blog. To my friends and family that read this and may not know what happened, please understand. It’s not something I probably would have brought up with you right away anyway, but it does make a hilarious story now, and I’m sure I’d share it with you at some point over a glass of wine.

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Maybe not so irrational fear

I’m afraid I’m going to lose the baby. I woke up today to find some light pink spotting. Of course, it freaked me the fuck out and I braced myself for the worst. I called my OB, who I haven’t even met at this point, and have an appt. scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I was fully prepared for that light pink spotting to turn to red clotting and a miscarriage because I obsess like that. Fortunately, the spotting never returned or got worse. I did give myself permission to stay in bed all day, watching my new favorite channel – Discovery Health.

I was trying to distract myself with shows that showed happy endings, Birth Day, Bringing Home Baby, etc. However, I couldn’t stop over-analyzing every little twinge I have felt the last few days, and wondering if the seemingly small decrease in nausea, exhaustion and cramping in the last couple days means that my body is no longer growing a healthy baby. Or that the MAJOR increase in dizziness means that I’m bleeding internally or having and ectopic pregnancy.

I’ve remained cautiously optimistic since we got the good news, but it still doesn’t make it any easier to face the fact that there is a very real possibility that things will go wrong. Even if I’m fine now, there is always going to be something to worry about. I finally let myself relax a little this weekend, window shopped for baby stuff, even contemplated telling family and friends a little earlier…I was really letting myself get excited – then BAM! This happens and puts me right back in my “hope for the best, expect the worst” state of mind.

It’s strange because I generally classify myself as a very optimistic person, and I am typically very good about rolling with the punches, but this pregnancy stuff is throwing me for a loop. And I know it won’t just end with the pregnancy. Today was one of those days that really pounded home the fact that 1. getting to the point where you can give birth to a healthy baby really is a miracle, and 2. the worrying will never end. I will spend the rest of my life worried for this person.

I am now terrified of my appointment tomorrow. I am bracing myself for bad news even though I know that I am most likely just fine. I know that this type of spotting is common this stage in pregnancy. I’ve read plenty of books and articles that say not to worry…but I just can’t not worry.

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