This blog is just about my life and mostly revolves around my son, Jamie. This blog is a combination of everything, whether it may be a new recipe I tried, a good freebie I found, something funny Jamie said, or feelings I'm having about life in general. There's little rhyme or reason. I'll never win any blogging awards, but I enjoy writing about our lives and I mostly do it for my son. It's so easy to forget moments over the years. I've got all these little tidbits of our life in print and I hope that someday Jamie can enjoy them.

I called this blog Mother of Life, Mother of Loss because of my issues with pregnancy loss and the joy of finally bringing this wonderful person into the world. Truly, I feel the pains of loss, but you won't see too much of that here. I am blessed and I am, above all else, a mother of life.

After all the years of infertility and loss, Matthew and I were blessed with a surprise pregnancy. We were pregnant with twins, but unfortunately, Baby A could not stay with us. Baby B grew into a healthy and happy baby girl that we named Bella Marie. We are so blessed to have two beautiful children.


Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Still Pregnant

Well, my hcg levels are still rising, but kind of slowly.  They were 37 thousand something on Monday.  They've scheduled an ultrasound for Thursday.  I'm sick from the progesterone.  I'm taking Zofran in an attempt to keep the severe nausea at bay, but it's not working as well as it should.  I just want to lay in bed on my stomach.  Too bad Bella has other plans.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010

What's wrong with Jamie?

"What's wrong with him?"  It's a question I get all the time.  The less bold among us ask my friends and even Jamie's playmates.  There are still plenty that ask me.  I usually spill something about Sensory Processing Disorder and how for a long time we thought he might be on the Autism Spectrum, but that he's not.  Curious people seem to be satisfied by my response, but I'm not.  I don't see what they see.  I want to grab these people by the shoulders and demand answers.  "Why, what did you see?"  I don't see it.  I see my little boy running around at the playground or in the fast food playland like all the other kids.  I see him doing all the things the other little boys are doing.  My own brother asked my friend if Jamie is "retarded".  The answer is a resounding, "NO!"  Here is an excerpt from the testing Jamie had at the end of last year...

Results of the DAS-II indicate that Jamie is functioning in the above average range of intelligence with a DAS General Conceptual Ability (GCA) score of 113.  The DAS-II is comprised of 3 clusters of skills.  Jamie's Verbal Cluster standard score of 113 was above average as was his Nonverbal Reasoning standard score of 112.  His Spatial score of 103 was average.  On the DAS-II Diagnostic subtests, Jamie's Working memory standard score of 109 was average and his Processing Speed standard score of 122 was well above average.

Jamie's Phonological Processing T-Score of 40 was in the below average range, however.  This score is equivalent to a standard score of 85.  Phonological Processing involves skills that underlie early reading decoding abilities.  It refers to the ability to take apart words into their individual sounds.  It involves rhyming, blending, deletion, and phoneme identification and segmentation.  With regard to reading decoding, Jamie's teacher reported that he relies heavily on his knowledge of sight words.  She said he does pretty well with letter sounds, but if he is not completely sure he knows a sight word, he makes a wild guess.  For example, he will look at the word "is" and say "truck wheels."  She indicated that he was slightly behind where she would like him to be.  I did not test his reading skills for this evaluation, as insurance does not cover it.  Jamie appears to be at risk for learning disability in basic reading skills.  His below average Phonological Processing is significantly lower than his above average intelligence.
But none of this explains what they are seeing.  Maybe the next time someone asks me I will ask them to have a seat and chat with me for a little while.
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Here I Am Again

Here I am again on my completely neglected blog.  A little over a year ago this blog was really important to me.  I got up in the morning or even in the middle of the night.  I made sure I posted the little things in our lives so that I could preserve them for posterity.  What has taken away my ability to blog away the serious and the mundane?  I've posted no sweet stories of Bella and Jamie getting to know each other.  This process has been slow, yet so rewarding to me as a parent.  I've missed documenting Jamie's first day of school and the huge changes that are taking place with him, and in him this year.  I've posted no cute little kidisms, first smiles, first teeth, soccer losses or victories.  I could blame it on the hectic life of now having two children, but that's not it.  Most bloggers have a hectic life.  It seems to me that the more hectic ones life become the more interesting their blogs usually get.  Documenting my life, or more accurately, my children's life is no less important to me, yet I don't get it done.  Now all the little things I might have posted when they happened are lost in the recesses of my memory, some to be recalled at a later date and some lost forever.

Bella is now seven months old and quite the cutie.  Right now she and my son are in the next room.  I'd say they were watching TV together, but that's not what is going on.  Jamie's singing to her and, I can imagine, jumping up in her face and yelling to make her smile.  Bella starts to fuss and Jamie goes back to singing, "Goo, goo, ga, gaaaa.  Booo!  Goo, goo, ga, gaaaaa.  Boooo!!"  She fusses again and I hear the spitting match begin.  "Bella, look here.  Bella."  The sound of a raspberry spit, followed by another and another.  A few months ago I didn't think he would ever talk to her, much less play with her.

I am grateful that he is distracting her.  I want a few moments to myself.  It's been a long week and the coming week shows no signs of being better.  I ended August with a positive pregnancy test.  I stared at the test in disbelief.  I didn't even know how to react. A million things ran through my head.  I just got over all the illness that comes with giving birth.  I'm not ready for pancreatitis again.  I'm not ready for possible bed rest.  I'm room mom this year!  I've been waiting forever to do this.  Did I mention that Bella is only seven months old?!!  I come out of the bathroom with my test.  My husband smiles.  He's so happy and I don't know what I am.  We wanted a big family and thought it was impossible.  Now look at us.  Yet, I am not smiling. 

I wanted to see the baby right away, but couldn't get into the doctor for a couple of weeks.  I go to the ER.  All they see is a sac.  They don't see a fetal pole.  My hcg level is 7000.  I should be six weeks two days according to my last menstrual cycle.  Bella was a couple of weeks off by my menstrual cycle when I found out about her and her twin last year, though.  I went in to my OB on the 7TH for bloodwork.  My progesterone was 14 and my hcg level was 21,336.3.  My OB started me on progesterone.  I went back on the 9TH and my progesterone was 21 and my hcg level was 24,444.6.  I go back on Monday to have it done again.  I know what those numbers mean, but despite all my conflicting emotions, I want to have this baby so I try to pretend it could be okay.  I'll beg for an ultrasound soon so that we can quit dragging this out.  I should be seven weeks five days today.  Even if I was off by two weeks they should be able to see a heartbeat next week if this pregnancy is viable.

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