The usual disasters.

Oh hey. It's been a month since I've written, so I should perhaps update before we leave the country for two weeks.

Oh right, that. We leave on Tuesday for France for my sister's wedding! Apparently I like going to France while I'm pregnant. I'm more excited to be there at 27 weeks than at 12 though. I was still so sick last time that I didn't feel like I got to enjoy anything.

Although I've barely been able to get myself excited about this trip either. Besides it being an incredible expense for us (international plane tickets for three people; please kill me), I've been so busy in the months leading up to it, what with the whole being pregnant thing and Tycho's EI adventure and my Grandpa's funeral and the subsequent sale of his house (saaaaaaaaad) and my in laws (Kyle's parents and all the BILs) visiting earlier this month, I've barely put any thought or planning into this trip beyond getting my vacation time approved.

And then everything went all to hell when I went to pick up my bridesmaid dress from the salon. I was afraid I would be swimming it in, because the consultants talked me into ordering it 3 sizes larger than I measured. And then it was three inches too small. Oh. But okay, don't panic, get someone to put a corset back in that sucker and it will be all good. Thank Maude we ordered extra fabric.

Went to my final fitting on Friday. We were hoping I could take it home that day, but there might be a couple tweaks that needed to be done over the weekend. I go to try it on and... it's a mess. I terrible terrible no good unwearable mess. So we discuss ripping out two weeks of alterations and starting from scratch. Four days before I have to leave. With plans to spend my entire Monday afternoon the day before we leave hanging around the shop. Like I need that stress.

By the time I got to Ashley's to pick up Tycho I was thisclose to hyperventilating, and planning to take Tycho to the mall with me at 7pm for emergency backup formalwear because OMG. But Ashley is a delightful human being, and told me to leave Tycho with her husband, and she would come with me. Thank god. I needed the moral support.

Do you know how scary it is to try to find a black tie appropriate purple gown that fits off the rack with no notice at 27 weeks pregnant? I was sweating. And so we went to Nordstrom. And found not one, but two dresses that fit the bill and looked awesome to choose from. That I actually loved and weren't just a sad substitute. Say what?

So. New bridesmaid dress, whatever. More money dumped into this trip, but at this point another $200 is just a drop in the bucket and well worth minimizing my stress level. Originally I was planning on returning whatever backup I had purchased in the event that we somehow magically got my first dress working by go time, but I like new one so much I called my alterations lady and told her not to kill herself trying to fix it. Because I need to stop worrying about it. So. Yeah. It all works out in the end I suppose. Unless I grow another five inches in the next six days. Please no.

At the very least I had the foresight to take off two buffer days on either side of our trip. I'm 95% packed for Tycho and I, so today is simply getting Tycho's haircut and buying airplane snacks, and tomorrow all I have to do it get my hair/nails/etc. taken care of. I'm actually... relaxing on my vacation? It's kind of awesome. Especially considering how NOT relaxing the last several months have been. We leave in less than 48 hours, and I'm FINALLY excited about this trip. Phew.




Catch you on the flip side, blog. With lots of photos, of course.

Good and Bad

The good: Wednesday afternoon brought us Tycho's very first ever IEP meeting. It was great! We are now just waiting for school placement, but starting this fall he'll be going to developmental preschool for a three hour session Monday-Thursday, with DOOR TO DOOR BUS SERVICE  OMG. It's official and I feel like I can breathe a little bit better for the first time since I started worrying about this in, oh, I don't know, February?

Anyway, the team met and we have official goals for Tycho for next year, and I find them to be laughably optimistic, but that's okay, because professionals are going to help us work on them. And if at the end of next school year I have a potty-trained kid who can dress himself and transition between activities without having a meltdown I will probably die of happiness.

In other news, the bad: I am sick as fuck. Ended up in the ER on Monday afternoon. I spent several hours considering if it was really worth it to brave the emergency room on a fucking holiday, but in the end I was puking all the time and couldn't even keep down water and was getting totally dehydrated and therefore hysterical and weepy. And then I realized I hadn't felt the babe move since that morning and I made Kyle pack up Tycho and take us in. Zofran and IV fluids and fetal heart tones, oh my!

We explained to Tycho that I was too sick to drink water with my mouth so I was going to drink it through my arm instead and he miraculously didn't freak the fuck out and was actually pretty well behaved considering he spent five hours in a hospital room with me.

My midwife told me I was okay to tough it out, but I just couldn't take it anymore. I'm still not well, and now I'm going on a week of being sick. I'm better than I was on Monday, but I'm still on the BRAT diet and taking Zofran around the clock and probably mildly dehydrated and exhausted and uncomfortable and let's throw in some round ligament pain and debilitating heartburn for good measure. I'm at that point in my illness where I don't remember not being sick, and I've given up the possibility of ever feeling well again, thinking about how I'm going to manage feeling this bad at my sister's wedding which is OVER A MONTH AWAY.  Hopefully this passes.

Him

Also in big news, we found out about a week and a half ago that we are having another son! Tycho went form always answering that he wanted a sister, to being adamantly pro-brother about three days before our ultrasound. Not that he really understands what either of those words means, but oh well.

I'm so excited! I really and truly did not have a preference, even though literally no one actually believed me on that. People told me they were hoping for a girl for me, like that would be some sort of extra gift. I don't understand. The only thing I'm bummed about is no getting to use our girl name, because I really loved it. But after a couple days of discussion we picked a named for this baby (to be announced) and I am in love with it.

Funny, now the he is in fact a he and has pronouns and a name and all that and that things feel more definite and real and he kicks me all the time and makes his presence known... I am just so impatient to meet him. Until a week ago I was pretty contentedly plodding along in the pregnancy and then all of the sudden I have no more patience, I do not want to wait any longer, I just want to fast forward to September and meet this little dude. I never felt the way with Tycho, even when I was tired of being pregnant I was also facing a complete unknown and I felt less than prepared for parenting and I wasn't going to be ready for him until he was thrust upon me, but this time I have all the confidence in the world that I can mother a newborn and I don't want to wait any longer to get there.

IEP time!

Too many things to share! Let's start here.


Tycho is IN! He's in!!!! He will be enrolling the school district's developmental preschool in the fall. Four half days a week, transportation provided (omg the short bus!!), amazing. I'm so relieved and happy and nervous and emotionssssss! We have his very first IEP meeting next week, but I was finally able to actually talk to his social worker person on the phone instead of the series of voicemails we had been leaving each other, and it looks like that meeting is mostly going to be details, and the big stuff that I was worried about is all going to be fine and it's going to be so good for him and he is going to thrive. My goal for him to be on target and mainstreamed by kindergarten feels reachable and everything is awesome. I think he's going to love it.

Let's pretend...

So this happened today:

I know he just looks like a normal almost three year old sitting on a train in a firefighter jacket and a viking hat, but that's just it: a normal almost three year old doing normal almost three year old things. This is the first time he has ever in his life played dress up. Ever. And he was pumped. And it was awesome. And I loved every second of it.

Pretend play and dramatization come up on the evaluations all the time, and it's just not something Tycho does. And it doesn't worry me too much, normally, because normally I don't look at milestone charts because I don't want to lose my mind, but combined with his lack of interest in drawing (especially drawing anything that he claims is an actual thing) and his disinterest in home-type toys like baby dolls or pretend food, it sits in the back of your head and makes you wonder.

So this was pretty incredible. I love you, my little viking firefighter train conductor.

EI, round two.

Oh poor neglected blog. I am here. I swear.


Big happenings in my life lately. Lots of things, but specifically Tycho's EI journey.

As I have mentioned before, when Tycho turned three this July, his early intervention care transfers over to the school district. Last Friday was his official eligibility playgroup evaluation. And I couldn't get out of work. Terrifying. But Kyle is a highly capable parent, too, and took him. It was the first big meeting I have missed, and now Kyle has officially been to more than me, but oh well. My mom anxiety was high but it was fine.

He qualifies! In 4/5 areas he is somewhere between age appropriate and moderately delayed, but not enough to qualify for services. Normally you need to be delayed in two areas to qualify, but he is SO behind in adaptive skills that that alone qualified him. Yay? I guess. We're glad he's in.

But it's not over yet, oh no. They can't make any of this straightforward or easy. We had assumed that if he was in he'd be into the preschool program, but apparently we have to wait until his first IEP meeting (omg!) and there we will discuss if he should be in preschool or get some other kind of (in home?) therapy. Please please please let him get into the preschool. So now I get to worry about that for a while. Great.

But he's getting help in some way, and that is good. Because he needs the help and we need help helping him.

life and death

I've been meaning to post again, mostly good things. That I'm seeming to come into that second trimester boost of energy, that I actually look pregnant and not like I ate a big lunch, that the weather is kind of incredible and we're spending lots of time outside, that Tycho is AGE APPROPRIATE in speech and we are officially discontinuing his speech therapy. Lots of wonderful.

And then my Grandpa died last night. We knew it was coming, but it's still like a punch in the gut. And pregnancy hormones really magnify any emotions tenfold. I'm having a lot of feels.

Low Risk Again

I suppose I should update after that last post, yeah? I'm sure you all are hanging on the edge of your seats. Or not.


Anyway, everything is good. I did any excellent job of NOT PANICKING up until the night before my follow-up ultrasound. Pretty good for me, especially when I'm all hopped up on pregnancy hormones. Omphalocele is gone and we're back to being boring and normal, low-risk, etc., which is exactly where I would like to be. Exhale.


Pregnancy is otherwise boring. Which is good. And honestly, this time around I don't end up thinking about it much because I don't really have the time, with a full time job and a toddler. However, things seem to be taking a bigger physical toll on me this time. I'm still not obviously pregnant, but I already feel like I'm harboring a bowling ball that is ready to roll out of my abdomen at any moment. I'm sleeping terribly. I'm already getting a little heartburn, and my morning sickness hasn't even gone away yet. I still don't like food. And I had my first pee-sneeeze the other day, which I'm pretty sure didn't happen with my previous pregnancy until I hit my due date. I had to lay down on the kitchen floor in the middle of slicing up some strawberries for Tycho today because I felt like I was going to pass out. I'm a little afraid I'm just going to skip that happy place 2nd trimester having energy and feeling good phase altogether. Hopefully we get there soon.

So.

We had our NT scan yesterday. My baby is... not perfect?

Mostly everything was good. The NT stuff is totally fine, and I'm not expecting the bloodwork to say anything different. Baby appears to have all the appropriate parts and appendages. But baby also still has some intestinal bits left on the outside. We were probably just a little earlier (especially since my midwives moved up my due date and I still think they're wrong), and most likely things will resolve themselves here shortly, but it's weird being in this place where things aren't quite right. I go back in two weeks to recheck, and I'm really not worried at all, but I still feel weird that I can't say everything is perfect because everything is not perfectly perfect. Hopefully it will be again soon.

Big brother :)

This is what happens when your best friend is a photographer.

We're facebook-official now.

Transition

Tomorrow is the beginning of the end.

Okay, perhaps that is just a tad dramatic. But when Tycho turns three in July he will age out of the birth-to-three early intervention program that he's in, and EI is transferred to the school district, and tomorrow we have out first transition meeting at his school with his therapists and the school district representatives and I am feeling nauseous for reasons other than just pregnancy.

I guess they have to officially tell us what's going on three months before his birthday, which means we start the eval process now. I honestly have no idea what will happen. I don't think he will qualify for services in speech anymore, but who knows in the other categories. I have really no idea what he is supposed to be doing right now anyway, according to the charts, because I haven't looked at them since we got him into his school. Because they are crazy-making.

I'm so nervous. I still feel super green when it comes to advocating for my kid and apparently it's even harder to qualify for services through the school district than it was for Boyer and I'm happy that he's made so much progress but I know he's not 100% caught up yet and he would so benefit and omg free preschool 5 days a week would be absolutely incredible for our family. At least we have everyone from Boyer there with us for these meetings to help us through. Whatever happens happens. And we are working on a preschool backup plan in the case that he doesn't get in, because school is just amazing for him. It will all be okay, I just wish it wasn't so hard.



Also, really, if preschool is so super beneficial and free public school is a basic right, then why the fuck isn't there free public preschool? For real.

Niiiiine weeks.

What? So while I feel horrifically impatient I do have to admit that this round of pregnancy really is flying by compared to last time. I periodically have the chance to forget that I am in fact pregnant because there is too much other shit going on in my life for it to be constantly at the forefront in my brain. But then there are smells and I remember. It would be nice to feel not sick or like actually eating non-carbohydrate food or something, though. Soon enough I guess.

Gut feeling this time around is girl. Not as strong a feeling as I had with Tycho, and I don't believe in gut feelings anyway, but it would be convenient because we've agreed on a girl name and then stopped discussing names altogether. But I've definitely started thinking about the baby as she and her hypothetical name, so there.

Kyle has somehow convinced himself we are having twins, which I wish he had never said aloud because the very idea makes me break out into a cold sweat. He doesn't want them either, but a friend teased him that he would inevitably have twin daughters and then apparently I spooked him by pointing out how ginormous I am (but I mean really!), so now he is slightly freaking out. And for some reason we asked Tycho if he wanted one or two babies this morning and he said two babies because of course. I don't know. Things are pretty good though, despite the twin paranoia and the nausea and the zits and constipation and my delightful night-owl first born suddenly waking up at 7am every day for the last week, when I desperately need to catch up on my sleep. Yes, that. Mostly good? Mostly pretty good.

When everything goes as planned

Kyle left on Sunday morning for a business trip and he won't be home until tomorrow night. And that, frankly, is a terrifying thing. Being pregnant, single momming, working full time. I think I can manage two out of three at any given time, but alas, I didn't much of a choice.

However, Tycho has been a complete ANGEL this week, and I am not the sort to call my kid an angel, well, ever, because that's weird. But really. He has been sweet and adorable and easy and perfect and SIIIIIIGH and because I am all pregnant and hormonal I cry about how amazing he is.

I think I'm going to have him sleep in bed with me tonight because I just love him too much to keep him in another room.

MY BABY IS A GENIUS AND CAN IDENTIFY FOSSILS OKAY

Taste

The problem with being pregnant (well, one of them) is that everything tastes wrong. Except for chocolate. Chocolate still tastes like chocolate and chocolate tastes delicious, so you just eat a lot of chocolate to the exclusion of everything else because it's the only thing you can trust.

Yep I am super healthy.

2.8

This is what eight weeks pregnant looks like the second time around:

What kind of fuckery is this?

Obligatory updates.

I feel neglectful of the blog but I still don't have much to say other than how much I feel like barfing all the time. All I really want to do is complain about stupid minor pregnant problems on Facebook but I can't because we haven't officially announced anything and I'm hormonal and grumpy all the time and I am kind of taking it out on Kyle.

I also haven't posted about Tycho in ages either. He is... kind of amazing. His speech therapist thinks he will be at age appropriate when we do his transition evaluation next month. He is starting to use like, actual legitimate sentences here and there. We bought him some books about babies. Nothing "big brother" specific quite yet, but just general info on how babies grow and he very much likes the "Egg Book" and he can say egg and sperm and uterus and I showed him the pictures we have from his birth and he said "Ouch! Mama sad! Mama push!" Basically he is adorable.

Today is eight weeks. I look roughly as pregnant as I did at about 20 weeks with Tycho, especially in the evening. Pictures later.

And the weeks march on.

So remember how I was like, oh I won't take any more belly pictures until things start happening? And then how three days later I couldn't button my pants?

My girlfriends told me it happens faster the second time around, but I still wasn't prepared. Here's five & six weeks. I'm fully in maternity pants 100% of the time and I don't even care.

In other superficial nonsense, I discovered that Kyle accidentally donated 95% of my maternity stuff from when I was pregnant with Tycho when I tried to dig it out of storage in the garage. I may have cried. Because hormones. And also fashion. And because I meticulously saved EVERYTHING so it wouldn't be so damned hard to feel good about how I look this time around.

Alas, I was left with two pairs of jeans, one top, and one dress, and the top is falling apart because I wore it so much. So I have been shopping up a storm with little care for price tags because I need to feel comfortable and cute and I'm not interested on putting a price on that. Blah. I can't believe I spend so much energy on maternity clothes but I do, oh well.

In other news, being pregnant is bullshit. Barf barf barf barf barf god do I hate barfing and my boobs still hurt and Tycho is always climbing on me and using my uterus as a jumping off point and did I mention barf? Wake me up when we get to the good part.

Things do not always go as planned.

Yesterday, after spending our afternoon crafting for my sister's wedding, my mom and I were about to head out with Tycho to get some dinner when we got the call. Well, text. Called 911, taking Grandpa to the ER. No other details. Not even which hospital.

We just start driving, and figure out where we are supposed to be going. He had a massive stroke. On top of a million and one other ailments.

I told him he has another great grandchild on the way. He liked that. I hadn't planned to share so early, but you need good news on a night like that.

Things are looking up today. They got him there quick, and he is responding well to treatment. Time will tell what his recovery will look like. My mom says he remembers my news from last night and he is very excited. Okay.

2.4

Four weeks today, I guess. I don't know that I can obsess over every little detail of this pregnancy like I did the last one. I can hear Tycho stirring form his nap right now. And by that I mean banging on his bedroom door for me to let him out. So far so good though. Morning sickness can suck a big bag of dicks, but besides that (and the boobs), I feel okay. I still have an appetite, which is nice, and the oppressive fatigue has not yet kicked in. But I really do wish I had more time to day dream.

Belly pictures are back by popular demand (well, my mother's). Here's today:

I'll have to get back into the habit of taking these things, and hopefully make them look not terrible. I'll probably hold off on more pictures until anything start happening, but for now, this is the starting point.