My Happy Place

This may be a little weird, but whenever I flash my membership card and step through the vast entrance of Costco, all my worries and fears, all my problems and stressors, seem to immediately melt away. I inhale the scent of spacious warehouse and cardboard, and I feel home again.

I have vague memories of being pushed around Costco in their huge shopping carts as a small child. I remember shopping with my mom and playing pretend with my sisters amongst the vast aisles, searching for sample stands as the rain poured outside. I remember getting a slice of pizza and a churro with my dad after shopping on Saturday mornings, eyeballing the big table full of books, looking to see the new seasonal muffin flavor(I still do this, obviously).

It's so comforting to me that no matter where you are, Costco always smells the same. You can find literally anything in there. Costco polish dogs and pizza taste the same in Pennsylvania as they do in Utah or Oregon, and their relish is always delicious. I love the samples. Costco has sold me on many a product by offering up a tiny portion of a delicious substance (mango salsa, mojito-lime seasoning, organic bean and rice burritos, chocolate mousse layer cake, jalapeno yogurt dip, etc). And their prices. Oh, the prices! It's all so comforting.

Additionally, the warehouse appears to be exceptionally sturdy. I feel quite safe in there. 

In the event of an apocalypse, you'll know where to find me. I'll be kicking back on one of the sectional couches in the center of the store (just behind the boxes of thick socks), a polish dog with extra relish in one hand, the other tearing enthusiastically into a six-pack of Streusel Lemon Blueberry flavored Costco muffins, watching movies on a huge flat screen T.V. You're welcome to join me, but you'll have to find your own couch. 
Don't worry, there's plenty! 
Because you're at Costco, my friend. 
The land of many comforts. 

Just Sittin'

I'm currently watching Shark Week with Colt. Sort of. 

We're trying to watch one of the two full-length Shark Week shows that Discovery.com has so generously shared online for free, for those of us too cheap to pay for cable but are sad to miss out on the annual shark extravaganza. But "Blood in the Water" keeps freezing on us. 

"NO!" We shout in protest.

But "Blood in the Water" refuses to cooperate. So we will be viewing "American Sharks" instead. I can already tell by the upbeat tone of the narrator's voice that "American Sharks" will not be quite as enthralling as "Blood in the Water." But, also probably a lot less scary. You can't win 'em all, I suppose.

I saw and felt the babe hiccuping for the first time...and maybe some movement. My whole stomach was rhythmically twitching for about 15 minutes or so. I asked my mom about it, and I googled, and both confirmed that this sounded like an episode of the hiccups. His hiccups are a lot cuter than my own, which are often a cross between a convulsion and a burp. It's fine, Colt married me anyway.

It was a nice reminder that the baby is really in there, though. Just hanging out. 
The movement is like tiny, almost unnoticeable twitches that I can see more than I feel. I think he's trying to entertain himself in there.

Dear Baby: Sorry life isn't more interesting right now, little man. Just keep swimming. Love, Mama.

Colt has an interview for a full-time position in Auburn, Washington. It's next week, so we will see how it goes! Keep your fingers and toes crossed for us, if you please. 

Here's some old pictures. I don't even know when or where some of these were taken. 

Little Sweet Potato: Week 17

 How Far Along? 17 weeks. Baby's Fruit-Size Equivalent? A sweet potato. Weight Gain? Probably a lot, given the amount of Chinese takeout I ate this weekend. I won't be surprised if I give birth to a large piece of sesame chicken. Maternity Clothes? Not so far. How Are You Sleeping? Pretty well, lately. It's starting to get just the slightest bit uncomfortable to lay on my tummy. Best moment this week? Going on a fun bike ride along the river with Colt. I'm not sure how much longer I have until I'm too big to do those kinds of things! Weird pregnancy moment? I've gotten kind of clumsy these days. I bump into door frames and corners. I drop things and spill my drinks. It's not ideal. Any Movement: Nothing I've noticed, although we've seen him moving on the ultrasound. I heard first time mama's usually don't notice movement until a bit later, because early kicks are easily mistaken for stomach flutters or hunger pangs. Anything making you queasy? Not so much. I only feel sick if I go too long without eating. How About Cravings? Nothing specific. Salty things still hit the spot better than sweets. Very strange for this cookie monster. Gender: A little boy! What I'm looking forward to: My mom and sister coming to visit next week, and having the echocardiogram on the 26th to check our little guys' heart. Hopefully everything is ok, but if it isn't, at least we will finally know for sure.

Ye Olde Amish

On Saturday, we hopped in the car and drove an hour and twenty minutes out to the country...Amish Country!

We looked up a few things to do, but in the end we just decided to drive out and explore a little. In my opinion, that's the right way to do Amish country.

Our apartment in the borough in feels like it's in the middle of a forest, which isn't bad, except you almost never know exactly where you are. But once you hit the country side, everything opens up and you have a gorgeous view of all the rolling hills and sprawling farmland. 

Amish country isn't just one little town, like I thought. It's a vast area with several different towns, and in each town there is a mix of Amish and everyday citizens. For some reason, I thought the Amish would live in tiny little log cabins like the pioneers, but their homes were really pretty modern. Some of them were gorgeous, and all of their yards were immaculate and well cared for. Most had a main house, and then a large separate structure, a mixture of a garage and a barn. It must have been laundry day, because almost every home had a wash line strung up with old fashioned clothes and sheets blowing lightly in the breeze.

We arrived in a small town and picked up some lunch. We turned up a side street and stopped at an intersection, and there at the other stop sign was a horse and buggy! Just driving in the road normal as you please. We saw several throughout the day, driving in the road, parked in parking lots and driveways.  It was really neat, actually. They just live so differently. Although I have to say..a buggy seems like a lot of trouble. It's small, and bumpy, and you have to hitch it up, etc. If I were Amish, I think I'd ditch the buggy and just ride the horse. 

There were little kids in Amish outfits and reflector vests riding scooters on the side of the road completely alone. There were handmade signs on the side of the road and at the ends of driveways advertising fresh flowers, homemade root beer floats, puppies, ice cream. It was all just really quiet and quaint. 

At the tiny town of Bird-In-Hand (which is located right next to the town of Intercourse...heh heh), we stopped at an archery store so Colt could have a look around. Then we went to an indoor farmer's market just down the road, where the Amish sell their crafts and goods. We bought a loaf of homemade bread, a jar of handmade blackberry jam, and some really delicious peanut butter-chocolate fudge. I think I could live happily off of that bread and jam for the rest of my life. We also stopped at an Amish furniture store to look at their handmade rocking chairs, tables, toys, dressers, etc. I think Colt wants to be a wood worker now. 

We didn't take any pictures, we just kind of enjoyed the day. But if you're in the area, we highly recommend going to Amish country. I'm taking my mom and sister out when they visit in a couple of weeks. We share a love of kitschy farmer stores, homemade treats, and fresh jam, so I know they'll appreciate it as much as we did.  

I think our visit out to Amish country is my favorite thing we've done since moving out east. The area was so quiet and spacious and seriously beautiful. Colt and I were reminded of how much we would love to live in a little quiet country town. Not Amish country, and not one where you're completely isolated and two hours away from the nearest hospital. But an area where you have some space. I would love to live somewhere where I feel safe letting our little boy ride his bike by himself through our neighborhood without having to tether him to my fanny pack. One with enough property that Colt could make a dirtbike track in the backyard and teach our kids how to ride, where we could have a garden, and a big porch. And where we can't see and hear everything that's going on at our neighbor's house, but we are still close enough to wave hello. 

Doesn't all that sound nice? 

Dreamers gonna dream.

27

Today is C's birthday! 

Per Colt's request: 

Gourmet secret ingredient nachos ✓

Homemade custard berry trifle  ✓

 There were presents too, although Colt didn't request those...out loud. And now we are watching a movie about motorcycles. This day has Colton written all over it, and I love it.

Happy 27th babe!

Things That My Husband Is Good At

1. Reluctantly letting me buy a pack of Double-Stuf Oreo's 

2. Eating all my Double-Stuf  Oreo's

3. Refusing to admit he ate all my Double-Stuf Oreo's, even though we both know exactly how shiz went down (one and a half sleeves in a sitting, to be exact).

In addition to being a phenomenal Oreo consumer, he's such an awesome husband, friend, and baby daddy. I think I can find it in my heart to forgive him. He's got that face.

Yep. That's the one!
I imagine this is what we will both look like if we continue to inhale delicious chocolate sandwich cookies stuffed with decadent creme filling.

"We Often Take For Granted The Things That Most Deserve Our Gratitude"

-Cynthia Block

Before this week, Colt and I assumed our baby would be healthy, and this pregnancy would be average. We expected the normal ups and downs...perhaps some nausea, mood swings, cramps, trips to the bathroom every twenty minutes. Inconvenient stuff, perhaps, but typical.

We had no reason to think otherwise. We are both 26 years old, with no family history of any significant or recurrent genetic or developmental disorders. We don't drink, smoke, or use illegal substances of any kind. Both of our mother's had healthy pregnancies...all of our friends gave birth to healthy babies. So it would be with us.

We arrived at the doctor for our 7:30 a.m. appointment last Wednesday. Nobody was there. After waiting for a half hour for someone to open the clinic, they let us know that we had been scheduled for a day when the doctor was not in the office. I think the receptionist could tell how sad and frustrated I was, as this appointment was made a month in advance, and we had really been looking forward to at least hearing our baby's heartbeat and making sure everything was on the up and up. I mean, besides the positive pregnancy tests and food aversions, I really had no proof there was anyone in there!

To try and compensate for the mistake, the receptionist called the local hospital to see if they could get us in for a sequential screening. I'd never heard of this. Turns out, it's an ultrasound and blood sample screener that's routinely conducted between 10-13 weeks to assess a baby's risk of chromosomal abnormalities, such as Down's Syndrome, Trisomy 18, etc. The hospital said if we could get there in the next half hour, they would do the screener for us. Of course, we got in the car and headed to the hospital. We were so excited at the prospect of being able to see our baby for the first time. 

We checked into the Neonatal Medicine unit and I had some blood drawn. After waiting for almost an hour and a half, it was finally our turn. Seeing our baby up there was really special, and I couldn't stop smiling. I'm pretty sure he is the sweetest baby ever seen via ultrasound. I love his little nose. We even caught him sucking his thumb; you can see it in the bottom picture. That's his hand in front of his face, and his thumb in his mouth.

I wasn't really thinking about the purpose of this screen. I was confident our baby was fine. After checking for the heartbeat, and making sure arms and legs were all accounted for, the ultrasound technician started to measure the "nuchal translucency." NT is a pocket of fluid in the back of a baby's neck, and typical thickness is below 3 mm. 

The technician was having a hard time getting our baby in the best position because he was so wiggly, but eventually was able to get a few measurements. Our baby's NT measured at 3.4 mm, which the ultrasound lady told us is higher than what they like to see. Then she left to get the doctor.

At first, I wasn't that concerned, because it had been hard for her to get a good reading. But then the doctor came in to talk to us, and his words were not very comforting. He told us that baby's who have a high nuchal translucency are at an increased risk for chromosomal abnormalities and heart defects. Because our baby's NT screened high, the doctor said it really wasn't worth analyzing my blood samples and continuing with the screener, because the results would come back abnormal anyway due to the high NT results, no matter how good my bloodwork looked. Because I couldn't stop crying, he recommended that we either do a chorionic villi sample (CVS) ASAP or wait and do an amnio at 15-16 weeks to determine if something was really wrong. I was in tears and couldn't stop. I felt ridiculous crying about an "increased risk," and even asked the doctor if I was being silly, but he said I wasn't being silly in the least, which did NOT make me feel better. It made me feel like I really did have something to worry about. I kept fishing for reassurance, hoping that he would say our risk was small, or that it was unlikely something was wrong and this was just standard procedure, but he wouldn't say it. He just kept looking at us sympathetically, saying our baby was at an increased risk of genetic complications, and giving us our options.

I was so upset. I had been looking forward to going to the doctor and hearing some happy news. Yet here we were, just a few hours later, sitting in a hospital being told that we needed genetic testing to see if something really was wrong with our "at risk" baby.

Our doctor was able to schedule us for a CVS at a clinic in Philadelphia for the next morning. They didn't want to take us at first, because I was a little over 13 weeks, but Dr. E was able to finagle us an appointment. Before the test, we met with a genetic counselor to analyze what conditions our baby may or may not be at risk for. Because they hadn't finished the scan at the hospital, they didn't have my specific risk factor calculated, but they were throwing around general numbers of 1 in 10, 1 in 6 odds of our baby having some sort of chromosomal problem. I know they weren't trying to scare us, and those numbers were based on general statistics, but man...those odds weren't very comforting (normal results on a sequential scan are above 1 in 300). We then waited another hour for the nurse to call us back for the procedure. 

The doctor opted to obtain the sample through my abdomen. I don't love needles, but I was more than willing to have him stick that sucker through my stomach as long as it would give us some hard information. Colt and I knew that no matter what, we would keep this baby. But we wanted to be prepared if our he needed extra care, and we needed to know if there was even something to worry about.

Having a super long needle stuck through your stomach and into your uterus is not comfortable. In fact, it's kind of...crunchy. We can just leave it at that.

We were told it could take up to two weeks for the results to come back, although it would likely be sooner. Still, that's a lot of time to worry and panic.

The whole time, Colt was so sure everything would be just fine. So was my mom. I was too...some of the time. I went back and forth between moments of calm and being so scared for our little one. Our immediate and extended family was so supportive and kind. A lot of prayers were said on our behalf. We're very lucky.

Health is a funny thing. We hardly notice when we are reaping it's benefits; we only miss it when it's threatened. I was never seriously concerned about our baby's health, and suddenly, everything was up in the air. And I was so afraid.

We did ok the first seven days, but Day 8, I asked  Colt to call the office to check on our results. I was too nervous, and I couldn't wait anymore. Wouldn't you know it, our results had come in that morning, and the genetic counselor hadn't even had time to look at them yet. She glanced them over, then told C, after nine days of worry and fear, after all of those grim statistics and dire warnings from various doctors, our baby's chromosomes looked completely normal!! A healthy 46, no more no less. 

We are scheduled to receive an echocardiogram in several weeks, to check the baby's heart for defects. High NT results can be indicative of heart problems as well as chromosome complications, so we aren't totally out of the woods yet. But hopefully all will be well, and Colt and I are feeling much, much better. 

Generally, people don't get to find out the gender of their child until 16-20 weeks, and I'm only 14. However, because the CVS looks at DNA, they could tell us with 100% certainty that we are having a little boy! That's been the one upside of this whole situation, besides the good results. 

We feel incredibly blessed. Even though the odds were greater that everything would turn out ok (although nobody would tell us that outright), you really can't help but wonder if you're "the one." The one in two, or ten, or two hundred. To those who are, I know those children are a gift, and that they are given to remarkable and wonderful people who will be able to give them the love and selfless care they need and deserve. I reminded myself of that fact all week, because I know that it's true. I've known and worked with parents of special needs kids, and they are incredible, as are their beautiful children. But that doesn't make it easy or less scary when you find out that something could be wrong with your baby. It's still a shock, and most parents instinctively want to protect their children. It's devastating to be told that your baby may not be in perfect health, and that all you can do is wait and worry.

This is a super long post, but I wanted to write it down. This experience is one I need to remember. I know I take good health for granted; not just my own, but the health of those I love. But health isn't guaranteed, life is fragile, and sometimes you don't have any control over what does or doesn't happen to you or your family. I am so thankful for a healthy baby so far, and I need to remember to be grateful for that every single day. 

I'm so thankful for our baby boy...and for every single one of his 46 chromosomes.