A new little princess to add to the family

What a relief today was! I cannot explain the anxiety that I have had this whole month waiting for this appointment. I don't know what it is about a miscarriage but it messes with you. I have been worried that this little peanut was not going to make it and that I was going to have to go through another nightmare. But she is past the ugly phase, FINALLY. All is well she looks good and is active just like my other two. She will fit right into our wild and crazy bunch. I was so excited to see her sweet face and her cute little nose. Ah babies are such a blessing.

Good read

I saw this book a long time ago and thought that I had to get it for my children. I finally got it about a year and a half ago and have to say that it has become a favorite. This story is about a little girl who hides the fact that she loves Lima beans because she thinks everyone will make fun of her. She ends up on a wild journey that shows us that being what everyone else wants you to be is hard, scary and not worth it. We should not hide who we are or be ashamed of it. We read this book last night before bed and I loved that my girls picked it out. I want them to know that they should be proud of who they are and everything about them. Life is not about making other people happy by changing who you are. If people cannot appreciate you for the wonderful unique things about you then, who needs them.

Tourette Syndrome

These two little worlds have been in my thoughts and my daily life for the last 7+ years. I had heard of it before. Read a few books about it, made a few jokes about and never really put a lot of thought into it. UNTIL I fell in love with a man who just happens to have it. So I did what any potential bride would do. RESEARCH. I read everything I could get my hands on about the subject. Cally having it never changed anything about the way that I felt for him. It did not define him, but it honestly enriched him. My mother in law uses the word humbles and I think that is a good term. I chuckle thinking about what my husband would be like if he was not humbled a little bit by his disorder ( he is already so obnoxiously cocky, a quality I actually adore :)) This has not defined him, it has helped shape him into the person I love.
I knew that the possibility was there that our children would be affected by this someday. I thought long and hard about it and decided that I was willing to take the chance. I read all about the heredity and found that girls were affected 75% less often then boys. When I had two girls, I am not going to lie I was a little relieved. If a female child is going to get something it is usually a lot more mild like just a tic disorder or a little OCD ( or a lot OCD).
Tourette Syndrome is not a death sentence, it is just something that some have to deal with. You can live a perfectly normal life and succeed in every area. The key to a good life it a good family and a good support system. I am lucky that Cally's mom is amazing. She never treated them ( Cally and two of his brothers have tourette's) any different. She didn't let them wallow in self pity, she didn't let them do more because they had something wrong with them. She treated them just the same as she would have if they didn't have it. This a model I think anyone should adopt with children. Not just children with special needs or children with a disorder, all children should be treated like children and never feel like they are entitled to certain things or cannot do certain things. All things are possible to every child and special treatment just creates nasty or whinny children.
So what am I getting to with the rant about TS? Well about a month ago Regan started to do something; at first I just thought she had a runny nose. Then she was clearing her throat and I thought she might have allergies or something. But in the back of my mind I knew that neither of those things were what was going on. She didn't need/want a tissue she wanted to get rid of this feeling she had. I just locked it up until Cally called me and told me that he thought she has a tic. I said "I know" and then I cried. I looked up the research again on diagnosis and when it starts to show. Regan is at the age when things start to appear. Diagnosis is a tricky thing. There is not a blood test there is not a brain scan, it is all behavior monitoring. No doctor will give a diagnosis for it if has been less then a year with the behaviors. Right now the tic she has is a complex verbal which coincides with TS. She has not developed a physical tic yet, but when/ if she does we pretty much will know that that is what it is. It could just stay mild and be a little tic disorder, or it could be full blown TS. I am grateful to know. I cannot imagine what my inlaws as well as my husband went through with years of dr. visits , tests, medications, and frustration. I am lucky to know. Not knowing what I am dealing with would be miserable.
I am sadden by this. But only because as a parent we just want our children's lives to be perfect. We want to be able to protect them from everything bad in the world. But we cannot. And it stings knowing that although I love her no matter what, that someone eventually will make fun of her, not want to be her friend, not want to date her, because of something so small. She is an amazing child and I have no doubt that she will be able to handle this all with a beautiful smile on her face and a positive attitude to go along with it. She is a smart, happy, fantastic child, who gets to have an extra challenge, that will keep her humble, sweet, understanding of others and compassionate. Qualities that I wish all of us were forced to develop, and she pretty much has no choice but to be amazing.

Here is a link for more information, if you are interested or just don't know anything about it.
www.tsa-usa.org

My Bed

While I was making my bed this morning, I got to thinking about how this one piece of furniture has played such an important part in my life. I bought the bed when I first moved to Oregon, the first day I had it I was taking a nap and woke up to Cally proposing to me. I think about all the wonderful moments in that bed. Obvious ones like wonderful intimate moments with the man I adore, to late night talks, crying in his arms when life has been hard, tickle fights and real fights that end with making up. Creating a family and cuddling with those beautiful children when they are sick, or had a bad dream, or just really want to be with mommy and daddy. Nursing and getting up in the middle of the night while my sweet man slept through the screaming and I wanted to hit him with a pillow. This bed has been such a beautiful part of our lives and for whatever reason ( I will blame it on pregnancy hormones) but it made me really emotional thinking about it all today.

So behind, might try to catch up later... but just some good news for now.

After a long and crazy journey, here we sit again. We are in a different place this time and although we are overwhelmed with the timing, we couldn't be happier. We are having a baby in December! It is going to be insane. Cally is going back to school in the fall, I am starting a Master's program ( and no I am not taking a semester off, I will be going back to school with a two week old YIKES) Our life is about to be turned upside down, but in a way that only a beautiful new baby can do. We are grateful for this child. Everything is going well, the baby is getting really big and making me sick :). We should be able to find out what the gender is next time we go in and really couldn't be more excited. Our kids are excited and keep debating over what they think it is. Regan wants a brother since she already has a sister and Lauren just is happy to have a baby. She is such a sweet helper, she always brings me food and say "your baby wants this" and hugs my belly and talks to the baby. So sweet. We are stoked... things are wonderful. Life is great.

Wishing it was warm...

I put that picture up of Cal and I in Mexico last year because all I can think about is running away and being somewhere warm. This has been one of the hardest months of my life. It has seemed to have drug on forever. Although it has been a giant struggle there has been moments of happiness interspersed through out all the tears.

I am sure everyone is wondering, but hates to ask... I am doing ok. I really do have really good days and really bad days I just have to keep it all in perspective and just cry out the bad moments. I will be fine. I have gotten past hating every pregnant person and now only am bitter at the ones that I know will be horrible parents and do not deserve to have those babies... anyway, lets concentrate on the good things.

I was my birthday, our anniversary, Cally's birthday, and Valentines day all mixed in this last month and well I had a lot of fun despite not really wanting to. Cally took me out to dinner and to the dashboard confessionals concert ( that you all should have gone to... so awesome!) It was absolutely freezing, but I really needed to get off the couch and he knew it so he endured the below zero temps so that I could listen to one of my favorite bands. We also went and saw the lovely bones. One of my favorite books and what turned out to be a descent interpretation. He made me a cake ( first one in six years) and really has treated me with kid gloves through all of this. I really am lucky to have such a sweet and understanding husband. I have been distant and mean and non wife and motherly and he has taken it all in stride and picked up all my slack. I love him.
It has been nice this year... lots of flowers, lots of funny and sweet cards, he has outdone himself. For our Anniversary we went to Senora Grill and it was super tasty, it was nice to have a night out without the kiddos. We got to talk, which is something that busy parents don't always get to do and I love that more than anything.

The girls have been fun like always. There is something about a needy three year old that gets really old when all you want to do is be sad and left alone, but I enjoyed taking pictures of her anyway...
she is always into something and most of the time I get annoyed but she has been really sweet and just silly and I love her for it.
























The weather has been all over
the place, but we have been trying
to get out as much as we can to
enjoy the bikes that they got for Christmas! They are getting really good and when all the snow is gone I know I won't be able to keep up with them.

The girls have started tumbling class and well, Lolo loves it and Regan not as much. I think that Regan doesn't like it because she is so tall and it is hard for her to whip herself around. After the first time Lauren came up to me and said, "Mommy that was so fun." I was so happy to hear that. Sometimes I feel like Lolo doesn't like anything and I wanted her to enjoy something and I am glad that we found something she likes. They also got an opportunity to do a mini cheer camp at Ogden high. THEY LOVED IT! It was so fun to watch them dance around. Lolo got hit in the eye right before she was supposed to perform and just stood there crying. Poor thing, I felt so bad. Regan on the other hand ROCK IT! She was not getting it during practice and I was a little worried that she would just forget everything and just stand there, but she nailed it. So so cute.

We got sick the day before Valentines and the day of Valentines. I think we had food poisoning, it was bad. I felt really bad because Cally planed this big surprise, that I still don't know the details about, but we weren't able to do it because we were all sick. By the end of the night we started to feel better and I made a poorly decorated but delish cake and then to honor the double holiday ( Chinese New Year) I made Chinese food. We felt better by this time I promise. I have never seen Regan eat so much, her new favorite food... Egg rolls. We went out for chinese again tonight because that is all she can talk about, it's cute in a weird way and we aren't complaining we like it too!

For Cal's birthday he had scouts and was gone the whole day at work. I feel bad because I didn't make a huge deal for his birthday. I made him a yummy cake and had couple friends over to share it. He is getting to go to Seattle and spend a lot more then I would have normally spent on him for his birthday, but not for a couple weeks, so it just seemed a little blah. He had used all the candles that we had on my cake and didn't tell me so when I went to get candles all there were was two numbered candles one from Regan's first and one from Lolo's third... so Cally got to turn 13 this year. ( we opted for that over 31 it just sounds so old.)

Other than that, life is just same old same old. School is kicking my butt, but I cannot decide if it is just because I missed two weeks and now I am playing catch up or if it is just that hard. I will pull through. Anyway life is good, really good.

Private

I decided to go private, I just don't like not knowing who is looking. So... if you want in let me know in the next couple days and I will put you on the list. email me at gidums@yahoo.com

This post was supposed to be different.

Although the out come is different the start is the same…

For about two years now I have been having what started out as a gentle nudge to have another child. The longer I denied the feeling the stronger it got. Until it got to a point where it was pounding so hard that I could not deny this little person to come and join our family any longer. I set an appointment to get my IUD out, but this overwhelmed and scared feeling came over me. I got the feeling that this child was special and that he needed this more than I could understand. I told Cally that this baby was either going to be special needs or that it was not going to stay with us for very long. We chickened out and canceled our appointment. The pounding became stronger and I couldn’t stop crying about not having this child so we finally went in to get rid of the IUD. We were excited. We were not supposed to try the first month because my Dr. said it probably wouldn’t take. We did anyway and well.. we didn’t get pregnant. I was sad but oh well. We went for round two and were happily surprised to find that this time it worked. We wanted to scream it off the roof tops and let the whole world know. But we held on, we told our families in the cutest way a couple weeks later and we were so excited and scared to be having our third child. All of my sisters and sister in law are having babies and there was something so fun about all of us having babies together.

My doctor was out of town so I had to wait a little longer than any of us would have liked to get in to see her. I think now that it was a blessing in disguise. When we went in and were joking and having fun talking about how crazy it would be if there were two and laughing about it all. While she was doing the ultrasound she kept asking me questions and I knew something was wrong. I joked trying to hold back tears, asking if she saw two and she said no definitely not two, and then I asked is there at least one, she told that yes there was one. She asked me again how far along I thought I was and then silence. There was no heartbeat. Not even a flicker. She told me that the baby had stopped developing about two weeks ago. It got big enough to have a heart beat and then just stopped. She wants to be wrong and that we just miscalculated but doesn’t want to give me false hope. I go back in, in a couple of days to have it all removed and just check to make sure that that is what happened.

There is something about planning for a child that is so exciting; picking out names, thinking about what their life will be like. Getting all worked up about it is really the best part. Until something like this happens. I know I am not the only person in the world that has gone through this I am not going to be that insensitive, but there is something about losing a prospective child that stings more than any other pain I have ever felt. I know that the body is an amazing thing. I know that it took care of this child the way it needed to. I know that heavenly father has bigger plans for that little spirit and that I can't even comprehend. But it still doesn’t stop the pain.

I know this seems crazy to share something so personal, but it really makes me feel better to getting it all out.