I am beat!! I just got back from taking my little witch trick-or-treating. Perhaps Kevin will have to do the honors next year. No, really, it wasn't that bad. We actually went out twice. The first time we left we made it to two houses. We were headed back down the driveway after the second house when I got hit with the old "I have to go potty." Great. @@ We had just made her go to the bathroom before we got her into her costume. So I scooped her up, told her to hold it, carried her home, pushed past a group of kids at our front door and raced her to the bathroom. Too late. :( Well, we tried. She finished up on the toilet, but when we were cleaning her up I discovered, the hard way, that we didn't get her costume all the way out of the way. I told Kevin to grab some scissors because we were just going to cut the mess off (it was only a little bit of the mesh under skirt and it probably added to the "tattered" look of the costume). We got her cleaned up and I got her back into the rest of her costume and then manned the door while Kevin took care of the stuff that had to be changed. Then we were off again.

She ran and jumped and hopped her way down one side of the street and back up the other. We had had a talk about the rules of trick-or-treating, so at least she didn't try to go into all the houses this year....well, at least not many. She doesn't knock on the doors very loudly, but she sure can yell "trick-or-treat." She was pretty good about saying thank you, too, though I did have to prompt her a few times. Everyone thought she was really cute. We made it home just as it was starting to sprinkle. Her pumpkin was pretty full and pretty heavy. I know this because I had to carry it home from the last house. At one point she switched it from one hand to the other because her arm got tired!

All in all, I think it was a pretty successful night.

Today was Halloween at Kevin's plant. The employees are encouraged to dress up and decorate and the kids are encouraged to come and trick or treat. So last night I made the two little alterations that Alison's costume needed and this morning she was ready to go.

I think it probably goes without saying that Alison was very excited this morning. She even went in to go to the bathroom before we left without any fuss. Then we got her into her costume, grabbed her pumpkin, daddy's candy and the Halloween candy bowl (which he forgot to take with him this morning) and off we went.

Kevin met us at the door and we were ready to go. Alison picked out a chocolate ear from the candy at the reception desk and then had to pull it out of her pumpkin to show every one we passed after that. "Look what I have!" She was all over everywhere. She'd go into offices to get candy and then have to check out what everyone had on their desks. Since she was one of the first to come through, she got a ton of candy. We kept telling her to only take one piece, and they kept giving her two or three. By the time we were done, her pumpkin was almost completely filled and was so heavy that she could barely carry it. At one stop, she was given a headband with little witches in purple dresses on it, which matched her costume perfectly, but she wouldn't wear.



I'm glad we had the "dry run" with Alison's costume. We found out that her witch's hat is too slippery on the inside to stay on her head while she's moving, so I'm going to have to come up with some way to fix that. I think I can get a little piece of inexpensive material and make a couple of little ties to tack to it and we'll just tie it on. Otherwise, it's a great costume for her. It's not so great for wearing in the car though. After we were done, off it came and she went home in her oversized, black turtleneck, tights, church shoes and a pair of shorts.

I had my regular doctor's appointment last week and it was with the one doctor I haven't seen since this whole mess started, so the nursing staff wasn't familiar with our case. I guess at 30 weeks, it's normal for them to ask if you've thought about whether you're going to breast or bottle feed, which is exactly what the nurse did. It kind of caught me off guard and I took a moment to answer because I didn't want to say the first thing that came to my mind. I just simply told her that the baby was not expected to survive. That led to an akward pause and she made a note in my chart and said that she would make sure it didn't happen again. But it got me to thinking that perhaps there should be some kind of label that could be attached to the charts that everyone would recognize and be alert to lethal problems in a pregnancy so they didn't ask all the routine questions.

Anyway, lest you think this is going to be a morose post, I was talking to my mom later that afternoon, telling her how the appointment went and I said everything was the usual except I got hit with the "have you thought about how you're going to feed the baby" question. And my mom said "hmmm, haven't really thought about feeding the baby at all." That may seem like kind of strange thing for a mother to say when her daughter is in my position, but in reality, it was exactly, word for word, the first thing that came to my mind when the nurse asked me. I come by it honest. :)

So I've been thinking a little about an e-mail conversation I had not too long ago about the use of technology in managing pregnancy these days. Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Well, were it not for all the advances in infertility treatments, I would not be able to get pregnant at all. Given the way things have turned out, perhaps that might not have been a bad thing. Also, were it not for in-depth ultrasounds we wouldn't have known about Alison's spina bifida until she was born. And were it not for a couple of doctors who thought maybe it would make a difference if the lesion of a baby with spina bifida was closed before it was born, Alison wouldn't be the child she is today.

I've been pondering whether or not it would have been better if we hadn't known about everything that is wrong with this baby. We could have just gone on our merry way and been happily wiling away the last 12 weeks without a care in the world, preparing for a new baby without knowing that we would be coming home empty handed. Instead, we have spent the last 12 weeks in a quasi state of mourning, waiting for the end to come, wondering why it hasn't. All of our preparations stopped as soon as we found out there was a fatal problem. We already had Alison sleeping in a regular bed, so there was no going back to the crib, but we didn't go ahead with turning our guest room into her new room and moving her. We didn't bother to invest in a double stroller. I didn't bother to get the Baby Bjorn that I really wanted. We bought no new baby things at all. We didn't spend a lot of money for nothing (well, not counting what it cost us to go through all the infertility treatments this time). We won't come home to an empty nursery. Instead, we're having discussions about what to do with our child after he or she dies.

So which is the better way to go: having time to prepare or getting the devestating news at the end? I don't know.

So yesterday was our appointment at U of M. At 29 weeks we have a baby that is measuring correctly except for one place. It's chest is only measuring 25 weeks. The heart is still taking up a large portion of the chest cavity, but there is some question as to whether that's because the heart is really that big or because the chest is so compressed. There is no fluid around the baby. We were able to see the veins running to the kidneys, but not the kidneys themselves, nor the bladder or the stomach. Which means the kidneys aren't producing urine to fill the bladder to be expelled and taken in by the baby, develop the lungs, fill the stomach to go back to the kidneys. Basically, what we saw is almost certainly a baby that won't survive.

But then again, the cardiologist told us with almost certainty that this pregnancy was going to end in fetal demise weeks ago. And that didn't happen.

Still, we have to face the fact that we are going to come home without a baby. However, there's a big difference between accepting and preparing for the fact that you are going to deliver a stillborn baby and accepting and preparing for the fact that you are now going to deliver a live baby have to watch him or her die.

So as of now, the plan is to continue weekly appointments at my regular OB's office. At the beginning of November I will see the perinatalogist that originally diagnosed us to take a quick look at the baby and go over surgery risks, etc. and get on the surgery schedule for delivery at 34 weeks, which is the week before Thanksgiving (though if we can talk him into it, I'd rather wait until after Thanksgiving). We are not going to be delivering at our local hospital, because they don't have a NICU, but at the same hospital where Alison was born, because they do have a NICU, just in case anything can be done. All docs involved feel this is an acceptable course of action because I really don't want to deliver at U of M if there's really nothing that can be done, and the doc there said that if by some chance there is something that can be done that the hospital where I will deliver can't handle there would (probably) still be time to transfer the baby to U of M. Either way, this part of the nightmare that has become my life will be over.

Kevin and I have agreed that cremation is the route we are going to go, partly from a financial standpoint, but also because I just can't handle the idea of a burial. I just can't. And I don't think we'll have any kind of funeral or memorial service, either. But we will take pictures. I think that's important. I don't think there is any benefit to having Alison see the baby now.....she's just too little to understand what is happening and I think it would be way to confusing for her.....but when she's older, she may want to see the pictures.

When told that my daughter has spina bifida, after we got through the initial shock and devastation and went through with fetal surgery that we were told was unlikely to change her prognosis as far as her ability to walk, a thought occured to me. And that thought was that if she wasn't going to be able to walk, then once she got to big for us to carry all the time, she'd be eligible for a handicapped plaque and we'd be able to park in the close up spaces all the time. Of course, for Alison the surgery was a great success and she not only walks, she runs and jumps and does just about everything a typical 3 year old should, so no free pass to the good parking spaces for us. But that's ok. I'm quite happy with the alternative.

Searching for something positive to take out of our current bad situation, I was thrilled when my doctors decided that I didn't have to drink that disgusting super-sweet orange drink and take the glucose tolerance test. It's not that I think it's really all that bad, though I do remember feeling really crappy for several hours afterward, but I was still glad not to have to do it. There didn't seem to be much point to it, since we've been on fetal death watch for the last 11 weeks. So imagine how bummed I was today when my doc said she thought I should go ahead and take the test. But it's ok. Tomorrow I'll drink my disgusting super-sweet orange drink and be happy about it, because the alternative, even though we've been preparing for it, is much worse than feeling crappy for a few hours until the sugar gets out of my system.

Who else thinks like this? I hope I'm not the only one. I guess it's some kind of coping mechanism. A way of trying to take a couple of the tons of lemons we've been given and making a little bit of lemonade, so to speak. And really, I don't care if anyone thinks it's weird, because sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to get you through the bad times.

So here's a little bit about what's been going on in my life.

I had my weekly doctor's appointment last Tuesday. It was more of the same. I was measuring 28 weeks one day before I would be 28 weeks, so baby has "caught up" again, and his/her heartrate was up into the 150's again. That was a bit of a surprise. The heartrate has been hanging out in the upper 130's to mid 140's for the last 7 or 8 weeks. I think it's because the baby was having an active morning. :) My blood pressure, which the week before started out way high, was back to normal. That made everyone happy. I have my next regular weekly appt. tomorrow and we have our appt. at U of M on Wednesday.

Here's one more benefit to my having lost 60 pounds last year. I haven't gotten rid of all my "fat" clothes yet and I've got some long sleeve shirts that are proving to make great maternity shirts. We've been operating under the assumption that this pregnancy will end at any time, so I don't want to shell out a lot of money for clothes I may not need next week, though I did buy one pair of jeans (which I hate) because I needed something to wear out in public that weren't dress pants or capris. So these shirts, and my x-large sweats, are coming in real handy.

I am continually amazed at my daughter's memory. I know that she is nowhere near doing any actual reading...she's still hit and miss in recognizing most of her letters...but the other night she "read" me an entire book. "The Big Red Tub" has been her favorite book since we checked it out of the library a couple weeks ago. She has gotten to the point where she can tell the story, with very few mistakes, just by looking at the pictures. Last night she did the same thing with parts of "Stellaluna."

Alison and I watch Blue's Clues in the morning, while she is drinking her milk. As I was changing her from her pull up back to her underwear after her nap the other day, she pointed to her underwear and said "A clue! A clue!" At first, it looked to me like she was pointing to one of the flowers on her kitty underwear. When she moved her finger a little bit, I saw that she was, in fact, pointing to a paw print. It was pink instead of blue, but to her it was still a "clue." Kevin wore one of his college sweatshirts over the weekend and it had a big paw print on it (Hampden-Sydney Tigers) and she told him he was wearing a clue. It's so funny to me how her mind works sometimes.

Last night we picked out a Halloween costume for Alison. I went through the racks and picked out all the ones that I thought she might like and that we could put extra clothes under so she wouldn't freeze to death if it happens to be cold on Halloween night. I had about 5 costumes....two different witches, two different angels, and a '50's chick. Of course, she wanted them all. We finally got it narrowed down to one of the witches and one of the angels. Then she picked the witch. We tried the costume on her, because it looked a little big, but found that it would be just right. I hung everything else back up and we prepared to go. Then she changed her mind and said she wanted to be the angel. So we tried that costume on her. Unfortunately, cute thought it was, it was a little too small. There wouldn't have been room under it for extra clothes. Fortunately, we were able to talk her back into the witch costume. It has a hat, so she's excited about that. Yesterday afternoon she and Kevin put up our outside decorations. There's a couple of fake pumpkins sitting on the porch and some stuffed plastic (bag) ghosts and pumpkins hanging from the apple tree. She is so excited about her decorations. We still have some window clings to put up and some other inside decorations. I don't know if how she'll contain her excitement when we get around to those! Today she brought home a real pumpkin from the neighbors. It's a nice one, too. It will be great for carving, when the time comes.

Anyone who has ever spent a short period of time with my daughter will tell you that she talks almost constantly. And she loves when she gets the chance to talk on the phone. However, we've noticed that whenever she's talking to my mom and my mom asks if she's been a good girl, she gets real quiet, real fast. She doesn't want to talk about whether she's been a good girl. So imagine how funny it was when Kevin told me about a conversation Alison had with his step-mom yesterday. He had taken the opportunity to call her while he and Alison participated in our local CROP Walk. He had given Alison the phone and she was talking away and then all the sudden she got real quiet. And then she started talking again. When Kevin got back on the phone his step-mom told him what happened. She had asked Alison if she was being a good girl. When Alison stopped talking, she thought she had gotten cut off. I ended up talking to my mom tonight and I told her about what happened yesterday and all she could do was laugh.

It's not like we are constantly telling Alison that she's a bad girl or not telling her that she's a good girl....far from it. So I don't know why she doesn't want to talk about whether or not she's been a good girl. But it's kind of funny that she gets quiet when ever anyone asks her.