The big day has come and gone. Alison's dance recital and the church Christmas pageant were yesterday.

Alison did great in the recital. She knew exactly where to be and when to be there, and she would wait for the rest of her class to catch up so they were all together. At the end, the other four girls ran off the stage and Alison was still standing there as the curtain closed. She was actually looking for us. We were on the opposite side of the room from where we had been at the dress rehearsal and that side was really dark, so she hadn't found us when she first came on stage. You can watch a clip of it here: Alison's dance recital. She's the one the red dress, as if you couldn't tell.

The Christmas pageant didn't go quite as well. First off, it's very hard to keep an active three year old, who is not used to sitting in church in the first place, quiet for nearly two hours. But Alison really didn't do too badly. 45 minutes after the service started, it was time for the pre-schoolers to go up and sing their song. Alison had been singing it off and on since we sat down, so she was ready. She went up to the chancel steps with the rest of her class, but the call of the stable set, which was sitting out of sight, was too much. Runaway sheep!!! She took off across the chancel and had to be corralled by one of her teachers. She kept trying to get away, but did settle down enough to sing, kind of. Of course, we didn't realize until well after the pageant was over exactly why she took off like she did. She had been saying that she wanted to go "play in the house" but it wasn't until we were on our way home that we realized that "the house" was the stable. Oh well, there's always next year. I guess we couldn't possibly expect her to be as good as she was the last time she was in the pageant. At four months old, she played baby Jesus and slept through the entire show.

My Christmas shopping is done....I think. Kevin will kill me if I buy one more thing for Alison. Don't let me loose in the toy store alone. I went there for two specific things, one from us and one from grandma, and came out with about 5 extra things. Most were little things for her stocking, but I did by one more "big" gift. Guess that will be from Santa. :) And I am also not to be let loose in the bookstore either. I went to get a calendar for Kevin and a little book as a stocking stuffer for Alison. It took a lot of restraint to only buy one book for Alison, which is why I bought two, and the second one is definitely not for the stocking, unless her stocking is big enough to fit the Jolly Green Giant (which it's not). It only cost $4.98, so I couldn't pass it up.

I need to find out from Kevin how much money he's spent/is going to spend on me and then I'll know if I'm done buying for him. Part of his gift is an IOU because the store only had one of something I need two of and I'm not going to drive all over to see if another store has another one. And if he's spent more than I have, he's getting the difference in a gift card from somewhere, probably Home Depot of Lowes.

I'm glad the shopping is done, but I am soooo not looking forward to the wrapping. I have already wrapped all the gifts for my extended family and Kevin's family (roughly 18 people) and I still have to wrap the stuff for my family, Alison, Kevin, and the dog. And I have to wrap Alison's presents from Kevin's mom, too, since I was also the one who had to buy them.@@ I really hate wrapping Christmas gifts, but I don't dare let Kevin loose on them. If I were smart, I'd just spend (donate) a few bucks and let the people at the mall do it.

We got the results of Matthew's karyotype today. Everything was normal....46xy. We had already talked with the doctor, while I was still in the hospital, about the risk of recurrence if this was the result we got and he said that between the recurrence risk of this and SB, he'd still say we had at least a 90% chance of having a normal pregnancy. That being said, he's also going to talk to doctors at U of M to see what they think.

When Matthew's problems were first diagnosed, I said never again. I wanted to come home and clean out all the leftover meds in my closet...just get rid of everything. Kevin said not to, especially if they didn't expire right away, because we might need them again. I said no way. I'm never going to go through this again. This is it...I'm done. And I really believed that, for the next 6 or 8 weeks.

That's when we approached the time when most pregnancies with Matthew's heart problems usually end. And then I started considering the possibility of trying again, thinking that I could have 6 months to recover and get back in shape if the pregnancy ended then and we tried again in the spring. But Matthew hung on and that potential recovery period got shorter and shorter. And the desire to try again got stronger and stronger. Right now, all I can think about is when can we start our first FET cycle.

I know that Matthew is gone, and a new baby couldn't ever replace him. I just want the chance to have everything go right, because let's face it, things didn't exactly go right with Alison either. I want the chance to be excited about being pregnant for more than just the first 18 or 19 weeks. I want to be able to be excited about giving birth, not scared to death because I don't know what to expect, or maybe because I do. I just want the chance to be "normal."

Today was a first, I think. Alison, who I'm beginning to believe prides herself on not doing what anyone asks her to do, actually behaved at her dance class, well until just at the very end anyway. And her teacher was very impressed that she knew the whole routine for the number they are doing in the recital on Sunday. She has been working so hard on it here at home, so I'm glad that she was able to calm down and focus enough to show how hard she has been working. They have one more class, Thursday morning, and the dress rehearsal is Friday evening (at 5:30....what an awful time to be having dress rehearsal!!). I hope she can keep up the good work! If she can, then maybe the teacher won't be horrified to see her on the class roster for the next session, since we really want to sign her up for dance again. Now, if we could only get her to behave at Sunday School.....

We've been getting sympathy cards just about every day since last Monday. They are mostly from friends, people at our church, and people at my parents' church. We got one from my OB/GYN's office, signed by most of the staff, which surprised me. And we also got one from our dentist. We recently found out that he goes to our church, but it still surprised me.

The funeral director called yesterday to tell us that Matthew's ashes are back and we can pick them, and the copies of his death certificate that we requested, up whenever we like. After taking care of the official business, he says to Kevin, "by the way, your dentist is my brother." I never would have put the two together. Sure, they have the same last name, but it's one of the most common last names in the country. Apparently the dentist saw the obituary in the paper and called the funeral director to get our address, saying "why didn't you tell me about this?" Funeral director replied "how am I supposed to know who your patients are?" Our question is, why didn't the dentist just get our address from his own records instead of calling his brother?

Christmas is fast approaching and we're slowly getting ready for it. Alison is so excited. Her dance class is part of the Christmas recital, so she's working hard learning the dance routine, and she's also learning the song her class will sing in the church Christmas pageant. Yesterday Kevin put the Christmas tree up while she was taking her nap. She jumped and danced around when she saw it, shrieking and laughing. "Look at that Christmas tree!" This morning the tree had lights on it and she was over the moon. We hit the mall yesterday and knocked a bunch of people off our shopping list. Most of the adults are taken care of. We still have a few to shop for and we need to hit the toy store to shop for the kids. I was surprised at how tired walking around in the mall for a couple of hours made me. I passed out in the reclinder while watching my soap yesterday afternoon. I've got dough for 4 kinds of Christmas cookies mixed up....2 kinds are in the freezer and 2 are in the fridge chilling so I can finish the prep work and then get them in the freezer until I'm ready to bake. I have 4 more kinds of cookies I plan to make. I have Christmas cards to get ready to send out, but I'm still debating on whether or not to put our family Christmas picture in them or just pictures of Alison. Would it seem strange to get a picture of a happy, smiling family in light of what has just happened? I don't know. We had the pictures taken over a month ago. We get them taken early so that pictures of Alison can be included with the presents going to my family in Maryland when my brother goes there to go hunting after Thanksgiving. Way back before we knew there was a problem with the baby I had planned to have the pictures taken as usual and then include a separate picture of the baby (a hospital picture or something like that). So we just kept with that plan, but there is no Matthew to include a picture of. so I'm not sure what to do.....

I'm beginning to wonder if we are ever going to have a happy Christmas again. Two years ago Alison had pneumonia and my grandfather died on Christmas morning. We had barely gotten out of bed when the call came. Last year things started out ok, but before we had a chance to open presents (my mom had to work, so we waited until she got home) the call came that Kevin's father had died. Matthew would have been a month old this Christmas, but he's gone now, too. So once again we're left with going through the motions for Alison's sake.

I went to church this morning. I'm not sure if it was a such a good idea or not. They had baptisms today and that was hard, even though the youngest child was our neighbors' 8 month old. The awkwardness I hoped to avoid by being selective in who I told about what was going on before Matthew was born is there in full force now. I know we were avoided by several people this morning. Others came over to offer hugs and see how we are doing. The funny thing is I'm generally fine until someone asks me how I'm doing. I am glad I went today, though. I needed to get out of the house.
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My parents left today. In fact, my mom just called to let me know they made it home. They'd been here since before Thanksgiving. I'm glad they were here because they've been a lot of help, especially with Alison, who has been a real handful lately. Every time I turned around, my mom was doing dishes. She finished up all the ironing I didn't get to before Thanksgiving and then did all the laundry and ironed that, too. At least we're caught up for next week, I guess, but I felt bad that she was doing so much on her "vacation." So tonight, because I sent Kevin and Alison off to church for youth group (Kevin's a counselor), I'm home by myself. I think I needed to have a little time alone.

I can't believe it's been a whole week already. In some ways it seems like so long ago. In others it seems like the blink of an eye.

Physically, I'm doing pretty well. I got my staples taken out on Wednesday. I take a few Motrin at night before I go to bed, just in case, but I haven't really needed anything for pain, at least not on a regular basis, for a couple of days. I'll be able quit the Motrin altogether in a couple of days. I can cough without pain, which is good since I'm still getting over this cold I picked up two weeks ago. But I'm tired a lot. I can be sitting in a chair watching tv and the next thing I know I've fallen asleep. I stretched out on the couch tonight while Alison was watching "Rudolph" (we have the DVD) and ended up sleeping through most of it. I wonder if I'll be able to go to sleep tonight when I decide to go to bed.

Going to bed.....that when it's the worst. I don't think I've gone to bed without crying once this week. When I close my eyes I see Matthew, fighting so hard, not wanting to give up. I get caught off guard during the day, too. I can be perfectly fine one minute and just on the edge of being a complete mess the next, for no apparent reason. It's like somebody just flipped a switch. I just have to take it a moment, an hour, a day at a time and tell myself that things will get better eventually.