A couple of days ago, Tuesday I think it was, I strapped Alison into her stroller and off we went for a walk. We did our old 2 mile circuit, and I think she talked the entire time. She might have stopped for a minute here and there, but I really think she talked almost nonstop for 40 minutes. Anyway, she spent much of the time pointing out various flowers. We saw crocuses, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, but the "flowers" she was most fascinated with? Dandelions. She thinks they are just the greatest thing. She picks them and brings them to me...."I brought you a flower mommy." And I'm a good mom. I thank her and then take it and put it in a glass of water.

Took Alison to the ped to get her MMR vaccine this morning. We did not get it at the recommended age, opting to wait until we absolutely had to -- meaning, for school, and I was planning to have her get it when I took her in for her physical for preschool. Well, we have mumps in our area (though not in our city), so I figured it would probably be a good idea to go ahead and get it done now instead of waiting until June, which is when her check-up is. The doctor gave me a hard time about not getting the stupid thing in the first place and the nurse gave me a hard time about wanting to get it now....."it says here that you refused this vaccine." "Yes..and..now..I..want..to..get..it." Maybe she doesn't watch the news.

Alison was not at all happy about getting a shot, but she recovered quickly after it was done. She screamed and carried on for about three minutes, until the nurse mentioned picking out a sucker and a sticker. But she still told me, several times, that she does not like "little pokes."

It's been a long time since I've acutally published something in this blog. I have started writing some things and saved them as drafts, but never got back to finish them up and publish.

Life has been kind of busy lately, I guess. My 3 year old has a very packed schedule these days....some might argue it's too packed for a 3 year old...though in reality, she hasn't picked up any new activities. The ones she's been in are just scheduled a little differently so it feels like there's more. How can one small child make me feel like I'm running in 10 different directions?

My brother and future sister-in-law's wedding shower was the first weekend of April, so Alison and I spent the weekend with my parents so we could attend. It was a bit of a challenge to keep a slightly hyper, slightly overtired 3 year old from tearing the room apart, but we managed and nothing got broken. :) Really, she wasn't that bad, and could have, in fact, been a lot worse. It had just been a long day, complicated by changing the clocks and being up early for church, where she had been pretty well behaved.....we've been practicing being in church so she can go to the wedding without being a disruption.

Somehow, Easter snuck up on me this year, even though I was well aware of when it was and that it was coming up. I raced around the whole week before trying to get this, that, and the other thing done before we headed back to my parents' for the weekend. Somehow, I managed to get everything done, and we even got to see the Easter Bunny, just before he had to go back to Bunnyland. We got a pretty good picture, too, even though you can see the guy's face through the mesh mouth.....just don't look too closely. :) I did some frantic shopping and came up with something new to wear, since I thought I deserved a new outfit, only to arrive at my parents' to find my mom had bought the same skirt! I don't know exactly what that says about her taste....or mine....but at least it was just her second choice outfit and not what she had really planned to wear to church.

So now we're settling in to our new schedule for the rest of the spring. The Saturday swimming classes were all full, so Alison is going on Tuesday mornings instead. By the time I get used to that, the class will be done. It did solve a problem for us though, because the last class of the session, and the one where they get to go down the water slide, would have been the same day as my brother's wedding if she was going on Saturdays so she now she won't have to miss it. However, the wedding is going to cause another conflict for her. It turns out that there is another dance recital at the end of this session.....and it will either be the night before the wedding or the afternoon after it. But it will all be all right because her teacher is going to have a special dress rehearsal that week, just for her. :)

A recent look at our calendar showed me that the soaring price of gas is going to put us in the poorhouse by the time we finish all our travel obligations this summer. I think we might be home for two, or maybe three, weekends between the Mother's Day and the middle of July. The killer is going to be our trip to Maine. I am really not looking forward to that trip.

The weather has finally started turning nice. We've had quite a few days with above average temperatures lately, which is nice for now, but I dread what that could mean for the summer. So we've been trying to have Alison outside as much as we can. We moved the flowebed to another place in the yard, so we've got a bare spot where we're attempting to grow grass and she's been "helping" keep the area watered. Gonna have to keep an eye on her because she can turn on the spigot by herself now. Kevin was going to take her for a trike ride around the block on Friday, and she made it as far as two houses away before she jumped off her trike and into their sprinkler. She was soaked, but thrilled. It also brought to my attention the fact I've got to work on a summer wardrobe for her. She can still get in to her shorts from last year, but I think she just a little too young for the Daisy Duke look.

And that's some of the view from here.

Well, something has apparently jump started my metabolism or something, because I have lost 5 pounds since my last entry, and most of it came without any exercising. The family cold finally caught up with me and I haven't been to the track since last Sunday -- 9 days and counting. If I could just lose either my cough or my constantly running nose (it's so annoying because there's nothing to blow....it just runs and runs and runs), I might make it back there in the near future.

When I do finally get back to the track, I will be fully prepared to distract myself from the fact that I'm in agony. I bought myself an iPod nano last week, and it arrived yesterday. Kevin set it up for me and loaded a bunch of music, so I'm all set.....

....if only I could get rid of this cold!!

I gained 35 pounds when I was pregnant. Under ordinary circumstances, that wouldn't seem like such a bad amount, a little above average maybe, but not too bad. But when none of the weight was amniotic fluid (because there was none) and the baby only weighed 3 1/2 pounds, it's not a good amount. I was down 5 pounds by the time I got home from the hospital, and another 3 pounds by the end of the first week. Unfortunately, I gained it all back by the middle of the third week. Not being able to do much more than sit on the couch and eat Christmas cookies will do that.

So the week before Christmas, I started going to the Community Center and using the track. I started out taking it kind of easy. I walked a mile and a half that week. While at my parents' for Christmas, I used my dad's treadmill and increased my distance by a quarter of a mile. I did a few days of walking 2 miles and then started to add in some jogging. The track is 1/12 of a mile, so I'd walk two laps and jog one. Then I moved on to jogging every other lap. Now I'm up to walking a lap and jogging two for a mile and a half and then jogging every other lap for another mile. I am not a runner in any way, shape, or form, so most days it feels like I am going to die by the time I get done. But still, my long term goal is to be able to jog three miles.

This week, I also started adding Tae Bo and Pilates back in to my workout routine. Tae Bo was pretty easy. I was surprised. The only problem I'm having is dragging myself out of bed in the morning to do it. Pilates was a different story. It's an ab workout and I really struggled through it, which I guess is to be expected after having a c-section.

I lost 5 pounds in the first few weeks. But for the past two weeks, despite all the exercise and a big reduction in food intake (back to eating the Dr. Phil way), the scale has not budged. I keep trying to tell myself that it doesn't matter because I'm building muscle and muscle weighs more than fat, but if that's what was actually happening, then my clothes should be starting to fit a little bit better, and that's not happening either.

I'm starting to get very discouraged.

Today has been a really crappy day. You'd think it was Friday the 13th or something. @@

I was greeted this morning with an e-mail from my uncle announcing the birth of my cousin's son. I knew this was coming...his wife and I were originally due only a few days apart....and I have been dreading it. I was praying that they would have a girl....it would have been the only thing that would make this even remotely bearable...but deep down I knew it would be a boy. All I could do was cry.

And I'm angry. Rightly or wrongly, I am angry. As I got my daughter dressed this morning and put her in her brace and her twisters I wanted to know why did they get to have a healthy child and I don't. Why does their son get to live and my son is dead, his ashes sitting in a box on a table in my living room? Why do they get to be happy and I don't? What have I done to deserve this?

And I know it's only a matter of time before pictures arrive. I have pictures, too. To be specific, I have 11 pictures. And that's all I'll ever have. But I haven't shared them with anyone who hasn't asked to see them, which means I haven't shared them with very many people because, let's face it, who wants to see pictures of a gray baby covered with tubes and wires and who has a leg that sticks out at an unnatural angle because his knee joint never properly formed.

So that's the way my day started. And it never got any better. I ended up cutting my workout short because I just didn't feel like doing the whole thing, and I will be kicking myself for that tomorrow.

My daughter, who was perfectly well behaved this morning, woke up from her nap and turned into the the devil's spawn, yet again, by dinner time. She ended up in her room for the rest of the night. That came back to bite me in the butt, because instead of letting me know that she needed to go to the bathroom, like I asked her to, she wet her pants and soaked her bedspread. The only good news is that it stopped with the bedspread, so I didn't have to change her sheets. All in all, I'd say it was the perfect end to a crappy day.

Well, we survived Christmas. Things didn't get off to a great start, so I wasn't to sure we would.

We had planned to leave for my parents shortly after Kevin got home from work on the 22nd, which would have been between 3 and 3:30. I spent the morning dealing with Alison and trying to get her stuff rounded up and ready to pack. Then I spent the afternoon getting suitcases packed and ready to go and trying to find time to take a shower. While all this was going on, I was also going in to settle Alison, who was supposed to be napping, down every 20 minutes or so. She kept saying her stomach hurt. Because she hadn't pooped in almost 2 days, I figured that was the problem, especially because I specifically asked her if she felt like she needed to throw up and she told me no and because she told me she did feel better when she passed gas. Despite it all, I had everything out in the garage, ready to go in the trunk, by 3:00. Kevin got home and had everything in the trunk by 3:15. At 3:20, I called my mom to tell her we should be leaving within the next 10 minutes or so while Kevin got Alison up and took her to the bathroom. The next thing I knew, Kevin was yelling that Alison just threw up. Great. When I got into the bathroom, there he was, standing in front of the closed toilet, holding her while she threw up all over the bathroom.

When she was done, he layed her down on the floor. She needed cleaned up and the easiest way to do that was going to be just putting her in the tub. I got her out of her puked on clothes and told him to get out of his, and tried, in vain, to get Alison calmed down. Kevin gave her a quick bath while I tried to clean up the bathroom. It became evident that more than clothes needed to be washed, so I grabbed the rugs and threw them and the clothes into the washer. Then I came back and made another go the bathroom. I don't deal with vomit well, and the smell almost made me sick, too. I couldn't even open the window to help with the stench because it was covered with plastic for the winter.

Alison, who was now dried off and dressed, rested on her bed for a little while and then decided she was fine. She hopped out of bed and pranced off to the living room to watch a Christmas video while we tried to decide what to do about our trip. We decided to wait a little longer and see how she was doing. In the meantime, we got her to eat a Pedia-pop. That seemed to be staying down. Kevin ran out and picked up McDonald's for the two of us. (So much for having all the dishes done before we left -- he served up burgers and fries on real plates). Alison came begging for french fries, so we figured she must definitely be feeling better. So we grabbed her "puke bucket," strapped her in the car seat, wrapped a big bib around her, just in case, and off we went.

We finally got to my parents' about 3 hours later than we had planned.

Friday was a real laid back day. We basically just hung out around the house for the day. My aunt and uncle were coming for lunch on Christmas Eve, so I helped my mom get some things ready for that. We also finished up baking some cookies. We went out for dinner and Alison "entertained" our server. As soon as he came to the table she asked him what his name was. Then after he asked what her name was she told him she was Alison "and that's grandpa, and that's grandma, and that's mommy, and that's daddy." I think we need to work on getting her to stop asking people's names right off the bat, but at least our server was a good sport about it. After dinner, we went out looking at Christmas lights. There was one house in particular that my mom wanted to show us. The house was covered in lights. Unfortunately, the lights weren't on that night. On the way back "home," we passed a house that had a yard full of those inflatable yard ornaments. Alison loved that, especially because one of them was the Grinch.

My aunt and uncle came for lunch on Christmas Eve. I don't think any of us were really looking forward to it, but we muddled through. The basic feeling is that my uncle is just sucking up to my mom until he gets his half of the money from my grandparents' estate (mom is in charge of it and will divide it up when she's good and ready....probably not until after they sell the house). At least it was over in a few hours.

We went to church Christmas Eve night. I was really dreading it. I knew it was really going to suck, and I was right. Seeing everyone for the first time since Matthew died was difficult. There were lots of hugs and lots of tears. The sermon made everything that much worse. It was entitled "Upside down Christmas," and the minister kept harping on the idea of things that didn't go as planned. By the time it was over I wished I'd just stayed home.

On the way home, we took another drive out to see the house with all the lights, and they were on this time. My mom was not kidding. The entire house, all the trees, and even the fence around the yard, were full of lights. We saw it as soon as we turned onto the street, and that was two block away from the house. It was a sight to behold. Alison couldn't have cared less.....she just wanted to see the Grinch.

When we were finally able to get Alison ready for bed, she came out and helped me pick out some cookies for Santa, and we put them and a glass of milk by the fireplace. Then we finally got her to bed. Once that was done, I wrapped one last present (I'd had it delivered to my parents' because I didn't want to take the chance that it wouldn't get to our house before we left) and then we started bringing out the stacks and stacks of presents. I know we didn't buy as much as last year, but there was as much, or more, than last year. We got to bed around midnight. My brother and his fiancee were going to be there at 7 Christmas morning. Coleen kind of rolled her eyes when we finally decided on a time, but we were planning to go to church at 10, and she hadn't seen the stash of gifts..... we were going to need that much time to open presents, eat and get ready for church.

My brother arrived at about 7:15 and woke us all up. He went into my parents' room saying, "I thought we were opening presents at 7:00, it's 8:30 and I've been here for an hour and a half!" Alison flipped over all the present under the tree. She had a lot of fun opening everything, but we still had to occasionally prod her along because she'd stop to play with one toy or another. When she got clothes, it was like the scene from "A Christmas Story" where Ralphie and Randy took the briefest look at the socks they had just unwrapped before pitching them over their shoulders and moving on in search of something more interesting. She'd tear open the boxes, see it was clothes of some sort and give it a toss and move on to the next thing. I don't know how we managed it, but I think we only opened one, or maybe two, new toys before we came home.

After the initial rush of the morning, Christmas was pretty laid back day. It was hard, too, because it was never far from my mind that Matthew would have been a month old that day. But there was reason to be happy, too. We made it through the day without anyone dying this year.

Kevin had taken the day after Chrismas off, which was nice. We didn't have the rush of getting packed and getting home so that he could be at work on Monday morning. My mom also had Monday off, so rather than leaving in the morning, we decided to wait until after lunch. It worked out well. We had one thing that needed to be returned, as Alison got two of the same jumper, and Kevin had won $12 on his scratch off lottery tickets. My mom and I went to exchange the jumper and cash in the lottery tickets. Let me just say that $12 was not worth the hassle I ended up going through to get it. We stopped at a gas station on the way home. I got out of the car and walked up to the door. There was a man standing in it, talking to the clerk. I would have been happy to wait a minute for him to finish up and come the rest of the way out. In fact, that might have prevented what happened next. He stepped out of the way, holding the door open for me, and the next thing I knew, instead of walking in through the door, I fell in through the door. Somehow I had missed the first step. I went down hard, but wasn't hurt, other than a scrapped up knee. I felt like a complete idiot, though. My mom saw it happen, and thought I had slipped on some ice, until the guy that had been holding the door drove away and she saw that there was no ice. No, it was just me being a total klutz. @@

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.

These arrived this afternoon.



Thank you so much ladies. They are beautiful and very much appreciated.

Today we went to meet with the funeral director. I'm glad that I sat in on the memorial preparations for my grandfather two years ago. It kind of prepared me for what we had to do this morning. We signed the paperwork to have Matthew creamated. We provided the necessary information to put his obituary in the paper (it will be in Wednesday's paper). We picked out a small "urn." It will be a small wooden block with a teddy bear engraved on it. We ordered copies of his death certificate. We're not planning to have a service, so we didn't have that to deal with.

The funeral director said something interesting. He said he knew that we were going to be all right in time because we have acknowledged that this is happening. We gave Matthew a name and took the time to make arrangements like putting an obit in the paper. He said the moms that scare him are the ones that go through this and don't name the baby and try to pretend like it never happened.

Sometimes I wish I could be one of those moms who pretend it never happened. Then I could just go on my merry way and resume my normal life. But that's not how it is. I can't just ignore the fact that Matthew was here and now he's not.

I'm home from the hospital.

Wednesday night, just before I went to bed, I started having contractions. They were kind of regular, occurring about every half hour, but they weren't very strong and the never got any closer together. This went on all night, which meant very little sleep for me, not that I would have gotten a lot anyway since Alison was in a sleeping bag right next to my bed. The contractions stopped for the morning, started up again in the afternoon, stopped for a few hours in the evening, and then started up again. They were still only half an hour apart, and never got any closer together, so I didn't really think too much about it, until I had a little bit of spotting. That's when I started calling doctors. Because of where my incision from fetal surgery is located, I'm really not supposed to labor. I started with my local doctor to see what she thought might be going on. She said she could have me come in to our local hospital and get checked out, but she would probably end up transferring me, so it would probably be better to go to the hospital I would be delivering at right off the bat. I paged the doctor who was going to be doing the delivery and he agreed, so I quickly threw some things in a bag, kissed Alison goodbye after telling her I was going to the hospital, and off we went to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, I was hooked up to a monitor and got an IV. It didn't appear that I was in active labor, but no one was going to send me home, either. My doctor arrived and checked me out. We decided that, since we were scheduled to deliver on Tuesday anyway, as long as the contractions didn't get any worse and the baby was doing all right, it wasn't necessary to deliver immediately and we would wait until Friday morning. There would be more staff available in the morning to help with the baby. The contractions must have slacked off at some point during the night, or I was just really, really tired and didn't care, because I managed to get a couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep.

I was squeezed in for delivery and was taken to the delivery room at about 9:30. Matthew Charles was born at 10:04 am. He weighed 3 lbs. and 6 oz. We heard him cry twice before he was intubated. Kevin wasn't expecting that. He got to see him and take a couple of pictures before he was moved up to the NICU. I was able to see him for a quick moment just before he was whisked out the door. It took another half hour for them to finish up with me and then I was moved to the recovery room. Kevin came back to let me know what was going on. Matthew had been improving, but then his sats started dropping again. They found a small hole in one lung and had put in chest tubes to see if they couldn't get his oxygen levels back up. They did rebound a bit, but not as much as they were hoping. His heart damage was compounding the problem with the oxygen levels and we were fast approaching the time when he would suffer brain damage from lack of oxygen. We also had to decide about whether or not to start dialysis. We agreed that, if nothing could be done about his lungs, there was really no point. As it turns out, a renal ultrasound showed he had no kidneys (or bladder). After we talked, Kevin left to tell my family what was going on and to bring my mom back up to stay with me.

I had to stay in recovery for an hour. During that time the staff was trying to figure out how to get me up to the NICU to be able to see Matthew. I was moved to my regular room and it was decided that when I could stand up and get into a wheelchair, I could go up. In the meantime, Kevin took my mom and dad up to see him and my brother brought Alison in to visit with me. One of the ministers from our church arrived and stayed with us. My parents came back and my mom took my brother up to see him. My dad stayed with Alison. She was so off her schedule and was totally wired and being a real handful. By about 1:30 I could finally move my legs and told them I was ready to go. As it turned out, I was pushing it a little -- couldn't really stand -- but the nurses managed to get me into the wheelchair and we went up.

I was able to spend some time with him, just holding his hand or playing with his foot. During this time, the staff set up an empty nursery so it would accomodate all of us instead of limiting us to two at a time. My dad went down to get my mom. My brother didn't want to come back up, so he stayed with Alison. We decided that she was too wound up to be in the NICU and she wouldn't understand what was going on anyway. Once we made the move to the new nursery, I was able to hold Matthew. He was so small. The NICU staff had taken some pictures of him with Kevin, earlier, and they took some more pictures for us. We had him baptised and then decided it was time to let him go.

The ventilator was turned off and the doctor removed the tube so that we were able to really see him, for the first time. I just held him....and we waited. The doctor checked for a heartbeat several times. Matthew's gasping breaths got farther and farther apart. Towards the end, we'd think he was gone and all of a sudden he'd take another big breath. Finally I told him that it was ok to give up and to let go. And then he was gone. It was 2:54 pm.

The doctor and the rest of the staff gave us some time alone. Kevin held him for a little bit, and then my mom and dad had a chance to hold him. I held him again for a little bit and then let him go forever.

Throughout it all, the NICU staff was great. As we were leaving, they were headed in to clean Matthew up and put a little outfit on him. They took some pictures of him in his little outfit for us and then gave us the outfit and the blanket he was laying on. They made a mold of his feet for us and they gave us a keepsake box with his hospital bracelet, a little bit of his hair, and his footprints. It seemed like every time we turned around they were bringing something else to us.

I spent two more days in the hospital. As I was able to be up and walking the halls, we occasionally passed a room with a crying baby in it and that was a little tough. My doctor was ready to let me go this morning, but I developed a cramp in my leg overnight and we had to rule out a blood clot. That took a while. It didn't take long to get the ultrasound done....almost as soon as I (finally) got into the shower the tech arrived to do the test. It took several hours to get someone to actually (officially) read it and decide if I could go home or not.

Leaving the hospital was hard, harder than I thought it was going to be. But I'm glad to be home.

I'm mad. I hope that by writing about it I will get it out of my system and just be able to let it go and move on. Anyone that's been reading along knows that we have been going through one of the most awful things that a family can go through....the loss of a child. That's not what I'm mad about....well, I'm mad about it, but that's not what this entry is about.

What I'm really mad about right now is the fact that I've gotten the "cold shoulder" from a so-called friend ever since we found out that there was a problem with the baby. I've gotten more support from women that I have only known from an AOL message board for the last 3 1/2 ish years, most of whom I've never even met in person, than from this person who I have been friends with for 14 years. We were roommates in college. She was the maid of honor in my wedding. I was the matron of honor in hers. She absolutely did not even hesitate to open her home to us when I had fetal surgery, even though her husband was having his own surgery the next day. And yet there has been no communication, or at least no return communication, for 3 months now. E-mails I've sent have gone unresponded to, even e-mails that have been about Alison and have had nothing to do with the baby. Kevin did call once, in early August, I think, to re-thank them for having us stay with them while we were in Nashville for the fetal surgery reunion and to see what was going on, but since then we've heard nothing. The excuse then was that she and her husband just didn't know what to say. Fine. I can understand that, or at least I could at the time. But not now. We have a mutual friend, who is also pregnant, btw, who calls or e-mails to see how we're doing, if there's any new news. I could chalk it up to my so-called friend being busy, but just the other day I received an e-mail update from pregnant friend in which she replied to a message from so-called friend and sent it to me, too (it was about her recent ultrasound), leaving the original message from so-called friend. So apparently, she's not to busy for pregnant friend. It's just me.

And I don't really know why I'm so surprised. I mean, this is the same person who didn't speak to pregnant friend for nearly 4 years and none of us knew why. We had some ideas, but I don't think we'll ever know for sure. Anyway, I've decided that I'm done with all of it. I don't need the hassle, especially not now. The next move is hers, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Thursday night -- well, actually Friday morning -- I happened to wake up just as something in one of the other rooms went THUD. And then I was pretty sure I also heard a cry. I wasn't totally sure, because Kevin had the monitor with him (since I've been pregnant, Kevin has been sleeping in the guest room -- we sleep better that way....he doesn't wake up when I toss and turn, I don't wake up when he goes to bed and gets up). I heard Kevin get up and go into Alison's room. Apparently, the thud I heard had been Alison hitting the floor. For the first time since she's been out of the crib, she fell out of bed. Fortunately it wasn't that far of a fall, and it's entirely possible that she would have just gone back to sleep on the floor. But Kevin got her picked up and put back into bed....up against the wall....and she was fine for the rest of the night. And then we all went back to sleep.

I'm not surprised that this finally happened. There have been several times that we've gone in to check on her and found her all turned around, sleeping nearly sideways on the bed with her head practically off the side. Hopefully this has cured some of her thrashing about.