Check this guy out...

Don't you just want to squeeze him??!

Or how about this one?

Or how about Baby McSteamy?

Parenting 101

Today, I handed Bailey my bottle of Vicodin because it made a cool noise when he shook it. At one point I looked at him and said to Mark, "Hmm...probably not a good idea to let your 10-month-old walk around (literally) with a bottle of pills..."

P.S. He's going to be a chicken for Halloween...

At home and doing okay...

Well, yesterday was the worst day but everything went okay. Mark & I are doing alright. I don't know that we'll ever be the same again because something like this changes who you are but we're getting used to the situation, I suppose. During this procedure they gave me drugs through my I.V., for which I was grateful but it won't come as a shock to anyone who knows me that apparently (according to my nurse), I carried on a running commentary throughout the whole thing. I have no recollection of any of it but apparently I talked about Christmas and burst out in hysterical laughter when my doctor mentioned that she had a grandson. I guess I laughed out loud and told her she was definitely not old enough to have a grandbaby and then I just stopped laughing and conked out. What a crack up. I told the nurse later that I don't have much of a filter anyway, let alone giving me drugs and wiping out the filter all together. They're lucky it wasn't worse than all that. I decided it was okay to laugh because that's the gift God has given me to heal.

Thanks to everyone for your emails, cards, phone calls, visits, flowers and words of encouragement. You'll never know how deeply you've touched us and how loved we feel.

Warning: Sad blog ahead

Yesterday was a no-good-very-bad day...to put it mildly. Mark and I were so excited that we had our first OB appointment for our new baby; he didn't go with me to my first appointment with Bailey so this was particularly exciting for him. I knew that my doctor would do a vaginal ultrasound (dear God, my first experience with that is a funny story for another blog) so we could get the best view of the baby. It started out just fine and I made sure to first find out that there was only one baby in there (people think it's funny to tease you about having twins but it really is a little scary). She said that everything looked really normal except that she was having a problem finding the heartbeat. She pointed to where it should be and said "it should be fluttering right here". She took us down the hall to the "good" ultrasound machine and said she just wanted to be sure. With this ultrasound machine, it uses doppler (which I thought was only for the weatherman) to detect bloodflow. We could clearly see the bloodflowing all around the baby, just not in it. When the guy said "Guys, I'm so sorry, there's just no heartbeat." I was devastated. All I could think was "but this was supposed to be a happy day! This is not supposed to be happening." We cried and cried, of course. Then all I could think was "Get me home to Bailey."

We love our son so much and we were *so* excited for this baby. I know that God secretly prepares us sometimes for things that we don't know about or understand and for things we can't get our minds around. This was one of those times. I think that in my heart of hearts, I knew something wasn't right with this pregnancy from the beginning but decided that I was just being paranoid and silly. As my surrogate dad Lou told us yesterday, "Sometimes when a baby gets to a certain developmental state where the genetics won't support life long, nature stops the process... I guess God does.... we will always love this baby, as will you." That touched my heart more than anything.

In God's secret preparation of my heart, I had a conversation the other day with a friend at work about people who go through miscarriages without telling anyone. I said to her: "I can't imagine ever going through the pain and trauma of that without my family and friends to support us." I have the best family and friends out there. Some friends of ours sent us flowerst today and simply said "Thinking of You." The best part, they are Gerber daisies which are the happiest flowers out there. We are happy because we know that our baby is perfect and happy in Heaven with Jesus.

Baseball

Okay so while I have never been very good at the game of baseball I have always loved it. Thankfully Gramps, and Myra in their latest escapades across the country they have gotten a toy Bailey loves.

It's this super cute bear with the Chicago Cubs emblem on it. Of course being a correct NW baseball fan I keep informing Bailey about the correct way of the way to sing the song, which if you squeeze the bear it sings, "Take me Out to the Ball Game".

I thoroughly enjoy singing "so root, root for the Mar- in- ers." Rather than "home team" because we will be going to baseball games together soon enough! Like when he was still in Mary's tummy!

here's the photo of him appreciating this necessary piece of his indoctrination.