Crunchy

This is a new word. Someone used it to describe me when I said that I had bought some cloth diapers. I had heard it before, but didn't ever know what it meant (thank you, Google: "green" or environmentally friendly). While that isn't my number one reason for trying cloth diapers, it certainly isn't a bad one.

Cloth diapers are a little intimidating. OK, a lot intimidating. One of the main reasons why I haven't tried them out on my little darlin'. But I was invited to a cloth diaper party by one of my friends who switched to cloth diapers on her second baby due to allergies, so I thought I'd go and check it out. And really, it didn't sound that hard. Sure, it involves more laundry. And while I hate doing laundry, I don't actually mind the washing part of laundry. It's the folding clothes part of laundry that I so detest. And cloth diapers are heavy on the washing part, and not so much on the folding part (at least the kind I got :).

So I bought two. They've been washed, used once (pooped in both of them...of course), and washed again. And they still look new! What?! For real. Can't even tell that those suckers have been used. Yet. Now I know they'll eventually start looking a little less pristine, but I honestly expected it to happen instantly. And it didn't.

I'll do another post after we've used them a little longer and let you know what I think then!

I highly recommend Andrea with Little Squigglers. You can check her website out here. She did the party I went to, and has been super-helpful getting me started!

Six years

Six years ago today, I married Ryan. In Guatemala. In a ceremony that I would pay dearly to have recorded. I actually wish I had that on tape more than even our real wedding ceremony that took place exactly a year later. In America. The only proof of that first ceremony is in a single picture and the memories of the few that were there. But it was the beginning.

We were on a mission trip to Guatemala. Our fearless leader, who is like a father to me, had been giving me grief for months that I was an old maid (you know, I had been graduated from college over a year and wasn't married yet...oh, the horrors! :). So he decided that he needed to get me married off. To whoever. Thanks, Kev. He originally wanted me to "marry" Ryan's best friend, who was also with us. He, however, had a girlfriend, and really was not my type (love ya, Mike! :). So our last night there, I told Ryan about what was going on and asked him if he would marry me instead. He agreed. (Please keep in mind that this week was really the first time I had talked to him. And he was THREE years younger than me!)

Our pastor, who was also there, refused to be a part of the whole thing. Kev said he would only do it if we agreed to actually kiss. Ryan said, "I'm game if she's game." To which I said, "Whatever." So there was a ceremony that included things such as "I promise to always do whatever he tells me to do" and other lame things that Kev made up as he went. And at the end, Ryan kissed me. You can see in the one picture we have of it that I totally wasn't expecting him to do that. And then we locked ourselves in Ryan's room. And looked at each other. And laughed. All while a crowd of people banged on the door, and I waited for Ryan to kiss me again. Which he didn't. So I gave up and we went back out.

About a week later, Ryan called me to ask me on a date. I said yes. (Duh.)

(By the way, I waited on that next kiss for MONTHS. Two and a half, to be exact. Not that I'm bitter. :)

About three months later, Ryan asked me to marry him. I said yes. (Double duh.)

We got married for real exactly one year after that ceremony in Guatemala.

I love him more every day. We have been through so much together in the five years we've been married. Ryan has gotten three degrees and I've gotten one to add to the one I already had. We bought a house. We bought Ryan a used car. And then a new one. We got a dog. We've gone through one whole pregnancy and had our first baby. We've gone through the loss of another baby. We've made it on one salary for a year. And this is still just the beginning.

I can't imagine going through life with anyone else by my side. I don't want to. It seems that every day there's something else I realize about us that God so perfectly orchestrated.

I love you, baby daddy. Can't wait to see what's next.

Swimming

Today was the second time I've taken Cade swimming in the past 2 weeks. He's officially a fan. Last summer, when he was 3 months old, he went swimming with his Aunt Amy and soon-to-be Uncle Bryant the weekend of their wedding. He wasn't too sure about it then. About a month ago, he got in a small pool with some friends and seemed to like it pretty well. Last week, when he got in a big pool for the first time this year (and the first time ever with Mommy), he LOVED it. It's like a big bath tub. You can splash! You can pee! What could be better than that? (Well, you know, if you're a baby :)

Where I've been

Here's your fair warning: this is going to be long and emotional. Continue reading at your own risk.

It's now been two weeks. Two weeks since all hell broke loose in my life. And we're still picking up the pieces, and I'm sure will continue to do so for quite some time. You see, three weeks and one day ago, I took a pregnancy test. Two of them, in fact. They were positive. Ryan and I were cautiously excited. There had been some weirdnesses in my body that I'll spare the details of, but enough so that we didn't immediately start jumping up and down. In fact, I went ahead and went to the doctor 2 days later, just to be sure everything was ok. Everything looked ok, I did bloodwork twice, and all of that looked fine, too.

So Mother's Day weekend, we told our moms. It was getting exciting. My second Mother's Day with Cade, and I was pregnant, too. I was excited about the timing of our announcement, as well as the spacing of our kids.

Sunday evening, I started feeling terrible. It went from bad to worse in a very short amount of time. I was having horrible pain in my abdomen. Ryan wanted to take me to the ER, but I wanted to tough it out. My mom came over for a while, but I started feeling enough better that we sent her home and went on to bed. I couldn't ever get to sleep, and around 1:45 I woke Ryan up because the pain had gotten horrific again. He called my mom and she came over to stay with Cade while we went to the hospital.

We got right in (bless small-town hospitals that are not busy!) and did all the usual stuff. We eventually had an ultrasound, and the tech found the baby's heartbeat and said everything looked fine with that. They started me on fluids and then some antibiotics because my white blood cell count was slightly elevated. I was still in some pain, but not as much. A surgeon came in to see me and wanted to do a CT scan to make sure it wasn't my appendix. Doing a CT scan while pregnant poses some danger to the baby, but they felt it was more important to find out what was wrong with me because a ruptured appendix would most definitely harm the baby. So we (tearfully) made the decision to go ahead with it.

I drank this gross stuff to prepare for it. An hour or so later, they came back and said that the radiologist refused to do a CT on a pregnant woman. The ER dr was on the phone with my OB, debating on whether to transfer me to the hospital where my OB could see me, but eventually decided to just admit me to the hospital and observe me. We hung out there all day. My pain had subsided into terrible soreness in my entire abdomen. They sent us home that night without ever actually diagnosing me with anything.

The rest of that week, Ryan's mom stayed with us to help take care of Cade because I was not functional. She took Cade back to Arkansas with her on Thursday, which had already been planned because we were supposed to be leaving to go to DC. We cancelled our trip, but she took Cade anyway so we could still have some time with just the two of us. On Thursday afternoon, my OB's office called. She wanted to see me the next day. They had gotten my chart from the ER visit and were concerned about a huge drop in my hemoglobin. She felt sure that I had lost a significant amount of blood somewhere (I hadn't bled any during the visit to the hospital or later in the week). They also scheduled me for another ultrasound.

Friday morning. I go in to the lab to get blood taken for the 4th time that week (not counting the IV from the hospital). We head over to the dr's office for the ultrasound. It takes the tech about 10 minutes to say she needed to talk to the dr. Her printer wasn't working, so she went to get my dr and bring her in to the room. We knew something wasn't right. But I also knew she had found a heartbeat, so it couldn't have been that bad, right? Wrong.

They showed us a picture of my uterus. It was completely empty. There was nothing there. The pregnancy (in spite of what the ultrasound tech in the ER in our cute little small-town hospital said) was ectopic. My OB said that it had attached in my left tube, and everything that I had gone through on the previous Sunday night was most likely that tube rupturing. All of the symptoms I had had were classic tubal pregnancy. She was very confused as to why they had not caught it that night, because she had specifically asked them to make sure it wasn't ectopic, and they assured her it wasn't. The huge drop in my hemoglobin was due to about a liter of blood that was around my uterus. Also the reason for my soreness in my abdomen all week.

She said that we had to take care of it immediately. The baby, at that point, still had a heartbeat. This meant that, although it wasn't in my uterus, it had found a blood supply somewhere. But there was no way the baby could survive. And if we waited much longer, it would kill me, too.

We went straight over to the hospital. I had laparascopic surgery to remove the pregnancy, and they had to remove my left tube as well because of the extent of the damage. It was outpatient, so we went home after I came out of the anesthesia. The first day or so after that is a complete blur. I slept a lot. I cried a lot. That was pretty much all I did until Tuesday when Cade finally came back home.

Ryan's mom and sister stayed with us from Tuesday to Thursday to help me and keep up with Cade. I still haven't been released to lift him, so I can't be by myself with him at all. My mom stayed with me Friday, and Ryan's mom will be back tonight to stay with me until I can be Cade's full-time mommy again.

I am so grateful for my wonderful friends and family who stepped up to help. We wouldn't have made it through this time without them. We love you all.

I ask that you would continue praying for us. I'm healing physically, but emotionally still very raw (although I have finally stopped randomly crying every hour, so that's progress!). The sorrow of losing a baby is indescribable. Adding to that right now is frustration at not being able to take care of the child I already have. He wants his mommy to pick him up and doesn't understand why I can't. But I'm able to do more with him every day, so that helps.

I haven't been praying a whole lot through this. But I know God is still there. And He is still taking care of me. Because if He weren't, I'm pretty sure I would still be crying constantly.

I cannot even describe how wonderful Ryan has been through all of this. He has been my rock. Not that I had any doubt before, but it is very clear how much he loves me. I don't even want to think about some of the things he has had to do for me in the last two weeks. I love him so much and couldn't even think about going through any of this with anyone else.

Guns

Let me start this post by stating that I am NOT a gun person. I've never held or even touched a gun in my life. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've seen guns in real life (other than police officers or the gun case at Walmart :). Frankly, they scare the pee out of me. However, there has been a rash of burglaries recently in the area where I live. And this week, my friend's house was broken into. Not just one of my friends. One of my friends whose house I am at all the time. I go over to her house at least once a week. Now clearly, my feelings on the matter can't even come close to comparing to hers, but it is still very disconcerting to think about some unknown criminal having been inside a place that you frequent.

Also, adding to my feelings is the fact that I am a stay-at-home mommy with a baby. And it's just amazing how easily and quickly you slip into a mama bear protectiveness about your child. Like the kind of protectiveness where you would do absolutely anything to ensure your child's safety. Which I believe at this point might mean owning a gun. Now don't get me wrong...I do not have visions in my head of shooting and killing a burglar and rejoicing because the bad guys lost that round. My first instinct will always be to try to get out of the situation. But if that's not possible, I feel like I need something other than a baseball bat :)

So. I began researching yesterday. (I basically have a degree in research, and I kind of enjoy it...my master's is Library and Information Studies, which means I learned how to search effectively for information, analyze that information, and also hook kids up with books they like :).
My head is now spinning. I had no idea all of the different options. Shotgun or handgun? Revolver or semi-automatic? Single-action or double-action? Not to even mention all of the different calibers. Holy moly. Of course, everything I read about self-defense talks about how the best gun is one you're comfortable with and are capable of using. If you get one that you don't know how to use or aren't comfortable with, it doesn't do you any good. Well, thanks. What with my vast experience with guns, that definitely helps narrow it down.

The two recommendations I've received thus far include a .38 special and a 9 mm. My husband laughed at me last night when I told him what I thought about revolvers...they all look like they're from the Old West and I don't like them. (Well, good grief, I think looks are important, too! If it doesn't LOOK like it can seriously hurt you, how's it going to scare off a robber?!?)

And a big thanks to TV and movies. Due to all of the action movies I've watched, I believe very strongly that the bad guys all have horrible aim and rarely actually shoot the good guys. Due to all of the crime scene dramas I watch, I believe very strongly that if you get shot, you're going to die (although this is tempered slightly by watching medical dramas...they can usually save the GSW victims :).

It did occur to me this morning that this is something that Ryan and I definitely need to pray about. I think that it is a big step to bring a gun into your home, especially when you have children. I also want to make sure that I'm still putting my trust in God to protect me and my family. But if it's cool with Him for me to have the means to protect myself and my fam, then gun ownership, here we come!

Thoughts? Suggestions? A free gun to give me? (That's another thing...who knew how expensive guns are?!?)

Babies everywhere! (and they're GIRLS!)

Last Thursday, another one of my friends had a baby. (And yes, it was on April Fool's Day, and yes, it was actually planned that way :) I went up to the hospital to see them a few hours after she was born. I. Love. Her.

Now, this is the second close friend who has had a baby girl recently. And generally speaking, I'm completely biased against girls. I mean, yeah, they're cute and all, blah, blah, blah. But I have a BOY. And I love him. And there's just nothing like him (well, until I have another one of my own, I suppose :). And I have no need to dress him up or put bows in his hair or really, do anything extra to him (although he did look fantastically adorable yesterday in his Easter outfit, which is the most dressed up he's EVER been). He's just cute. And being a rather low-maintenance kind of person myself, I appreciate that. A lot. Little baby girls intimidate the crap out of me. They wear dresses. They wear bows. They wear headbands. They wear tights. They need their hair fixed. I'm getting worn out just thinking about all of the things that little girls involve. (Did I mention that I love boys?)

However.

These 2 baby girls just might change my mind.

I had always planned to have a boy first, then a girl, and past that, I didn't really care. After I had Cade, I decided that all boys would be absolutely fantastic, thank you very much. And that's pretty much been my mindset for the past 11 months. I've informed God of this. Almost on a daily basis. So I think He knows my feelings on the matter.

But.

I love these 2 baby girls.

So maybe it wouldn't be tooooooo bad to have a little girl. Someday. After I watch how my friends manage it :)

It's been crazy around here

Wow! A lot has happened in the past few weeks! Which would be why I haven't been posting on here. So, the highlights:

*My in-laws came to stay with us one weekend. Cade had a lot of fun with them (and Ryan and I got a little tiny bit of time with no Cade) and I'm pretty sure they may have had more fun than he did :)

*Ryan got sick. This is so out of the ordinary, it's not even funny. He hasn't even been to the doctor since I've known him (other than to get a physical for college). Even more shocking than that, he missed a day of work. Which actually worked out nicely because...

*Cade got sick. He fought a cough for 2 weeks (during which time I took him to the doctor and there wasn't anything she could do), and then the cough got worse and he got a fever. It made it up to 102, which is the highest this mama has had to deal with. Back to the doctor we went, and she decided his cough had turned into a sinus infection. So we've been doing amoxicillin twice a day for over a week. At least he likes to take it!

*My next door neighbor had her baby! He was three weeks early, but you sure couldn't tell by looking at him! I can't wait to actually get to see him...as soon as my child is 100% better (and we're almost there!), we'll go visit!

*One of my best friends had her baby! In the span of 2 days, I was woken up twice by middle-of-the-night texts about babies...those are way better than the other kind of texts you get in the middle of the night :) I went to see her the day she was born and she's absolutely beautiful! And I get to see her again today! Yay!

*We had someone come to our church in view of a call to be our new minister of music (they changed the name to something like minister of music and the arts...whatever. Music minister :). And apparently we all liked him. Only 2 people voted no. That could be a record at a Baptist church. :) I'm super-excited about this. They have a little boy who's about 2 1/2 months older than Cade. Poor Cade is always surrounded by girls (not that I think he really minds), so now he'll have a boy buddy! And it's looking like his parents are going to fit in perfectly! Such an answer to prayer!

*Cade is crawling all over the place. He's getting super-fast. He has also started to pull up more on things. Just waiting for the day that I go in to get him out of bed and he's standing there looking at me... :)

*I'm still nursing, but we've started the weaning process. We've dropped one feeding and that went really smoothly. Even though I dropped his bedtime feeding, he's done well so far. We'll see how smoothly it goes when the time comes to drop the morning feeding...

*I know there have been other things going on, but those are the ones I can think of right now. :)