Lots going on...

First - Happy Birthday, Devyn!!!

Here is a recap of the last few days...

My brother, Kyle, got a job in San Antonio, TX and left Monday morning to go for two weeks of training. While he is gone, his wife and son, Allison and Scylas, flew out to California to visit her family. Kyle will be back in two weeks to get their stuff to move it to Texas. Because they won't be back. Ally and Scy will fly straight from California to Texas. So we spent the weekend saying goodbye. :(



Also this weekend, I cracked a molar. Yes, cracked. And not a 'chip,' I mean a full blown vertical crack that goes down into the gum. I can't eat; I can't clench my teeth. This totally blows. And the dentist couldn't get me in until Wednesday (the crack happened Friday night). How did this happen, you ask? This particular molar had a root canal done on it back when I was a senior in high school (10+ years ago). That dentist never put a crown over the filling, and recently I had begun to notice that the filling was pulling away from the edge of the tooth. I was eating a piece of pizza crust and just bit down wrong. CRACK!

Today, I think that there is an infection starting in the crack. :-/ I think there is still some piece of pizza crust stuck in there. Ugh. Anyway, the dentist appointment is tomorrow. I am really afraid they're going to pull it. :-(


Zane and I spent a lot of time this weekend hanging out over at Granny's. She cooked breakfast and dinner for us several times! I've lived right down the street from the woman for four months and she never cooked for me like she did this weekend. Of course, she only did it because Kyle and his family were there. And she watches Zane while I work. But still. I haven't felt like cooking anyway, because this morning sickness is awful, so it was a nice break.

The rest of this week will be exciting!! But the days are going by so slowly. Tomorrow is the dentist appointment. Tomorrow evening is the start of Sectionals and possibly my brother's last high school basketball game (but I hope not!!!). Thursday morning is our first ultrasound!! And then Monday morning I go to Indy to see the MFM (maternal and fetal medicine specialist), where I think I get another ultrasound.

I'm sorry for throwing all that information at you in this horribly written post. :-P

I'm here!

I didn't forget. Well, maybe for a day or two, but here I am! It's not like it matters at this point anyway - I don't even have any followers to my blog yet. I almost posted about this blog on Facebook the other day, to let my friends and family know it is here. And then I realized I'm not near far enough along in this pregnancy - which I've mentioned a few times now - to publish the blog there yet.

So... about my being pregnant. I am just over six weeks right now. Morning sickness (all day sickness) has officially kicked in. It has been steadily getting worse over the past few days. I'm down a few pounds, but I really think that is more from cutting out all sodas even before I found out I was pregnant. I haven't noticed any cravings yet, although I did see some awesome looking glazed donuts on a commercial last night and wanted one badly.

I am considered a high risk patient due to several things. 1st - my recurrent pregnancy loss. Three miscarriages in two years is not normal. 2nd - after my third loss, I was diagnosed with a clotting disorder (PAI-1 4g4g) and MTHFR. I am toying with looking up my research from right after I was diagnosed to discuss in a future blog post. Suffice to say for now that the clotting disorder causes my blood to clot too easily. There are so many small blood vessels forming in my uterus that even a tiny clot thrown in there could stop blood flow to the baby and cause another miscarriage. So, to counteract the disorder, I give myself daily injections of a blood thinner called Lovenox.

And my last reason for being high risk is my history of preterm labor and preterm delivery. When I was 32 weeks pregnant with Zane, I went into preterm labor unexpectedly. I wasn't sick or dehydrated nor could they really find a reason for my body to have gone into labor like it did. Zane was born at 35 weeks.

So, I'm pretty high risk this time around. I have my first ultrasound next Thursday, on 3/1, to determine 'viability.' Now, given my history, I know that seeing a baby and a heartbeat next week certainly doesn't guarantee me a baby in October. But it will be nice to know that the baby is growing and in the right place. My expected due date is 10/15/2012.

Did you catch that? This baby is due ten days after Zane's 2nd birthday. Then you have to consider that my OB is going to induce labor for me at 39 weeks because of the blood thinners I am on. (She doesn't want me going into labor on my own too soon after giving myself an injection because of the risks of bleeding out and because then I couldn't get an epidural(!!!)) So, at the latest, this baby will be here three days after Zane turns 2.

That should make for an interesting 2nd birthday. I will either be very, very pregnant or have a newborn already. I am still torn on whether to plan his birthday party really early or just have a small family get-together that we can play by ear.

Not to mention that my two kids will have birthdays in the same week. Potentially even the same day. I'm not even going to think about birthdays down the line. Joint parties? Have one on one weekend and the other the next weekend? That's too much to handle right now when I'm still in the precarious period of my pregnancy.

Here are my upcoming appointments:

1st ultrasound on 3/1 at 9am
Appt with MFM/high risk OB on 3/5 at 9am
Appt with my regular OB on 3/20 at 9:40am

Basketball!

This school season is my littlest brother's senior year. Tyler is exceptionally tall (6ft 9in at 17yrs old!) and starts on his high school's varsity team. I have gone to every game of his that I could his entire school career. Especially since I've had Zane. I love taking Zane to the basketball games. I feel, as Tyler's big sister, that I should support him as much as I can. And since this is his senior year, there are only a few more games to see. :-( Next year, Tyler will be going off to Jacksonville University in Florida to play basketball. I am so happy for him, but man am I going to miss going to his games every week in the winter.

Just recently, Zane has started watching Tyler's games. Before, he would play with my hair or walk around the bleachers playing with anything and everything. But now, he is Tyler's littlest champion! Check out this video clip we got from last night's game:





Is that not adorable??

Zane

Here is Zane's 1st year of life in pictures! What good is a new blog without a lot of pictures?



Zane was born at 35 and a half weeks gestation. He came out with some respiratory distress and an infection/fever. So he got to stay in the NICU for one whole week. The first two days, he stayed under a special humidified oxygen hood. Then he got to do the phototherapy lights for jaundice. And then he finished out his week of IV antibiotics before he could come home.








Little Notre Dame fan already!





Smiles!








Zane and his cousin, Scylas (Scylas was born at 34 weeks and was only 4lb 4oz! Zane was 18lbs here....)



Mommy's Valentine



Rooting for Uncle Tyler's basketball team.



Visiting Aunt Clayli



Zane and his big brother, Devyn.



1st time in the pool!









Zane and Scylas have a love/hate relationship. Zane loves Scylas. Scylas hates Zane.



His curls! I miss those curls so very much.



The birthday boy!



And now the curls are gone. :(


Well, there's his first year. Do you know how hard it was to try and pick only one picture from each month?? Man oh man that was hard. And oh the memories. I cannot WAIT to go through all of this again soon!

Babies

I have been pregnant five times now. I'm currently pregnant! I have one lovely baby boy. And I have three angels in heaven. In September of 2007, I lost my first baby at 9 weeks gestation. It was a surprise pregnancy and even more of a surprise to lose him/her. My second baby lost was in March 2009. We made it to 14 weeks that time before losing him. Yes, him. We named him Danny Neil, after my and Jeremy's grandfathers. And my third baby was lost that same year in July at 5 weeks.

After the third lost baby, my OB finally agreed to send me to a specialist to see if we could find out why my body could get pregnant but not stay pregnant. I had a lot of blood drawn and saw a Maternal/Fetal Medicine specialist in Indy. I found out that I have hetero MTHFR c677t and PAI-1 4g4g. That's a complicated way to say my blood clots too easily. It is theorized that I had clots in utero that blocked blood to the baby, causing them to die. It also puts me at higher risk for strokes and heart disease.

The good news though, was that there is a treatment that could help me carry a baby to term. That treatment is to take a low dose aspirin every day for the rest of my life and to give myself shots of blood thinner while pregnant.

We got pregnant for a fourth time in February of 2010. I was on a girls' vacation in Florida with my mom and sister when I found out. I wasn't married yet then, so can you imagine trying to explain to your mother why you brought pregnancy tests on vacation? The shots, Lovenox, gave me my take home baby, Zane. :-)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, hello there, ladies!

Zane has learned how to unzip his pajamas. This made for an interesting evening with lots of giggles.

Happy Valentine's Day from the stud muffin!

A long intro

Okay, I've decided it's time that I started blogging. I will start with what will probably be a long intro of myself.

My name is Jen. I am 28 on the day I'm typing this. I am married to Jeremy. We have been together for over six years. We met while playing softball. My cute story: I was playing third base at a coed softball game when I got hit by a line drive right in the middle of my shin. Instantly swelled up the size of a softball (fitting, right?). It was gross. Really. But Jeremy, the ever valiant gentleman - the only gentleman there - went and got me ice to put on it. It hurt so bad, but I'm a tough girl and couldn't let the guys see the pain. So I walked it off and kept playing. I have a dent in my shin bone now. But I also fell in love with the guy that brought me ice.

We live together in a small house in Kokomo, IN. We got married in May 2010 in a beautiful and small ceremony. Jeremy has a twelve year old son, Devyn. Devyn is the most amazing kid I've ever met. Seriously. He's the most polite, well-mannered, soft-spoken, quiet kid. Everyone he meets says the same. Usually you see kids running around and being loud and obnoxious at least some of the time. Not Devyn. I love that kid. Although he does have an issue going on with school and keeping his grades up.

Devyn plays baseball. And come the spring, if I stick to the blog thing, you'll no doubt see lots of comments and pictures from his games. Jeremy won't be his coach this year. He had a major medical issue early 2009, which I'll get into more in later posts, but he's okay now. Just not 100%. Besides, I think he enjoys just being able to watch the game now.

So while Devyn plays baseball, I should mention that I play softball. Oh wait, I already did. Ha. I've played for seven years now here in Kokomo. There's a women's league and a coed league. It's my summer lifeline. If I didn't get active with softball, I'd weigh 300 pounds. And I warn you now - I'm not very modest when it comes to softball. Or any sports I play. But, sadly for my weight, I am going to be missing my second softball summer again this year.

On to my work. I work for my mother. At home! My mom is VP of a recruiting firm. I am a researcher for the recruiters. When the recruiter gets a job position that they need to fill, I go online to the back end of the job search engines and look at the resumes of people in there. I find the people that match what the recruiters are looking for for our clients. Super easy. I work from my couch and I love it so much.

I didn't forget Zane. I just saved him, the best, for last! Zane is my baby boy. Yes, I know he's technically a toddler. Zane was born 10/5/2010, 5 weeks early, and after I had had three miscarriages. The name "Zane" means "God is gracious." And He really is. Z (as I will no doubt refer to him from here on out) is awesome. I'm probably biased just like any other mom would be. I think this blog will end up being about Z.


Is this long enough for my first post? I think so! I have a lot of things I want to get out. But I don't have time tonight to verbalize everything - so I'll break them up over the next few weeks. You'll learn a lot about me and my family, don't worry.