Happy News

Okay, I've pretty much blabbed to most of my family and friends--it's time to make it official: I'm pregnant! Again! Some may not have known that I was pregnant last year, and I miscarried in my 6th week. That actually went on for four weeks before I went in and found out for sure, then went for a D&C. (Delicately put: cleaning out of all remaining tissue.) It was much more traumatic than I'd expected something like that to be, and I was upset, to greater and lesser degrees, for the better part of this past year. Now, we're pregnant again. Although this pregnancy wasn't as intensely planned out as the previous pregnancy was, we did hope/suspect it could happen. Already I'm "feeling" more pregnant than I did last year, which I take as a good sign.
Today, I went with the girls to my midwife for our first visit. She didn't do an actual "check-up" this time--that'll happen next week, and I won't take the girls along for that. (They don't need that much education!) It was more of a medical history review and Q&A time... but they told me I'm about 10 1/2 weeks along, where I was thinking I had just crossed over into my 9th week. (I know, that 1/2 week shouldn't matter, but during the first trimester, especially after last year, I'm taking every little bit of ground I can get!) My midwife did pull out her little rubber models of babies in-utero at various stages of the pregnancy. I've seen those several times, of course, but it was really fun for the girls to get an idea of how big (so tiny, really) the baby is right now. An added bonus: we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat already! I wasn't expecting that until at least next week, and maybe later than that. It was so great... that's the thing that always makes it so real for me! So we're looking at early January. Yippee! Cross your fingers, pray, send positive vibes, etc., that the baby and I are both healthy and strong throughout and after pregnancy. Thanks!

Just a few pictures, from Easter Sunday to right after Memorial Day.

The bummer of this summer

What a lovely time we had over Memorial Day weekend! Right up to the point where Josie broke her arm! She was riding Lindsay's bike--which has training wheels--and she 'forgot' how to use the breaks. Panicking as she picked up speed going downhill on our sidewalk, she lifted her legs off the bike and they both fell over. She had scraped her knee, so Jim carried her inside and we bandaged her up. What a fuss she was making, though, over a little scrape on the knee. Then she said she'd hurt her arm, too, but we didn't see a scrape. We sat her in the recliner for a while with a pillow under it, assuming she'd just calm down and be okay. But man, that girl wouldn't stop crying and saying, "It hurts! My arm hurts!" So I go over and ask where it hurts: the inside of the elbow. I'm poking and prodding and squeezing it, trying to feel for a bone sticking out or something. I can't feel anything. (As if I know what I'm doing--actually, I only ended up hurting her arm even more! Duh!) Finally, Jim and I decide that she needs to go to the emergency-care clinic. He brings her home with x-rays and a splint on her arm (wrapped in Ace bandages) and a sling! A few days later, an orthopedic pediatrician decides that, since it's a small break and she's so young, it'll heal quickly enough in the splint... rather than putting a cast on it. So the good news is she only has to have it (in theory) for two weeks; the bad news is, the pools in Lincoln all opened right when she had this happen, so she'll miss the first two weeks of swimming! Bummer! It's been hot enough, but I've managed to keep them occupied for one of those weeks.... I've got five more days to think up alternate activities, then hopefully we'll be pool-bound!