16 weeks.

goin on sixteen weeks bebedoll.  you are getting bigger and so am i! most of my pre-you clothes don't fit me anymore. we're in China so 'real' maternity pants aren't much of an option for me right now. Instead I have been using the old hair-tie trick. Looping a hair band through my pants button hole and around the button to give myself just a liiiitle more wiggle room. Thankfully your papa's a real sweetie and has let me do some light shopping for some tops that cover than more than a little awkward wide open zipper. :) It's so fun to wake up in the mornings and realize that you grew a little more while I was sleepin'.


we've been discussing sendin' you and I back to the states for the rest of these nine months. We just think you might need a special doctor after you are born, and that mama needs a high risk pregnancy doctor before you come. Don't worry, we'll figure it all out.


Your dadders is in America for about 2 weeks. I have been a little bit weepy and sad about it, but since you're in my belly I kinda just blame it on you ;) Trust me when I say he is quite a good papa to you already, and I just miss him. I've been very sick for a few days now. I had a bad cold (I think I complained about it to ya last month) that lasted about 3 weeks, which was closely followed by a flu. Aches, shivers, coughing and a stuffy nose. While it makes me a little more sad to not have your dad around, (his hugs are pretty comforting, you'll see) you and I have been sleeping an awful lot, so that makes the time pass a smidge faster.


Anyways....just wanted to pop in and congratulate you on making it to sixteen weeks. This means next week I may be able to find out if you're a little Eisley Eleanor or a little Silas Van. Hopefully you show us the goods in your ultrasound ;) Either way I'm gunna snuggle you like crazy. Whatever you are, sick or perfectly healthy, agile or special needs, extremely shy or totally funny. You're OURS and we just adore ya.

love you snugglebug.

14 weeks

hello, baby bump! this pic was about five days ago and you and i are already bigger. impressive. 

my least glamorous moment

My early morning special:

Low blood sugar, full bladder, and morning sickness, all at once. I  mean REALLY, which one do I try and solve first? If I go for the bladder, then I risk throwing up. If I go for the blood sugar, then I risk throwing up. If I go for solving the morning sickness, (like trying to eat somethin with protein, or some crackers or something) then, well, I risk throwing up. Usually I end up throwing up anyways, so lately I've been emptying my bladder and then racing to the kitchen to bring up my low blood sugar. Sophisticated, huh?

Well. That is nothing in comparison with what I like to call my Least Glamorous Moment.

It occurred at around 2 am yesterday. Let me preface this by explaining a couple things. First, somethin' about pregnancy, of which no one really seems to see the importance of informing you, is the Lack of Bladder Control. As someone who has just recently developed kidney function, you can probably totally see what a big deal this is. It seems like it's something they'd include under the list of Things You're Going to Hate, along with hemorrhoids and nausea and weight gain. But. Whatever.

The other thing you should know is that I have had a cough lately that has to resemble something seen in ancient times, when there was no cough medicine, and you could straight up die from a cold. It's awful, and ugly, and impressive with its powers. Even sans morning sickness, this thing has had me "gripping the toilet bowl", as it were. We don't have an actual toilet bowl, but there's the picture I'm trying to paint. It's BAD. Bruised ribs bad.

And at 2 am, it reached its full potential. I woke up in a start, coughing those body wracking coughs, sprang to the end of the bed to find my 'bucket', (ew, sorry.) and found myself in fetal position on the floor, hacking and yacking, hacking and yacking, and yes. Peeing.
Peeing like an untrained puppy. Peeing like one of my preschoolers
And when I could catch my breath a bit, crying. CRYING.

(needless to say: we've been doing a lot of laundry around here.)

It's now my theory that before one gives birth to their baby, they themselves are the baby. That's not grammatically correct but it is is true, I think, and maybe I should invest in some big people diapers.

That's all I wanted to tell you about, I guess. OH, except that when you are my 'kid' and you get sick, you are STAYING HOME. I blame my student's parents for this havoc being wreaked. Honestly, if your child SNEEZES and what resembles BITS OF HIS BRAIN come out, for the love of anything, ever. Keep him home.

Even you have that much sense, don't you?

Love you baby.

OH (another OH), I also wanted to tell you that at the ultrasound Tuesday, I thought you looked like a boy. Not that I could 'see' anything, I just really thought you looked like a boy. Probably silly. But it's worth mentioning because I have formerly been a strong team-pink-er, and thought I'd be a bit bummed if we weren't having a girl. But when I thought you were a boy for a second, I got really really happy. Turns out I love n' adore you no-matta-what.

Those are good odds :)

Love,
Mama

13 weeks!!!

Here you are!!!!

ten fingers

ten toes

good lookin' spine

big ol fetus brain.

so far, so good.

and i got to see you wrigglin' and wigglin' and waving your arms around. it looked pretty fun. you're really starting to look like a baby, baby. 

<3

dinner time

What I wish I was eating...Strawberry and chocolate milk shake. French fries. Maybe some french fries dipped in strawberry and chocolate milk shake.
What I am eating: grilled chicken and scrambled egg. Grapes. Orange juice.

Here's to good decisions for your little fetus self.

Like our dreams Like our lives

Wiped the lipstick from my mouth

Took my mama’s diamond earrings out

Laid the dress out on the bed

Laid my head on your chest

Remember we said we were gonna live forever

And we would paint over the writing on the wall

Chase that sunset till we’re blind

Then wake up to find

We are only human after all

We are only human after all

 Staring out across the lake

That horizon’s turning red and grey

Watch the waves as they fall and rise

Like our dreams like our lives

Remember we said we were gonna live forever

And we would paint over the writing on the wall

Chase that sunset till we’re blind

Then wake up to find

We are only human after all

I heard this song again today and it made me think of your dad and i. our one year weddin' anniversary is coming up. we got engaged in Ohio on our first real date and three days later we got married in Virginia. A few weeks later we had a really charming backyard wedding in June, and I moved from California to VA to live with your daddy. I can honestly say that those six weeks were the happiest I have ever been. We've been happy since then, but it was just him and I and I feel like I've never been more myself. Or more accepted. We went down to visit FLorida family after that for a few weeks, before we moved our lives out to China. It's hard to believe that all this started not even a year ago. It hadn't really started, anyways. Last March I was in love. and scared. and then I saw your daddy and I wasn't scared anymore. Looking over all the change in one year, and now your impending life, it's crazy. it's overwhelming. it's too much, really, I can't believe it was me, leaping like that. Even now....If I was alone and about to be a mama....But then I look at your dad again. And he makes me brave. 

Getting on all those planes, I really felt like I could do anything. "Chase the sunset til we're blind..." We are human, and we are feeble. But my dreams aren't fading. They're just beginning. 

middle of the night sickness.

2-5 am seems to be your prime. you're nearly the size of a lemon (and we're nearly at 13 weeks together) and here's the deal. the middle of the night is when you like best to remind you of your existence.
it seems like every time i brag that the nausea and sickness is passing, i wake up between 2 and 5 am, sick as a dog. i know i talk to you about this a lot, but it's our first trimester together, and it's been sorta like a dark cloud of nausea and the i-wanna-crawl-in-a-dark-dark-hole feeling. oh, you know that feeling? it's probably pretty dark in there where you are...ha.ha....mom's funny.

but really. looking over the past three months really is like staring into fog and darkness, in which lots of moaning and puking took place. it's blackness with hints of light, like when i heard your heartbeat after i thought you were gone from me. THAT was crazy cool. it sounded like galloping horses. multiple galloping horses. i think you were probably showing off cause it was the first time we heard you, and you were kinda like "DUDES i have been trying to tell you I'M STILL HERE. why else do you think you've had your face in a squatty potty for the last week and a half? Duh doi."

anywho. i'm here in our freezing apartment with yet another i-got-sneezed-on-a-lot-this-week cold. i started coughing in the middle of the night and felt your papa roll over and start rubbing my back. you don't know this yet but back pats and rubs are the epitome of instant-comfort. then the nausea hit like a real bad thunder storm so i think i'm green in the face right now, and super happy it's 3 am and dark in the world. (ie no one can see how lovely i am.)  i discovered i can make toast in our make shift oven. (un-toasted bread freaks me out since you came along. what? you tell me.) so toast, peanut butter, and banana slices again. so grateful those three staples in the world of surviving morning/middle of the night sickness are on the affordable list in China. otherwise i might be stuck eating rice and some kinda fish....and even saying that to you was a mistake. sorry. i'll go back to meditating about dark holes to crawl in, and acceptable foods, like apple slices.

you're kinda puttin' me through hell but they say that might be the sign of a healthy pregnancy, so i guess, keep it up? love you anyways!

night babers.

cheerios.

up at 2 am with mild nausea...last night i dreamt of a bowl of cheerios and a cut up banana, and then day-dreamt of it all day. so. here i am. downing a bowl of honey nut, banana slices, and the first brand of milk i've liked in china since being pregnant. (possibly because it tastes like bananas.) and i'm chanting in my mind, "please oh please oh please oh please, no vomiting in the morning." here's to keeping it away with potassium power!!

fingers crossed.

purple fuzzy flowers

your pops just came home with a bundle full of flowers. told you he likes us ;)
(just so you know. sometimes i look more decent than this.)

sometimes i'm afraid.

so here is the truth of the matter.

yesterday, i slept from the moment i walked in the door, until well after the cows came home.

in case that equation is too tricky, it estimates roughly 15 hours of sleep.

having a head cold, and crazy-mean-violent-monster morning sickness, and diabetes creates quite a walking disaster.

last night your daddy went out to buy us some more test strips to check my blood sugar. been doing an awful lot of that these days. some days i am only positive and hopeful. other days, like when a throat infection causes crazy blood sugar readings, i can't really hide the worried-sick-feelings.

did i ever tell you that you're already a miracle? we thought we lost you there for a hot minute. there was bad, sharp, deep, cramping and lots of painful bleeding, and tissue loss, and i thought i saw you come out.

i cried. a lot. and wept and cried some more. and your daddy lit candles so the light would be soothing and played sweet worship music and i cried and wept and cried. and i took about a hundred showers that week. and i threw up a lot, because, ugly detail as it is, the mornin' sickness was still in full swing. and i laid on the couch in heaps of blankets and hardly slept. and then around the fourth day i started to paint.

somewhere in all the sleeplessness and heart ache, i dozed off and dreamt of you. i dreamt i was standing in an overgrown field, and i was frantically searching for something. i had grips and grips of tall grass in my fists, and i was dirty, and tired, i could feel it, and i had been weeping- my face was swollen with grief. i was saying "where are you...?" then all around me the wind picked up, and hundreds of dandelions with it, and they all swirled and drifted away, toward the sky.

that was the first thing i painted. i painted you, in those dandelions, my little dandelion child, and the devastation i felt that week is living solid proof of the deep meaning in your life. you were meant for life. you were meant for me, because as it turns out, the answer to my question was RIGHT HERE. you were still right here, living in me, with every odd against you.

the doctor described you in broken english as, "so strong."

strength in a little, fragile, baby bird.

anyway. i wish that was enough to put every fear to silence. you have already lived when you should not have; you must be super-human-viking baby. but i know that you are still so small. and so reliant on me. and so reliant on my body. and my body is so feeble, sweet baby...my body can in one moment and one change of condition, become toxic for you. it's a painful awareness...

yesterday some sharp pains came back, like the ones i had before. those were a major contributor to the straight to bed strategy. i love you, painful amounts, and those pains reminded me that we are not out of the woods yet.

i just keep doing my best. pricking and poking away. you were not planned, little one. i mean, you were planned before time started and all the days on earth got rollin', you just weren't in MY plans. which makes this type 1 diabetes, foreign country, pregnant mommy thing a whole lot trickier. diabetic mamas are supposed to plan. painstakingly. far in advance. so i have fear about that, too...i wonder how your lungs are looking in there, and your tiny eyes, and your spine and your brain that will one day think up brilliant, amazing things. i worry about you. As your mama, I want my womb to be the safest place you could ever be. It is painful for me to know that it is not; that as such a tiny size you could be suffering.


¹ O LORD, You have searched me and known me. 
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up; 
You understand my thought from afar. 
³ You scrutinize my path and my lying down, 
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. 
⁴ Even before there is a word on my tongue, 
Behold, O LORD, You know it all. 
⁵ You have enclosed me behind and before, 
And laid Your hand upon me. 
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; 
It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

i think of Him protecting you inside that place of 'protection.' Protecting you from what should have protected you, but because of fallen nature and a fallen body, can't really do it's full job. 

i love you tiny one. your heavenly father loves you; and i just wanted to let you know that however you come out, you're already a totally mind blowing miracle. 

xo,

mama