A long time ago, before Steve and I had Rowan, we had a Korean home teacher who was studying as an opera singer. Apparently it's a good thing he didn't quit to become a clairvoyant. One day while he was over, he pulled out a piece of my hair, tied it to his wedding ring and proceeded to predict the genders of all my future children. It was something his mother had taught him- a popular practice in Korea. He had been correct, until now. She had her face buried and we got no cute profile pictures or really anything discernible beyond her gender. So she can't blame me later on for posting this because she really didn't give me any other options. :)
They tell me she has long narrow feet. It seems at least one of Steve's features made its way through. They also tell me she is measuring 2 weeks ahead of where we should be. That's when my Ukrainian genes come into play. No little Luke girls here! The funny thing about the "Korean prophecy" is that it went- boy, girl, boy, boy, boy, boy...- eventually I just told him to stop. So I am thankful that I'm not going to be still having babies while I'm in my forties. But I was fairly convinced it was a boy, leaving me to strike out for the third time when it comes to accurately predicting gender. I wore blue to support my guess. Steve was more conservative and predicted that we would see a baby. He's not the risk taker in the family. :)
We have decided to name her Elsa, unless a better option presents itself, but I kind of doubt it. It just feels right, much like what we experienced with Rowan. So far Nadia is the only one who gave us a hard time when it came to picking names, but Rowan was always very adamant that her name be Nadia. Nadia's suggestions for this baby's name include such memorable monikers as "Lazy Pineapple," which may be a pretty accurate description for now, but I don't think she'd appreciate it in the future. So rather than rely on our kids' creativity, we would love suggestions for middle names!
I married my sweetheart. We celebrated with a seafood dinner and a Tom Cruise movie. Both have the potential for discontent after consumption, but thankfully we made it out just fine. It was a pleasant evening- how I have missed date night since we've moved from Illinois! Steve was my best friend when I married him and that relationship has only strengthened over the years. I have a lot of regrets in my life, but I can say with complete confidence that this will never be one. My life began when I married him and he has brought me so much peace, joy, and comfort over the years. I can't help but look forward to what's to come.
Following tradition, I convinced Rowan that he wanted a cherry cheesecake for his birthday. I don't know how many more years he'll go along with it, but I suspect he likes it as much as I do.
I'd forgotten to get birthday cake candles, so we improvised with a lone sparkler and tea lights. I think I might have to make one for my birthday this week. Sooooo good!!!
Our little 6 year has blossomed this year. He's received just about every award he could possibly get at his school and he's reading like a champ.
He was the Terrific Kid of the School. He also got another Fatz Cafe certificate for being a good listener and a special Gator award from the school counselor for being a good example. Go Rowan!
Some pictures that his teacher posted on their class website: We love you buddy!!! You're the best brother/son/boy we could ask for!
It's inevitable that by the time Christmas, birthdays and our anniversary are over, I'm too overwhelmed to even want to start blogging about it. Hopefully I can catch up today.
Christmas
Grandma Dorothy came for 2 weeks at Christmastime giving our family something to look forward to. We've been feeling the absence of family more strongly in South Carolina than we did in Illinois, so we look forward to all the visitors we can get! Nadia took to Grandma like a fish to water. This girl doesn't need much warm up time with extended family.
Nadia learned several Christmas songs, her favorite being, of course, Jingle Bells. She's got the Batman version memorized, but often we hear a mixture of different lyrics.
We were very blessed this Christmas!
We had to wake Nadia up so that we could be at church on time. So she was a little grumpy at first.
Thank you to Walches
(When Steve opened your present, we didn't realize until later that mine was with it. I'm MUCH more appreciative of Mindy Gledhill than he is! :) I also got a great book with your gift card- Thank you!)
Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa Luke
Thank you for the funds to get a wheat grinder and new athletic shoes!! (Sadly this is the best picture of me I could bear to post) We're super excited about it!
Thank you to Chandra!!! (I accidentally forgot to wrap these on Christmas and later remembered they were tucked away in the closet. My bad. The kids were more than happy to have belated gifts though!) We love the books- I'm a big fan of all America's Test Kitchen's cookbooks and Steve really likes Mark Steyn's work.
Everyday while Grandma Dorothy here was like Christmas Day. Fortunately, we were able to discourage her from buying things that wouldn't fit in the house and she was able to restrain spoiling the kids too much. Nadia got a beautiful robot kitty (she's still disappointed that she didn't get a real one- poor kid. Rowan got a remote control helicopter that I think Steve likes as much as he does.
Mom also made me a bunch of maternity skirts and a dress along with treating me to a nice haircut. One day I hope to be as talented as her at whipping these things up! She also gave Steve some speakers for his laptop. Thanks Mom!!
The kids got Nintendo DS players from us with a slew of games. Total score at a garage sale- they were selling a boy player with Lego Games (Rowan said "Lego Harry Potter? Daddy, what were you thinking?!?" Steve's never been more proud. I'm sure one day he'll find that Harry Potter isn't as bad as Steve makes him out to be) and a girl player with Build-a-Bear and Dora games. It could not have been more perfect.
Apparently we've become gamers in this house, because I caved and gave Steve (and Rowan who is also obsessed with the game) Minecraft. Steve gave me some Nancy Drew PC games (don't knock it till you try it). We're all doomed. Nadia burnt out on opening gifts in the morning, so we waited until after church to open the rest. We should all have such trials.
I stayed up until 1am making cinnamon rolls for the next day and working with Steve to get everything together. Not doing that again! But the rolls were delicious.
We finished the evening with a fantastic dinner. I got too tired to make "figgy pudding", but overall I think we did well. Steve even called me the following day while mom and I were out and told me how good the leftovers were and how much he appreciated me for making it. Such a sweetheart. Some of the evening's offerings...
Merry Christmas from us all! We hope you had as wonderful of a day as we did! (Rowan was super uncooperative for pictures- stinker!)
Before I was married and even contemplating having kids, I never imagined in my wildest dreams how difficult it would be. Not so much the actual raising of kids (I knew that would be hard after being a nanny), but the risks and obstacles with pregnancy and delivering the child into this world. It seems that I hardly know anyone who hasn't had difficulties at some stage of the process. Getting pregnant, keeping the pregnancy, delivering the baby- honestly it seems like a wonder that they are worried about overpopulation.
This is my sixth pregnancy. I thought my problems had been fixed with a surgery where they removed a septum in my uterus (bicornuate). When I went in for my first ultrasound with this pregnancy, they looked at exactly where the placenta was attached to make sure it wasn't near my former problem area which I was told caused my previous losses. Which made me wonder, why couldn't they have noticed that at least where the stillborn was concerned. They knew the septum would cause problems since there isn't much, if any, blood flow in there. Surely they would have noticed in my ultrasounds that that baby's placenta was partially attached to my septum. So I mentioned this to my current doctor and she seemed to question my former doctor's prognosis as well. Cue the onslaught of tests. After a while, she got back to me telling me that I was homozygous for MTHFR, which in her books means I am a blood clot waiting to happen. Wonderful.
Her solution was to get me on blood thinners, specifically Lovenox, a lovely little injection you do once a day. During this period of time we discovered some insurance issues that we were unaware of at the time and found we will be paying for most of this pregnancy out of pocket, minus the labor and delivery. That's a VERY long, convoluted story that I'll spare you, but suffice it to say that also means we're on the hook for prescriptions costs. Lovenox costs $1800 a month. Nice.
My doctor suggested applying for what is known as Compassionate Care for Lovenox, aka charity from a prescription company. Her nurse would "take care of it" in her words. So I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally I called this nurse asking for an update and she told me she hadn't gotten very far and I would have to fill out the forms myself. Thanks for letting me know! I proceeded to start the process by calling the program only to be informed that "this service will desist operations December 16, 2011".
So here I am. Part of me is leery that I even need this stuff. There seems to be a lot of differing opinions in the medical field about this particular genetic mutation. Regardless I've started taking baby aspirin and fish oil supplements hoping that that will be enough. I don't really want to kill our savings and go into debt just to take a drug that I MAY need. I just wish I had more concrete answers. All I can do right now is ride the train and see where I end up. Sadly that results in me waking up at 4am and having a pity party because I haven't felt the baby move that much. I've fully entered Paranoia-ville. My mom convinced me to order a fetal doppler to give me at least some peace of mind. Otherwise most of this situation is out of my control.
I have faith that this will all work out, but I can't say that that belief includes a healthy baby at the end of the tunnel. I'm starting to realize that faith has little to do with assurances of good outcomes, just that we will make it through. And we will make it through this, at least I know that much.
We're less than a week away from Christmas, so it's only appropriate that I'm only just getting to Thanksgiving, right? Such is the life of a procrastinator. We had a great Thanksgiving! I think it is the first time where we had a combined meal where I was drooling over every single dish. Probably because we were fortunate enough to NOT have cranberry sauce grace the table and also because Sister Aiken made the most amazing sweet potato casserole. Sweet potatoes can be hit or miss for me, they really need to be prepared right.
The bishop's family invited us over along with another family in our ward to their house and it was a really nice visit. I thought my kids would be attached to us the entire time, but they played nonstop with the other kids while we were there. The bishop's son (about 10 years old) was essentially the Pied Piper of the group and entertained the little kids (5 of them) all evening. It was wonderful.
Steve did his traditional brined and rotisserie turkey. I have yet to compare it to deep fried turkey, but I think it is the most flavorful method of cooking and this year it was the best one yet. The bishop did a smoked version that was also very good and his stuffing was to die for. I can't say enough good things about the food that night.
Later in the evening, we went to Steve's boss' house for a dessert party. Not as enjoyable, but it was still okay. The kids that did come decided to go upstairs and watch Gremlins and there was no way Rowan and Nadia were going to go see that, so we stayed downstairs with the food. We were all still pretty stuffed from dinner, but somehow Rowan managed to down 4 plates of desserts. He's such a bottomless pit when it comes to sugar. We made our exit after about an hour as the kids were getting tired and we didn't really know that many people there. None of the other postdocs were there and so we felt a little out of place.
All in all though a great day. Great food, great company, and great conversations. We are very blessed.
She had her face buried and we got no cute profile pictures or really anything discernible beyond her gender. So she can't blame me later on for posting this because she really didn't give me any other options. :)
I wore blue to support my guess. Steve was more conservative and predicted that we would see a baby. He's not the risk taker in the family. :)
