Updates! Updates! Updates!

A lot has happened since the last time I blogged. We now know the gender of  our little #2.   It is.....a rattle cake with BLUE on the inside! Yes, sirs and ma'ams it's another beautiful little boy!!!! :)  I am officially due on October 3rd, but will most likely have a scheduled C-section around the 26th of September.

My pregnancy has been pretty flawless sans the hormone fluctuations which are driving me insane. I haven't wanted to be around anyone recently and especially my spouse's family.  I have never been much for big families and I married into a sizable one that gets together on nearly every holiday.  This is hard for me, because I would like to start traditions and do my own thing with the family I have created instead of having the holidays monopolized.  The other problem is...while I could discuss this with my husband, and he might be willing to discuss "doing our own thing" sometimes...it cannot be accomplished without guilt. Thus, I don't say anything....it's been difficult to say the least. But, due to my bringing up it has been a battle I have been internally fighting for the 15 years we have been together.  Naturally, there is a lot more to the story, isn't there always?  But, that's a blog post for another day and perhaps when I can have a glass of wine...which means it won't be a post that comes to life for at least 6 or more months!

My first beautiful boy, Bradley will be turning ONE in just about 6 weeks!  I suppose I need to get planning! I think we'll just have an intimate birthday party here at the house, but I'd like to do some exciting things with decorations and what not, if I have the time. I want to make it special for him because the past year has been so special to me!  He has been a wonderful addition to my life and while it hasn't all been roses, it has been an amazing experience. One I would not change.  At 10 months old he is pulling up on everything and gets very frustrated with his inability to walk.  I truly believe that some time int he next 6 weeks he'll be walking!  Which, dare I say, I am looking forward to if it stops the incessant crying because he can't do what he wants.

Mama needs a spanking!

I have not been a good blogger lately! Okay, let's be honest I've been a bad blogger from the get-go. I never really blogged as much as I had anticipated! I am trying to change my ways but it is difficult to find the time to blog and to find material worth blogging about.

My life has been pretty busy lately with the onset of Spring, the Mommy Playgroup I joined, Bradley, and the new baby on the way.  My life has been full and my house is the farthest thing from clean I have seen.  I need to figure out how to manage a baby and cleaning at the same time. I guess I should be cleaning right now since my baby boy is preoccupied with a hot wheels care and chewing on the apron in that he pulled down off of the towel holder in the kitchen!

My take on Fifty Shades of Grey-An unrelated Mommy Post

Even with the little one in tow I have tried to find some Mommy time at night. Mostly right before bed. Thankfully, Mr. Bradley has decided that he would sleep through the night and he has been going strong, with just a few hiccups, for about 2 months time now. I have been very impressed and feel absolutely blessed!

So in my Mommy time, one of the things I like to do is take a nice hot bath to relax from my stressful day and read a few pages of a book before bed.  In general, the genre I like most I would define as snarky paranormal romance with a sprinkle of romance.  In my youth, I enjoyed books laden with sexy bits, but once you are married for a good number of years and have a child and a household to take care of your tastes change.  What I used to find sexy, intriguing and refreshing has changed tremendously.  Now a clean kitchen sink at the end of the evening is sexy.

At any rate, as a pretty average suburban Mom I tend to watch the Today show most mornings while my little one has his breakfast bottle.  I remember hearing the ladies on Kathie Lee and Hoda talking  about this book that had swept the nation with its popularity.  Apparently, I had been "cave-livin'" cause I had not even heard of it until this point.  At any rate the book was called Fifty Shades of Grey and was on the NY Times Best Seller list for some time.  So, I dutifully called my sister-in-law (a great woman and connoisseur of racy books) only to find she had not read it, nor heard much about it.  By the end of the weekend she had purchased all three books in the trilogy and read through all but 200 pages of the last novel.

Three days later I purchased the book for my Nook reader and began the dark journey through this book.  I think this book is interesting and very sexy, in parts it was a little too sexy.  Not because of the material, but because of the frequency with which it occurs in the novel.  The best parts of the book are the underlying plot and the vocabulary.    I could go on and on about the vocabulary! I have always had a strong battery of $0.25 words and even a smattering of $0.50 words, but the some of the words in this book I have never in my life heard! I do love to learn new things, so this is one aspect that I thoroughly enjoyed about this novel!

As for the sexy bits, they are plentiful and at times quite dark.  At first i was intrigued, but as the pages wore on I had that "oh this again? get on with it" feeling.  However, there was enough of a cliffhanger left at the end of the first book in the trilogy to prompt me to buy the second.  I am currently reading the second book in the trilogy and have to say that I am mildly bored at this point.  I hope that it picks up, but I am a little lost and this may be because I never had sympathy nor empathy for any of the characters in the book.  I am finding now that I have made no real connection to the characters.  This may be the one true failing of this novel.

The Cat Has Left The Bag!

On April Fools day we decided that we would go ahead and announce to all of our extended family, some close family, and everyone on Facebook that we are expecting!  I knew immediately after my BFP how I would do it, and I feel blessed to have been able to do it in this manner...What manner you ask?  Well, a picture is worth a thousand words as they say...so let me just show you how I did it.

This picture elicited a big response and many thought it was an April Fool's joke, but I assured them all it was not.  I did have to field some questions about how far apart the babies would be, and it turns out that they will be 14 months apart.  I always wanted twins so we'll see how this goes..I am sure I am up for a mega challenge and I do want to do my very best to keep them separated and allow them to have their own identity.

I am already in a bit of a panic over where little Mr. will go when his sibby gets here and Mommy has to stay in the hospital for up to 3 days (I am a forced/schedule C-section due to my anatomy).  My sis should be coming in to help out, as she said she really wants to do so.  I will not allow my son to stay away from the hospital too long though or send him away to someone else's house while I have baby #2. That to me does not send a good message to him and while he will only be 14 months old, I still feel it's just not right to do.

I am sure that the masses just think that I got "magically" pregnant, but we all know that's not the case and that it took another IVF+ICSI with assisted hatching and it took over 70+ shots again.  Perhaps, one day I will share this news with my husband's family and others but for now only a select few know what we have been through to create our family.

NT Scan Results Are In

If you are NOT an older mom, or considered AMA (Advanced Maternal Age) you may be unfamiliar with the NT scan.  I will attempt to explain it. The NT scan is an acronym for Nuchal Translucencey and it is a test that is administered when the Mom to be is approximately 11-13 weeks along in her pregnancy.

This test is at the beginning of the line of tests that helps in determining if the child being carried will suffer from Downs Syndrome  or other similar chromosomal abnormalities.  It entails a sonogram, which will be one of the first if not the first that is "above ground" or rather...not vaginal.  Yes, Ladies that's correct you have graduated to the stomach sonogram! If you have been through an IUI or an IVF cycle then you will definitely appreciate this momentous occasion!  The test is also accompanied by a simple blood draw that helps the test to be more conclusive.


As I stated this test is the first in the line of diagnostic tests or maybe I should say discovery tests when it comes to certain chromosomal abnormalities.  If for any reason the tests do not come out in a favorable fashion or they seem to be leaning towards the indication that there could potentially be something wrong with the fetus then you can get a more invasive test performed such as the CVS (chronic villi sampling, or an amniocentesis).  While, this test does have a fair bit of information....any test can lead you astray and people have been known to have findings that seemed to point one way and turned out another. So, if something should happen during your NT test, try to remain calm and wait for more information. Pregnant women don't need anymore stress than absolutely necessary.

Okay, so back to the NT scan in particular basically they look at some features of the developing baby. One being the nose bridge, it was important for my doctor to see a prominent nose bridge with my pregnancies and thankfully the Polish side of the family does not disappoint!  The other bit of information that they look for is the fluid in the back of the baby's neck. They are looking for a certain measurement.  I am not a doctor nor a sonographer so I do not understand the exact measurements they are looking for, and I will not pretend to know. I am just a woman who has been blessed with two pregnancies. I will include a few links for your further investigation.  Wikipedia has a fairly decent and easy to understand write up about the procedure which can be found.here.  Additionally, there is a good resource at this website.

My doctor seemed to think everything looked fine for baby #2 and the blood test results came back yesterday and they were "normal".  Yippee!

Disney Songs & Kitchen Cleanliness

I've had a few ups and downs lately which has caused me to be less than active on my blog. I suppose blogs are for you to get out your words and thoughts and so I should have been updating all throughout this crazy time, but I felt that it would be better not to do so.  This past weekend was a good one, it had its ups and downs (Saturday up, Sunday down), but today has been a wonderful day. 

The boy is teething again, I am pretty sure..I turned him upside down (one of his favorite things) and he was wide-mouthed and excitedly laughing so I had a chance to look into his mouth and I do believe I saw the start of these two little tell tale holes that begin the teething nightmare.  I noticed these when he got his first two bottom teeth and it would appear that we are very close to this again.  I noticed last week he was feverish and snotty as all get out, but I thought he got sick from my friends at the salon.  I did keep in mind that it could be round two of teething because these are also symptoms of teething and sure enough that is what it looks like.  I am hoping that he isn't too miserable on Wednesday when we have our first baby play date!

I did manage to find a playgroup and a mommy meetup group that I thought would be a good fit for me.  I actually joined two of them, but will probably fit in more with the one group. I just want to keep my options open and do something with Bradley one to two times per week so that I can get him out and socialized with babies around his age.  I also need a support group because while my husband tries and is wonderful...he still has to work 8-11 hours a day which means I have the boy from approximately 7am to 5:30pm solo.


Today has been a great day though...I spent some much needed time working on cleaning my kitchen and listening to some of my favorite Disney tunes on Pandora.  I always loved those Disney movies and can't wait to watch them with Bradley and hopefully baby #2 also.  I am still apprehensive about my pregnancy and not sure everything is okay, but I'll be able to see the baby again and have my NT scan on March 26th, 2012 which should put me at ease.  I am definitely looking forward to being put at ease for once. I have been on an emotional roller coaster since Bradley was three months old.

Everytime my kid meltsdown...I eat a cookie

This cannot end in a good way for me or my efforts to not gain an additional forty pounds during this pregnancy.  So my first child is "spirited".  He's been a tough baby from the get-go, I think and let's face it if I think so then it's reality.  People on face book (neighbors/family) make comments all the time about his smiling face and what a happy baby he is, but the truth is he's happy when he's thoroughly entertained and if he's not happy  he's carrying a pitched fork and donning a forked tongue.

His Grandmother always says 'oh I love his personality', um sure you do! I'm not about to post a bad picture of him or a screaming picture of him on face book her to take (20 seconds after I post it-she's quick on the draw) for her or anyone else to slather all over their face book.

Anyway,  the simple fact is that I have to find a way to stop eating my emotions because right now...my current plan of screamfest=cookie is NOT working!  I can possibly get away with it for the next 7 months as I am with child #2 (and probably final child-2 is after all a nice and wonderfully prime number* yes it's PRIME). 

Emotional eaters unite! I definitely have to find a better way..maybe eating carrot sticks? That just doesn't sound as fun though!  Oh well, so far I'm doing okay...after all there is no way I can eat more than say...two dozen cookies as the recipe only made that many!  Blech