Lots of Memories

Hope everyone had an awesome 4th of July!

It just amazes me how Mira can learn something new literally overnight. For instance she just a couple days ago has decided that Peekaboo is hilarious. Last week if you tried to play Peekaboo with her she looked at you like you belonged in the loony bin. She has discovered her feet too, and how to grab them. I don't know what babies' fascination with feet is all about but it sure is cute!

She loves mirrors too (true diva). She smiles at her reflection and she's started to reach for her reflection. You can see the wheels turning in her head. I always wonder how much babies actually know about what's going on around them - is she just happy because there's a face smiling at her or does she realize she's looking at herself? She's also super interested in food. She watches the food go to your mouth and looks at the food and back to your mouth, makes chewing motions with her mouth, tries reaching for your food - it's really cute but it makes me realize we're coming up on introducing solids very soon. I'll admit breastfeeding is not my favorite thing in the world. In some ways it's convenient, and it's definitely what's best for her, but let's face it, it doesn't make my life any easier. Even just figuring out what clothes I can wear is really frustrating! So as nice as it'll be to start solids, it means she's growing up, and every mom wants her baby to stay small just a little while longer. (Mark, meanwhile, is excited about advancing her diet. The day after she turned 4 months old he bought a box of rice cereal and has been thickening her bottles with it on the nights I work, and apparently she's done really well. I think if I didn't work where I work and didn't have the education on how much of a difference it really makes, I probably would have started her on solids already. It's times like this when I really realize that ignorance truly is bliss.)

It's been neat to watch the progression of her grabbing skills. First she would swipe her hand in the general vicinity of an object and half the time she wouldn't get anywhere near it. Then she'd get her hand on the object but wouldn't be able to grab it very well. Then she'd get better at grabbing but still drop it every time she picked up the object. Now she's really good at grabbing and holding on, and everything gets stuffed into her mouth.

I guess when your first impression of your baby is a completely helpless lumpy blob, even something as simple as reaching for an object is cause for celebration. Think of the nerve connections that had to form!

I mentioned in my last post an event called The Drama and that I would write about it. It seems really fitting that I write about it here because it has been exactly 1 year since it happened. I mentioned that when I found out I was pregnant all I could do was panic. The panic didn't go away after letting the news sit for a couple days. I was almost in denial - I just couldn't wrap my head around the enormous permanence of this!

On the night of July 7, 2010, I went to work as usual. It was a busy night and I was starting to really feel morning sickness (actually for me it turned into all-day sickness) but I was determined not to tell anyone, not even family, until at least after the first OB appointment. Around 10 PM I went to use the bathroom and there was blood EVERYWHERE. This was not that light bleeding that often happens to pregnant women that gets confused with a menstrual cycle. This was an honest-to-goodness hemorrhage. And not just frank bright red blood, but golf ball sized blood clots as well.

I was stunned. There was no doubt what was happening. This had to be a miscarriage. And of course it had to happen at work. I told the charge nurse what was going on and lost it. And of course people saw me crying and wanted to know what was going on. So I had to tell everyone, over and over, what was happening. Which made me cry all over again. And repeat. It was terrible. I started to have cramping and back pain and kept losing lots of blood. It was hours before the assignments could get juggled around and for me to get my replacement nurse. I finally ran out at about 2 AM and called Mark. All I could say was, "I think I'm losing it. Can you meet me at the hospital?" That was the worst dead silence I've ever heard. He was working that night and I guess that's the benefit of having a cop car because he managed to get to LDS Hospital from Davis County before I got there from Primary Children's. (For those of you who aren't familiar - my travel time was less than 10 minutes and Mark's should have been more like 20 minutes.)

They got me into a room really fast in the ER. I told the doctor what was happening and she said it definitely sounded like I was having a miscarriage. I had an IV started and labs drawn and a fluid bolus given. By this time I had resigned myself to the fact that this was baby was a goner and I just needed to make sure everything was okay with me.

After a little while the ultrasound tech came in the make sure I didn't have an ectopic pregnancy. All I could think was that would just be the icing on the cake tonight, to have an ectopic pregnancy and have to go in for emergency surgery. The tech got started and immediately zoomed in on something.

"Wow. There's still a heartbeat."

"WHAT??????"

There was a little fuzzy gray cotton ball with a rapid flickering.

"You're still pregnant."

Mark and I were completely stunned. They dated me at 6 weeks 4 days, putting my due date at February 27th. The tech told the doctor and she was just as surprised as we were. So we were told it was probably a subchorionic hemorrhage and it could be good that there was a heartbeat. But I was still losing a lot of blood and there was a very good chance that I would still miscarry in the next few days. I made an appointment with my OB later that day and he told me pretty much the same thing - he prepared me for what would happen with a miscarriage and how soon we could try again and it was nothing I did wrong that caused this.

The entire first trimester, understandably, was terrifying for us. I continued to bleed for 2 more weeks and the only way I knew everything was okay was because I was nauseous ALL THE FREAKING TIME. At about 8 weeks the bleeding finally stopped and we started to relax a bit, only to get terrified again at 11 weeks when I had another episode of heavy bleeding. I had lots of hCG levels drawn, which were all encouraging, but you can see why we couldn't really relax until we made it to the 2nd trimester. I didn't completely relax until about 30 weeks.

We realized after we chose the name Mira that if we wanted to be cheesy it could be short for Miracle, because she really beat the odds to make it here. All signs pointed to a miscarriage and somehow she made it here. And it really made me realize that even if I was scared to be a mom, I did really want my baby.

Our beautiful, healthy baby girl