Kittymomma's Adventures

It’s been two months since I last managed to write on this here blog. I don’t understand how the holidays manage to consume all of our time, even when we try to scale back on them as we did this year.

And that is the main reason I have slacked off. Sheer busyness. But it is a New Year and it’s time to get back at it.

The holidays were not as bad as I feared. But I am relieved they are over and we have a breather before we face Lucy’s birthday, Valentine’s Day, Baby Bean’s due date, and Easter. I had one good cry Christmas morning, but it did not seem all that different pain-wise from most other days.

Let’s not even talk about May. I wish I could just wipe it off the calendar this year. J

I have lots of news. The first and most important piece – I am pregnant! We are safely out of the first trimester (just barely). I am due July 28, so I’m not expecting this kid before August 7. The first two came 10 days after their due dates. It was a scary 12 weeks at times, but we have made it through. I’ve already had four ultrasounds, because I kept getting frightened that the baby had died. Luckily, my new doctor’s office is very understanding of my situation and always squeezes me in for a quick check to ease my mind. I think this baby was part of the reason Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s were as bearable as they were.

We are so happy. We finally got to tell Max and he is so happy and not QUITE as fixated on the baby being a girl this time, which is a relief, since he/she was looking boy-like at the last ultrasound last week. But it is still way too early to be sure. However, I’m pretty sure I can feel the baby moving! It’s so much earlier this time, but this ain’t my first rodeo, so I am fairly certain I am feeling the baby. I stretched out on the couch the other night and just focused on him or her wriggling around and smiled. I don’t think I will ever take anything to do with pregnancy or babies for granted again. Neither pregnancy nor babies are easy or fun all the time. But I have a new appreciation for it after experiencing so much fear that I would never get to experience it again.

We have the nuchal translucency (test for Down syndrome) ultrasound this Friday and I think we are going to do the genetic blood testing that can also reveal gender. Insurance will cover it this time, since I will be 35 when this one is born. Now that we have crossed the first hurdle of making it through the first trimester, we have to make sure this little one is healthy. Of course, the main worry is cardiomyopathy, but please send prayers and good thoughts that this little one will look perfect in every way this Friday.

Besides being pregnant, I am now the Secretary of the SoCo Women’s Chorus, an ambassador for the Children’s Cardiomyopathy Foundation, and I have a new potential new project in the works with the American Heart office in Austin. But I am determined to still make time for this blog. I promised Lucy and myself that I would keep trying to write. I am not going to give up on that, no matter how busy I get or how long the hiatuses are.

In other news, Heart Month is coming up! February is both Heart Month and Lucy’s birthday month. Right now, my tentative plan is to share pediatric heart stories (particularly cardiomyopathy, but any pediatric heart condition is eligible) on my blog all month. I am also planning to showcase different pediatric heart conditions on the Team Lucy Facebook and Twitter accounts all during the month of February. If you haven’t “liked” or followed us yet, please do!

http://facebook.com/GoTeamLucy

http://twitter.com/goteamlucy

Please submit your stories and share this post with anyone you know who has a story to share. We desperately need to raise awareness of the plight of children suffering from pediatric heart conditions. I also might share transplant facts, so if you have a transplant story, I would love to share that as well!

As far as Lucy’s birthday, I am still working on how to properly observe it. For now, if you are a person who would have gotten a present for Lucy if she were still here or just someone who cares and wants to help, please consider donating to Children’s Cardiomyopathy Foundation. We would love for them to get a lot of donations in honor of Lucy’s 2^nd birthday.

This is one of those housekeeping posts that probably isn’t the most scintillating to read. It will be interesting to see where the New Year takes me in life, grief, and writing. It was very hard to start a new year without Lucy. It felt so wrong. I have felt my pain change. It is being integrated into my life instead of coming at me in big rushes. I have to accept that life is going to have hurt in the background and still sometimes in the foreground and that that is the price of loving Lucy. Of loving anyone. It’s the risk we all take, whether we know it or ever have to fully pay the price or not.

It is harder to figure out what to say. I find myself not wanting to be as open about it as I was. I’ve found out who my friends are. I am lucky in that most of my friends did turn out to be true friends, with one noteworthy exception that I still feel dumbfounded and blindsided about. But I need to start turning to other parents who have been through it as well. The other day, several of us who have lost children to cardiomyopathy were sharing stories on the Children’s Cardiomyopathy Foundation Facebook page and it felt so good to share with others who had been through the same thing. Not just losing a child, but to the same disease. I hate that anyone has lost their child, but they get it. It eased some of my guilt about Lucy to hear their stories.

So, my journey through grief will still be chronicled here. But I hope to include more about my everyday life and how we are going to shape a future with all three of our children, where we are somehow still one family and not two separate versions. It will be hard, but I know it can be done.