Miscarriage - April 2011

My heart hurts as I write this. Tomorrow, April 21st, 2011, I will be going in for another D&C. We found out in February that following my D&C in January, we were expecting again. We were so excited & things seemed to be going well. No problems that we noticed, no nagging feeling to be prepared for the worst, only excitement (and a little nervousness following the previous pregnancy).

We went to the doctor on April 11th for a routine ultrasound & 10 week doctor's appointment. On the ultrasound, there was our baby. Looking back, although the u/s tech didn't say anything at first, I think she knew right away something was wrong. She took some pictures, & then zoomed in on our baby. No heartbeat. Measuring 8 weeks & 5 days. We got some precious pictures of our tiny baby. We decided to check one more time for a heartbeat the following week, knowing that sometimes things get missed & knowing that God can do miracles if he choses. We went back yesterday & there was no change. After talking to the doctor, we decided another D&C was the best option for us since my body is not miscarrying the way it should.

I am angry, as I am sure everyone understands. I cry out to God often, “Why, God? Why my baby? My is my baby dead?” I don't understand it & I am sure God understands my anger. My heart is broken over the loss of my baby that I will never get to hold & won't get to meet until I get to heaven. I hold it together pretty well in public, but by myself, I am a mess.

This is not what I saw for my life. I thought we'd have several little ones, close to the same age to all grow up together. I never expected to have problems getting pregnant, carrying a baby to term, or staying pregnant. I suppose no one sees that for their life though. My heart hurts because I know how much we want another baby & it feels like it will never happen.

So now what? We're going in at 9 am to prep for a 11 am surgery. We're working on picking a name to refer to this little one as. I am hoping the doctor will be able to tell us the gender, but I don't know. Not sure where we go after the surgery is over. Probably taking a break for a while as we regroup & decide what our next step is. Try for another biological child? Just wait for foster kids? Pursue an adoption? I don't know.

But then my sweet boy wakes up & I realize how blessed I am. He makes me smile & is so precious. He is smart & wonderful & a true testiment to how good God really is. If we never have another child, we know that we are lucky to be blessed with our preemie miracle.

Be praying for us. Derrick is doing a great job of being strong for me, but I know he is hurting, too. Pray for health & safety for me tomorrow. Pray that Dylan doesn't cause too much trouble for the sitter & Grandma Denise tomorrow ;) More than anything, pray that God will heal us, both physically & emotionally, & guide us in what to do next.

Thanks for all your support, love, & prayers.  

Family Update

I wasn't going to share this with everyone, but after thinking about it a while & remembering how therapeutic it was when Dylan was in the hospital, I've decided I need to blog.

On November 30, Derrick & I were thrilled to find out that we were expecting our second child. We had been hoping for another baby for many months & could not have been more excited about that positive pregnancy test. The pregnancy seemed to be going really well. No morning sickness, but I didn't have any with Dylan either. Starving, always having to pee, emotional. All the joys that come along with a pregnancy. Honestly, I didn't care. I was thrilled to even be pregnant.

Even though I was so excited to be pregnant, there was a nagging feeling saying, “Renee, don't get too attached. You need to prepare yourself.” I told both Derrick & Amy that I was feeling this way, but we all kind of chalked it up to just being nervous about this second pregnancy. The pregnancy continued to go on well. I had a tiny bit of pink spotting one evening, but nothing unusual for early in a pregnancy. We saw a nurse on December 21st to fill out paperwork & get all ready for my January 7th appointment. I was 7 ½ weeks at that appointment. Everything was fine & we were sent on our way. We told our extended family at Christmas that we were expecting, with the estimated due date of August 4th. Even then, I had some reservations about telling everyone, but I assumed that everything would be fine & I was just being paranoid.

Then January 7th came. I was 10 weeks. We were scheduled for an ultrasound because of some health problems that I have & to get a more accurate due date. As Derrick & I pulled into the doctor's office parking lot, I told him that I was really concerned about this appointment. My mom met us there & we checked in. I had forgotten to bring a urine sample with, so I had to give one at the doctor's office. When I went to the bathroom, I noticed some blood. Again, not uncommon, but strange for me. We went into ultrasound & I knew right away something wasn't right.

Even after checking for a long time with 2 different ultrasound devices, the tech was not able to find the baby. The gestational sac was there measuring 7 weeks, 3 days, but no baby. My very worst fears & what I had been preparing myself for was coming true. I held it together long enough for the tech to finish & step out of the room, & then I sobbed. My heart was breaking for the baby that I had wanted for so long that never developed. Derrick & I talked to the doctor & she gave us a couple of different options. Number 1 was to wait & see if the miscarriage would happen on it's own. Number 2 was to do a D&C to remove the sac. Number 3 was to take some medicine that would kickstart the miscarriage. We took over the weekend to talk about it & decide. The doctor couldn't do anything Friday anyway because I had had a respiratory infection of some sort & we needed to get that cleared up first. I was sent home with an antibiotic & the directions to call back to set up an appointment for Monday.

Monday morning I went back to the doctor. Since the miscarriage is not happening on it's own (no bleeding since Friday night) & I am not okay with taking medicine to start it happening, we have decided to go with the D&C. I finish my round of antibiotics today, so the doctor scheduled me for the procedure at 10:30 on Thursday. I am scared, but more because I have never been under general anesthetic before than anything else.

So be praying for us this week. Honestly, my heart is broken for my baby that should be 11 weeks the day we do the D&C. I feel like I was living a lie for several weeks, thinking there was a baby when there wasn't one. I have questioned God about why he would let me get pregnant just to rip it away, but I have to remind myself that we live in a fallen world & this stuff happens. Yes, God could have stopped it, but apparently there is something good that is to come from this. I haven't figured it out yet, but I didn't know what good could come from Dylan being born 3 months early either & now I can see what a testimony his little life is.

Even through this trial, I know how blessed I am. I have a handsome, wonderful son who makes us laugh every day. I have an amazing husband who has supported me through all of this. I have a great mom who takes care of me & is being strong so I don't have to. I have awesome friends who have encouraged me & have shared their stories of loss with me. And I have a big God who comforts me through all my trials, both big & small, who I know cares for me more than anyone I have mentioned above. Through our time in the hospital with Dylan, I learned more & more that God's ways are not our ways & we might not understand them, but he sees the whole picture.

Overall, we are doing okay. We are sad & disappointed, but we find comfort in the fact that the baby never really developed. I think Thursday & the days following will be hard, so we ask for your prayers & support as we walk through something that there is no manual about how to handle.

Day 3 & a lesson in Self-Control

So today is day 3 of our homeschooling journey. I asked Dylan today if he wanted to do school & he said "school!" all excited & tried to climb in his booster seat at the table. Apparently he likes doing school, too.

We started our day a little late because my Avon shipment came in & I wanted to get it all sorted before it overtook the living room. We only got Bible & one book read this morning, but we took care of everything else this afternoon.

We read Genesis 2:18-25 for our Bible time this morning. Dylan did a lot better today & I am glad. I want him to understand the importance of reading God's Word daily (something I still struggle with), so I love that time with him. After our prayer time, we read a book called Air Show. He liked it & even wanted me to read it a second time.

After that, we got ready for the day & did some running. We had some Avon books to drop off (look, another "A" word - Avon!) & stopped by my mom's work. We then came home, ate lunch & Dylan took a nap. After that, we hit the ground running with our school for today.

For LA today, we wrote the letter "A." It's really adorable to see Dylan trying to write & then saying, "Help, help," so I will help him write the letter. I can tell he is really enjoying all of the special activities & attention. He then colored a picture of "Aa" (I had already printed it before I decided to not do lower case letters yet). His coloring is much improved since Monday. He kept asking me to help today, so part of the picture was colored by me, but he was so excited that I was coloring with him!

Today our sign of the day was alligator. It was supposed to be airplane, but when I looked up the sign, I figured out it would be way too hard for him to do, so I switched it to alligator. He already knows it from storytime at the library, so this was really just reinforcement for him. We also practiced "A" & "apple." He seems to get it, but doesn't always want to cooperate - imagine that.

We then counted the crayons & colors as we put them away. After that, Dylan played with play-doh. That went well, until he tried to eat it - gross! Then play-doh time was over.

Finally, we did our science Apatosaurus reading. I was going to save it until Derrick got home, but between dinner & church tonight, I didn't think we'd have time to get it done. We read about the Apatosaurus' tail today. It is so fun to see Dylan learning about things I never would have thought of without actually writing out some lesson plans.

So, regarding self-control: we have been having some issues with tantrums with Dylan. He can communicate pretty well, but he often yells & whines with no real words, so we have no idea what he is talking about. It's annoying & quite frankly, it needed to be dealt with. We took a class at our church called "Growing Kid's God's Way." One of the suggestions they made was that when your toddler is having a tantrum, tell them to get self-control & fold their hands. It took some work, but we are making progress! Dylan will now fold his hands & calm down. It's awesome because we can then talk to him & figure out what the problem is instead of everyone getting frustrated. He still struggles once in a while & will sometimes be sent to his bed for not calming down, but he's 2...even I don't have self-control all the time! It is so nice to have him calm down & then talk to us about what the problem really is or what he is upset about (or at least we can distract him from whatever the problem is). I would suggest this method of dealing with tantrums to anyone!

Tonight is all about fun! We are going to church to get ready for youth group, then Dylan, my parents & I are going trick or treating at the nursing home (Dylan is going as Batman). After we're done I'll go back to church to help Derrick with the youth & Dylan will go home with Grandma. That's his favorite!

Hope everyone is having an awesome day!

Homeschooling Is A Lifestyle - Day 2

So I have read many places that "homeschooling is a lifestyle." You don't just teach at the table & then stop learning once "lessons" are over. In the few days we have been doing this, I have noticed myself making more of an effort to tell Dylan things that relate to our lessons. Since we are working on the letter "A," I bought apples & avocado at the store so we could talk about what letter they started with.

Today we did our Bible reading out of my Bible. I like Dylan's First Bible, but I think it is important for him to start hearing the Word from an actual Bible. We read Genesis 2:4-17. This is the story of God creating Adam from the dust of the earth. Dylan was not very interested in sitting, but once we had a talk about how this is God's special book to us & we need to be respectful, he did better. Still not great, but he settled down a little. We have been talking about our character trait of "Attentiveness." Being attentive is not something 2 year olds are programmed for (anyone with little ones knows that), but it is an important characteristic to have. We want Dylan to be able to sit through church relatively well & not disrupt everyone around us. We want to be able to go to dinner & have a conversation with him being too crazy. I don't think it is too much to ask from him, but I do think it will take some training from us.

On to Language Arts - one of the things that I decided needed tweaked & reevaluated was teaching both upper & lower case letters at once. I think it is too much to cram into one week, so I think we are going to spend 26 weeks doing the upper case, then take 26 weeks doing the lower case. I think it is just too much for a 2 year old to understand that both "A" & "a" mean the same thing. So I removed that from our list of things to do & decided we would focus just on upper case "A" this week.

Today we wrote the upper case "A" & talked about words that start with "A." Our word today was "apple," so Dylan colored a picture of an apple & I taught him the sign for apple. He seems to be catching on. I have thought for a while that Dylan has an aptitude for sign language (picked up on signs fast as a baby & one day started signing things we hadn't worked on in weeks!), so I probably should have done signs with him sooner. I am hoping that sign language will be a blessing to him in the future & that it might help with foreign languages in the future.

During reading time we read a book called A is for Amos. It was more of an ABC book than an "A" book, but it was cute & Dylan liked it.

For math we counted to 10, read Brainy Baby 123's & counted crayons. Tomorrow I had planned to start adding 1+1, but I think we need to keep focusing on the counting for now.

Our Art/Music/Game time did not work out the way I had planned. For art, I had a book planned (besides the normal coloring time during the day), but it never got read. We also had a playdate scheduled, but it got canceled when my friend had to work, so that was rescheduled for next week. We did get our music done - singing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." Dylan loves that song, especially the verse about the baby. It's adorable to watch him pretend to rock the baby. We also tried "Old McDonald" again & he liked it better than Monday.

Derrick did science with Dylan tonight & read him chapter 2 ("Hey, Big Guy") from his Apatosaurus book. Derrick liked dinosaurs when he was young, so it is really sweet to see them enjoying it together. Derrick could teach him more about dinosaurs than I ever could. I have figured out that these type of books are great for teaching science. I like doing one short chapter & that being it. I am already trying to figure out what to do next week...bears? Bugs? I'll have to check out the library soon to see.

Can't see what Wednesday hold for us!

Day 1

Okay, so...homeschooling a toddler - I decided a while back that once Dylan turned 2, we would start our homeschooling journey. I decided I needed to make this commitment more for me than him, because I am not always the best at getting things done on time (whoops). So I began researching curriculum for young children. I came across Letter of the Week (www.letteroftheweek.com). It lays out what you might want to cover in a week, based on a particular letter - even better...it's FREE! So I began to dig in. I spent Saturday evening coming up with lesson plans (again, more for me than for Dylan), & got our books together. I couldn't wait until Monday so we could start!

So Monday morning we started. This week's letter is "A." Honestly, the lessons went better than I thought it would.

We started with some Bible & prayer time. Our Bible topic this week is "Adam & Eve" & our character trait is "attentiveness." We read the Adam & Eve story out of Dylan's First Bible & then had our prayer time. 

For our reading time, since our letter this week is "A," we are doing lots of animal stories. Today we read Over in the Meadow. It is not one of Dylan's favorite books, but I keep trying it because I think it's cute. We also did some extra books - Cuddle & Superdog. I am sure there were others, but I can't remember what right now.

Language arts this week is all about the letter "A." First, I showed Dylan what an "A" looks like, then helped him write one. He then colored all over his whiteboard with the markers, but he jabbers like he is writing letters! :) We also talked about the sound that "A" makes & that apple starts with "A." He seemed to pick up on the apple part quickly, so I am interested to test him this afternoon. I also showed him the sign language "A." Finally, he colored a big A. That was frustrating because he just wanted to play with the crayons instead of actually coloring. I had to take the box away so he would color & stop messing around. 

Math. Math is interesting because you can't really group it into the theme letter of the week very well. This week's options involved either animal crackers or an abacus. We don't own an abacus, but we do have animal crackers, so that is what we used. We counted to 10 & read Nemo's Numbers, but that was really it. Math is hard with a 2 year old, especially since he really only knows 2 & 9.

For art today we read a book called My World of Color. He also colored with crayons & markers. For music we sang Old McDonald (although he wasn't that interested). 

Our final topic of the day is Science. This week we are reading a book about dinosaurs called Apatosaurus. I told Derrick this might have to be his subjects because I don't even know how to pronounce it! I read it to him tonight & even though he wasn't interested in the beginning, he seemed to like it by the time I finished the chapter & even asked for more "dinosaur" later. 

Overall, day one went really well...I see some places I need to tweak & work on, but I think it was a great first day!

Homeschooling A Toddler

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Galatians 5:22-23a

So we have decided to homeschool. I know, I know...Dylan's only 2 & we have no reason to decide yet & anyway, why would we want to do that?! 


Personally, I have always wanted to homeschool. Our main reason for wanting to homeschool is so we know that Dylan is getting the moral guidance we want him to have. By homeschooling, we get to have control over what comes into his young mind & heart. 6 1/2 hours a day is a long time to trust him to someone who might not have the same standards we do. Plus, I love having Dylan home with me & can't imagine every wanting to send him away every day if I don't have to!


But what does all of this have to do with the Fruit of the Spirit? I have been thinking about it a lot lately. These are all characteristics I want to improve on in my life. I have been working on being more gentle & responding in love instead of anger, but I struggle. Having a toddler does not help the situation. Having a toddler I want to sit still & listen makes it even harder. As I look at the list: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control - I notice that they are all things I need to work on in my heart. By having Dylan home all of the time, I am tested often. When he acts up, do I respond with love or anger? Am I patient when he doesn't obey or do I over react? Do I provide discipline with a heart of kindness & gentleness or do I punish out of frustration? 


So why the blog? I don't really know. I want a place to document what we are doing in our homeschooling journey. I want to (try to) inspire other families to consider homeschooling. I want to share what God is doing in our family.


So this is my first blog post...hope you enjoy going on the journey with us!

Dylan - Almost 21 Month Update

I've sat down several times to write this update, but can never find the right words (or enough time) to get it all done. 

Dylan is almost 21 months old! My sweet, tiny, preemie miracle is 3 months away from being 2 years old! How the time flies by & moves at a snail's pace is beyond me. Sometimes I look at him & see a little boy, while other times I still see my baby. It seems like we just celebrated his 1st birthday & now I am thinking about his next one. I've been told it's like this for their whole lives, but I don't think I realized how fast time goes until I actually had a little guy of my own. 

Dylan is doing awesome! We praise God every day that he is healthy & well & normal when the opposite could be the case. When you have a preemie the doctors tell you all sorts of things about what could be wrong with your baby because of being born so early. It's really anything from minor stuff like coming home on oxygen or needed glasses at an early age to really big stuff like cerebral palsy or brain damage. A lot of what they tell you is really stuff that you have to just wait & see. You don't know until months later in a lot of cases what the extent of the damage from the premature birth might be. Sometimes the doctors can tell right away, but most of the time it's a waiting game.

We have been blessed – Dylan seems to have NO lasting effects from his early birth. We know that God was watching over him & answered the prayers of so many who lifted him up daily! So before I get into more details about Dylan, I first want to say thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU!!! to all who prayed for us while Dylan was so sick! It was such a blessing to know that we were being thought of & prayed for during that time!

Okay, so now on to Dylan...he is doing so well. Better than I think we ever could have imagined. He is a total ball of energy & a goof on top of it! He loves to sing & dance & read & talk. He has a ton of words, which is amazing to me after reading my older blogs & seeing how worried I was when he wasn't jabbering much. Now you can hardly get him to stop talking! He loves to read & will bring you “ooks” & ask you to “ree ook” all day long! He also finally learned how to walk at about 17 months...although he would still just rather you carry him. 

I'm not entirely sure of his growth, but I think he weighs about 26 lbs. That puts him between the 25 & 50th percentile of boys his age. He's still kind of a little guy, but he is healthy! Even though I think he is still so little, I have to keep things in perspective. The other day I let him carry some snacks into the gym. My tiny preemie boy carried a 2 lb bag of animal crackers from the car to the building – he was only 2 lbs 3 oz when he was born! It made me tear up a little to see how far he's come. Almost every day I look at him & wonder how we were so blessed. I don't see him as a preemie anymore, but I still think about how tiny he was & feel so thankful for his health now. 

Right now, Dylan is asleep in his big boy bed surrounded by his favorite stuffed animals (Geegee – his monkey; Imposter Geegee – another monkey; ChickenDuck – a huge, weird chicken or duck...we aren't really sure; & hippo) & his bankie. All in all...life is good.