thoughts as of late

I'm not entirely sure why, but it's nights like tonight that make me want to cry. I guess it's just a lot of pent-up stress. eh, whatever.

No one wants to hear about bad things, so I'm going to write about the good in my life.

1. Penelope Mae

First off, look at how stinkin' cute this girl is. I mean really, I think Hubby and I did a pretty darn good job here. She's ridiculous and funny and smiley and wonderful. Easily the best part of my life (sorry Hubby!) She's begun crawling and pulling herself up to standing, but she has to be holding onto something still otherwise she'll tumble. But she's getting better at falling without hurting herself, but today she did smash her face into one of her toys and it left a mark next to her left eye, she was not pleased. But she's getting tougher, and learning that just because she fell that it doesn't mean she can't get right back up and do the same thing over.

She's also sprouting her first little tooth! I cannot believe she's going to have teeth. I mean, babies are adorable, but babies with teeth?! MY BABY WITH TEETH? yeesh, I can't even imagine how she could get cuter...oh wait, yes I can, blond curly pigtails, which are totally in her future. Along with getting teeth is the ugly process of teething itself, I think we had our first crappy encounter with how bad it hurts her the other night. Poor thing was so tired but just couldn't fall asleep and kept rubbing her mouth and crying. We ended up giving her some Tylenol and a cold washcloth to chew on and she perked up a bit, then we gave her a bottle and she was down for the count. Hopefully she doesn't have a lot of nights like that night where she just can't sleep because she's in so much pain from her teeth, it breaks my heart!

Also, the biggest most awesome thing that she's done lately is..................she said "Mama" as her first word! She looked right at me and said it, and ever since then she's called just about everything else Mama, even Daddy, but it's ok, because it's a word and she said it to me! My heart melted into a giant mommy puddle when she said it. I couldn't believe it. She's not even 8 months old yet for crap's sake! She's so darn smart.

2. Hubby
Check out this handsome guy. Yep, he's all mine ladies!


Hubs and I at the park a few weeks ago.

I decided to find some of my favorite pics of us and I about died when I found a couple of these. This is from the first few weeks we started dating, so probably in October/November of 2004, I cannot believe it was that long ago! Look at us, we're kids! And I remember the day he came home with that lip ring, rawr!
This was probably 2006 or so, at the University of Michigan campus. This was my favorite picture of us for the looooooongest time. I just love his eyes in it, you can see how pretty and green they are.

This was on our honeymoon, August 2009, at Mackinac Island, Michigan. We were on the boat on the way over to the island, yet another one of my favorites.
Amidst looking for cute shots of us, I stumbled upon this one, I miss my hair like this, wasn't it fun? This was on my 22nd birthday!
Hubby and I have spent some time lately reminiscing about our past, our almost 7 years together. It's amazing to see that and to say it out loud, we've been together for 7 YEARS! Well, in September it'll be 7 years, but that's not far off. I've spent nearly a quarter of my life with this man so far, and things are only getting better. It's been fun having these memorable conversations with Hubby because I think it reminds us of all the amazing times we've had together and it's really funny to listen to him tell me how he was feeling and what he was thinking during some of our most memorable times, like our first kiss, our first "date," etc... And another night we just drove around our hometown and showed each other different places that we spent time at growing up and what it meant to us and it's been cool because I feel like I've gotten the chance to really open up to him and to have him open up to me too, it makes these memories that much more memorable when you know how you and the other person felt while experiencing the same situation.

It's good to be in love.
<3

First round of IVIG

I’m sitting here in the Cancer Center receiving my first round of five IVIG treatments. It’s a little surreal that I’m here. I was so worried 5 months ago when the numbness started that it would just continue and end up becoming a disability, and in some ways, it is a disability now. Weak wrists, wrist drop, foot drop (when your wrist/foot literally just gives out on you), balance issues, grip issues (I seriously have a hard time opening anything and grasping things tightly) Sometimes I worry about carrying Penelope. Usually I’ve got her held by my arms, and not my hands so much. I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself if my wrist gave out on me while she’s in my arms. I’m absolutely terrified to go down stairs with her in my arms, for fear that my wrist or foot will give out and down we’ll go.

Part of me is really worried that this treatment won’t do anything. But that’s me, the anxious pessimist. I worry that I’ll have to get these infusions pretty regularly, even every few months seems like a lot to me. I’d be stoked if I have to just do it once a year for the rest of my life. Who knows, we’ll see what the end result is. I don’t even worry though that it’ll take the numbness away, I don’t think it will, and I can live with that. I’ve gotten accustomed to having that “pins and needles” feeling in my hands and feet constantly (yep, going on 5 months of it now). But I’d be happy if it stops the progression of the numbness and keeps it from turning into a major disability in the future. And as I get older, it might, but for now, I’d be really happy if I can continue to be the mama I want to be to Penelope and our future kids. I don’t want this disorder to take away from that. I’ll never forgive myself if it does. Penelope needs me too much for me to let this ruin me. I’m strong, right?

Ok, enough of that for now. I want to talk about Pinterest. This is a website that is essentially my dream come true as far as inspiration boards go. I HATE making them in photoshop, so tedious and annoying. But this website just allows you to keep these pictures for anything on specific boards that you choose. I’ve got like 11 boards now I think, ranging from Baby Stuff, to cool photography, to hair ideas I love, to pics of handsome actors I like, haha. But really though, I could spend all day looking at this site. It is constantly updated with new pictures of crafts, style, clothing, home décor, unique sayings and quotes, kids ideas, etc… Like I said, basically it’s my interwebz dream come true. I love that all these things I love are in one place and I don’t have to save all of these hundreds of images on my computer (taking up unnecessary space) and also most of this is stuff I’d never find on my own. It’s kind of cool to see what other crafty mamas are into and what cool ideas people come up with. It’s the best thing ever. If you want an invite to use it, just comment below with your email and I’ll send you one.

That's all for now. More tomorrow, maybe with pics if the hospital's internet stops being stupid.

I promise I'm going to get better at this.

Hi there, I sure am cute, doncha think?

This monthly update thing is going to change, I swear it. I'm going to be better about blogging.

I feel like there's so much to talk about. My health, Penny, Easter, work, family, life. I don't even know where to start honestly.

This week we are house-sittings at my in-laws' home. I love being here. Their home is so inviting and cozy. It's perfect in the winter because it overlooks a pond out of the back window and there are trees everywhere that when they are covered with snow, well, it's so peaceful. In the summer, it's beautiful because everything is green. The pond is full of life and the wisteria that overhangs my mother-in-law's hammock is just heaven. At night you can hear the crickets chirping and it's so quiet. In the fall, the trees are an array of bold colors. It's just wonderful here. It's like, you can actually breath fresh air and relax. It's nice to have a little getaway from our everyday lives, even if it is just for a week.

My two favorite people

Penelope is 7 months old today. She's crawling now, and today she pulled herself up into a standing position. See how proud of herself she is?

It's all happening so fast!!! I need a slow-motion button. Everyday is something new with her. She's close to saying "mama" too. And she gives kisses now, only sometimes though. She'll grab your face with both hands and plant her open drooling mouth on your cheek. It's the best kind of kiss I know of.

Juuuuuuuuust doin' her morning pushups

It's finally really spring here in MI. This is the first week that it's going to be above 55 regularly and be sunny. April was RAIN RAIN RAIN and very cold. So it's nice to see the sun finally and some blue skies and flowers. Penny and I have been enjoying the sun when we can, she got to feel grass for the first time the other day, she liked it.

what's this green stuff?

being sock free feels awesome

feeling good

I'm excited for the summer to start too. I wanted to try to find a Mommy and Me swimming class for Penny and I, but all the ones I have found so far are ridiculously overpriced, so perhaps we'll find somewhere else to try swimming. Penny loves the bathtub so much, I think she'll really enjoy swimming. She mostly likes to just be naked, like this:

her little tushie is so cute!

Easter was nice. Spending time with family is always enjoyable. We had to postpone our Easter festivities with Hubby's family because Penny and I were suffering from a gnarly cold and we didn't want her adorable cousin Isabella to get it, and believe me, it was very contagious, everyone in our house got it. :(Here's Penny and Isabella about three weeks ago. They're two months apart.


Penny got this cute hat and these cute sunglasses in her Easter basket, along with bubbles and new toys. :-)

Even amidst a bad cold, Miss Penny is a smiley happy bubbly little lady. I adore her.

Little Miss is getting some curls in her hair, so it seems she'll be taking after her Daddy as far as hair goes. It's so cute!

Here's our April Family Photo:
We'll need to take a May one soon, that one was almost a month ago now!

As far as my health goes, I do indeed have what my neurologist thought, Multifocal Motor Neuropathy with Conduction Blocks. I start my IVIG (Intravenous Immunoglobulins) treatment on the 16th, so I've ordered a few books to read for the 30ish baby free hours I'll have on my hands. It still remains to be seen how often I'll need these IVIG treatments, possibly every few weeks, every few months, once a year, who knows. It all depends on my body and how stubborn it decides to be. I've been trying to do as much research as I can about it, but there's not much out there, because so few people have it. Which makes it scary, I wish I knew someone else who was dealing with this. Might make me feel a little less alone. I don't talk about it much to anyone because no one would understand. You can't really fathom what having constantly numb hands and feet is like, unless you have it.

But things are good. My insurance covers this incredibly expensive treatment and hopefully it'll do it's job and make me feel better. My fingers are crossed.

I'm going to post more. I promise.

i suck at this blogging regularly thing...

Ok, first and foremost, I want to say that I SUCK at this blogging thing. The last few weeks have been INSANE for me personally. So yeah, there's my excuse.

I've decided that there's no point in keeping things secret on here. It's my blog, I'm going to write what I want. My pleasures, my pains, my happiness, my depression. I'm just going to lay it all out there. It will hopefully be therapeutic for me since I can't afford to go see a therapist. (yeah...I'll get to that.)

I'll start things out cheerfully. Here's Penelope, who's going to be 6 months old soon:

Ah, I just love her little face. Well, I'll be honest, I love her little everything.

So, life has changed dramatically in the last couple of weeks. We moved, again. Back to our hometown, so we can try to save some money and try not to drown in all our bills.

We've both got new jobs, what sucks is that they're part-time, but right now we can't afford childcare so it's all we can do currently.

As far as my health issues go, I've had more testing done. I had an EMG. Which for some reason I thought was a brain scan of some kind, boy was I wrong. They hooked little electrodes to me and used a taser to shock me and see how my nerves reacted. I think I was probably shocked about 90 times or so. Some were no big deal, some frickin' hurt. THEN, my Neurologist said she had to stick needles in different muscles and have me flex them to see how they react to stimulus. It was terrible. She poked me in each limb about 10-15 times.

The good thing about this test is that we're 95% sure about the diagnosis. One more test to go. A spinal tap. I have that tomorrow morning. Once we get the results back on that, hopefully we'll have a 100% diagnosis. Currently, my doc thinks that it's a rare disorder called Multifocal Motor Neuropathy with Conduction Block. Only 1 in 100,000 people get this disorder. But thankfully, there is a treatment for it, but it's an IV infusion that I have to do 5 days in a row at the hospital, and each infusion takes about 4-6 hours. So, yeah, I'm about to start this new job and I have to tell them I can't work for a week because this treatment apparently wears you out and can make you feel pretty sick.

If this is in fact what it is, then I'll have it for the rest of my life. I'll have to get these IV infusions regularly to keep my symptoms from getting worse. But on the upside, it's supposed to help the numbness/weakness. I hope it works.

I'm honestly just glad we have an answer. I'll do anything to make myself feel better. Even if I have to endure these stupid and painful tests first. God I hope it works.

Thankfully it's not hereditary or genetic, it's origin is unknown. But at least I don't have to worry about Penny or any future kids having it. And that's also a good thing, I can still have more kids. :-)

So yeah, tomorrow's the spinal tap. I hope it doesn't suck as much as I'm anticipating it to.

Here are some fun pics from this month:

sorry

I seem to have been slacking bigtime, I'll update soon. I promise.

5 months

First, I'd like to say that today was a horrible tragedy for the people in Japan. My thoughts and prayers (you know what I mean, "atheist prayers") are going to those people and their families.


Penelope is 5 months old! Time is seriously flying now and she's getting so big. She's trying SO hard to crawl it's ridiculous. I think by the end of the month she'll have it figured out. My smart little lady. She's reaching for our faces now too, feeling things out. She grabbed my nose SO hard the other day, her little fingernails dug in and DANG, it friggin' hurt. She likes feeling daddy's beard too, its scruffy surface yet soft texture. It's so fun watching her figure stuff out. Discover her surroundings.

And the crawling thing, ugh, it's KILLING me to see her be so independent and strong, but at the same time I'm so proud of her. She sticks her tiny behind up in the air and pushes her face into the ground, but by god she gets where she wants to go. A combination of rolling, pushing, and wiggling around on the ground. It's funny.

Rebecca Woolf over at Girl's Gone Child just found out that she's having twins! Holy crap! I'm so excited though for her. I can't imagine what it would be like to find out you're having twins, and I understand her fear about it. It's overwhelming. But SO exciting! I can't wait to see what she names them, what cute indie folksy clothes she dresses them in, how her two older children Archer and Fable are with their new younger siblings. I can't wait to read about it!

At the end of this month, I've got some plans to meet up with a long-time internet friend, K, and her son, T, who was born the day after Penny. I met K when I first got pregnant. I joined babycenter.com and joined the October 2010 birth board. I found a group of women on there who are as different from me as the day is long, but we developed an amazing bond. Through the last year, we talked almost daily about our pregnancies, our struggles, our marriages/relationships/lack of relationships, our pains, our aches, our joys, our excitement, our worries. It's strange to be so close to a group of women who you might possibly never meet. We're all over the country and one of us is in New Zealand. There are tentative plans to meet up when our New Zealander comes over the pond, but nothing's set in stone there. But this month, K will be coming to visit family in Chicago, which puts her only a few hours from me, which means, A MEETUP! I'm really excited. Like, REALLY excited!

So, my health issues, ugh. The numbness is still very there. My hands and feet and right calf are numb, they're getting harder to use properly. My balance is all messed up because of the numb feet, I even fell face first into a wall at my parents' house two weeks ago. That was awesome...NOT. I had an MRI yesterday (which I'll get to, holy crap) of my brain and spine. I know I should hope they don't find anything on them, but part of me would be happy just to get some answers and not need to do further testing. I would love to just know WTF is going on with my body!

The MRI was well, terrifying. I have a panic disorder, so I told them to give me some kind of sedation meds so I wouldn't have a full-on meltdown once I got in there. So I get there, take the meds, and they bring me in a half hour later. Had the meds kicked in yet? NO, but did I want to hold them up? NO. Of course not. Accommodating ME just went along with it. So I get in there, the tech is really nice. He asks if I need anything before I go in, I say, an eyemask. Ok, so they get me an eyemask. From here on out, I'm depending on my sense of hearing. I hear him clicking things around my head, fastening me in, laying things across my chest, large wire-y things near my arms. He puts some headphones on me and says "what kind of music do you want?" I say, "Oldies" thinking, "they're cheery, and will keep me positive." Plus, if I say rock or something god only knows what kind of crap they'll make me listen to (nickelback? ACK!) I wanted to say, how about some Iron and Wine, or Animal Collective, Cat Power, anything? No....

So, they get me situated, and shove me in the giant magnetic tube. I can hear how tight the space is, just from the echo of noises around me. I can't see anything, but I can tell that the walls are like, inches from my face. I'm thinking, "thank goodness I have this eyemask," there's no way I could keep my eyes closed long enough for this. My morbid curiosity would've ruined everything. A woman's voice comes on in my headphones, "Ok, we're going to get started. You ok in there?" me: "yeah" Her: "Ok, the first scan is 3 minutes." click. All of a sudden BANG BANG BANG right around my head. I think that there's some kind of alarm going off, that something's wrong. But when it continues and no one is pulling me out, I realize, "holy f*%$! this is the scan. I have to listen to this for 3 minutes." BY THE WAY, the oldies music I requested is inaudible during the test, AKA, totally useless. So, the first scan stops. Her voice again: "the next scan is 5 minutes" click. Again with the LOUD and I mean LOUD BANGING. It's a different banging this time, but it all pretty much sounds like you have a metal bucket on your head and someone is slamming a giant sledgehammer against it every half second.

I'm trying to breathe deeply, trying to calm myself down because at this point, the sedation meds STILL HAVE NOT KICKED IN. I had to talk myself out of pressing the "pull me out" button SO many times. I knew I couldn't do it, I knew that if I pressed that button that I'd be wasting everyone's time. I had to deal with it. I kept telling myself. Nothing hurts, nothing is wrong, everything is ok, they need to do this so they know I'm ok, millions of people have MRI's and they're fine!

So, about halfway through, the voice comes on again "we're going to pull you out and inject the contrast now." Wait, what? AN INJECTION? NO ONE MENTIONED A FRIGGIN' INJECTION. Again, breathing deeply. I hate needles, I hate injections, I hate needles, I hate hospitals, I hate the scrubs I have to wear because if I wore my jeans the GIANT MAGNET around me would rip them off or through me or something fucking terrible. I hate hate hate this. breathe deeply.

I leave my eyemask on because I don't want to see any needles. He's (the tech) is talking to me through it. Tries to get a vein on my arm, no luck. Tries to find a vein on my other arm, no luck. Tries on my hand, pokes me, no luck. "Um, I'm gonna have to try your arm, sorry, I have to poke you again." Me:"just do it please." breathe deeply. panic panic panic. breathe. "Ok, I got it." GOOD, jeez, it's not your JOB or anything. "calm down, you're irrational fear and anger of hospitals and anything medical-related is stupid!" I think to myself.

They finish the injection. They put me back in the machine. Guess what, the sedation meds STILL HAVEN'T kicked in. panic panic panic. breathe deeply. Half an hour more of loud banging. I get out and guess who finally feels the meds kicking in? oh, that'd be me. Awesome.

I get dressed and we go home. I'm all loopy and drugged out. Yay...not.

All in all, the MRI was awful, I hope I never need one ever again, and I hope this stupid ridiculous test tells my Neurologist exactly what the fuck is wrong with me.


sorry for the f bombs. I'm just ridiculously stressed out. My life has turned upside down and I'm an emotional wreck. I'm not even going to write about it because I'm tired of crying. I'm tired in every way imaginable. I'm emotionally drained, I'm physically exhausted, I'm mentally consumed with stress, and I'm just a mess. My health is in the toilet and I'm terrified.

Ok, enough about me and my feeeeeeeeeelings. If you've made it this far, thanks. Onto the cute baby pics, I know that's why you're here anyways :)

stomach sleeper

So last night, for the first time ever, Penny slept on her belly all night long. Sometimes she would fall asleep partially on her belly, sometimes all the way on her belly, and I'd always turn her over after she fell asleep so she'd be on her back. Last night, she must have turned over completely at some point and when we woke up this morning, she was on her belly, sound asleep.

Now, this is something I was afraid of. All the "pros" tell you that back is best and whatnot. But really, how bad is the belly? She spends so much time on her belly now that she's figured out how to roll over, so she's quite used to it now and actually seems upset if we put her on her back. She used to HATE LOATHE DESPISE tummy time so it's weird to see this complete change in her.

There are lots of changes in her lately. She's so curious about the world around her. Touching things purposefully now and trying to figure out what they are. Feeling the textures of everything with the tips of her tiny fingers. It's so cute to watch.

She also wants to crawl, like, REALLY BAD. She's pushing her tiny tush in the air and scooting her way around. If she wants to get somewhere, she'll get there! I like that about her, she's determined for sure.

She's so awesome. She's going to be 5 months old in a few days. Strange how times flies.