And just when you thought I’ve fallen off the face of the earth…
Here I am!!

Okay, so I’m still pregnant and getting bigger by the day. I’m 39 weeks now.  Just one more week until this baby is due to arrive! My belly feels very heavy some days, and then other days I feel perfectly fine with a lot of energy.  So on the days I have energy, I get a lot done. And on the days that I don’t, I only do the bare minimum around here, which does NOT include cooking, laundry or cleaning of any sort.  I basically go straight from the car (because that is my “have to” — taking the kids to and from various events)  right into bed, onto the couch, or into the bath.  The rest (the cooking, the laundry, the cleaning) is on the kids.  And yes, they complain.  But for the most part, they have really been doing a great job.  Avery and Alex have taken on the cooking duty.  Avery made breaded chicken breasts and baked potatoes the other night, without any assistance from me.  I only told her what to do from my bed.  Not too bad for a 12 year old. And Alex made spaghetti and meatballs last night. As far as cleaning up the kitchen after meals,  I have Alex, Avery, A.J. and Aislynn on that duty.  All four of them, ages 13, 12, 10 and 8, work together to clean up after meals.  My older three are rarely home to help because they all have jobs outside the home.  So it’s the younger six that have been my main helpers.   (well, Andrew and Aria try to help, but they make more of the messes than they do help.)

And here’s me again.  I keep taking photos of my belly because it’s going to be gone very soon!  And I know I’m going to miss it!  I will.  So I’m taking lots of pictures of it.  I just love having these phones with cameras built into them!  Technology is so great right now.  It makes it so easy just to snap a picture anywhere.

On March 20, 2015 a pink line spread across a pregnancy stick.

POSITIVE.

Normally this result would thrill me!  I would immediately look into the mirror and say to myself, “You’re a new mommy!”  and I would be smiling from ear to ear.  Then I’d quickly do the math in my head to calculate the due date.  Then I would wonder if it’s a boy or a girl.  Then I would think of a fun way to tell Rich and the kids.  All these thoughts would go through my mind with one major feeling running through me: excitement!

I have peed on many a pregnancy stick in my day and have had very few negative results and fourteen positives.  Fourteen positives!  Five of those fourteen positives didn’t make it, but nine of them did.  I have had nine children born to me, plus a stepson.  Five boys and five girls.

And now I was staring at my 15th positive result.  An 11th baby.  And this one had me worried.  This one had me staring at myself in the mirror and instead of saying, “You’re a new mommy!”  I said, “Oh, no….”  

And it wasn’t that I didn’t want another baby.  Of course I did!  The thought of a new baby always thrilled me.  It’s not the baby that I didn’t want.  It was the pregnancy.  The worry.  The high possibility of another miscarriage.  It was the high possibility that the baby would have health issues due to my being 45 years old.  I had five miscarriages in a row after I turned 41.  And then at age 43 I had Aiden, a healthy baby boy.  And I was so thankful for his health.  And I wanted it to end with him.  I wanted my fertility years to end on a positive.  I wanted that.   We wanted that.  I had planned on that.

God obviously had other plans for me, because the stick said POSITIVE.  And I’m not one to argue with the stick.  They have never lied to me before.   Three days later a blood test confirmed the stick, and then two weeks after that I started with the familiar morning sickness.

Things were rolling,  and yet I still wasn’t excited.  I expected to lose the pregnancy at any moment.   My husband kept asking if we could tell people yet?   He was so excited.   But I said no, it’s too early.  So we waited.  And to my surprise the pregnancy continued.   When I reached 11 weeks I decided that I might as well get an ultrasound to see if there was a growing baby inside of me.  The ultrasound confirmed that there was indeed a little kicker in there, moving all around and practically waving at me, “See, mom?  I told you so.  I’m on the way!”  was what the little kicker was telling me.  And it was at that moment while I was lying on that exam table staring at my new baby on the monitor that I finally grasped the idea that this was really going to happen.  We were going to add on to our family.  Again.

the little kicker

And I was thrilled.  Thrilled!   I walked out of that office and practically skipped to my car.   This meant that Aiden would have a sibling close in age!  Someone he could go through school with and ride bikes with and do all sorts of things with!  This meant that I could do the whole newborn thing all over again!  And the pregnancy?  Oh wow, how I loved pregnancy!  I could do some really neat pregnancy photos this time around.  I could do another home birth, making it my fifth home birth (water birth)  in a row.    And I could baby-wear again and breastfeed again and set up the crib again (which hardly gets used because we co-sleep, but still.  Setting up the crib is always exciting!)   Another baby!  I couldn’t believe my luck.  I was SO happy.  So overjoyed.  So looking forward to this new little one.

We told the kids shortly after that ultrasound.  They were all very surprised because we had told them many times after Aiden’s birth that there would be no more babies.  That we were done.  Finished.  For sure. No more babies.  Aiden is the last baby, we told them, so make sure you enjoy him!  And at first they doubted us, and then after time they began to believe it.  And then a little more than a year later we tell them we are expecting a new baby.   Our children may never trust what we say again.  But they were all excited after they got over the shock of it all.  Our kids love babies.

My husband was eager to tell everyone, but I still wanted to wait.  With Aiden’s pregnancy, we waited until I was 16 weeks along before we let friends and family know.  I told my husband I wanted to do the same with this one.  He reluctantly agreed, and the kids also said they’d keep it hush until then.

At 15 weeks I went in to get my blood drawn for routine blood work and also for the MaterniT21 screening.  For those of you not familiar with that test, the MaterniT21 blood test checks the baby’s DNA via the mother’s blood.  They can detect Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) Trisomy 18 and Trisomy 13, as well as Turner’s Syndrome,  and they can also tell the baby’s gender.  I had this test with Aiden, and I liked it as an alternative to an amniocentesis.  There is no risk to the baby with this simple blood test, and although it is only considered a screening and not diagnostic,  it has proven to be extremely accurate.  So I had my blood drawn for these things, and I was told the results would be available in one week.  I didn’t give much thought to the tests, actually.  At this point I was at ease with the pregnancy.  I had gotten past the first trimester, and my morning sickness was finally tapering off, and things just felt really, really good.  I didn’t give much thought to the DNA test.  The week passed quickly without me thinking much about it.

And then I got the phone call.  It was Friday, June 19th at 2:40pm.  There are certain moments in your life that your brain won’t ever let you forget, not even if you try.  This phone call is one of mine.

It was my OB on the phone.  When I heard his voice, I immediately knew this wasn’t going to be a good call, because normally it is a nurse that gives you good test results over the phone.

“Hi, Katrina.  How are you doing, hon?” he asked.  His voice wasn’t right. He was speaking slowing and too gently, as if he was talking to a spooked or cornered animal.  Or to a mother who was about to get her world shattered.

I said, “I’m okay.”   But I’m really not okay, am I?  Not after you tell me what you are going to tell me.  I won’t be okay ever again, will I?   I braced myself.

And then he said it.  He said what I was afraid he was going to say.  And my world just stopped.

Has your world ever just stopped?  It’s an interesting feeling, actually.  It’s like time just freezes and there’s nothing else going on around you.  It’s like a silence surrounds you and you are the only person there in this very strange void.  Things and conversations are obviously still going on around you, but your brain makes it all silent.  And your blood turns cold.  It actually does.  It just gets cold in that one instant.  It’s very surreal.

He said, “Your test came back positive for Trisomy 13, Katrina.  I’m so sorry.”

This is where my world stopped, and then three seconds later it resumed again. Just like that.

And I said, “Okay….well…. that’s not good.”  

He said, “No, I’m afraid it’s not.”

And I said, “So…what now?”  Calm.  I was very calm.

He said, “Well, I’d like for you to see a perinatologist who can give you a detailed ultrasound and possibly an amnio to confirm the results.  There’s always a chance that the test is wrong, but I have to tell you that these new blood screenings are very, very accurate.  The possibility of a false positive is very unlikely.”

And just like that my dreams of this new baby, they were shattered.  Out of the three most common trisomies, Trisomy 13 has the worst outcome.  I knew this.  The most likely outcome is death, often before the baby is born.  And I stood there in my kitchen with the phone to my ear and I thought to myself:  There will be no new baby after all   Aiden will not be a big brother.  I went through 16 weeks of pregnancy for nothing.  

I was able to write down the phone number of the doctor that I needed to see next, and before I hung up the phone,  my OB asked me if I had any questions for him.  I had only one question.  I asked if he would tell me the sex of the baby.  Even though previously I had made up my mind that I did not want to know the baby’s gender, that I wanted to be surprised at the birth, at that moment I desperately needed to know.  I needed to know just who was in there, who I would be losing?  Who?

He said, “The baby is a boy.”  There was no excitement in his voice.  Just sadness.

I smiled and repeated it back to him, “A boy.”   

He told me he would talk to me soon, and we hung up.  I stood there in the kitchen completely numb.  I could not cry at that point.  I sat back down at the kitchen table with a few of the kids and continued with what we were doing before the phone call.  But I wasn’t really there.  My mind was elsewhere, lost in a fog made up of confusion, despair, grief and maybe just a hint of denial.

A boy!  A sweet baby boy.  Another son.  I already loved him.  So much.   I had just started to feel his soft little kicks and movements.  Oh, how I wanted him.  How could this be happening?

I made my appointment with the perinatologist for the following Friday.  So I spent the next seven days pouring over the internet for any information that I could find on Trisomy 13, aka Patau Syndrome.  I was looking for some hope.  What I found was not encouraging.

Trisomy 13, also called Patau syndrome, is a chromosomal condition associated with severe intellectual disability and physical abnormalities in many parts of the body. Individuals with trisomy 13 often have heart defects, brain or spinal cord abnormalities, very small or poorly developed eyes (microphthalmia), extra fingers or toes, an opening in the lip (a cleft lip) with or without an opening in the roof of the mouth (a cleft palate), and weak muscle tone (hypotonia). Due to the presence of several life-threatening medical problems, most infants with trisomy 13 die either in utero or within their first days or weeks of life. 

No matter where I looked, the facts of the condition did not vary much.   So I stopped looking for facts on the condition and instead focused on finding out the possibility of a false positive with the MaterniT21 test.  I found a little bit of hope there.  There were a few reported cases of false positives in predicting  Trisomy 13 with this particular blood screening.  There was a small possibility that the T13 cells were confined to the placenta and that the baby was unaffected.  So I clung to that hope, and I spent the rest of the week praying that our baby would be okay.

On June 26 we had our appointment with the perinatologist.  The ultrasound showed that our baby did have some of the major markers for Trisomy 13.  Our hopes that the blood test was wrong were dashed.  I saw my husband wiping at his eyes during the ultrasound, but I refused to cry.  I wanted to see him, my baby boy, without blurry vision.  Maybe this ultrasound would be my last chance to see him alive?  I didn’t know.  So I had made up my mind that I would cry afterwards, but not during the exam.

During the exam I asked questions and I asked the doctor to point things out to us, and I even smiled a few times as I saw the baby moving about.  He seemed a bit annoyed that the ultrasound wand was pressing into his space.  The doctor pointed out his cleft lip and palate, and she showed us where he has a neural tube defect (called an encephalocele)  at the back of his head.  He appears to also be missing the vermis in the cerebellum, and his heart has a mitral valve that is not working correctly and is allowing back flow of blood from the bottom chamber of the heart into the upper chamber.  His head shape didn’t appear to be the typical egg-shape that it should be but instead seems to narrow a bit at the forehead.  Other than those things, he appeared to be fully formed with all his little boy parts, a stomach, a bladder, two kidneys and all his fingers and toes.  His legs and arms were moving about, and his little hand was rubbing his sweet little face.   Just looking at him via the ultrasound, how alive he was and how normal he looked despite the T13 markers, I was heartbroken yet full of joy a the same time.  A mixture of two emotions that I wasn’t expecting.  Quirky chromosomes or not, that’s my baby boy, and I was overwhelmed with the feeling of love for him.

perfect little leg and foot

After the exam ended, the doctor handed me four ultrasound photos, and then she said she would see me back for another ultrasound in 4 more weeks. We decided against getting an amniocentesis because the Trisomy 13 had been pretty much confirmed by all the markers.   Never did the doctor mention my “option” to terminate, and she did not tell us anything negative about our baby or speak about him in a way that was anything but respectful.  She didn’t say he “would suffer” or that termination “would be the best thing” for him and for us.  My husband and I were expecting to hear those things from the genetic counselor, who we met with before the exam, and from this doctor as well.  But they never mentioned it.  We knew that it is very, very common for people to abort babies with Trisomy disorders, and especially Trisomy 13 which has the worst outcomes of the three most common Trisomies, so we were surprised when termination wasn’t mentioned to us.    Wasn’t it part of their job to mention our “options” with a pregnancy that had a poor outcome?  When the baby was said to be “incompatible with life”,  isn’t termination usually encouraged?  I was only 16 weeks along.  Abortion in my state is perfectly legal at that gestational age, and actually the expected choice with a baby that had our baby’s condition.  So where was our counsel on that?  Don’t get me wrong, both my husband and I walked out of there so relieved that no one suggested we end our baby’s life.  We were prepared to explain our beliefs on that. But thankfully we never had to.  And that was such a blessing to us.  We were already heartbroken.  We didn’t need the added grief of having to defend the value of our child’s life.

We went home and shared the news with our children.  That wasn’t fun.   There were tears, and there were questions.  Some of the kids remained silent while others wanted to know more details.  It was a hard talk to have.  We told them honestly that we did not know how long the baby would be with us, that there was a possibility that he could pass away during the pregnancy, or he may be born and live a few minutes or an hour or a day or two.  Maybe a bit longer.  We didn’t know.  Only God knew.   We told them that his body had an extra chromosome which wouldn’t allow some of his major organs to work correctly, that he wasn’t really “sick”  but that his body was just designed differently than ours and wasn’t made to live long on this earth.   We told them that despite his condition, right now he is here with us and we are going to enjoy him while he is alive and well in my belly, because no matter how short his life may be he deserves to be enjoyed and celebrated while he is here, that his life has a purpose, and that we are his family and we love him no matter what.

Towards the end of our talk, Rich said, “No matter what may happen in the weeks or months to come, right now you guys have a little brother growing in mommy’s belly, so let’s give this little guy a name.  Does anyone have any boy names in mind?”   

And after a few names were suggested, it was decided that his name would be Aaron.

If he survives the pregnancy and makes it to term, Aaron’s expected due date is December 1, 2015.  He is our tie-breaker baby.   We now have five girls and six boys.

And the boys want everyone to know this:  “BOYS RULE!!”

It couldn’t be helped.  They had to claim it.  The girls would have done the same thing, lol.

A couple of weeks ago I was lying on my bed trying to catch a few minutes alone.  About three minutes later I could hear Aiden down the hall saying, “Mom-mom! Where are you?”  and I knew that was it for my quiet time.  That boy rarely lets me out of his sight.

He opened my bedroom door, smiled as he “found me” and quickly flopped down on the bed. He curled himself  into me and after a few minutes fell asleep. It was the middle of the day, nap time. His little body was pressed into mine, his legs perfectly contoured to my swelling belly.  Two year olds are just so sweet.

I looked down at my baby bump and realized that there is just a little bit of skin and cloth separating my two boys right now, that they are about as close as they can get to each other in this position.  Look at that, I thought to myself,  my boys are napping together.   I wondered what position Aaron was lying in. Was he facing Aiden, trying to inch in close to him?  Could he sense that his big brother was lying there? Did he hear me talking to Aiden before he fell asleep?

A thought came to me that it’s not likely Aaron will ever get the chance to take a nap with his big brother outside of the womb.  Maybe naps like these over the next few months are all that these two brothers will ever have together.

I spent the next hour staring down at my two baby boys napping together, and I felt joy mixed with a bit of sorrow.  This is a combination of two emotions that I am growing used to.   I am so glad I had my iPhone next to me so that I could take this picture.  This will always be one of my favorite pictures.

About 80% of babies with Trisomy 13 have heart malformations.  Most often they only have two or three chambers of the heart (when there should be four) or they are missing arteries or ventricles, or they have holes in the heart, or the heart is on the wrong side of the body, or their mitral valves are not working correctly or are missing.   Now, I am no heart expert, so I’m not using the exact medical verbiage here…but hopefully you get the idea.  Trisomy 13 babies usually have major heart issues, and not just one of the above issues, but two or more.  So naturally this is what I was expecting to see when we went for our first ultrasound.

During that first ultrasound (at 17 weeks) the perinatologist saw that Aaron has four chambers of the heart, that his heart was located on the correct side of his body, and it wasn’t missing any arteries or ventricles.  In fact, it looked pretty darn good! What a surprise it was for me to see that! But … there was obvious back flow of blood going back up into the top chamber on the left side. He had either an underdeveloped mitral valve, or he had one that just wasn’t working properly. Either way, that wasn’t a good thing.

I spent the next four weeks specifically praying for that faulty mitral valve.  He has other things that are of a concern (which I’ll get into in another post)  but this time I focused on his heart.  Lord, I asked, if you could just fix that one mitral valve in his heart, then he will have a strong, healthy heart.  Just that one little thing? Please, Lord?  Of course I also prayed for his overall health, but I specifically asked for his mitral valve to be healed.  Over and over, a few times a day.  At night before I fell asleep. In the morning when I first woke up.  I constantly prayed and asked for that mitral valve to be fixed.

Then, at his next ultrasound four weeks later, the doctor could no longer see any back flow in that chamber.  She was surprised, and she spent a lot of time looking at his heart during that visit.  The mitral valve seemed to be working perfectly fine. So she referred me to a pediatric cardiac specialist just to be sure.

She thought perhaps she was missing something.

I thought perhaps the Lord fixed my baby’s mitral valve!

Today was my appointment with the specialist. My appointment was at 1:00 but yet I wasn’t taken back into the exam room until 1:50 (grrrr….don’t you just love that?)  When I was finally taken to the exam room, an ultrasound tech did the first exam.  It lasted about 30 minutes and seemed very detailed.  She measured everything, took many images and videos and listened to his heart a few times.  Then after she was done, the doctor came in. He did an even more detailed exam than the tech did.  He pressed hard on my belly to get the wand in there as close to the baby as possible. He said he wouldn’t press hard if it was hurting me.  I said so long as it wasn’t hurting the baby, do not worry about me.  I had to turn on my side a few times so that we could get the baby to shift positions.  I think the exam with him took about 40 minutes. I felt like I was there on that exam table forever.

The final result?  Aaron appears to have a perfectly normal heart.  In fact, the doctor said that if he didn’t already know that Aaron had T13, he would think his heart is the healthy heart of a typical baby. So this makes me happy.  Why? I don’t know, exactly. I guess because he’s got so much going on in his DNA that isn’t right, it just makes me feel good to know that his heart is right. A strong heart means he has a good chance to make it to term and be born alive.  So many mamas of T13 babies never get to hold their baby while he or she is alive. If him having a strong, healthy heart means that I get to hold him while he’s still living, that I might get a day or two with him, or even more, well that is a blessing that I will gladly take.

at the beach with Aiden and Baby Aaron: 24 weeks pregnant

Bottom line:  a strong heart may buy us more time with Aaron.  And that’s what I really want. Time. Just time with my little boy before he goes to Heaven.

~  Katrina

Click on the links to read more about Baby Aaron and our choice to Carry to Term

So here we are at 26 weeks!  I am so thankful that Aaron has made it this far in the pregnancy. My strong boy!   I’m thinking that he’s going to make it very close to full term.  My mama instinct just tells me this.  Plus, I have been praying for that.  A lot.

As I journey through these weeks leading up to Aaron’s due date,    I have my days where my spirits are very high, and I just know that I’ve got this.  I can do it.  I can welcome my son and say good-bye shortly after, and it’s going to be okay because the Holy Spirit will be with me to comfort me and give me strength. And on these days, I truly feel joy and peace while carrying this sweet boy of mine.  Those days are good.

And then there are the days when I’m not so sure I’ve got this, when I think this is too much for a mother to go through, where I bury my head in my pillow and just scream at the unfairness of it all, or I go into the shower, turn the water on, and cradle my baby/belly in my hands and just cry and cry and cry until there’s no more tears left.  On those days, it’s hard for me to smile or to be patient with my other children, or to even get dressed and get out of bed.  Those days do not happen often, thank goodness. But they happen.  I try to talk myself through them, telling myself that Aaron is not gone yet, do not mourn for a loss that hasn’t happened yet.  Sometimes telling myself this works to lift me up again. Other times it does not, and I just have to go through the grief and know that tomorrow will be a better day.  And tomorrow is always a better day.  I never have two bad days in a row.  Instead, I have many good days in a row.  For this I am thankful.

I have no pictures of me during my bad days, for obvious reasons.  It’s not like I hand the iPhone over to my kids and say, “Here.  Snap a quick picture of me crying in the shower, you know, for Aaron’s scrapbook.”   Nope, no pictures of the bad days. But I do have plenty of pictures  during my good days!

I love watching Aiden talk and “play” with his baby brother. Here he is sharing his stuffed animal with him. He was having the animal “talk” to Aaron and also give him kisses.

One night the kids wanted to play Uno with me, but I was so tired. I told them I would play, but only if I could lie on the couch. So, we made my belly the card table. This way, Aaron could get in on the action, too. Every now and then he would KICK and the cards would go sliding off my belly and onto the floor. Then the kids would say, “Ugh…Aaron!” This made me happy. A good day.

This was our last beach day before school started back up. On this day I spent a lot of time thinking about Aaron and how nice it would be if we were able to bring him home for a time, and how I would bring him to the beach so he could  feel the warm sun and the ocean breeze on his sweet face. The thought of that possibility made this a happy day for me.

Aaron’s first time riding in a hotel elevator!  Lots of good days during  this summer get-away.

I love when my kids love on my growing belly. Here Aria was saying, “Hello, Baby Aaron!” So sweet.  It’s always a good day when my kids pay attention their littlest brother :)

This little two year old of mine is almost always with me, all day long, every single day. When Aaron is born, he will most definitely recognize his older brother Aiden’s voice.

Back to School shopping with the girls. This was a good day for me, being out and about with my pregnant belly.

I enjoy taking “selfies” of me and my growing belly. It’s always a good day for me when I do this. It’s such a special time, pregnancy. I love every second.

It’s always a good day when Aiden falls asleep next to his baby brother. I love these moments.

Me and Aaron kicking it, poolside. Days in our backyard pool are always good days.

How could any day not be a good day when it starts off with breakfast in bed? I remember I laughed because I was unable to pull the tray up very far because my belly (Aaron) was in the way. I spilled a bit of food on myself, but it was a good day!

Yep.  Good days.  Bad days.  We all have them, right?

“I have told you all of this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” – Jesus        John 16:33

Well, there you have it.  Trials and sorrows.  Jesus says while we are on this earth, we will have trials and sorrows.  He actually says we will have many trials and sorrows.  Many.

And why is that?   I suppose it’s because this earth is not the paradise that God created at the beginning.  In that previous world there was no death, no sickness, no Trisomy 13.  But that world no longer exists due to  Adam and Eve’s sin.   And this was in God’s plan.  So the world we all live in now is broken, and we are all broken in one way or another.  For my son Aaron, it’s his DNA that is broken. For me, it’s this entire situation that is broken.  I should be anticipating a healthy newborn who will live until he is a 92 year old man.   I should be planning my home birth, ordering my birth tub, going to all my midwife appointments.  There are a lot of “should be’s” with this baby.    Things are very different this time.     Things are broken.  Broken plans.    Broken dreams.     Broken hearts.

But there is no broken faith.  No broken prayers.  No broken hope.  No broken promises of a life in Heaven.   Those things remain unbroken.   In fact, they have been made stronger than ever.

I am thankful for all the good days I have had during this pregnancy, and I am praying for many more during the next three months.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,

give thanks in all circumstances;

for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  

~  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 

Click on the links to read more about Baby Aaron and our choice to Carry to Term

 Join me over at the Reflect link up

Today Baby Aaron and I celebrate reaching 28 weeks together.  Twenty-eight weeks!!

Since many Trisomy 13 babies die in utero in the early weeks of pregnancy, each week that I get with my little guy is a small miracle for me, and I celebrate each one!  And I know Aaron does, too, because I feel the joy coming from inside my belly.  I do, I really do! He kicks me, and he starts to move whenever the kids talk into my belly, and I just know he is loving life in there, safe inside his mama.  He is growing and getting stronger.  He is living his best life.

As my due date draws nearer (December 1st) I find myself worrying about a crazy thing, something that I’ve never had to worry about before.  What if this baby is born strong enough that he gets to come home?  That’s a crazy worry to have, right?  That your baby might come home? I know this isn’t something a mother should “worry” about — in fact, she should expect for her baby to come home from the hospital.   But for me, although I want more time with Aaron and love the idea of him coming home, the possible reality of that has me concerned. Actually, “concerned” is putting it lightly. The thought stresses me out just a bit.

What IF he doesn’t pass away within 2.5 days after birth, as the statistics say? If by some miracle Aaron is strong enough to come home to live with us for a time, he will need more care than the typical newborn – way more care.  He will need to be watched 24/7 in case he stops breathing due to apnea spells, which is a very common  occurrence in T13 babies. I will need to learn infant CPR, and at some point I will probably have to revive my own baby.  I think that thought alone would scare just about any mother.  He will not be able to breastfeed due to his bilateral cleft lip and palate, so his feedings will be difficult, done either with a special bottle (if he has a sucking reflex, which most T13 babies don’t) or more likely through a feeding tube. There is so much involved in caring for T13 babies. How am I going to handle all his special needs plus still do all that I need to do for all my other kids on a daily basis? It seems impossible.

And so all the worrying got me thinking.  Why am I worrying about this? And here’s the answer: It’s because I have time to worry.  I have known about Aaron’s condition since he was 16 weeks gestation. I have had plenty of time to research all of the what-if’s and statistics and future care that he will need IF he should come home from the hospital.  And when you have time, your mind can imagine all sorts of things.  You have the time to doubt yourself and your ability to handle the situation. I have been warned months in advance that a high needs, medically fragile baby is on the way.  And although I love him so much, it is frightening to think that he might actually come home and that his daily care will be on me. All on me.

So then I have to wonder, is knowing beforehand such a good thing?

With my oldest daughter’s brain injury I was not warned.  One second she was a normal four year old, and then the next second a car hit into us and changed her forever.  And that was IT.  There was not any kind of warning telling me I would soon have a brain injured child who would need years of therapy to learn to walk and talk all over again.  I wasn’t told a few months in advanced that this would happen to her and that my heart would break into a million pieces because of it.  I had no time to prepare, no time to think about it.   No time to worry or doubt my ability to care for her.  I just DID IT.  And it was hard.  It was to date the hardest thing I have ever gone through. But, I did it.  And I am quite sure that if a few months before the accident someone had told me what was going to happen,  I probably would have thought no way, there’s no way my heart can handle that kind of pain, and there’s no way I could care for a high needs child like that.  No way. Don’t sign me up for that!   I’m pretty sure I would have freaked out at the thought of it. But I didn’t get a warning because there is no way to know an accident is going to happen.

Because of all the advanced testing available in early pregnancy these days, it IS possible to be warned that you are carrying a baby that is going to need extra care, who might not live a long life, who if he does survive past birth will be disabled and require a ton of extra care. You do get plenty of warning, plenty of time to think about it and to doubt yourself and your ability to cope with it all. Plenty of time to worry about all sorts of things.

So sometimes I think not knowing could be a good thing.  I have been in contact with a few moms of T13 babies who did not know their baby had T13 until after the baby was born. They are all grateful that they didn’t know. They say that they enjoyed their pregnancy without worries, and then the baby was born and they went day by day, made medical decisions when necessary, and they just kicked into action and learned how to be a mother of a special needs baby. There was never really any time to doubt themselves.  They just did it because they had to, just like I did with Audriana after her injury.

But knowing beforehand has it’s advantages, too. I think the biggest advantage is all the support you can tap into before the baby is born. I have met so many parents of T13 babies, some whose babies passed away in the first few hours or days after birth, and some whose T13 children lived longer or are still living.  It helps so much to connect with these parents.  It’s great to find people who know what emotions you are going through and what you will soon be going through once your baby is born. They build me up.  They tell me I can do it, that I will be strong enough, that I will figure it out and get used to my new normal, and most importantly that I will be just the kind of mother my son needs, for however long he needs me. They tell me I will be blessed by the experienced in a way that can’t be explained. I trust these moms and their personal experiences more than I trust any doctor or statistic that I read.

So knowing can be a good thing, and not knowing can be a good thing. I still can’t figure out which way is “best” — maybe for each person it’s different. Like, maybe for me it’s best that I know beforehand so I can write in this blog and share my experiences for others to read.  Maybe it’s best for me to know so that I can better prepare my kids for their baby brother’s arrival. Maybe it’s best for me to know because I was already blindsided once by one of my children being hurt. Maybe this time I’m just meant to be warned.

Here is a picture of Aiden feeling Aaron’s kicks.  I love this captured moment.

We really do cherish every second of our baby boy.  That is another perk to knowing the diagnosis beforehand.  We don’t let any day go by without truly appreciating that he is here with us right now.  The “right now” is never overlooked or rushed, because we know that the  “right now” might be all we get.

New here? Click on these links to read more about Baby Aaron and our choice to Carry to Term

In this photo, Aaron and I are in a waiting room.  We are waiting to have a Fetal MRI done to look at Aaron’s brain.

Have you ever had an MRI?  It’s quite the experience.  They put you in this little tube-thing and the space is so tight in there that your nose practically touches the top of it. And you are supposed to hold perfectly still.  I mean, no moving at all.  And I’m thinking to myself, okay…I can hold still. No problem there. But we are trying to get an image of Aaron’s brain, not mine.  Just how am I supposed to make this little guy hold perfectly still?  There’s no way!

Sure enough, once the machine turned on, he started kicking and moving around.  It’s a loud machine and I’m quite sure the noise bothered him. I was in that MRI machine for about 30 minutes and he flopped around the entire time. I kept telling him to  hold still  but he ignored me. After it was done, the tech said she got some good images.  Hmmmm. I’m a bit skeptical about that. But we will see.

I have an appointment to discuss the MRI results with a pediatric neurosurgeon on Tuesday. Yes, you read that right:  a pediatric neurosurgeon.  Doesn’t that sound fun? This is a person that you don’t want your baby to ever need, right? Well, it turns out that on top of the Trisomy 13 complications, Aaron also has an encephalocele, which is a neural tube defect.  Go ahead and click on the link to learn about that condition. It’s not a good one to have. And because of this, there is a high probability that Aaron will need brain surgery soon after he is born, if he’s strong enough.   He is not the first child of mine to need brain surgery, but he certainly will be the youngest one.

Just one more thing for me to worry about, right?  My sweet baby boy. He’s sure got some things stacked  up against him.  It’s so unfair.   I could just scream at the unfairness of it all. But screaming accomplishes nothing, so I don’t do that.  Instead, I pray.  I pray a lot about his precious little brain, that the encephalocele does’t *grow too much more and that it won’t hurt his brain any further. This is what I pray about lately, the same way that I prayed for his heart. Hopefully God answers this prayer, too!

*Aaron’s encephalocele is still relatively small in size, about 1.5 inches in diameter, and is located at the top of his head, slightly down to the left.  As his skull grows, the encephalocele will grow, too, so we will need  to monitor that.  If it gets too big, I may have to have a c-section to ensure a safer delivery.

New here? Click on these links to read more about Baby Aaron and our choice to Carry to Term

I had a routine OB appointment today.  At this appointment, I was supposed to drink the dreaded “orange glucose” drink that checks for diabetes.  They gave me the drink at my last appointment with directions to drink it an hour before my next appointment (this morning) so that I could get my blood drawn as soon as I arrived at the office.

So I took that drink home even though I knew I wasn’t going to drink it.  Instead, I texted my midwife (the one who was at all four of my last home births) and asked her for the more natural glucose drink, the one she usually tells me to drink before the blood draw.  And so this morning, I drank this instead:

4 oz apple juice

2 teaspoons of honey

1 banana

(blended)

So I went to my appointment this morning and told the nurse I was ready for my glucose blood draw.   She said, “Did you drink the orange drink?” and I was going to lie and say yes just to make things easier on me, but then the truth just flew right out of my mouth and I said, “No.  I drank what I did for my last 4 home births.  It’s a more natural way to do the glucose test.”  and I was expecting an argument but she just smiled and took my blood and that was that.  Then later my OB asked what I drank instead of the orange drink and I told him the ingredients, and he said, “Sounds good to me!  That should work just fine.”

Sometimes doctors surprise me.  I was expecting an argument or even a scolding for going against their office protocol.

So far I’m really happy with this O.B.  Since my last four births have been home births, I have not had an O.B. in 11 years, and I was dreading having to be back in an OB office for this pregnancy.   I much prefer the personal care you get from a midwife.  But with Aaron, I need to deliver at a hospital for his sake.  So, I’m back in an OB office after all of these years.

It’s hard to comply with all they ask me to do.  I refuse almost everything that I feel is unnecessary or invasive.  My OB is well aware of my past home births and probably knows that I’m in their office reluctantly. So far he’s been working well with me and is very accommodating and understanding.  He says I’m handling this situation with Aaron “beautifully” – he’s a very sweet man and I feel comfortable in his care.  His office staff is great, too.  They are all friendly and not pushy.  In fact, today when I refused the recommended flu shot (don’t even get me started on that) I got no arguments or funny looks for refusing.  They just smiled and said, “Okay, we will see you in three weeks!”  So, even though I’m not having my beloved midwife visits and the home birth/water birth experience with Aaron’s pregnancy, I feel I am at least being well taken care of and respected in the OB office I have been assigned to.

My only complaint so far?  The waiting to be seen by the OB; sitting in the exam room for 10, 15, sometimes 20 minutes or more.  They are a super busy OB practice.  With my midwife appointments, she always came to MY house.  I had zero wait time.   The experience spoiled me.

The exam table with it’s crinkly paper covering isn’t the most comfortable thing to lie on for 20+ minutes, especially not now that I’m getting bigger.  Thank goodness for magazines to read … and of course my beloved iPhone to play with.

Today at my exam my OB let me know that my blood pressure was perfect, that I have “only” gained 18 pounds so far,  and that my uterus today measured closer to 30 weeks instead of just 28 weeks, so that means Aaron is growing.  He is already in the head down position.  And of course his heartbeat is as strong as ever.  All in all, it was a good appointment.

Trisomy  13 babies tend to slow their growth in the third trimester.  I am now in my third trimester. So although he is measuring big today, I expect that Aaron’s growth will slow in the weeks to come.  Typically, Trisomy 13 babies are 3 or 4 pounds at birth, maybe 5.  All of my babies have been 8, 9, and 10 pound babies. Birthing a small baby will be new for me.  I guess everything about Aaron’s condition will be new for me.  His size and weight are the least of my worries.

Big Baby Belly. See the vacuum in the corner? Yeah, me and the vacuum haven’t been friendly these past few weeks. No love lost there!

But maybe he will surprise us!  Maybe he will be a 7 or an 8 pound baby? Wouldn’t that be fun? That would be awesome. Hey, you never know!

Tomorrow: my appointment with the neurosurgeon.  He will go over the results of my MRI and will most likely discuss my options for Aaron’s delivery.  I am super nervous about this appointment only because I’m afraid my only option (due to Aaron’s encephalocele) will be to have a C-section.  I have never had a C-section.  I do not want a C-section.  But of course I will do whatever is necessary to keep both me and Aaron safe.

New here? Click on these links to read more about Baby Aaron and our choice to Carry to Term

So I was given this book last week at one of our appointments at the hospital. Look!  It’s a National Best Seller!  Yippee!

What the what?!!!

I’m not saying this book isn’t deserving to a be a National Best Seller.  I am sure it is a great read and has been helpful to thousands of grieving parents.  But wouldn’t you say this book was written for parents of a baby who has, oh…I don’t know…already died??!?

Why am I being given this book right now?   Don’t get me wrong.   I’m all for being “prepared” — but to be given a book like this?  Now?  

Read it? I’m not even going to open it.

I don’t need this book yet.  It will just make me sad.  I don’t need to be sad right now while Aaron is still living.  I have not given up hope for this little baby of mine. For all I know, I might not “need” this book until six months after he’s born, or a year after he’s born.  Or maybe longer.  I mean, who really knows when this little one will pass away?  I’m meeting more and more families of kids with Trisomy 13 whose children live well beyond what the statistics say.

Why can’t Aaron be one of those?

Of course it’s possible that he won’t be one of those.  He could be like so many others who do pass away hours or a few days after birth.   I am well aware of that.  But if I don’t have hope for him, what else is left?  Acceptance of his death? How can I accept something that hasn’t happened yet?

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,  but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.  Proverbs 13:12

I do realize that acceptance is important.  To live in denial is never healthy.  I accept that my baby has Trisomy 13.  I accept that his life will be shortened because of this.  I accept that he will have many disabilities.  I accept that his care will require a lot of time and dedication from me.  And I accept that along with the joy he will bring, there will also be sadness.  But do I accept that he will die soon after birth?

No.

I accept that he might die soon after birth, but not that he will.  There is a difference. Hope is that difference.  I have hope that he will make it out of the hospital and will be able to live with us in our family home.  For a time.  How long of a time?  Two months? Six months? A year? I have no idea. But I can’t read a book about the death of my baby…when he hasn’t died yet. That’s almost like reading How to Survive Your Divorce on your honeymoon.  How many of you would read a book like that on your honeymoon?  After all, the current statistics that a first marriage will survive 10 years is only 0.66% (1 in 15 marriages).  So knowing those statistics, would you put that book down on your wedding gift registry?  You know, just so you could prepare yourself?

Okay, so I know that example is not exactly the same as with a baby who has been diagnosed with a life-limiting condition.  But still.  Hear me out on this.

The way I see it, Aaron has survived this long when so many of these babies pass away in utero. He has a healthy, strong, perfectly formed heart. He is a little fighter!  Doesn’t he deserve a mama who will fight along with him, in spirit?  Or should he have a mama who has already given up hope and is planning for his death as soon as he comes out of the womb?

I’m thinking he needs me to fight for him, to not give up hope. He needs for me to have hope and faith, and to surround myself with people who believe as I do.  Anyone who does not have hope for my baby and who thinks it would be better if he died rather than live with Trisomy 13 should not be around me or my family at this time.  The negativity would be felt, and it would be very hurtful. It would bring me down. And I can’t be down right now, or when Aaron is born.  My little boy needs for my hopes to be high.  He needs me to fight for him.   And he needs me to not read a book that’s all about the death of your baby…while he is still very much alive and has a chance at life outside the womb.

Sorry, I’m just not going to do it.  I can’t see how this book will help me in any way right now.   It just feels so… wrong.  It really goes against my mommy instinct, and that instinct has never lead me astray in all my 22+ years of being a mommy.  Right now that instinct says to have faith, to have hope.  That  is  where I want my energy to be put right now: in hope and in faith.  Not in death.

So I will put this book in the back of my closet.  For now.  And I pray it will stay back there long enough to gather some dust.

I’ve reached 30 weeks with Aaron’s pregnancy.  I remember back when we were first given his diagnosis of Trisomy 13, I was warned that he could pass away soon, that making it to term was unlikely for “these babies”.  So the fact that we are here at 30 weeks is no little thing to me.  He’s growing, he’s kicking,  and if I didn’t know any better I would just assume he’s like any other baby of mine.  He’s doing all the things that the rest of them did.  In fact, so far he’s even growing the same, which is another surprise because T13 babies are supposed to be small and have slow growth in utero.  But so far Aaron is growing right on track with typical babies at 30 weeks.  He’s getting big!

And so am I.

Belly Shot

My stomach is really starting to get heavy.  I feel the typical ligament stretches (which I swear are worse than labor pains) and I’m slowing down a bit around here. My sciatic nerve is giving me pain, which usually happens to me in the third trimester. And bending to pick things up just about kills my back. Thank goodness I have many children around me all the time so I can say, “Hey, can you pick that up, please,  so I don’t have to bend?”  And if anyone ever catches me bending to pick up something, they will yell, “Mom! Don’t bend!”  

The hardest thing for me during my days is my sweet little toddler boy, Aiden.  At two years old, he can walk everywhere, even up and down the stairs, and doesn’t need me to carry his 35 pound body around.  But there are times when he just won’t cooperate.  Like for instance, when he’s downstairs and I notice he needs a diaper change.

I will say, “Hey, let’s go upstairs so I can change your diaper.”

And he will say, “No.  I clean! No change my diaper!”

and I’ll say, “No, you have a poopy.  I can smell it.”

and he will say, “No, I no have poopy. I clean!”

So then I have to pick him up and carry him upstairs because he will drop his weight, yelling, “Noooooo!” and will refuse to walk upstairs with me.  These little battles  kill my back.  And with a two year old, these battles happen often in a day.

“Let’s get into the car to pick up the guys from school”  says mommy.

“No!  I stay here.”  says the heavy, defiant toddler.

So mommy picks him up and carries him to the car, then has to wrestle him into his carseat.

“Let’s get out of the car now.  We’re home.”  says mommy.

“No!” says the heavy, defiant toddler. “I stay in my carseat.”

So I have to wrestle him out of the car seat, and he gets away from me a scrambles up to the front seat of the car.  Then when I reach for him, he jumps into the back.  Then I grab for him again, and he jumps to the front.  This can happen five or six times before I just give up, shut the door to the car and walk away.  He then realizes I’m going to leave him out there in the car by himself and will yell, “Mommmmmm!”  and then I go back, I open the door, and he hops right out.  (Of course I’d never leave him out there, but he doesn’t know that, thank goodness.  Or we might be out there all day playing this game.)

Here he is in the front seat after my 5th attempt at getting him OUT of the car. So rather than getting upset, because what’s the point of that — I just took a picture of him.

By the end of each day, thanks to this sweet boy, this mommy’s back is completely done. The good thing is, when I wake up in the morning it’s like a do-over.  No pain.  I feel great!  But then it starts all over again as they day goes on.  Ah well.  Such is the third trimester.

Okay, so now for an update on the pregnancy and how little Aaron is doing at 30 weeks.

I met with the neurosurgeon to go over the MRI results.  Here is how our meeting started off:

Me:  So, is the encephalocele fluid-filled or does it have brain tissue in it?

Dr. Neuro:  Well, it’s really hard to tell from these images.    The image isn’t really too clear.  We really won’t know for sure until after he’s born.

Me: Okay…well, is there skin covering it? or just membranes?

Dr. Neuro:  Well, it’s really hard to tell from these images.   We really won’t know for sure until after he’s born.

Me: All right.  Well, can you see if the entire vermis is missing in the cerebellum, or if it’s  just underdeveloped?

Dr. Neuro:  Well, it’s really hard to tell from these images —

Me, interrupting:  Okay, let me just stop you right there.  What can you see?  Anything?  I mean, it seems like having this MRI done was a waste of time.

Dr. Neuro:  No, it was good to have it done, actually.  Now we know what to expect.

Me:  Really? What do you expect after seeing these unclear images?

Dr. Neuro:  Well…we know where it’s located. We know the size of it.

Well, that’s something, I guess.

Anyway, after further pressing him for information and making him give his best guess from what he sees on the “unclear” MRI images (so that my 35 minute drive to consult with him wasn’t a complete waste of my time) here is what I was told:

The encephalocele is about 1 inch in diameter. That’s considered small.  It is located on the top of his head, slightly down towards the back.  It’s considered an occipital encephalocele.  From his best guess according to the MRI images, it appears to be mainly fluid-filled. So that’s a good thing. He also believes that it’s covered with skin based on the thickness that seems to be surrounding it, but he’s not 100% sure of this.  We won’t know this until Aaron is born.

As far as surgery goes, if the encephalocele has no skin covering it, he will need surgery right away (unless it’s evident that he’s going to pass soon after his birth, then of course we wouldn’t subject him to a surgery)  But if he seems to be stable and doing well, then a surgery would be done to remove the encephalocele within the first 2 or 3 days after birth.  Why so soon? Because there is a high risk of infection to his brain if they do not repair it within that time frame. However, if there is skin covering it then surgery won’t be needed right away. The skin would protect his brain from getting an infection.

As far as what kind of delivery I should have, the neurosurgeon says that after having nine previous deliveries of very big babies, I would have no problem delivering Aaron naturally, even with his encephalocele. However, if I do that, I risk rupturing it as his head passes through the pelvis.  Of course I don’t want that to happen to him.  So right now, I’m leaning towards having a C-section. Still not 100% sure about this.  I will talk to a few more doctors, including my OB and a neonatologist.

So that was about it for the MRI results.

Last week I had another ultrasound. This was 4 weeks after my last one. My perinatologist told us that Aaron’s size and weight is that of a typical baby.  He is approximately 3 pounds 2 ounces (at 29 weeks) and his bones are measuring long.  She seemed surprised by this.   “Katrina, you have a really good size baby in here.”  were her exact words. It really made me feel good to hear that.  I don’t know why. I mean, I know he still has the Trisomy condition. That hasn’t changed. But I guess when something is “normal” with him, I grab onto that and just enjoy it. And I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing to do. After all, finding joy in this pregnancy is healthy for me.

She also confirmed that the encephalocele is staying small at just 1 inch in diameter. Last ultrasound she said it was 1.5 inches in diameter.  I doubt it’s shrinking, so perhaps the ultrasound images aren’t all that precise, either.  A lot of what we “see” right now will have to be reassessed once he’s born, anyway. But it is staying small, and that is the important thing.

We took a very close look at the encephalocele. She even looked at different angles of it. And the space inside of it clearly looked dark.  Dark means fluid-filled. If there is white, then that is tissue. Here is an image of the encephalocele at this last ultrasound scan.

The arrow points to some white tissue that is probably just a covering of the brain, not actual brain tissue. All that clear black space inside it is cerebral spinal fluid.  Just off to the right of that black circle (the encephalocele) is the top of Aaron’s skull.  So you can see how the encephalocele is growing out of the top/back part of his head.

During this last ultrasound, the perinatologist told us that Aaron’s enlarged kidney was not retaining any excess fluid, that it seems to be functioning just fine. It’s just larger than the other kidney. She says this isn’t an issue.  Very cool to hear that news.

She also looked more closely at his cerebellum and said that the vermis is either missing or underdeveloped.  Up until this point, it has always been completely absent. But now, she seems to “see” something in that space that makes her believe it might just be underdeveloped. Very cool to hear that news, too.

She pointed out his bilateral cleft lip and palate, and that hasn’t changed. We don’t expect it to. That is not a threat to his immediate survival, so although it’s not a fun thing to have (he will have to be tube fed)  we aren’t too worried about it at this point.  He will just have a quirky-looking top lip. And that’s okay.  We will all love him just as he is.

All in all it was a very good visit. Rich and I left that appointment in good spirits. Just happy. Holding hands and talking about how good our little boy seems to be doing, despite his condition. We’ve adjusted to the Trisomy diagnosis, and we are just enjoying Aaron for who he is. He’s our son. We love that he’s here, growing in my belly.  We are hopeful that he will be born safe and will be well enough to stay with us for a while. It’s just a really, really special time right now,  during this third trimester.

New here? Click on these links to read more about Baby Aaron and our choice to Carry to Term

November 25, 2015

That date…will be my son’s birthday.  It’s so strange knowing what day he will be born.   I have always gone into natural labor with all my others, so their birthdays were a surprise.  But we are having a c-section with Aaron, and the date has been scheduled.   It’s actually on the calendar.  My calendar.  Under the Things To Do Today section I have written on the November 25 page:  C-Section 9:30am – arrive at 7:30

So that is the day I will meet my baby boy.  I have such mixed feelings about this.  Of course I want to meet this sweet boy of mine.  But at the same time, it makes me a bit sad.  His time in the womb is numbered now.  I can actually count down the days with certainty.  And once he’s out, he’s on his own.   My body will no longer support his life.  This scares me.  How will his body function without the help of mine?  Will he be able to breathe on his own?  Will he cry, like most newborns do?  Will he be able to open his eyes to see me?  Will he be able to hear my voice?  How long will he be with us?  All these unknowns just about kill me.

I have 5 weeks left of him being safe in my belly, and I intend on making the most of them!

This week I took the kids to a new park that just went up in the new town next to ours.  The kids had a good time, and I did, too.

Audriana took these photos of me on the swing.  My center of gravity is way off, and I felt so awkward …but I was determined to give Aaron his first experience on a swing.  So we went back and forth, back and forth… I hope he enjoyed it.  I couldn’t stop laughing.  I felt a bit ridiculous.

This photo of A.J. pushing Aiden high on the swing is my favorite one of the day.  Can you see the joy on Aiden’s face?  I just love this photo.

I am at 34 weeks today.  The photo below was taken last week when I was 33 weeks.  I’m a bit behind in my blogging but I didn’t want to skip posting this photo.

I had another ultrasound last week (at 33 weeks) and the baby was measuring 4 pounds 12 ounces.  That weight is a typical weight for babies of this gestation.  So this means that despite the Trisomy 13 and the expectation that Aaron’s growth is going to slow, so far it has not and he is a normal size baby.  As always, this could change as the weeks go on.  But for now, I’m happy that he’s growing on target.

I also met with the head NICU nurse at the hospital that I’m delivering at, and she gave me a tour of the NICU and also answered some questions I had.  We had a meeting with one of the neonatologists there, too, and he got to know us and spoke with us about Aaron and heard our expectations of his birth and follow-up care.  That was a hard meeting to have, because he went over “best case scenario”(Aaron coming home with us) and “worse case scenario” (Aaron passing away shortly after birth)  and what would be done in each situation.  It was hard to listen to the possibility that we might only have minutes with our baby.  Of course I already know of this possibility.  But still.  It’s hard to hear someone else say it, especially a doctor.  It just makes it seem more real, I guess.

Today we took some of the younger kids to the Pumpkin Patch.  Lucky for me it was a nice, cool day (for a change!) and so I was able to hang out longer than I would have had it been 90 degrees out.   These days this pregnant mama’s feet have been swelling, and I get tired so easy, so a hot day at a pumpkin patch would have really done me in.

Normally when I take the kids to the Pumpkin Patch each year, all the photos are all about them.  I can’t even remember taking a photo of myself while at the Pumpkin Patch.  But today?   I had to get a photo of Aaron’s first “visit” to the pumpkin patch, and since he’s inside of me…well,  that means I had to get in the picture, too.

I don’t know why I never did this before – taking pictures of myself at the Pumpkin Patch.  It was nice getting some fall photos of myself, and with my husband, too.

Me with my big, round pumpkin belly.

We bought some tickets for the kids to ride a few of the rides.  I say “a few” because the prices are insane, so we limited them to three rides each plus a visit to the petting zoo. We only took four kids with us, so three rides plus a petting zoo was within our budget.  Had ALL the kids come with us, we would have told them to bring their allowance money with them.  (Okay, I’m kidding.  They don’t get allowance money.)

Aiden’s favorite ride was the train ride, or as he calls it, “The Choo Choo”   He was the only passenger on the train, so he got to sit in the best seat ever!

And he got to ring the bell by pulling on the chain.  Toot! Toot!  went the little green engine….

He loved this ride, too.  Aria had to ride with him so she could do the steering.

Every year we come to this Pumpkin Patch, and every year I get this picture of kids sitting on these three “horses” in front of the teepee.  Same place, same set up, but sometimes different kids.  They all eventually outgrow this photo.  No teenager wants to be seen riding a bale of hay that’s set up to look like a horse.  Not cool.

These two had way too much fun on this boat ride.  The boat didn’t just go around and around, either.  It bumped up and down, up and down, and it really went fast. 

I was thankful that Aria was next to Aiden, that was how fast it went.  I was actually nervous that he’d get bumped out of his seat.  I swear, these rides….probably put together in a hour and operated by people who … well, let’s just say you can’t help but wonder where they find these guys.

Andrew, age 9

Getting all four of them to sit still for a photo was impossible.  It just didn’t happen this year.  Oh well.  It was mostly Aiden’s fault.  All he wanted to do was run from place to place.  Two year olds!

All the running around finally did him in.  Good-bye, Pumpkin Patch!  We will see you again next year!