This Week

• Valentine's Day - Loved it! My 19th as T's Valentine.  I got me a goodun.
• A First Birthday - Loved it!  With cupcakes, books, toys, clothes and so many people who care about Azure.  Just fabulous.
• A Decision was made- Azure will not have a biological sibling.  *Whew!*
• The Daytona 500 - WTF? It was Mark's big chance, where the Hell did Harvick come from on the final lap?!?!?!?!
• Awaiting a new nephew - Any time now...
• New stuff at work which I cannot write about because it is about work but man are we shaking things up!

Deep Thoughts by Blue Trunks

Lately I find myself contemplating things. I have not made any firm decisions but I do seem to be leaning in particular directions. This is a new thing for me. I usually rush to make a decision and then either stick by it or change my mind later based on new information or greater perspectives.

• I have been offered the chance to work a flex-time schedule. I would work 4 days a week, 10 hours per day and have one day off during the week to spend with Azure. The immediate emotional response to this offer was, "Yes! Of course, yes!" but there is a lot more to consider. The nanny who relies on working for us two days each week for her livelihood. The fact that the nanny and my parents would need to start watching Azure an hour earlier each day they have her. The fact that those things that I do in the morning would now have to be done the night before because there just wouldn't be time otherwise (and no, I will not get up an hour earlier than I do now. 5:30am is early enough, thanx.) Will my tight stressful schedule actually relax with one day during the week to schedule doctor appointments, run errands, clean, shop, read(?), go to the gym (?), actually take time for myself (?)? In the end it might work out for the best but it all seems so overwhelming to me right now. There are many factors to consider and I want to make sure I don't skip over anything in my rush towards the four-day work week.
• Azure is turning one year old on Saturday. We have been in a rush to finish working on the basement so that it will be finished for the parties. Yes, that was plural. My husband has decided that we cannot fit everyone in our house for one celebration so we are now locked into four separate parties. Two at our house, one at my parent's house and one at a restaurant. I figured we would keep it simple and buy all the food heat n' serve style but we both missed some time off of work last week and had some car repairs and a vet bill we were not expecting so the money is a bit tighter than we thought it would be when we (I) first started planning things. These might turn out to be very casual affairs.
• Poor Maggie-Dog ended up spending the night at the vet last week. She was chasing her tail and licking herself more than usual. It was obviously bothering her. Turns out she had an infection in one of her anal glands. They had to sedate her to empty it and she is now on antibiotics. She doesn't need the pain pills anymore but she is drinking like crazy and eats snow the second she steps outside. T was shoveling the driveway last night and I said we should just let Maggie eat it clear. Win-Win! EXCEPT...she also has to PEE all the time now that she is so thirsty. How is it that I am blessed with a baby who sleeps through the night with only rare exceptions and I end up taking my dog out in the freezing cold at 3am so she can pee and eat more snow? Something just isn't right there. Oh, and T slept through it all, didn't know I had even been out of bed much less got dressed up in coat and boots and took the dog out! Brrrrrr!
• We have scheduled the reconstructive surgery for Azure's scar. She has a scar on her upper arm from a lead the first week in the NICU when her skin was so sensitive (transparent). We have the approval from all of her doctors including the cardiologist. They suggest it is better to do it now before she is so active she could rip out the stitches. Ummm. Yeah. She is SO mobile! She is crawling and pulling up to standing and letting go and falling down. She has NEVER not been active. We'll see how that goes. Anyway, I am now in that state of questioning whether I made the right decision regarding the surgery. While I am 95% convinced it is the right thing to do and better sooner than later I just heard about a friend's husband's surgery that went horribly wrong and he is now in BIG trouble in the ICU. Very scary stuff. His was a different type of surgery but you know how these things transform in one's mind to all be the same thing and scary and lead to freaking right.the.Hell.out.
• Valentine's Day has me thinking that T and I have been so busy with the everyday-ness of our lives that we seem to have lost our romantic closeness. I do not mean sex, though that happens less these days too. I mean we bought a big sectional couch a year ago (while I was still pregnant) with the thought that we could snuggle together on it rather than have one person on the couch and the other person sitting in the chair across the room. So where do we find ourselves sitting? In the diagonal opposite corners of the new couch! Actually farther away than we were before! I want to do something about this. I have found myself working at my marriage which I have never had to do before. Then again we will be celebrating our 7th anniversary this fall. I do not believe in the seven year itch, especially since we have been a couple for almost 20 years. I just miss him and our time together.
• All of these things have me contemplating the second child issue again. (I know, you are thinking, "Blue! Enough with the 2nd kid debate! Make up your mind and be done with it!") The thing is, my entire life and then as a joint decision with T my life plan was to have two children. Now I am not so sure. This is new territory for me so I need to think about it carefully. As much as I like the idea of giving Azure a sibling, (And to be perfectly honest, I want her to have a sister. Nothing against boys per se, but I would just LOVE to see two little girls playing together.) I am just not sure I want to add the additional work and chaos to my life. At least not right now. (Again, you are thinking, "Blue! No one is holding a gun to your head. You do not have to make this decision right away!") Which of course is true. However, I have decided that my progesterone-only birth control pills are not working for me and so I need to come up with another option. My favorite choice being a copper IUD but that is an expensive and long-term option if I decide to change my mind in a couple of years. *sigh*
• Finally, I feel so badly for A-N Smith's daughter. She lost her brother, her mother and is now going to be dragged through several court battles to determine who will get to raise her and where and with or without the money. She will be plagued by the events of the past year her entire life and she didn't even get to know the people involved. She will be told by others about her family which will of course color her view of them. It is just a shame. Poor girl who never asked for any of this and doesn't deserve it.

Do you see why I am having trouble sleeping at night? All of these things swimming around in my head and I just cannot stop them. I need to hire a personal assistant to think for me so I no longer have to do it.

Out of Nowhere

The other night T and I sat down to eat dinner and enjoy one of our favorite shows According to Jim. This particular episode included the birth of Dana's baby. Her water broke while sitting at the kitchen table and Jim had to take her to the hospital. My first complaint was that she grabbed the top of her belly when her water broke. It may not be the case with everyone, but when my water broke I felt it MUCH lower. My second complaint was the fact that when she walked toward the door, she looked awfully dry for someone whose water had just broken. T and I exchanged a look remembering the giant gross puddle I ended up sitting in when my own water broke. I know some people feel a trickle, mine was a "massive rupture". I forgave the show quickly however when they had Jim slip on the "wet" kitchen floor, but that is probably just my own sick sense of humor.
So there they were, at the hospital, Dana in labor, stuck with her BIL instead of her husband or sister for support. T said things were turning bad, very bad, and he may not want to watch the rest of the episode. They didn't actually show any part of the pushing or birth, but it put us right back to our own experience last year. Last February. Almost a full year ago now. (How did that happen? My how time flies when you spend a full quarter of the year in the hospital with your baby!)
We discussed it a bit. How on that Monday I had suffered from back spasms which I thought were due to the long car ride home from our Valentine's Babymoon weekend up north. I called T at work and told him that a co-worker was taking me down to L&D just to be on the safe side. I told him to stay at work and I would call if he needed to come down. I was given an Rx for Vicodin and told to call my doctor if I felt regular contractions or had bloody show, etc. and I went back to work the rest of the afternoon. That same evening T and I went to our follow-up ultrasound to check the volume of amniotic fluid. It looked just a bit high, not bad. Oh, and by the way, the baby was head down. (I actually thought how strange it was that the tech pointed this out, we still had 16 weeks to go, the baby will surely flip and move quite a bit before we need to worry about her being in the correct position. No?)
I never filled the script for the Vicodin and by Wednesday the back spasms were completely gone. I remember because I had a massage that day and I was telling my massage therapist about them but that they were better.
Thursday afternoon I started feeling menstrual type cramps. I remember feeling rather horrible all evening. I propped myself up on the couch to rest my swollen feet and worked on organizing my new and improved filing system for bills, etc. I slept like crap that night because I was constantly getting up to pee and could not shake the pain in my bladder. Ugh!
Friday morning I listened to Azure's heartbeat (which was just fine) on the doppler since I was concerned there wouldn't be enough room for her in there with all the added pressure in my belly from what I thought was my first ever bladder infection. (I kept repeating to myself that UTIs are common in pregnancy.) I went to work.
We were busy and short staffed that day so I put off calling the doctor until a more convenient time later in the morning. My friend at work told me I looked like I was either sick or in pain. I said, "Yes!" I finally decided after yet another trip to the bathroom that I couldn't put it off any longer. They told me to go down to L&D to get a urine test, again, just to be sure. The same co-worker offered to drive me down to the hospital again but as I was actually feeling BETTER than I had on Monday with the back spasms and I didn't want to end up at the hospital without a car again I convinced him to let me drive myself. To this day I do not think he has forgiven me for this. He feels so incredibly guilty for letting me go off on my own. What if...
I called T on my cell as I was pulling out of the parking lot and told him I was on my way back downtown. He said if it hadn't been the second time that week he probably would have stayed at work again. Thank goodness he didn't. If he had waited there would not have been time for him to get there for the birth once things started to happen. If he hadn't been there already he probably would have gotten a call from a nurse saying I was in labor and he would have killed himself in a high-speed crash on his way. If, if, if...
As we were rehashing all of these details, sitting snuggly on our livingroom couch, I began to shiver. I actually got the shakes just thinking about it all again. I am talking full-body shakes that made my voice quiver. Recently, I had been thinking about posting about how I thought I was over the trauma of Azure's birth. About how I can go pick up her prescriptions from the hospital pharmacy and look up at those windows on the 8th floor, and know what is happening behind those panes of glass with their partially drawn vertical blinds without feeling sick. About how well I am doing now. I guess I need to qualify that with mostly. I am mostly over the trauma, I am mostly doing well. It is just every once in a while something like a TV show, or a comment, or a glimse at an early picture can send me right back to where I had been.
The thing that is helping me the most is Azure's continued progress. She had her check up with the early intervention nurse yesterday who had given us a test to complete with her. I was concerned only with the communication since she is not saying the ma-ma, da-da, ga-ga sounds they asked about. The nurse told me this was no problem since she is quite verbal and saying the vowel sounds (vowels are more important than consonants apparently). She said, "She isn't delayed in anything!" My beautiful, brilliant, getting-more-mobile-every-minute daughter no longer needs early intervention services because there is nowhere to intervene. She is right on target for her corrected age. Could she need help in the future? Sure, maybe. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, she is perfect. I keep telling people she wasn't premature, she was advanced placement! (She IS descended from a Nobel Prize winner afterall!)
She is helping me to heal. She is saving me yet again.