Our (Neurodiverse) Family

As if this pregnancy wasn't throwing me enough curveballs. Spotting in the first weeks, not finding little baby on ultrasound, holy food aversions and nausea Batman, subchorionic hematoma...and then being diagnosed with cholestasis at 28 weeks. In all of this, Stephan's dad was going through his last months, which brought emotional upheaval of its own. I thought I just had to deal with a few more weeks of itching hell, get induced at 37 weeks, and be done with it. My gallbladder had other ideas. I hit 35 weeks yesterday, and to celebrate, my gallbladder decided it had a death wish. Admittedly, I've been eating a lot of junk recently (sleep deprivation and stress does that), and my gallbladder must have decided that it couldn't take it anymore. At around three-something yesterday, I had a snack that I probably shouldn't have had because I really wasn't hungry (stress eating not a good idea). At first, I just felt really, really full. Then, the Right Upper Qua...

Things have been a bit crazy lately. Just a few weeks ago, Stephan's dad passed away after a long battle with leiomyosarcoma Wait, what?! We had known for some time that my father-in-law was dying, but I kept quiet about it here and on social media in general out of respect for my family's privacy and because he lived with the cancer for much longer than the experts expected, we had no idea when he would go. The last several months have been some of the hardest we've experienced as a family. We pretty much put our lives on hold so we could say good-bye when the time came. Kate started to become scared of Grandpa because of the pain drugs he was taking and the equipment he needed to function. First it was a walker, then a wheelchair, then he needed a morphine pump, oxygen, and finally a hospital bed. Some people have told us, "Oh, Kate is old enough that she'll remember her grandfather!" I'm not sure how I feel about her remembering her grandpa bein...

Kate doesn't get ill often, but when she does, it's usually only for a few days tops and then all is right in the world again. So, when she woke up in the wee hours of Sunday morning last week with a fever, we thought that it would be over in a few days and we could continue on with our lives. We were wrong. Sunday, we all stayed home from church to keep Kate from spreading germs. She seemed to want us both, so it was good that we were all home together. She slept a lot, we dosed her with children's Tylenol and Advil, etc. Monday, the fever was still there and again, she slept a lot. She drank lots of water and lemonade, but didn't really want to eat. Then she threw up--that's when I called the doctor. By the time we got to the doctor, she was acting pretty normal and her fever was under control. The doctor said it was just a bug and that she would get over it soon enough. She never threw up again, thank goodness. On Tuesday, she didn't go to presch...

We found out in May that we're having another girl. First name has been chosen, but we're stumped about middle names. Kate is VERY excited to be getting a little sister. Due date is now September 30, but I'll probably go sooner than that with my track record. Kate is going to summer preschool twice a week! She loves it and I enjoy the two-hour break for me...heh heh. I've also got her enrolled for the fall. We're hoping to get a second car in the next few months before baby girl comes. Preferably a mini van. I have no shame. So, we're trying to save up for that. I've been nesting. A lot.  My OB closed his practice because of family stuff, so I followed my midwives from last pregnancy over to their new practice (which is where almost EVERYONE in my ward goes). It's a lot closer to where I live and right next to the hospital I'll be delivering at, so I think this is all for the best.  I've started itching a bit again. I had bloodwo...

Kate had her first ever dentist visit just over two weeks ago. Truth be told, I put it off too long mostly because I was scared of her being traumatized for life from the dentist. I mean, come on, dentists are a child's worst enemy right? Except, my dentist growing up was actually very nice. He even had a daughter the same age as me who I went to elementary school with. Even still, going to the dentist isn't fun the first time...right? Well, these fears proved to be unfounded. Kate did VERY well at the dentist. The hygienists and the dentist were so sweet and gentle with her. I was floored at how well Kate was handling everything--she seemed curious about it all. My first memory of the dentist includes me screaming, but remember that I was speech delayed and was going through more than my fair share of medical tests at the time. Unfortunately, Kate had a lot of cavities. In fact, one was so deep that she was going to need a baby root canal. They thought she ...

If you read my last post, I mentioned having a subchorionic bleed  several weeks ago. Basically, it's a small pocket of blood near the placenta--approximately 20% of women experience this during pregnancy. Most of the time it's harmless especially if it's small, but bigger ones can cause more problems. One Friday, when I was just about 11 weeks pregnant, I went to the bathroom and discovered blood. Red blood. Naturally, I panicked. I left a message on my doctor's voicemail asking him to call back, and when he did, I told him what was happening. He told me that chances were good that everything was fine, but because of last summer's miscarriage, we would arrange for an ultrasound. He called the order into the hospital radiology department and then I made an appointment to go get an ultrasound...at seven o'clock at night. Did I mention that it was his day off when he did all of this? Well, it was. Stephan came home early in the meantime because I was freakin...

I'm too much of a perfectionist about doing just run of the mill family updates like other blogs, so here's just a general update on family life. Stephan was released as the ward clerk last week after serving in that calling since August. Yeah, it was a short tenure, but honestly it was welcome news. It was great when he was out of work because he didn't feel completely useless, but after he started his new job with longer hours and commute, it was just making everything crazy. He is now the ward technology specialist which is basically perfect for him and we are enjoying having Daddy around more, especially on Sundays! Of course, we had a lot of people asking (before he got his new calling) if we were moving closer to his job because of our ward's transient nature.  Truth be told, we were seriously looking into moving closer to his job because of our one-car situation, but everything we found was either in a great location but had ridiculously high rent or had ...