quick update

Baby Boy is doing great! 1 lb. 11 oz., 45th percentile, and looking fantastic. Finally I'm 1 lb. over my pre-pregnancy weight. So bizarre, given his size and the size of my belly. And he's no longer breech. Hee haw. I should know tomorrow whether or not I passed my gestational diabetes test.

All for now! Look at that sweet face!

she walks!

On her 17 month birthday on January 21 (and be reminded that 17 months is the cut off for "normal" age for walking), Maura took her first independent steps. From then until now, only two short weeks later, she has gone from taking 3 steps to walking around the house, turning around, squatting and picking things up, and then coming at you with her arms wide open for a hug. As everyone said, I can hardly remember what it was like when she didn't walk. I'm relieved, sure, but more overjoyed that she is enjoying herself so much and getting so confident. She is certainly a full-on toddler at this point, picky about her food, cranky one minute and lovely the next, but I really am lucky that she has stayed quite happy through almost every stage. This face makes up for any amount of half-chewed fish sticks I pick up off the floor.


I'm getting more and more excited for the boy to get here. As much as I love being pregnant, it's so much different this time around, and I know now that's because I know how great it will be when he gets here so I just want him to hurry and up and do it! I'll be 25 weeks on Wednesday and have a hard time believing I have 15 weeks to go. Sleep is tumultuous, depending on the day -- a mix of nightmares, chills, anxiety, insomnia and utter exhaustion. I'm not having to pee 40 times a night like I did with Maura, but paybacks are hell and the alternative is much, much more unsettling. I got so good at peeing at night I could almost do it without opening my eyes. Waking up from a nightmare thinking someone is robbing my house -- not so much.

Otherwise, he seems to be growing fine -- I'm GIGANTIC, as big as I was when I delivered Maura. I've only gained 3 lbs., but the belly is fully out of control. He's a quiet baby during the day, and kicks the hell out of my pelvis at night. It still feels like he's trying to crawl out, and I could seriously use one of those belly support belts but I'm just too ick feeling right now to add some kind of contraption to my wardrobe. I want to be in nothing but pajamas these days. I have another appointment on Wednesday and we'll see then how big he's gotten. Last month he was measuring a week ahead still on ultrasound and my belly was two to three weeks ahead. Yikes. We could have a 10 pounder on our hands.

Here's some more recent photos of the walking. When I can figure out how to upload a video, I will.

22 weeks

Things are going well in the Smalley household. The doldrums of winter have set in and it feels a bit like the same thing every day at this point. Maura is becoming quite independent and quite strong, and everyday I feel a mix of pride and sadness that she is growing up. She'll be 17 months tomorrow, and is almost walking on her own. She'll push every cart or toy in the house imaginable, walking everywhere into walls, and just this last week (and perfected today) she can stand on her own. I think it's a confidence issue at this point, and I give it another week until she's walking all on her own. It really is remarkable to watch her do these things that a few short months ago they said she would never do without tremendous trouble. 17 months is the top of the curve for walking, and developmentally she's always been about 6 weeks behind since she stopped growing at about 34 weeks, so really, we're right on target (or maybe that's just my justification).

The baby boy does not seem to have the same issues, at least at this point. I'm going every month for an ultrasound with the perinatologist and every month to my OB, so literally every other week he's getting poked and proded and looked at, and so far, so good. At last week's ultrasound he was measuring his usual 4 days ahead. Today at the OB, my belly was measuring almost 2 full weeks ahead, at 24 weeks as opposed to my real 22, and I gained 6 pounds this month, which although a lot, brings me even with the 8 lbs I had lost the first trimester. Hard to look at me now and believe I weighed this amount, but differently distributed, before I was even pregnant. Motivation for sure to get my ass in gear after he's born. Regardless, he's had quite a growth spurt even in the course of the week, and while it scares me a little to think about delivering a 10 lb. baby, I'll be thrilled to do it, if it means he's healthy. I look enormous, and have grown so much even over the past week. It really is bizarre to see my body grow along with him.

He's quite active, and breech, so he kicks me in the crotch all day with the occasional flailing punch in the gut. That's the feeling I miss most not being pregnant. While there's nothing like holding them in your arms, a close second is feeling that movement tucked away inside you.

It's cold here, and snowy and grey and wet, and every day I wish for at least 40 degrees so I can thaw out. I've had about enough of winter this year. No signs of spring yet, but hopefully soon.

Here's Miss Attitude and her mother, Miss Holy Hell That's a Big Belly.

holidays in pictures

As is the way around the holidays, there were tears and there was laughter, and in the end (once the tree comes down and the presents are all put away), I am reminded yet again of the real magic -- my baby girl. I would give up every holiday if it meant she would only ever know love.

a change of heart for the new year

When I first started this blog, it was a way to document my pregnancy with Maura and keep people in my life who didn't see us often up-to-date with what was happening. When she was born, I wanted to keep it up and open so that people could enjoy her and the wonderful lady she was becoming. It instead turned into a great vehicle for me to talk about my post-partum issues without fear of judgement or criticism, since I was basically writing into some vapid space. I got to write again, about things I cared about. But now, pregnant again, I'm having a change of heart.

I'm just not cut out for as much openness anymore. This time around, I'm more protective, more attuned to the need to have things of my own that only I think and feel and experience. I've always been an open person, because honestly, there's nothing new under the sun, and I've always felt like hearing the reality of other people's lives has helped me with my own. I am learning to take comfort in the fact that the people that I love know I love them, and that if anything were newsworthy in some way, I would tell them personally. And I've decided that much of my life, apart from the amazing goodness of things that happen with Maura and will happen with our next child, is not going to be shared in the same way. I see now the beauty of keeping between you and your spouse and the four walls you live in the things that are deepest in you.

Through silence and through comments, I've gotten a lot of support on here, and I appreciate that so much. It's been nice for me to imagine who might be on the other end of this, reading about me and us and putting us in their good thoughts, even if just for a moment. As I've said so many times, I'm such a lucky girl that I have this life.

I'm going to keep updating the blog weekly as I have (or as I've tried to) as a place to check-in about Maura and our son (yes! it's a boy!) and keep our family and friends up-to-date. I don't know why I feel the need to say anything more about why I won't be writing quite as personally, but I guess because I have gotten lots of great support I feel like it's the most gracious thing to do.

So, to you three readers, merry christmas and happy new year. See you on the flip side.

a very long week and a half

It started last Tuesday, with an appointment at an orthopedist for Maura. I was almost sick with worry before the appointment. It's a very long story, but the bottom line is that she has been having some challenges standing and walking and we sought out early intervention services at the advice of our pediatrician. EI evaluated her, quickly determined (a little to quickly for our taste) that she was 7 months delayed in her gross motor skills, and sent us panicked off to a brace clinic to meet with a PT about orthotics for her feet. The brace clinic recommended the orthotics, but they weren't like little cookies for your shoes like I thought they would be. They were like full-on braces that came up her above her ankle from her toes, white hard plastic things like a walking cast that they wanted her to wear for 9 months every moment she was awake. To the tune of $1500 (which thankfully we found out insurance would cover). We walked out a little stunned and skeptical. Two days later at our pediatrician, we expressed the same and sent us to this pediatric orthopedist at MGH, some big wig. After we finally made it there Tuesday after 2 hours of traffic, Maura was a mess and didn't want to cooperate but they x-rayed her legs and pelvis and found there were no skeletal issues and recommended that we give it more time until we did anything to intervene, that at not even 16 months, she was far from his estimation of delayed and that EI was basically taking us for a ride.

We were relieved, and pissed. Although it was comforting to have a specialist determine that although he could see the issues with her feet and pronation we weren't going to do the braces, we had to lug all over creation because EI essentially wanted us to sign-up for services. So right now we're just taking it day by day and I feel confident that she'll walk when she's damn well good and ready.

Then Wednesday, we had an awful snow storm, and Jay's car had been having lots of problems, starting and not starting, getting jumped and working and then not just hours later. Anyway, I took the piece of shit to work because I wanted Jay to have the good car to take Maura to yet another doctor's appointment, but he ended up not going in the snow. Needless to say, I was pissed and stressed I wouldn't even make it home from work. After a tense night, I left for work Thursday morning as usual and got a call at 10 a.m.

"Baby, don't panic, but we've been in a car accident."

I almost died. I started to panic, of course, barely hearing what he was telling me. On top of everything else, my cell phone had not been working, so I got what I could about how he and Maura were doing and then left panicked even more that they wouldn't be able to reach me on my drive home.

The ride home is a bit of a blur, but I did reach Jay and he reassured me everyone was fine. Someone ran a red light and he hit her at about 30 miles an hour, trying hard to brake and avoid her. There were witnesses, the car seat did its job and kept Maura safe, and although Jay was so ready to get out and tear into the other driver, he did the best he could to take care of Maura and be sure she was ok and not scared getting checked out by the paramedics and cops. Luckily, the cop that showed up first was a girl Jay went to high school with, who then called for my brother-in-law's best freind and our friend, who is also a cop in town. By the time I reached the area, Jay's brother had picked them up at the scene and brought them home.

It's hard to even describe the mix of relief and terror I felt when I got home and saw them both and Maura looked up at me and said "Hi!" This time last year I was severely depressed, convinced that Jay and Maura were going to die, or that I was going to die. Back then I had plans for how I was going to try to avoid that, ways I was going to negotiate with whoever was going to kill us, get them to just kill me and spare Maura. As twisted as it was, I thought I was in control of those things then because I had a plan. This was totally something I could do nothing about. And I had to trust that Jay had done what he could to protect her and take care of her. It was a very difficult day for all of us.

In the end, everyone is just fine, and there is a silver lining. The car was totaled, and we got an insurance settlement that will allow us to pay off my car and put a down payment on another. It's not an ideal time for us to buy another car, but its the best case scenario out of a really terrifying situation. And we're buying the safest car we possibly can afford. I don't care but it's having no less than 9 airbags.

After a full weekend of feeling both terrified still and very, very grateful, this week is off to a better start, and we're back to gearing up for Christmas. We got a tree. And we find out soon whether we're having a boy or girl, which we'll learn next Wednesday. I'm such a mix of nervous and anxious and excited I'm having trouble sleeping. And I keep biting my nails. And eating brownies for breakfast. And I've gotten a big stress zit. Ahh, wonderful. No really, how could it not be, despite everything else, when I look at my lady bird and pause and realize how amazing it is that I got to be the lucky one to be her mom and am lucky enough to be doing it all again?

she's perfect

That's all.