Happy Birthday Ellie/Happy Easter

Yesterday was Ellie's 1st birthday. We had her party on Saturday. What a success. My MIL wanted to invite ALL the family who had babies which means almost everybody, so of course I had to invite the few families in the extended family that didn't have babies. Besides Ellie we had 3 of the babies, 2 weren't there. We had just over 40 people at her party. To offset the high number coming from DH's side I invited some family and family friends on our side. It seemed to work well. We had an easter egg hunt for the kiddos, which they all enjoyed. Ellie even hunted eggs with daddy. Daddy took her around and she picked up eggs and put them in the bag. Then later when the kids counted their eggs we sat her on the sidewalk with the others and counted 13 eggs. It was so cute, I'll have to get my SIL's pic she took of Ellie hunting eggs posted sometime.
Of course we had cake. Ellie's cake had her initial logo my mom created. You know the butterfly made out of the initials EEB. It was pretty neat. She didn't dig into the cake like other babies do, she was quite reserved, but eventually she got her hands all dirty, just not her face. Good girl, I'm raising her right, lets not get all sticky.
We were going to do a diaper derby, but no other baby can crawl yet, so obviously it wouldn't have been too fair. We did where everybody guessed how many fruit loops were in a container. My mentally challenged cousin, he's on a 7ish yr old level guessed the closes, I was shocked. The 2nd place winner was an 11yr old, again rather shocked. Ellie would have been 2nd place if my mom put what she meant to put for Ellie's guess. My mom put 1999, for some reason...all we can think is my mema died April of 1999. My mom wanted to put 2009 for the year Ellie was born. That would have won her maybe even 1st place. My cousin, put 200018..meaning 2018, but he didn't know how to write it.
She got SOOOO many gifts. I'll say it was about an equal division with the clothes, toys, and books. So far her favorite toy seems to be what I, well, DH and I got her. But I picked it out. It's basketball goal, w/ 2 little hard plastic balls, connected to it, there is baseball and has a little bat, and there's a football. It's designed so more than 1 child can play on it at once. Ellie LOVES balls, so though it may be a "boy" toy it's so her. When you score on the basketball, it cheers and lights up the score, so cool.
She's walking around now. She'll walk halfway across the room and then go back to crawling. She isn't standing up in w/out something to pull up on yet though. She still has 2 teeth on the bottom and 2 teeth on top. She says mommy, dada, mama, baby, bye, maimi, and babbles some other stuff that I can't make out yet. She waves hi and bye. She loves her baby doll which she seems to have named Maimi. Her favorite things are balls, music, her baby dolls, and dogs and cats. She shows the animals and her baby dolls so much love by hugging them, petting them, and kissing the dolls. My baby is really growing up on me. I'm so impressed with the things she's doing and saying. This past year has been the best ever. I don't remember ever smiling and laughing as much as I have since she's been in my life. I may have had a bit of wait before I got pregnant with her, but it was worth every minute and every failed cycle. For now we have got a beautiful and complete family. Eventually we may add to our family, but for now I'm just going to continue to focus on this little one.

Wills/Godparents

Morgan's post has sparked some thinking. Since I was pregnant, we discussed who would get Ellie if something happened to both of us. We can't ever come up with a family, but we do have a few couples in the running, we just haven't asked any of them.

SIL and her husband. They have a 6yr old son, 8yr old daughter, and a 6 month old daughter. She homeschools the kids. The kids are involved with basketball, baseball/softball, football, cheerleading, dance, and gymnastics, basically whatever they seem to have an interest in. The 8yr has and still may be taking piano. The husband is a school teacher and also buys from auctions and yard sales and sells stuff on ebay. They go out of town for a day or weekend for the kids b-day and to concerts and about 2 or 3 big vacations a year. They have a pool at their house, swing set, and trampoline. Just saying all this to give an idea of how they are. Basically your typical middle class family. They live in the town we do. Ellie would be able to basically see most of the family she already sees, being my mom and DH's mom and nana. She may not get to see much of the family that lives out of town, not that she sees them more than a few times a year anyway. They go to a church in town, same denomination as ours. They social drink, which DH and I very against even social drinking because his dad is an alcoholic. We just don't want to play w/ fire and teach our child that it's ok to drink. They are very over protective of their children, way more so than we are. We want Ellie to go to camp as a child and SIL can't even think of that until the kids are teenagers. SIL is instilling in them fears of the dark and doesn't mind having the family bed...we aren't fond of. The kids can't even go into a room at night by themselves they are so scared, which SIL is the same.

Then we have a 2nd cousin of mine. He is going to grad school. His wife is a social worker at a school. They have a boy about a year older than Ellie. He is in daycare close to the school. They live about 3hrs away from us, so who really knows how often Ellie would see some of her family around here. But she would see some family on my side that she doesn't see often, and she would have a large other side of the family. We don't know a whole lot about the way they raise their son. All I know is they are very responsible adults and I guess I would say they are again a typical middle class family who is trying to improve theirselve. She has a master degree, and like I said he's getting one. I know they go on vacations and their son doesn't lack stuff. He gets to see his grandparents (my great aunt and uncle) weekly, which is great.

Then we have another 2nd cousin of mine. She works for maybe sprint or something like that. Her husband is hispanic, and actually was (not sure now) if he's legally a citizen. I know they had to move to the boarder at some point so he could come here legally. It was supposed to take a year but it took him 6 months and he was back, so don't know details. He travels a lot, going where work is. They live in descent house. They live very close to the great aunt and uncle I mentioned above, and Ellie would see them often. They don't have kid stuff, or go on vacation, they don't have any kids. She's dealing with infertility AND with her husband being out of town a lot. I don't know as much about them as I do SIL.

So based on what I wrote, who would you lean towards? After writing it I think I know who I am leaning toward. How do you confront a couple about stepping in and taking custody of your child in the event something happens, and how do you make it legal?

Great Stride walk

I registered to walk in the upcoming great stride walk for CF in a couple weeks. In case anyone wanted to donate you can go to http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/index.cfm

Type in Sherry Bean, and Tennesse. I'm really the 2nd Sherry Bean that pops up. The first was an oops I created, i have to figure out how to delete it. For some reason as soon as I created it i guess I didn't know my password and/or username. I don't know.

Anyway, thank you very much.

On a side note, I will not be online much for a few weeks. Besides being busy, my computer is messing up and until we get it fixed I am going online when I'm at other's houses.

Update on DH's new attitude

The other day when we were discussing family planning, DH said he wanted to wait 5yrs to have another baby. I was just talking to him because I'm not 100% sure I will get into the surgical tech program this year. I mean there are a lot of people trying to get into a program that only allows 20 people. I was just wanting to discuss that if I don't get accepted into the program for this fall, we'll know next month, then I'll want to go ahead and have another child before the following fall when hopefully I'll be accepted. I really don't want, and he didn't either for our childern to have HUGE age gaps. But, he was saying that he wants to wait 5yrs.

Then today we were talking. He made it clear he doesn't want to keep going through a bunch of miscarriages. Let me say, I did find out that I am O+ so the fact that I didn't get the rhogam shot is not an issue. Apparently a lot of his problem is the miscarriage. I confided a lot is friends online and my mom and even DH. But he holds it all in and doesn't work through the emotions. I'm pretty much ok with things now. I mean, sure I have my moments, but for the most part I've worked through the grieving process. He isn't and he isn't going to express himself, that isn't him.

We'll talk about family later, for now we're preventing. No biggie. I just want him to emotionally heal before we discuss family planning more.

Why doesn't he want to be with me

Simon is over the road for 7 days, then home for 3-4. During that time we used to get a date, at least every other time. That quickly ended. But we did try to do something special as a family with Ellie. All was well, but now that is coming to an end. He does stuff with her, but not if I'm going to. He'll take her to the mall, or to his dad's or his friends. But, like I said, not if I'm around. Everytime WE try to go somewhere together, regardless of where or what he gets a headache, he feels sick, he gets tired, he gets depressed. Today we didn't even make it 1/4ml down the road before he turned around and went back home. Ellie and I went out to spend family time together, with Simon. I've told him repeatedly that if he's not going to spend time with us, then I'm not going to adjust my life. We will continue with life as we usually do, if he wants to participate, then he can, if not that way we aren't making special arrangements for ultimately nothing. For example, I blew off a playgroup today because he was home and we had "plans." Turned out we didn't follow through with those plans, but it was too late for the playgroup because I didn't know the directions to the woman's house. Those kind of things happen all the time now. It's like he has no use for me anymore.
When he comes home he says hi to me, kiss me, then goes to Ellie...no harm there. But then when I try to talk to him, ask him questions or anything he doesn't answer, he doesn't listen, he doesn't acknowledge me.

I wish I knew what his problem is. I wish he wanted to be around me, but he doesn't. I guess I can't blame him...I mean it's me we're talking about. Oh well, I'm trying to get to the point of being ok about his decisions to not be with me.

Assured and in pain

I talked to the nurse AND the place I give blood at. Both said I am O+. What a relief. I can breath now.

TMI, I think I passed the baby, well more like a large clot. Now my back is hurting SOOOOOO bad. I thought I had excaped a miscarriage without much pain, or maybe my pain tolerance is just that high. I'm not convinced of either now. My low back is hurting so bad it's not even funny. I may have to dig into to the supply of tylenol w/ codine or hydrocodone.

Emotionally, I am shocked at what I'm feeling. Yesterday I was upset at myself because, honestly I didn't care too much. I wasn't pregnant long, I have Ellie, no biggie. But today, it's a BIG difference. I'm missing my "Little Baby." I had already looked at the double stroller and carseat I wanted, and I was very close to buying 2 gender neutral PJ's that were on sale one for Ellie and one for Little Baby.

I guess any loss you go through the stages of grief.

miscarriage and major concern

It was just a miscarriage, not a molar pregnancy...thank God. And it seems I am miscarrying without the need for a D&C so another good thing. Little Ellie is being an absolute life saver. If I didn't have her, it would be so much harder. Or if I had spent a while TTC it would be a lot harder.

Simon and I have decided to TAB from any TTC efforts. We are going to prevent, for a while and research the copper IUD and see if I'm allergic to copper. We'll just spoil little Ellie for now.

I'm concerned about something BIG. I thought I was O- before I was pregnant with Ellie and during most of the pregnancy. When it came time for the rhogam shot I asked them about it. They said I don't need one because I'm O+. That's fine I wasn't 100% sure anyway, I just always thought I was the universal doner, and that would be O-. They double checked my files and indeed I was O+ so I didn't get a rhogam shot. WELLLL, when they did blood work Friday for the miscarriage the lab report says I'm O-. WAIT, if I'm O-, I know Ellie is O+ and I NEVER got the rhogam shot. So I'm a little freaked. I asked the doctor real quick in the hall on my way out because that's when I noticed it. He said that's not right, that I'm O+, that it's confusing. I'm not sure what the confusing part is, I'm pretty worried. I'm afraid the lab or the doctor's office made some kind of mistake and I should have gotten the rhogam shot.

I have given blood in the pass, can I call the company and get my blood type from them? Or should I give blood again in order to find out? Or do I call the doctor's office and talk with the nurse, expressing my concern?

Also if this indeed was a mistake and I can never have anymore children because of this mistake, is it ground for a law suit? We ALWAYS wanted more than 1 child. I know, there are lots of people who can't even have that 1 child. But still wouldn't it be a big enough thing, I mean THEY made me to never be able to carry another child.