11 Weeks

First and foremost, I want to apologize for being totally radio silent lately and to THANK YOU ALL sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, for all of your sweet notes!  They all put a smile on my face just when I needed it -- so thank you!  Although I've never met you in "real life", your support and positive thoughts mean SO much to me!

I'm happy to share that as of Wednesday, our little one has a strong heartbeat of 165 and is growing right on schedule.  And, today I hit the 11 week mark!

Our baby is now the size of a lime and the head-to-body ratio is 1:1.  Can you imagine that?!  S/he looks quite adorable in our most recent sonogram photo, if I do say so myself!  ;)

On this day last pregnancy, I was undergoing my MVA.  That was one of, if not the, worst days of my life.  All this past week I've been really nervous, and each little twinge or pain has my mind racing.  I'm trying to stay calm and stay rational, but that has proven to be quite a challenge.  Lucky for me, my hubby has enough patience and calmness for the both of us.  And, he's a pretty darn good cook, too, so count me super-lucky!

In addition to being a bit nervous, the reason I've been MIA on the blog is because I've been feeling like total POOP.  {Pardon my potty mouth.}  I've been able to {barely} drag myself out of bed every morning, get my butt to work, and have tried to act like a semi-normal human while I'm there {since nobody except my boss know my little secret}.  But that's where it ends.  By the time I drag myself in the door at night I'm completely useless.  As in I collapse on the couch inside the door and can't even get to the bedroom to get my pajamas on.  Luckily, I've only physically gotten sick once, and I've been able to eat pretty well-balanced meals on most days.  But, for a large part of every day I have this super gross feeling in my tummy that alters between nausea & pain, and disgusting taste in the back of my throat that makes functioning like a normal adult pretty darn hard.  So this is why I haven't been blogging much.  But, since I'm slowly nearing the end of my first trimester, I'm hoping I'll start feeling better soon and can do some more regular blog posts, because I have SO much to discuss with you all!

In the meanwhile, you know what Kelly Clarkson says.... what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!  And in this case, I'm going through all of this for a VERY worthwhile cause.  So, I'll keep the rest of my complaints to myself and leave you with this funny little laugh:

Happy November!

Not Broken

Have you ever instantly become drawn to a song, without knowing why?  When I first heard Pink's "Just Give Me A Reason" I involuntarily began crying as I listened to the lyrics.  The song is about a couple going through a hard time in their relationship, convincing one another to hold on and give it another try.  Does this apply to my marriage at the moment?  Absolutely not {thankfully}.  Then why was I so immediately smitten??  The tune is catchy for sure, but so are a lot of songs I don't feel such an emotional connection to.

The lyrics speak to me in a different way...about our miscarriage.  This experience has been so hard -- more physically and emotionally difficult than anything else I've been through.  At times during our miscarriage I wasn't sure I could, or wanted to, hold it together.  But the truth is, we're not broken.  We still have one another.  We still have our love, and our marriage.  Together we can, and will, one day try again.  Shortly after our miscarriage I often thought about whether I would always be too scared or too weak to ever try again, or whether our first pregnancy experience would forever taint any future ideas or dreams about starting a family.  I was already so in love with our little one, even though I'd never even seen more of him or her than a blurry sonogram photo.  Losing our first baby was so much to bear, and although I am sure the pain will continue to lessen over time, I don't think it will ever completely disappear.  But now that a couple months have passed, I've realized it's like the song says -- we're not broken, just bent.  And we can learn to love again.

Now every time I hear this song, I feel a little bit of hope.

Just give me a reason

Just a little bit's enough

Just a second we're not broken just bent

And we can learn to love again

It's in the stars

It's been written in the scars on our hearts

That we're not broken just bent

And we can learn to love again

Oh, we can learn to love again

Oh, we can learn to love again

Oh, oh, that we're not broken just bent

And we can learn to love again