Tomorrow, you will officially turn one year old. You and I had planned on taking a trip to Texas to visit your Nana, Papa and other members of my family to celebrate your birthday. Unfortunately, you got very sick, Nana has been sick and it was going to be 110* in the area so we had to cancel the trip. It’s going to be just you and me for your birthday.

It’s funny, because as I’m writing this, a friend of your father’s and mine is having a baby in the same hospital where you were born one year ago tomorrow. We don’t know if she’s having a boy or a girl, but we’re very excited. It’s been on my mind a lot – how much this past year with you has changed our little family.

On August 5th 2010, your Nana was in Bowling Green and helping me get ready for your arrival. We had been excited, praying, and planning for your arrival since December 2009. I was very tired on August 5th. One day, when you’re older, I’ll tell you the story of how you were born. Most likely over a campfire with S’mores. Because it’s a bit of a scary story with a very, very happy ending.

I can’t believe it has been a year since you entered our lives. I remember coming home from the hospital thinking, “I can’t believe they handed us this baby. Don’t they know that [your father] and I don’t have a clue as to how to take care of a baby!” That wasn’t true. I had a clue. I had plenty of clues. Your father on the other hand…some days I think his clues get lost. But we loved you.

We love you so very much – and that love is different every day. When you were small, we loved the tiny-ness of you. Your father loved your chubby cheeks. I loved your tiny lips. We loved that you had hair and plenty of it. We loved holding you, swaddling you and rocking you to sleep. We loved your big, room bursting burps after bottles. We didn’t love your stinky, poopy diapers – but we really loved the lavender bedtime soap smell you had before you drifted off to sleep.

When you got a little bigger, we took you to daycare. We loved reading your daily reports. We loved to see what you drank – and soon what you ate. We loved to read updates about the songs you’d clap your hands along to. We loved seeing you loving the buggy rides around the school. We loved seeing you make friends and get excited to play and learn and laugh and eat waffles. We didn’t love having to pick you up and keep you home when you got sick, but we loved seeing you feel better.

You continued to get bigger. We loved feeding you cereal, then fruits, veggies and proteins. We loved watching you learn to sit up on your own and reach for things around you. We loved playing peek-a-boo and dancing around in your room to music. We loved tickling your armpits and kissing your ticklish spot under your chin to make you laugh. Your laugh is the best sound in the world.

Your big smile is the best sight in the world. My favorite moment of the day is when I walk into your room and peer over you in your crib. Sometimes you’re already awake – sometimes you’re still asleep. But when you see me, you always smile EXTRA big and reach your arms out for me. I love watching you pull a blanket over your face then yank it down fast – as you play peek-a-boo with me. We loved watching you learn to crawl and soon, pull yourself up and hold the coffee table as you walk alongside it. We don’t love it when you pull down the DVD’s, reach into the toilet, lean over the side of the bath tub, dangle cords around the back of your neck like a necklace, hit the Blu-Ray player, chase after the dog or try to eat things off the floor. That scares us. We love that you’re adventurous, though.

Your voice is the best sound in the world. You started saying da-da in the spring, but you know to call me ma-ma when I feed you breakfast in the morning. You love to talk after you wake up from a nap and are sitting in your chair to eat. We love that you have fun in the water and you’re very curious about how things work. We love that you enjoy making us smile. You’re silly and you’re smart which is an awesome combination. When you’re frustrated, you’re also defiant and headstrong. Those can be awesome if you use them to fight for good things in the world like love, fairness and justice. Those are very un-awesome when I’m trying to give you medicine or put you in bed for a nap.

You have brought so much love into our family. You make your ma-ma and da-da so very happy and proud of you. You make Lily stress out a bit – but you’re one third her age (in people years) and three times her weight – so I think that’s fair. I hope that maybe in another year or two, you can be friends. You have made me a more grounded person. I am a better person for having you in this world. I hope I grow to be a more patient, creative, nurturing, insightful and kind person every year I’m with you. When there are things that are troubling me, you provide perspective. It’s not always easy, it’s not always fun, but it’s always worth the effort.

So tomorrow, you and I will spend the day together. We will have cupcakes, frozen yogurt and every day adventures on the town. A few weeks ago, we had friends come over to celebrate your birthday. We clapped and sang and you opened many kind and generous presents. Tomorrow, we will celebrate you, my son, the greatest gift I have ever received. Here’s hoping that this is the first of many happy years and birthdays to come.

- Ma-ma

Wrong. By 2:30, when I took him to have the pediatrician say, “Yes, that’s a teething fever, he can go to day care.,” he was a roasted 103.7. Clearly not a low grade fever. But other than being a little less rough an tumble – we still don’t know what the problem is.

The one upside to today? He laid on my office papasan with a blanket on his lap. He would pull it over his face, wait, then yank it back down while string straight at me. It took a few turns before I could smell what the rock was cooking. “Peekaboo, woman!! Ask me where I am, then proclaim, ‘There he is!’”

So we played. He led the game and I shouted along. It was neat to see him acting things out, even if he was sick as a dog.

I know. I know. I am the worst blogger, ever. How bad am I? I wrote a blog post 2.5 months ago that started off talking about how long it had been since I updated the blog. AND I NEVER GOT AROUND TO POSTING IT. That’s bad. That’s really bad. That’s like, drinking the sun tea you found in a college dorm room bad.

I have plenty of excuses. None of them are any good.

“Wah, I have a baby!” Who, by the way, is hilarious. He loves to laugh, will do things to entertain us, enjoys splashing around in his bathtub, grabbing my hair and jewelry, singing, bouncing and wrestling. His love of flair and physicality make me wonder if he’s going to be a Broadway star or a professional wrestler. Honestly? I could see either right now.

“Wah, I’m tired!”  Derp. Join the club. Your baby, for the most part, sleeps from 10p.m. -7 a.m. (when he’s not sick or traveling) and has for the past few months.

“Wah, I’m on a diet!” That’s so novel, I just hit my face on the monitor.

But there have been other things that have popped up that have complicated the blogging.

Going back to work has been nice, and difficult. Forensics isn’t known for being family friendly. There aren’t a ton of full-time coaches with young children – even fewer of whom are mothers to young children. It’s tough navigating a very specialized job when there aren’t a lot of role models to follow.

If you’ve followed me on Twitter, then you know about my mother’s cancer diagnosis. She was initially diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer in mid-March. I went to Dallas to be with my family for the lumpectomy. Shortly after, we found out that there were more infected lymph nodes and she was reclassified as Stage III. With two great aunts who died of breast cancer, a grandmother who had an elective double mastectomy and my mom – I’ve grown far more nervous.

I’m struggling with my own plumbing, as it were. On Monday, I went in for a pap smear and the doctor couldn’t find the IUD. After a silent ultrasound (which is scary as all get out when they can’t find your birth control), she informs me that, Yes, the IUD is still in there, No, there isn’t a rogue baby hiding in there (you never know), and, Oh Yeah, you have a huge ovarian cyst. GUH. I’m supposed to wait it out and go back in 6 weeks for another ultrasound.

Now, I’ve forgiven my OBGYN for A LOT. Despite all of the horrible complications, the times where I wondered if it was luck or negligence that effectively ruined the first six weeks of motherhood, the fact that she would soon joke, “Well, with YOUR luck…ha ha,” when everything continued to go wrong – I tried to be understanding. But when I sat in her office after the silent ultrasound and saw the giant boxes of Twilight-themed Valentines candy displayed next to her diplomas, while I was nerve wracked over what was going on, that I finally said “Enough.”

In the meantime, I’m going to try to be better about updating the blog. Funny, happy posts about Elliott being a frozen yogurt addict and laughing maniacally while he scoots around in his hula coupe. Yeah. That’s the ticket.

Boy howdy – have we made the most of it thus far. Allow me to recount thus far:

2:15 p.m. – Arrive in Fort Worth after a jaunty little skip down I-30. We locate the hotel, but since we didn’t plan to check in til 4, we headed down to The Flying Saucer in Sundance Square. We munched on a plate of peppered salami, Gouda, smoked cheddar, olive tapenade, apple slices and almonds and had some frosty pints to wash it down.

3:30 – Walk around the square a bit, contemplating dinner. We decided that whatever it would be – it would be as indulgent as a Hilton sister. The top two contenders were Brazilian steak and Simply Fondue.

4:10 – Check-in. We marvel at the wide open marble lobby and roaring fireplace at the Omni. Fun fact – we never had to wait for an elevator, they popped open as soon as we pressed the button. Luxury, my friends. Luxury.

4:15 – Get in room. Perched on the 11th floor, we have huge mirrors, leather couches, a half bathroom, separate living and sleeping areas, down comforters, freestanding bath, dimmer switches on lamps (so much nicer than the aggressively bright, semi-flicker then illuminate lamps at most budget places) and a 5-head glass shower. The package my parents booked included: two personal bottles of bubbly, chocolate dipped strawberries, “romantic turn-down service” (robes and a rose on the edge of the bed), breakfast in bed and late check out. Luxury, my friends.

We relax in the hotel for a bit – then contemplate dinner more. We realize that Simply Fondue has a 4 course, bottomless fondue couple’s special for that night. Done. We make the reservation online.

7:00 – We walk down to the restaurant.

7:30 – We sit down to eat. The four courses include:

Salad-
I had the Greek, Corey had the Gorgonzola Greens.

Cheese Fondue –
We had the Wisconsin Sharp Cheddar with bread and raw veggies.

Meats -
We each chose three and they were served with veggies and a bajillion sauces.
Corey tried the Jerk chicken, teriyaki sirloin, bacon-wrapped tenderloin while I had coconut shrimp, salmon and honey-almond chicken.

Chocolate -
We played it safe with the milk chocolate and dipped cherries, pineapples, bananas, strawberries, pirouette cookies, rice krispies, angel food cake and brownies.

9:30 – We walk off the food coma. Corey gets a vanilla creme at Starbucks and we return to the hotel.

11:00 – 7:30 – Sweet, uninterrupted sleep for 8.5 hours. LUXURY.

8:50 – Breakfast is delivered. Eggs, bacon, hashbrown potatoes, toast/croissants, orange juice, water, coffee, mimosas and the tiniest bottles of Tabasco, ketchup and jellies on Earth.

9:43 – I finish this post and nap for 10 minutes before getting in the shower.

When we arrived yesterday, the desk clerk handed Corey an envelope with his name on it. I joked that it was a ransom note – that the whole night was a ruse for my parents to kidnap Elliott. After all this decadence, if it were, we would be in a very low-speed chase. In reality, it was just a note explaining the details of the package.

Every year, my mom likes to ask me what my favorite Christmas was. New baby and some quality time with the hubs? We may have a winner.

Sick = Unwell; poor health; Elliott’s deep chest cough that has kept him up all night.

Sick = Gross; nasty; the fountain of vomit said coughing caused all over myself, Corey, our bed and the bedroom floor. It’s just recycled formula, thank God he’s not on solids, yet.

Sick = In conjunction with tired, frustrated; put out; how I felt when I kept getting the Graves-Gilbert receptionist who said the Pediatrician’s office wasn’t open. “Is this an emergency?” Nah, I just wanted to call and hear how his holiday shopping is going.

So I’m blogging to kill time before can take him to his 9:30 appointment. Bless his heart – for being so sick, he still tries to smile.

To understand why this holiday season is so significant for me – I have to let you in on some information.

Elliott is my first child. He was not my first pregnancy.

In the spring of 2009, Wednesday April 29th, to be exact, I took a positive pregnancy test. It was a very faint line, but a line nonetheless. At the time, Corey was applying for the doctoral program at WKU and we hadn’t even celebrated an anniversary yet. I called my doctor, scheduled a blood test that day. I told Corey about the positive pregnancy test in the light at the intersection of Scottsville and Pascoe. I said that the test was very light, I had taken a blood test with my doctor to confirm it and it may not even be true.

My doctor called me on my cell phone when I was in the lobby of Walmart about to get a Redbox DVD. My blood test came back positive. I was pregnant and needed to start taking prenatal vitamins. We were overcome with emotions. I did some online research and discovered that we would be due on December 30th, a ‘Christmas baby’. I was overjoyed. I had been in throes of baby fever for a while. As someone who loved the holidays – I was excited at the prospect of having a winter baby. I had begun looking at cribs. I called my parents. They told my grandparents. It was a time of excitement and planning that would end far sooner than we would know.

On Saturday, May 2nd I woke up with horrible cramps and I was bleeding. I called my OB-GYN, who told me to go to the ER. Because I was only 5 or 6 weeks along, I hadn’t yet met with my OB-GYN. My first ultrasound was in the ER. They couldn’t find anything. The doctor tried to reassure me that it may have been too early to find anything. The nurse tried to reassure me that it took her seven years to have ‘her blessing.’ I wasn’t reassured. I was in great physical and emotional pain. I would go home, lie and bed and watch Deadliest Warrior. On Monday, May 4th, I was to return to have a blood test to check my hCg levels. If the levels were lower than the test in the ER, then I was having a miscarriage. If they were leveled off – there was still hope.

On Monday, May 4th 2009, about an hour and a half before the forensics end-of-the-year banquet, the doctor called to confirm that I had miscarried. There was no hope. He explained that because it was so early in the pregnancy – it would have been called a ‘chemical pregnancy.’ For reasons that science doesn’t know, the body will terminate the pregnancy early if there is something wrong with the egg. Women could still go on to have completely healthy pregnancies. I wasn’t reassured. I was devastated. I logged onto Facebook and had referenced the doctor’s office as part of my errands (I hadn’t made the information public). A few folks had joked that I must have been pregnant if I was going to the doctor. I deleted the thread and called Corey in hysterics. He rushed home. I called my mother in tears. I had been crying all weekend and she tried to help. She had suffered a far later in pregnancy miscarriage before she had me. She thought that maybe God put her through it so she could comfort me. That was a little reassuring. But despite having only known for a few days, I was attached to being pregnant. And it was gone. My beautiful little Christmas baby was gone.

Still, I told myself to pull it together. I got dressed. I put on make-up and I went to the forensics banquet and tried to act fine. I wasn’t. Maybe it was obvious and everyone was being kind, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything to anyone outside of family and a few close friends for a while. It was an isolating time. I struggled to be around Ava, the darling baby of one of the speech team members. I shut down when I saw baby photos on friends’ Facebook feeds. The lowest point was when Corey told me that one of his friends was expecting a baby at the end of December, roughly the same time we would have had our own baby. As Carrie Bradshaw once said, “The sadness [was] palpable.”

The thing about miscarriage is that you (or I, at least) didn’t want to talk about it when it happened. It’s also not something you bring up lightly in conversation. It’s something that is usually admitted when someone close to you is grieving their own. It’s a secret club of which no one wants to be a member.

With time, though, the membership goes from a fresh wound to a battle scar. I accepted that this would be part of my story. That for some reason, I had to go through it to become the person I was. I thought about it every day, but cried less often. I tried not to feel selfish and cheated by others’ fortunes. (And my goodness, EVERYONE gets pregnant when you miscarry.)

Still, I was dreading the holidays. I was dreading my would-have-been due date. Since May, we hadn’t been meticulously “trying” but we weren’t actively “preventing”. After nearly 7 months of nothing on top of the miscarriage – I met with my OB-GYN to discuss fertility testing, which wasn’t going to be covered by insurance. Part of the testing meant coming in with a urine sample in a narrow window of time after the start of my next period. I went in on a Monday November 30th and was due (by my calculations) to begin sometime between Wednesday and Friday. If it started Saturday, I was going to have to be late to the junior high tournament the team was hosting. I brought my supplies home and waited for my period, anxious to get on with the fertility testing.

Yeah. I wasn’t going to be taking those fertility tests after all.

On Saturday, December 5th, 2009, immediately following a junior high speech tournament (and the day after my brother’s birthday), I had a positive pregnancy test. This time, there was no faint, “Is this a line,” line. This was a big, fat pink line. I told Corey I wanted to try a different brand to make sure. We did. Each test came back bright and strong. We hugged. We went to dinner. We were happy and worried. I was, at least.

The blood test confirmed it. On Wednesday, December 16th, we saw a tiny jelly bean with a pulsating flicker on the ultrasound screen. “That’s the heartbeat,” the technician told us. Finally, I felt some reassurance. Save for family and a few co-workers (who I wanted to know in case I needed to leave for medical reasons), we kept the pregnancy hush-hush until we reached the end of the first trimester, just to be safe. I tucked the positive pregnancy test into the top drawer of my dresser.

Happy anniversaries for weddings and births usually come with cakes. There’s no traditional ‘birthday cake’ for Jesus on Christmas – but we celebrate it nonetheless. The sadder anniversaries, deaths of loved ones, divorces, losing jobs – tend to go by in quiet mourning. My would-have-been due date was bittersweet. I was pregnant with someone who has already made me a much happier and more content (though a bit doughier) person. The sweetest part is that Corey’s friend who shared my would-have-been due date delivered a gorgeous and whip-smart daughter on Christmas Eve, and she’s become a friend of mine as well. (Not only does she have impeccable taste in decorating, but is my role model for parent-blogging.)

When your first pregnancy ends in miscarriage, the second pregnancy is wrought with fear. I was elated to be sore and nauseous because it meant my body was working. I counted the days to the “safer” milestones, the end of the first trimester, the revelation of the sex, 24 weeks when my doctor said they could “do something heroic”, 34 weeks when the baby had a better shot of surviving premature birth, 36 weeks when they said they wouldn’t stop labor, 39 weeks when I would deliver. (And if you don’t know how that went – CHILD – check the archive.)

On December 5th – we will celebrate the one-year anniversary of finding out we were pregnant. On December 6th – Elliott will be 4 months old. He is the happiest, most charming baby I have ever seen in my life. I don’t know what Corey and I did to deserve such a wonderful baby. I can’t picture my life without him. Insert all the sappy maternal sentiments you want. I adore him. And I can’t help but wonder if I would appreciate how miraculous his birth was and his life is if I hadn’t experienced such heartbreak in the process. If I hadn’t miscarried. If I hadn’t struggled to get pregnant. If I hadn’t had such a horrible delivery and recovery.

Some women have effortless pregnancies and births. I was not one of those women. Those women breeze through their months with carefree planning, confident in their happily ever after. The miscarriage robbed me of that – but gave me a new appreciation for why it is nicknamed “The Miracle of Life.” I look at ultrasound photos and I find it hard to believe that this soy-sucking, diaper-soaking, toothless-grinning, mouth-gumming, 15 pounds of pure joy was once a tiny jelly bean with a pulsing flicker of a heart beat. And for a brief second, I wonder who I would be holding if that tiny cluster of cells had moved in a slightly different direction.

But if they had, I wouldn’t have Elliott. So I don’t like to think about it for too long, because I don’t like picturing my life without Elliott in it. I do, however, want to pay my respect to that tiny cluster of cells, who, even for a few days, was my baby. Without it, I wouldn’t have the wonderful child I have now. I also wanted to put it out into cyberspace for anyone to read who may currently or have in the past, have become members in this horribly isolating club. I know I’m fortunate to have carried a bright healthy baby to term within a year of my miscarriage. Some women have multiple miscarriages and far more difficult pregnancies. I consider myself blessed to have a healthy, happy child (who is sleeping at night like a CHAMP, no less).

I plan on celebrating all the “positive” memories December 5th brings. Pun most definitely intended. Maybe there will be a cake – or just extra cuddles and kisses. Who knows?

I do know that I am SO looking forward to Elliott’s first Christmas. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.