Easter

I've been trying to blog for about a week but haven't had much time to sit down and type. And now I have Easter pictures so I'm going to tell you about our Easter celebration.

We are in that stage of our lives where family pictures at holidays are hard to get. Would you believe that this was the best one out of two dozen? It doesn't help that I'm usually talking, or messing with the kids hair or outfits or trying to get them to stop fighting/fooling around. 

We had Easter breakfast at my parent's house before church. I would like to say I'm still full from all the food I ate on Sunday, but sadly I'm not. In fact I woke up in the middle of the night on Sunday night/Monday morning and was hungry. The kids looked for eggs at my parents house and then we went to church, then off to Jeremiah's Dad and Step-Mom's for lunch. You want to talk about more good food. Oh, and the jello eggs. Jello eggs are a tradition in Jeremiah's family, his Mom used to make them every year and now his Dad still does. They are filling. I think I ate 3, Jeremiah ate 7. That's a lot of jello.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera for like the whole day so I had to borrow some of my Dad's pictures. The kids looked for eggs at Jer's Dad's house too, I think they went for about 5 rounds of re-hiding. I'm thrilled with this, last year Abby kept wanting me to hide eggs at our house over and over so she could find them, this year I think it's all out of her system.

Not excited about Easter at all is she?

Eli got new cars in his Easter basket. This is the only time he sat still for a picture, a picture with his cars, go figure.

Church was wonderful.  I love Easter music.  And this year it was super awesome, I like congregational singing when the whole auditorium rings.  Abby learned about Easter in Sunday School, Awana, and preschool, so she is starting to get the Easter message.  We tried to make Resurrection Cookies, but apparently I don't have the high-altitude directions so they totally flopped, but the message was still there.   And the kids played with the Resurrection eggs, Abby's favorite is the donkey, but she also likes the cup from the "Last Dinner."  We had a great Easter, how was yours?

Oh, by the way, here I am at 24 weeks.  We did a black and white Easter because black is slimming!

Baby GiGi

Well folks I took a little break from blogging, the weather has been nice so we've played outside some and then Eli shared his cold with me so I've been down for the count for a few days.  But I'm back!  Here's what's been happening:

Last Monday Jeremiah and I had my 20 week ultrasound and found out it's a girl!  The appointment started out alright, the baby, who we've nicknamed GiGi (for baby Girl Gregg) was not in the best of positions.  Apparently she doesn't like being spied on in her comfy little uterine home and so the pictures they were not as clear as I remember from my other two pregnancies.  The tech started at her feet and went about doing the measurements and taking picture after picture, "I'm having a hard time getting clear pictures of her heart, I'll come back to that," she said.  At one point I was laying on my side trying to get the baby to move into a better spot so they could get clear pics of her heart.  This is when I started to think, "hmm, somethings up."  Intuitive aren't I?

To make a long story short (to late) the perinatologist was concerned because with the pictures they could get it looked like she has a ventricular septal defect (VSD).  This is a hole in between the walls of the right and left ventricle.  Also she couldn't get very good pictures of other parts of the heart and she referred us to a pediatric cardiologist.  The appointment after that part is kind of blurry.  She started talking about what defects could possibly be related to the VSD and the pics she could get and she rambled off a bunch of stuff you would think I would remember but I don't.  Then she launched into isolated cardiac defect vs. part of a larger syndrome.  Oh, thanks for that, because I'm not having enough trouble sleeping at night.

So we left the office a little blindsided.  I limped back to the van with Jeremiah (I had banged up my right foot pretty good the night before) and sat in silence until we made it out of the parking garage, then I pulled the cardiologists card from the pocket of my purse and burst into tears.  Jeremiah told me to call and make the appt and I told him I just needed to cry first.

The problem with all this is that I'm a nurse.  And I have a vivid imagination and my brain likes to wander off on it's own.  So I'm picturing all the things that could go wrong.  My mind jumps ahead to August and I'm picturing my little girl in an isolette with a nasal canula and cardiac leads attached to her little body.  Don't get me wrong, out new NICU at work is nice, and the nurses are awesome, I just don't want my kid to be one of their clients.

I called my OB on Thursday and we talked for a long time on the phone.  I told her I didn't want to be a needy anxious patient, but I needed someone to talk me thru my thoughts.  I love my OB, she spent forever on the phone with me and I felt so much better after talking with her.  We saw the cardiologist today, my daughter is still being camera shy.  They were able to get slightly better pictures, but we're going back in a month to try again for an even better view.  I don't feel much different after our appt today, but I don't feel worse.  We didn't get bad news, but we really didn't get good news either, we kind of got no news.  Which in this case, I think no news is good news.

So now we wait.  And we try to relax with this heart defect thing in the back of our minds.  And I really don't feel to bad.  It's weird, but I'm not to worried.  In a matter of a weeks time I went from fearing that our daughter might have some syndrome and spend weeks in the NICU to something less scary.  She's most likely fine, she might have some issues, but hopefully she's won't.

Limbo is an awesome place to hang out, you should all join us some time.

Really though, Jeremiah and I are calm.  We're going to just wait.  Wait on God and try to be at peace with that.  That's a huge thing to undertake.  I know there are lots of people praying for us, so that's probably where the sense of peace is coming from.

I'll post updates here and there.  Check back from time to time, it may be worth your while!

Also, Abby is THRILLED to be having a little sister.  Absolutely thrilled.  Eli is bummed, he was hoping it was a dump truck.