Christmas Morning

Every year, Elliot and I volunteer together at the Original Pancake House in Bethesda on Christmas morning, which serves hot breakfast to the homeless. Elliot spends his time cooking, and I have taken charge of the "gift" table - we give out a bag of toiletries to every person who comes in, along with warm clothing - gloves, hats, jackets when we have them, sweaters, sweatshirts, thermal socks. Through lots of hard work, Elliot and I managed to get the toiletries together and bagged for over 400 people. I sit on the board of a youth group, and the board there really helped us gather some supplies, and one of the chapters bagged about 150 or more bags for us. Elliot managed to get a vendor to provide us with some extra toiletries that were unclaimed from FEMA, and my cousin, who works at a Marriott hotel, managed to get us 300 bars of soap and 300 shampoos. We also used cash to buy gloves, socks, and sweatshirts, and we got about 6 boxes of sweatshirts and jackets donated from a vendor. Here were all the goodies Elliot & I brought that morning:


We distributed EVERYTHING, and the recipients were so thankful. It was a fantastic way to spend our Christmas morning.

Update on Twoey

Morning sickness has been a constant for me - as long as I remember to take 2 Zofran every 8 hours, though, I can function. I hope this lets up soon! In the meantime, I am not exactly certain when I took this test, but we decided to do Intelligender again. From what I have read, it is about as accurate as flipping a coin, but hey, it's fun, right? So, the results, once again....



Yup, it says Twoey is a boy. I can't help but think Twoey is a girl, but it could be wishful thinking :). I've always thought the "perfect" family is one boy and one girl, so it probably means I'll be a mom to 2 boys instead. As long as he/she is healthy and happy, right? We have to go back for another ultrasound on January 8. My fibroid is growing at a nice rapid rate, so I definitely need to be monitored again. At the NT scan a few weeks ago, the fibroid was still bigger than Twoey. So, we'll be going back on January 8, and there is a good chance they'll be able to tell us the gender at that point!

I've been feeling some movement from Twoey for a while now. It is very different this time around. With Micah, it started very softly, almost like bubbles or a flutter. I think I started to become aware of it around 13 or 14 weeks. With Twoey, the movement feels stronger, but I've almost been second guessing it because it seems too strong a feeling for so early. I guess we'll see what happens with time!

Playing Catch

Today was one of those days that just melted my heart - Micah played catch with me all day!! We were stuck at home, again, post-blizzard. Micah grabbed one of the little ping-pong like balls from one of his toys, and he threw it to me. I said "yay" and clapped, and he laughed and clapped with me. I rolled it back to him, and he grabbed the ball and sent it back to me. We played on and off all day long! He just laughed and clapped and giggled, and he kept chasing down the ball and sending it right back to me. Sometimes he rolled it, sometimes he actually threw it. Sometimes, when he threw the ball, it accidentally flew backwards! No matter - he chased it down and tried again. It was such fun to sit and play with him, watch him learn, and pass a wonderful lazy day with my beautiful son.

One year appointment

We took Micah in for his one year checkup today. We had to postpone it from last week because he was sick (and they won't vaccinate when the baby is sick). Micah weighed in at 18 lbs 15 ounces, and about 31 inches. He is a tiny little thing - in the 3rd percentile for weight, but around the 75th for height. We gave him several vaccinations - the last one against meningitis and a flu vaccine. We opted not to do the chicken pox vaccination at this time. He is hitting all of his developmental milestones, and he showed off (and flirted) for the doctor. She told us he looks great, we were okayed to start him on whole milk, and we do not have to go back until he is 15 months old.

The Blizzard and Morning Sickness

On December 18, two major storms hit me simultaneously - the Blizzard of 2009 and morning sickness. I have to say, it has been a crazy week. After Micah's birthday party tanked, he stayed sick all week. We did a little celebration at home in honor of his birthday, but then I actually left for Kansas for work from December 15-16. I flew home late on the 16th, not feeling so hot. I thought it was just my susceptibility to motion sickness while pregnant - the flight back did not make me feel too well. We woke up early on the 17th to make our doctor's appointment to have Micah's skull examined, and then had an insanely crazy day. I threw up on and off all day, and knew I was in for another round of morning sickness. I had a really rough night on Thursday (and Micah was not sleeping great all week because his cough kept waking him up), and I woke up early on Friday feeling sick.

That should have been my clue I was in for trouble. We were preparing for the blizzard and trying to get a whole bunch of things done. I started throwing up early that morning, and couldn't keep anything down. I tried eating, I tried not eating. I tried drinking water, I tried sleeping. Every couple of hours, I was throwing up again. They were having a potluck party at Micah's daycare at 5:00 pm, and I had to make something for the event. Luckily, we had a ton of leftover cupcakes from the birthday party that wasn't, so I was able to quickly ice those and bring them with us. I took a phenergan in the afternoon, hoping it would help with the nausea.

At Micah's daycare, I just felt worse and worse. I had to excuse myself to go throw up, and then I just did not think I would be able to function any more. We finally went home, and it just got worse. I threw up a few more times, and I knew I had nothing left in my system. I tried lying down while Elliot took Micah out to services, but that didn't help either. I threw up a few more times before they made it home. Elliot went upstairs to put Micah to bed, and he disappeared for a few more hours. I was very unhappy with him - I was just miserable as I was throwing up nonstop for the next few hours. He finally made it downstairs (my mom called and he brought me the phone), and he decided to run out before the weather was awful and pick up my phenergan. He disappeared for far too long, and I was a mess. When he finally came back, I took another pill...and promptly threw it up. We called the midwives, and they said that they'd normally tell me to go to the hospital, but the roads were already too dangerous to drive.

We spent the next few hours trying to get enough medicine in me and get creative about ways to make me keep it down. Finally, around 1:00 in the morning I stopped throwing up. I tried drinking water around 4:00 am, but threw that up. Saturday, the snow was going strong all day, so I just pretty much lay low, took my pills, and couldn't eat or drink anything. On Sunday, we called the midwives again, and they called in a prescription for Zofran. Sunday was actually a miserable day for me. Elliot went down to volunteer at Martha's Table where we normally cook and serve hot meals the Sunday before Christmas, but I was too sick to go and we had no babysitter for Micah because of the weather. Elliot went anyway, and left me home, by myself, to take care of an infant while I was throwing up. It was an AWFUL day. At least he picked up the prescription for Zofran on the way home, but he was gone from 11-6. I was not a happy camper. Finally, a few hours after I took the 2 Zofran, I started feeling some better. By 10:00 pm, I was able to drink water!! I quickly graduated to vegetable broth, and for breakfast on Monday morning, I got quite bold and ate rice. I managed to keep most everything down, but it has been miserable. Not exactly what I had in mind.

Despite my complete misery, we did manage to take Micah out for some fun in the snow. I took him out by myself on Sunday (for about 10 minutes). Poor little guy - I think it took us 30 minutes to get ready, and he really didn't feel like staying and playing too long! Here are our snow pictures:














Snow videos: