Category: Our Story

As much as we wanted answers, it is so painful to hear Trisomy 18 is our fate. My heart hurts even more now. The pain is agonizing. I am just sad. It feels like we’ve been punched in the gut all over again. Why is this happening? I do believe everything happens for a reason, but come on! Why are we forced to feel this much pain? Will we ever know why?

We have so many more questions now. There are so many unknowns it feels like our life is just on hold. We have no idea how long our daughter will live. Will she pass while I am pregnant? Will she be stillborn? Will she live a few minutes, hours, or days? Will Madeline and she get to meet? Can we take pictures? Is that weird? We need a name for her- a meaningful name. I want to record her heartbeat, that strong little heartbeat. I want to get her handprint on a Christmas ornament just like we did for Madeline’s first Christmas. I want to read her a story. “God Gave Us You” is the perfect story… if I can get through it. She needs to be baptized. What if there isn’t time? My mind has been racing with questions. There are so many unknowns.

We attended a lovely wedding the Saturday after we learned the diagnosis. I guess we could have stayed home after our 2 weeks of hell. But Wayne and I take comfort in having plans from time to time. It’s a distraction. Sometimes we are just cried out.

I attended the ceremony while Wayne stayed home with Madeline. I sat in the back. I cried through most of the ceremony especially during the songs. One of the songs we played at our wedding as well- “We Are One Body”. One Body. This song has a whole new meaning to me now. One Body. All pregnant women are literally connected with their babies. Your two bodies literally are one. Right now, Catherine’s little heart tones are strong even though there are things severely wrong with her heart. I am keeping her alive. We are One Body. This is a song I love to sing along too. I couldn’t today. All I could do this time is cry. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to hear it without crying again.

Wayne and I went to the reception later that evening. It was a lovely reception. We only knew a few people and we sat at a table with other people who didn’t know many people attending the reception either. Sometimes these tables are the best. This wedding was no exception. We sat at an especially fun table with wonderful people. It was nice they didn’t know us. They had no idea what we were going through. They couldn’t feel sorry for us or ask us questions. They were just a fun loving group of people.

We were getting to know each other. The regular small talk was taking place. What do you do? How about those Cardinals (it was October in St Louis so of course the St Louis Cardinals were in the playoffs)? Do you have children? How many kids do you have?

Wait, what was that question? How many kids do you have?

This exact question was asked by one of the couples sitting to our left. Wayne and I looked at each other panic stricken. We didn’t think about this question. How many kids do you have? What do we say? One? A 19 month old and I’m 5 months pregnant? But that leads to “Oh, congratulations! When are you due? Is it a boy or a girl? How excited is your daughter? How are you feeling?” and the list of inevitable questions continued. Of course these questions are innocent. Of course, they are just happy for us. Of course they have no idea we are grieving. The last thing we want to do is make them feel sorry for us or uncomfortable. We will probably never see them again. Why would we bring the happy table vibe down?

Yet another thing we didn’t think about. How many more of these situations are we going to have to prepare for and/or stumble through when we happen upon them unknowingly?

What are we going to say when people ask us how many kids we have?

[twitter_follow username=”CatherineCares” language=”en”]

[fblike style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial”]

[fbshare type=”button” width=”100″]

Around noon today our front door opened. Wayne walked in from work and he looked terrible. He has been stuffy for a few days but he must have gone downhill during the morning. I’m sure the string of sleepless nights didn’t help his immune system either. He looked exhausted and miserable. He went straight to bed. The last thing we needed was for him to be sick. I needed him to take care of himself so he can walk with me through this misery.

Madeline and Wayne were asleep while I was in the living room. It was around 3:30pm or 4pm. I don’t remember what I was doing when my phone rang. I recognized the number. It was someone from the hospital calling. I felt sick. I knew this was the preliminary results phone call. I answered the phone. It was the genetic counselor with the results. She seemed perky, but I wasn’t willing to believe she had good news. I asked her to hold on a moment so I could wake up Wayne. Wayne jumped up as soon as I said, “The genetic counselor is on the phone.” He took the phone because I started to tear up at the thought of our baby’s fate being shared with us in the next few seconds. Wayne is our spokesperson because once I start crying, I can’t speak a coherent sentence. God Bless him for being so strong.

It felt like she was taking forever to get to the diagnosis… or no diagnosis. I began to shake. Finally she said it.

We have confirmed your baby has a trisomy 18 diagnosis. Your baby has an extra chromosome 18.

All I could do was cry.

Wayne asked what the sex of our baby is. A little girl. Madeline has a sister. A sister she will not get to grow old with. I have two sisters. I did not care if we were having a boy or a girl. But since I have experience with sisters, I was crushed to know my little girls aren’t going to be able to borrow clothes from each other, giggle together, and become best friends. I have cried a great deal over the last two weeks, but knowing that Madeline has a sister, a sister who has so many complications, made me inconsolable.

The counselor could hear my sobs. She asked if we had any questions. We didn’t. We knew what this diagnosis meant given the number of significant complications our baby had. We were crushed. We just needed time to be sad before we could really process what this meant for us. The counselor offered her condolences and we hung up.

We hugged and cried. Our worst nightmare had come true. Why was this happening to us?

Eventually, Wayne started making the calls to family and a few friends. He asked these folks to spread the word. We were just too emotionally exhausted to make another round of sad phone calls.

Madeline woke up from her nap. Oh, how I held her tight. Some day we will have to tell her about her little sister. What a great BIG sister Madeline will make… even if it is a long distance relationship.

[twitter_follow username=”CatherineCares” language=”en”]

[fblike style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial”]

[fbshare type=”button” width=”100″]

The last 24 hours since the amniocentesis have been interesting. Not being able to lift anything over 10 pounds including miss Madeline hasn’t been easy. This one requirement basically prevented me from doing much of anything. On one hand it was nice-no laundry for me today! On the other hand, all I could do was sit and worry. I prayed a lot too. Prayed for a miracle. After what we heard during our appointment- the doctors will be “shocked” if the diagnosis is NOT Trisomy 18- I am having an internal struggle. This struggle is faith vs science. I don’t want to lose hope, but all signs were pointing to a trisomy diagnosis. The wait was torture.

Wayne was able to work from home yesterday to help me with any lifting, especially when it came to Madeline. I never really paid attention to how often I lift that little girl until I wasn’t able to do so. I pick her up to put her into the highchair, to change her diaper on the changing table, to put her into her crib, and just to snuggle. Why aren’t my arms totally ripped?

The following day Wayne went into work. He really needed to take care of a few things since he had been out of the office more than usual. In some ways, work has been a nice distraction for him.

I am trying to continue to take it easy. Not sure how successful I am being because this morning, while Madeline and I were playing on our bed (she loves to fall into the pillows), I had two contractions. There was some intensity to them. The first one totally took me by surprise.

Am I having a contraction? It’s kind of uncomfortable. How long did that last? Should I call someone? I’m not going into labor, am I?

As quickly as the contraction started, it ended. I was a little nervous about contracting, but not panicking…yet. What I think was a half hour later, I had a second contraction. Again, it was uncomfortable, but manageable. Now I was starting to panic. Of course I didn’t want to frighten Madeline, but I was really nervous about going into labor. I remembered Wayne and I used a contraction counter app while I was laboring with Madeline. The nurses would come in and ask how far apart my contractions were and we had no idea. So the app came in handy. But that app is on Wayne’s iPad which was with him at work. I have an iPhone now, so I quickly downloaded an app and I started keeping track. I also promised myself if I had a third contraction, I would call Karen, our caseworker as I’m supposed to call her with any questions or concerns. A third contraction was definitely a concern.

After all that I never had another contraction. Man, I have got to get a grip. The last thing this baby, Madeline, or Wayne needs is a stressed out, dooms day mommy & wife.

[twitter_follow username=”CatherineCares” language=”en”]

[fblike style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial”]

[fbshare type=”button” width=”100″]

Amniocentesis Day had arrived. I was getting nervous. Karen, our caseworker, set up an appointment with the genetic counselor before the procedure. The genetic counselor explained how the amniocentesis results will come back in two waves. Wave one will be the preliminary results which are returned in two or three days. The preliminary results would be reliable and will look at four chromosomes- 13, 18, 21 (Down’s Syndrome), and the sex chromosome- to see if there is a missing, extra, or partial chromosome and to determine the sex of the baby. Wave two was expected to take 1 to 2 weeks to receive and is the full chromosome report. It would help us understand, if there is a diagnosis, if Wayne or I passed this issue on to our baby or if it was an incredibly unfortunately fluke of nature.

The counselor answered several more questions. We were concerned with how we would learn the preliminary and final results. It was a phone call. This made me nervous. What if Wayne was at work? I didn’t want to receive this information alone. She put our minds at ease. We could ask them to call back when Wayne got home. Thank goodness!

After this meeting, we could decline the amniocentesis if we wanted to. We didn’t. It was time to start the procedure which would lead to more waiting.

Basically, an amniocentesis is like having blood work done. A long needle is inserted into the uterus- far away from the baby- and amniotic fluid which contains the baby’s cells is extracted. The procedure is typically a minute or less. I don’t care for watching or knowing a great deal about the medical details especially when the procedure is being performed on me. So I told our doctor, Laura, and Cassie, the technician we worked with last week, I trusted them to do what they needed to do to keep me and our baby safe. I closed my eyes. The needle was inserted- OUCH. My uterus did not like being invaded. I immediately cramped. It was intense. I was trying to stay in my happy place- Hawaii, of course- and giving my best effort to only focus on my breathing while in paradise. After a while my mind wondered to how this was the longest minute in the history of minutes. I was right because actually it had been two minutes. Apparently I have an overly protective uterus (or “uterus of steel” as Laura referred to it). My uterus continued to contract preventing the flow of fluid- the fluid needed to end this icky procedure. I told them I would try harder to relax. Everyone in the room chuckled. I wasn’t going to be able to control my contracting uterus.

Finally, the fluid began to flow. They got just enough to send to the lab for testing. So the one minute procedure turned into 3 of the longest minutes of my life. I sure hope I never have to go through that again.

Now I received my list of recovery tips. I hadn’t thought about recovery. I wasn’t able to pick up anything over 10 pounds, including Madeline, for 24 hours. I had to take it easy as one of the side effects, although the chances are small, is going into labor. We definitely didn’t want that. I would have some cramping and maybe a few contractions (oh, I definitely did!) but otherwise I should be fine.

Since our baby is so tiny, they had a hard time getting all of the measurements they needed last week. They performed another ultrasound centered around the heart. They wanted to see if the heart defects they detected were there and how severe. Our little baby was tiny. And he/she was very active (aka difficult). He/She wouldn’t allow Cassie to get the best pictures of the heart and we were told they would have to try again in three weeks at our next growth ultrasound.

Our doctor than started talking more about the complications and suggested we were dealing with something called Trisomy 18. Or an extra 18^th chromosome. The test would confirm it, but our doctor would be “shocked” if it didn’t come back as Trisomy 18. Oddly enough, hearing one phrase made it feel different rather than hearing the 7 different complications our baby had.

When we had Madeline, we decided not to find out the sex until she was born. Since we weren’t sure what we were dealing with nor how much time we would have with this little one this time around, we decided we needed to know if we were having a son or a daughter. Well, our precious little stinker’s legs were crossed making it almost impossible for Cassie to tell. She had a guess, but that was it. We told her we would wait for the preliminary results of the amniocentesis. We couldn’t handle any more surprises this pregnancy. Cassie completely understood. I’m guessing she was a bit relieved too.

Our long day was over. We went home… to wait.

[twitter_follow username=”CatherineCares” language=”en”]

[fblike style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial”]

[fbshare type=”button” width=”100″]

This weekend we went apple picking with my family. I was overly excited for this field trip. It was a chance to be distracted and a great activity for Madeline. We were in a place where, God-willing, no one would know us. We could just enjoy the time with Madeline, her cousins, my siblings and parents. It was a mini-escape from all our worries.

On our way to the orchard, we received a call from a friend. She was at our house with food for us. FOOD! I couldn’t remember the last time I had been to the grocery store, a chore I usually don’t enjoy even when my life isn’t in shambles, and we were running low on just about everything. We were thrilled to have something already made in the fridge. We didn’t have to worry about dinner that night. This simple gesture meant the world to us. She filled a need we didn’t even realize we really needed during this time of waiting and uncertainty.

Wayne is also a big St Louis Rams’ fan. He tailgates for every home game. As it turned out, the Rams were away for 3 weekends in a row. Sunday was the first away game. It was so nice to have a break from tailgating preparations so we could just be a family this Sunday. Even though some of the game was painful to watch, we were watching them together and not hosting football fans at our tailgate spot. Family time is always important, but it was especially important now.

[twitter_follow username=”CatherineCares” language=”en”]

[fblike style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial”]

[fbshare type=”button” width=”100″]

Two days off was long enough. I had multiple projects in critical phases which all had high executive visibility. I needed to get back to work. I’m an IT consultant and have a very analytical approach to things. As such, my mind had been analyzing the ultrasound and what we heard for two days with minimal sleep.

Numerous questions were flying around in my head, but they all had the same theme to them which was essentially: “How confident are you in your initial assessment?” After all, people make mistakes. We’re all human. Who’s to say what they saw wasn’t really there? Or maybe the ultrasound machine sometimes displays things which aren’t really there” Ultimately, my objective was to get something which had been lacking. Hope.

On my way to work, I called our assigned caseworker, Karen. I must have asked her a variation of the same question ten times. I would always quantify the question with something along the lines of “I know there’s probably a small chance”, but I’m sure Karen saw right through it all. Despite my best attempt to establish hope, I wasn’t given any. The doctors were very sure of their findings and wouldn’t have delivered the news in the manner they did if they thought there was a chance of a different outcome.

My mind then changed to: What do we hope for? What do we pray for? Suffice it to say, I was a walking zombie at work that day as my mind processed Karen’s words. Every call I facilitated I’m sure I facilitated poorly as the reality continued to sink in.

[twitter_follow username=”CatherineCares” language=”en”]

[fblike style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial”]

[fbshare type=”button” width=”100″]

It was now day 2 of Wayne staying home from work. We needed this second day to make decisions about next steps. We told Karen, our caseworker from Mercy, we would call her with a decision by Wednesday. Throughout the last 36 hours we did gut check-ins. Both of us felt like the amniocentesis was the way to go, but we wanted to sleep on it to make sure we really wanted to go that route. We knew there were risks, but they were minimal. And we knew this option gave us the most amount of information- something at this point we were craving.

Two days removed from the day we found out our baby is so sick and our guts were still saying the amniocentesis was the way to go. We decided to listen to our guts. We needed to know exactly what was going on with our precious baby.

We called Karen to let her know our decision. She was very supportive. The procedure was scheduled for the next week.

Once this decision was made, we could breath. There was a huge weight lifted from our shoulders. Now we had to wait for another 5 days. But this gave us a chance to act “normal” for a little while. Although we were unbelievably sad and our hearts literally hurt, we had a plan. We had to wait to implement the plan, but knowing we couldn’t do anything for the time being allowed us to carry on as best we could.

[twitter_follow username=”CatherineCares” language=”en”]

[fblike style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial”]

[fbshare type=”button” width=”100″]

We were all up early. My first thought: Was yesterday a nightmare? Praying it wasn’t, I realized it was. Yesterday happened. Now we had to carry on yet another day. How are we supposed to do that?

Since we didn’t make it to the wake, we went to a funeral for the father of friends of ours. Madeline was going to spend time at my in-laws while we attended the funeral. I never met the man who passed. I sat in the funeral with tears streaming down my face. Part of me felt guilty since I really didn’t know the deceased. But crying is what I needed. I figured he would understand.

We didn’t think of these things until we were in the situation. It is obvious I am pregnant. Do we discuss this fact with people who didn’t realize we were expecting baby number 2? Do we pretend things are fine since we don’t know exactly what is causing all of our baby’s complications? How in the world am I supposed to actually say the words to people without crying? There are many people out there who are uncomfortable when others cry. I don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable. Shoot, I don’t like crying in front of others either. So many things to consider… This is our life now.

I was anxious to get back to Madeline after the funeral. We went home and spent the day together. Wayne stayed home from work the rest of the day. We needed to be together. And we took this first full day off from making a decision about next steps.

Sometime that afternoon our OB called us. She had received the results of our ultrasound. She was devastated for us. It was very kind of her to reach out. She answered some of our questions, but she is not a high risk OB. She shared she was happy to continue to be our doctor, however, she has never worked with a pregnancy like ours. So she also gave us an out if we wanted to move to Laura’s care. Another decision to make. They were becoming overwhelming. Is this the beginning of many more decisions to come?

The rest of the day seemed like a blur. We went through the motions but our main concern was keeping things as normal as possible for Madeline. Madeline loved having her mama and dada home.

Eventually, it was time to go to sleep again. We were tired and yet not tired. How are we to sleep when our precious baby is so sick?

Somehow we managed to get a few hours. When we woke up, Wayne and I were talking. We decided we needed to be together another day and we had a decision to make. When we got up, we talked about how we were going to keep ourselves busy for another day. Wayne asked, “Do you want to find another funeral today?” I laughed. I laughed hard. Of course, Wayne made me laugh. It made me feel good. It made me feel normal… for a moment.

[twitter_follow username=”CatherineCares” language=”en”]

[fblike style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial”]

[fbshare type=”button” width=”100″]

We had our 20 week ultrasound today. At the last minute, I asked my in-laws to watch Madeline during this appointment. From our experience being pregnant with Madeline, we knew this ultrasound tends to take longer and I figured a 17 month old probably would struggle to be entertained for that length of time. I picked Wayne up from work and we went to the hospital. We discussed and agreed we did not want to know the sex of the baby until he/she is born. We were appropriately anxious, but confident everything would turn out just like Madeline’s 20 week ultrasound: “You have a healthy baby, Mr. & Mrs. Turley. Here are your baby’s first pictures. Enjoy your evening.”

While the very sweet ultrasound technician, Cassie, was taking pictures of our baby, we were making small talk with her. At first she was very talkative, but that started to change as the ultrasound progressed. Wayne noticed Cassie had stopped talking and began watching her and the monitor. He saw her wipe her eyes a few times. I continued to make small talk.

Cassie said the baby wasn’t cooperating. She said she was going to give the baby a break and come back in a few minutes. Or, she would send in a colleague to see if her colleague would be able to get the baby to cooperate. I felt this was kind of odd, and not like what we experienced with Madeline, but I wasn’t alarmed. Wayne on the other hand was starting to worry. He kept these thoughts to himself.

Cassie didn’t come back. Rather, a second ultrasound technician entered and had someone with her. The ultrasound technician, Cathy, introduced herself, but not the lady with her. Cathy warned me she uses a lot of gel and pushes much harder than other technicians. She wasn’t kidding! Cathy was very nice, but much less talkative than Cassie. After a little while, Wayne asked, “Is everything OK?” Her response, “Well, we have a few concerns.” Being a technician she couldn’t tell us exactly what was going on, but she also didn’t want to lie to us. I became an emotional mess. Cathy kept saying things like “Everything’s going to be OK” and “We’re going to get through this” and “There’s just a few concerning things.” I think my big reaction took her by surprise. We didn’t know it at the time, but a doctor was also monitoring the ultrasound in the office area. I remember Cathy grabbing my leg as I lay on the table saying, “We will be with you every step of the way.”

The doctor came in. As it turns out, I know her. Our families have known each other since we were little. I had heard she was a high risk OB so I knew I never wanted to see her when it comes to one of my babies. Yet there she was, standing in front of us and we still didn’t really know why. When she walked in she didn’t recognize me right away. She knew my maiden name, but not my married name. She wasn’t expecting to recognize me. I spoke before she could. I said, “Laura. Lauren Bommarito.” Her shoulders dropped as she then knew exactly who I was. She also had a sorrowful look on her face as she knew she was about to crush us. She was right.

Laura sat down. Cassie had come back into the room and was sitting by me rubbing my back and handing me tissues. Wayne and I were holding hands. This is definitely not what happened at Madeline’s 20 week ultrasound.

Laura began to speak to us. Her tone was soft yet concerned. She started with “We have some concerns with your baby.” I don’t remember exactly what was said after that. I do remember hearing issue after issue after issue being listed. “The intestines are on the outside of your baby’s body in a pouch. There is possibly a cyst in your baby’s brain.” The list was long. “There is too much amniotic fluid surrounding the baby. The baby appears to have a left hand deformity.” It just kept going. “Your baby’s cerebellum is underdeveloped. And your baby is measuring about 3 weeks behind the baby’s gestational age.”

Six. Six big issues.

What was most concerning was the combination and quantity of complications. Laura said based on what she saw, our best case scenario, albeit an unlikely one, was down syndrome. More likely, our baby had a chromosome defect which given the number of complications would either result in a miscarriage, a still birth, a short life-span with significant special needs.

This was a lot to take in but Wayne and I both wanted to know what the next steps were. Laura suggested three options:

• Do nothing and wait to find out what we are dealing with when our baby is born.
• Perform an amniocentesis where they would put a needle in to my uterus to withdrawal amniotic fluid. The fluid contains the baby’s cells. They would analyze the baby’s chromosomes from these cells and be able to tell us if we are dealing with a Trisomy diagnosis or not.
• A procedure could be performed to gather placenta blood, but we were cautioned the amniocentesis produced more reliable results.

We didn’t have to decide at that moment. They knew we were overwhelmed and shocked. I wasn’t really sure what to think or do. I couldn’t absorb or process everything we had just heard. I could not stop crying. I’m not usually a big public crier. But, between the horrific and unexpected news we had just received and the pregnancy hormones I didn’t have a chance at keeping it all in.

Throughout all of this, I couldn’t stop thinking about Madeline. As Laura shared more and more information with us and I became more and more upset, I couldn’t stop thinking about our sweet little girl. How can I be a good mom during all of this? Madeline deserves to have a happy home life even though we are devastated and heartbroken. How am I to insure she gets that? How am I going to have the energy to meet her needs? How am I going to have the energy to have our dance parties and tickle sessions?

A new lady entered the room named Karen. She told us what she would be responsible for which I equated to being similar to a social worker. She said she’d set up our appointments, be available day or night if we have questions or concerns, and check-in with us throughout this to make sure we are doing alright emotionally. She, too, was compassionate and caring. We were surrounded by love.

With our new support team’s help, we decided this was enough for one day. We would be in touch with Karen regarding our decision on next steps. But for now, it was time to go. We were ready to leave. We asked if we could avoid passing through the waiting room on our way out. We weren’t interested in scaring the people waiting with our devastated faces. We left through a back exit. We left the hospital to go home and began talking about how to share this horrific new with our families and eventually our friends.

Wayne originally planned to go back to work, but just went to grab his things and leave. We agreed he would follow me home as I was determined to drive. He also called our immediate families to tell them the ultrasound revealed some significant challenges.

When we got home we walked into the house together. Madeline was glad to see us. She gave us big hugs… exactly what we needed. She asked to eat. I jumped right into action getting her dinner. This gave me the confidence and reassurance that I could take care of her even though I was devastated. She became my focus. A focus I desperately needed.

My in-laws could see on our faces that something wasn’t right. We shared everything we could. The look on their faces was pure shock. My mother-in-law gave me a hug. I broke down. This frightened Madeline. We explained to her “Mommy is Ok. Sometimes I get sad like you do. But I’ll be OK.” She seemed to understand as she turned around and began to play again.

Wayne and I had a wake to attend for two friends’ father that evening so after my in-laws left, we started to discuss the logistics of attending the wake. I also wanted to see my parents. We decided to go to the wake and and ask my parents to come over afterwards. As we were getting ready to go to the wake, there was a knock on the door. It was my parents. They needed to see us as well. My sisters showed up a little bit later.  My in-laws came back over as well. It was nice for all of us to be together. Wayne continued making phone calls to our closest friends. We didn’t make it to the wake.

Madeline knew something was up. She became very still and just watched as all of the adults sat around digesting this horrific news. She sat on my sister Molly’s lap. Molly continued to reassure her throughout the evening. It’s amazing to me how perceptive Madeline is at such a young age. She knew it was time to sit like everyone else even though she is a very energetic 17 month-old.

Eventually it was time for Madeline to go to bed. She went to bed like a champ. Everyone was there to give her goodnight hugs and kisses- exactly what everyone needed.

Our family left a little while later. Then it was just us. In some ways we were exhausted. In other ways, we couldn’t sleep.

We got into bed. I know we slept a little bit, but around 3am, we were abruptly awaken to Madeline crying/screaming. This was extremely unusual. Both of us jumped out of bed and were practically running into each other to get to Madeline as quickly as possible. We brought Madeline into bed with us. She was fine, but wide awake now. We were up for 2 hours snuggling. Madeline was being silly and making us laugh. This healthy dose of humor and hearing those sweet baby girl giggles was a perfect distraction from replaying our terrible day over and over throughout the night. When we started to get sleepy, Wayne and I began “fighting” over who got to hold Madeline. Before we all fell asleep, Wayne was hugging her abdomen and I had her legs- a perfect compromise. Poor Madeline was a trooper even though it was rather strange to be “restrained” by your parents when all you want to do is sleep. Finally, we were all asleep. Maybe when we wake up this nightmare will be over… it wasn’t.

[twitter_follow username=”CatherineCares” language=”en”]

[fblike style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial”]

[fbshare type=”button” width=”100″]

We took a family trip to California. It was Madeline’s first time on an airplane. She did a fantastic job. She was a wee bit restless but not bad for a 17 month old. We brought chocolate in little bags to hand out to passengers near us as a peace offering since we had no idea what to expect from her. We attached a little note as well which read,

“Hello. My name is Madeline. This is my first time flying. My parents are going to do everything in their power to keep me entertained and happy. But just in case, here is some chocolate for you. Mama always says, ‘Everything is better with a little chocolate.’ Enjoy your flight! ~Madeline”

These peace offerings were a huge hit. In fact, one little kid gave Madeline a high five at the end of the flight because she did such a great job. It was really sweet!

The first part of our trip was spent in San Diego. We attended a Cardinals vs Padres game with many family members. The Cardinals won which was great since we’re from St. Louis. We spent a day on Coronado Island exploring and playing on the beach. We attended the beautiful wedding of my cousin and his wife. We had a great time celebrating a lovely couple. And we toured the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier. This first leg of the trip was jammed packed with fun and a trip of firsts for miss Madeline- first flight, first Cardinals’ game, first aircraft carrier, and first time at the beach!

After we left San Diego, we then spent one night in wine country. The resort where we stayed was nice and quiet on a golf course. As much fun as we had with family in San Diego, it was nice to be the three of us with no schedule. Although I couldn’t partake since I’m pregnant, we decided to go to a lovely little winery run by a very nice couple with a beautiful view of the countryside. We had the place all to ourselves. We even shipped a few bottles home so I can partake after baby #2 arrives in February.

Finally, we spent a few days with my aunt, uncle and cousins who live in Dana Point. We hadn’t seen their home in southern California so it was nice to see them in their habitat- and what a lovely habitat it is! As an added bonus, some of Wayne’s next door neighbors growing up, whom he adores, lived close to the area so he got to catch up with them one afternoon. We enjoyed playing at the beach, swimming, taking walks, and shopping in Laguna Beach. We do not get to see this side of the family often it was nice to have them all to ourselves. And, it was extra special they got to know Madeline so well.

There were so many reasons why this trip was great fun. We made many memories together as a family and we have a ton of pictures to prove it. But, what made me most happy was to have Wayne all to ourselves. He works so hard to provide for our family day in and day out. But every hard worker needs a break and we hadn’t had a lengthy vacation in 3 years. I’m so glad we were able to make that happen for our family but especially for Wayne.

The summer was winding down a few weeks after we returned home. We enjoyed the last few days of summer. I continued to grow at a rapid pace. But, hey, I was having baby number two so I figured my body knew what it was doing.

[twitter_follow username=”CatherineCares” language=”en”]

[fblike style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial”]

[fbshare type=”button” width=”100″]