Ode to Lincoln Nebraska: A Roadtrip Story

Parts one and two of my three part quest to collect the last member of my family (that 140 pound dog that's too big for planes) from the wilds of Michigan have been completed. Part one went better than I could have hoped and part two was absolutely, fabulously epic. It deserves three adjectives, I promise. Boy, do I have some great memories now.

Part one as a reminder, was a solo trek with my two year old, Lyra, from our home in Fernley, Nevada, to Drake, Colorado where my parents live. It was rather tame, all things considered. Lyra watched the car TV for two days straight, had McDonalds for most every meal, and ate entirely too much candy. She was happy as could be and didn't give me any trouble. I'm shocked, quite frankly. The first day we stopped three times and the second day we only stopped twice. That's it! We stopped in Salt Lake the first night and had a great dinner with friends that we will have to visit with more in the future. It felt like a vacation, not a quest. We made it to Colorado with very little fuss. I had minor car troubles, my transmission is testy, but as long as we go slow up the hills, I have some faith we will make it back to Nevada. 

The road trip part two was epic. I left Lyra with my parents overnight and took my brother, Martin, and friend, Jeri, along with me for company. We departed for Lincoln, Nebraska to meet up with my in-laws who were bringing the dog from Michigan, and one of my closest childhood pals, Jake, who happens to live in Lincoln and doesn't mind a spur of the moment visit. Only a little bit of a random assortment of people to see all at once. Especially considering I was bringing my current in-laws along to meet my first husband, I mean Jake here, I'll explain. Long story short, Jake and I were two of the most easily coerced/forced victims in a church camp theater act of the Jacob/Leah/Rachel bible story orchestrated by none other than my mother. We were bribed with baby bottle pops because that was a big deal when you're ten in the 90's. We never got officially divorced, I think that's just too much paperwork to deal with. Thanks again, Mom. I think I forgot to mention the whole first husband thing to my in-laws. Oops, in my defense, I simply forgot to mention it. 

So we set off on a Saturday, bright and early. Just kidding, we were like 15 minutes late because first, I knocked over a bowl of cereal on my shorts with Lyra's life size plastic shark (thanks for the consideration you show with your gift choices, Martin) and then Lyra wanted to nurse. And then as we were finally leaving, both Jeri and Martin had to stop to pee because they somehow didn't have time for that while I was nursing Lyra for 10 minutes. They were worse than the pregnant lady.

Our first stop of the trip was my hometown, good old Greeley, Colorado, for gas and food. And also to empty, yet again, two absurdly small bladders and my own pregnant one. I felt like a fool as we pulled into Starbucks and I realized my shirt was on backwards. After laughing at me, my supposed best friend said, "I thought your shirt looked funny." Thanks for the heads up, pal. After a second wardrobe readjustment we hit the road again with a fabulous eclectic and rapidly growing playlist. Interrupted only by YouTube video breaks. My Google search history is now full of everything from "Ludacris raps Llama Llama Red Pajama" to "Actual Cannibal Shia Lebouf" and "Flight of the Concords You Don't Have to be a Prostitute." Every one of those is worth watching, give it a go. You're welcome.

It looked a little stormy for about 5 minutes on the eastern edge of Colorado so we launched in to storm stories. And Martin (our driver at the time) made sure to tell us, "If you see a tornado make sure to holla at your girl." Which became road trip quote number one. We had to stop at the Nebraska sign and take pictures. Which is where this gem of a photo occurred. I just couldn't resist the opportunity to scare the shit out of my little brother. I mean, just zoom in and it gets better and better.

There are seriously too many good photos to include here. Go follow my Instagram (@miriamghoward) or Facebook if you want the rest of them. After laughing so hard we cried, we were on our way again, Martin at the wheel, myself with shotgun privileges because no one wants the pregnant lady to get carsick. We were casually chatting about the Kool-aid museum we wanted to stop at (a let down, trust me) when I felt something tickle behind me ear. I reached up, felt a bug or something, and as I pulled my hand away to see what it was, I realized it was a tick. Naturally, I jumped and screamed and reflexively threw it away from me. Unfortunately, I threw it in my brothers direction.  He was naturally a bit concerned and confused about what was occurring. He started screaming something along the lines of, "Oh my God! What the fuck? What the hell is wrong with you? What did you throw at me??" Meanwhile, I was writhing in terror in my seat screaming, "There's a tick! There was a tick on me!" So Martin started yelling back, "Why did you throw it at me?!? I'm driving, why would you do that?" After this back and forth, some hysterical laughter and intense searching mid drive for the missing tick we had to make a stop for lunch and gas. The story doesn't end here, not even close, but we will get to that in due time.

As we pull into the complex with the Q-doba we are aiming for, we all see it at roughly the same moment. The entire car let out this collective gasp as we spotted a giant Sinclair dinosaur statue complete with saddle. Immediately I'm all, "Pull over, pull over! We have to stop here!" So that's exactly what we did.

We grabbed burritos to go and were on our way again in short order. Jeri gave Martin a scare the first 17 times she burped, she really puts some power into them, if you know her, you'll know what I mean here. We are driving down the highway and I'm still shotgun at this point but Martin is in the backseat. I turned to him and said, "Ugh, I feel like I am getting phantom itches because of that damn tick." Martin let out a huge, dramatic gasp (bigger than our combined Sinclair dinosaur reaction), his eyes bugged out and he said very intensely, "Oh my God, don't move." I sensed the seriousness of the situation, froze, and started yelling, "Where is it, where is it? Get it off me!" Luckily, the tick wasn't on me, it was on the seat back behind me doing a stealth crawl up towards me. Martin grabbed it in a napkin and tried to squash it. Turns out ticks are hard to kill. So Jeri is just laughing and driving and trying to keep us from crashing. I'm screaming, "Kill it! KILL IT!" And Martin is shrieking, "It won't die! It won't fucking die!!" in a progressively higher pitched tone of voice. I finally calm down enough to say, "Throw it out the window," and Martin looks intensely pained before rolling down the window and saying, "I just hate to litter," quite sadly and tossing the tick, napkin and all, out onto the highway. Absolute insanity.

The rest of the drive was a little tamer. There was a lot of Martin dancing to 90's songs. We arrived in Lincoln and reunited with Schrodinger (aka big Mastiff dog for whom I go to ridiculous lengths) for a few minutes before locking him in the air conditioned back of the Jeep to calm down and nap. We all headed to dinner which was a good reunion, first husband, in-laws, and all. Afterwards, the in-laws headed off to rest from their journey while the rest of us headed to the souvenir shop because we had decided we desperately needed matching corn shirts to match our matching corn beanie hats we'd acquired at a gas station. And boy, did we find them. The checkout lady gave Jeri quite the talk about how rare these corn shirts were and how lucky we were to find three of them. They were real uniCORN shirts, haha. Nebraska, man, what a glorious place.

After that Jake and Martin spent some time reconnecting and reminiscing over their bromance. In addition to being my first husband, Jake was also my little brother's childhood church camp buddy. I convinced them to share a s'more, Lady and the Tramp style. That memory will live with me forever. My favorite moment might have been when Martin said to Jake, "Bro, your beard tickles." I did not appreciate these two properly as teenagers.

I was only allowed to use this photo after promising to specify there was a s'more there. There really was. #bromaceforlife

The evening and next morning were a now typical hilarity filled event. Jeri and I shared a bed and sometime during the night she moved and I thought she was Lyra. So I grabbed her arm and began patting her to try and get her to go back to sleep. At some point I was confused enough to sit up and look around and say, "Lyra? Where's Lyra? Lyra's not here....I don't think Lyra is here...." before giggling to myself and laying back down to sleep. Somehow everyone else slept through this.

When we woke up I texted the in-laws to meet before we all left. Unfortunately, I had to text back again that we were running late. Martin used body lotion instead of regular soap in the shower. Apparently, that can be a hard situation to remedy quickly. I wouldn't know. I can differentiate the word "soap" from "lotion." I did however have my karmic retribution for that mockery when I put on Martin's glasses instead of my own. I felt some legitimate panic that I was going blind or had ruined my glasses overnight somehow. That's how I learned my brother and I have similar taste in eyeglasses but vastly different prescriptions.

The kennel strapped to the Jeep set up that destroyed our milage.

Our trip home was remarkably uneventful considering the 140 pound cargo in the trunk. We stopped and took many more ridiculous photos. At the Colorado border decked out in our corn shirts and beanies, someone yelled at us to, "Go back!" Jokes on them, we were back.

So here we sit, in Colorado, waiting until Wednesday to head out. My brother is coming with me to drive back to Fernley and stay for a few days. More road trip adventures await! My plans changed this time due to my brothers new job schedule and Travis' upcoming surprise work trip to Bolivia.   And there you have it, that's how my roadtrip to Lincoln, Nebraska was one of the most epic roadtrip adventures thus far. Who woulda known. 

Almost 10 weeks!

How preggo I am: 9 weeks and 5 day, slacked on the blog for a bit with all the craziness

Baby size: Baby is canapé sized. Or alternatively southern pecan sized. Obviously.

Morning sickness: I don't want to jinx it, but it's turning out to be easier than with Lyra so far. I've still only puked twice. With Lyra it was like....twice a day. Maybe this means we will get our chill baby!

Food cravings/aversions: Graham crackers in goats milk. That's my favorite right now. And my dad's Nicaraguan sweet bread. Those are both really easy to stomach right now.

Other symptom: Nothing really right now which is a really weird feeling for me.

Weight gain: Nothing so far as I can tell, still around 125, I just definitely am already looking pregnant. I mean my uterus is already grapefruit sized from being fist sized prepregnancy.

Sleep: I only have to wake up once at most with Lyra at night and also to pee. It's actually really nice to sleep so much.

Mood: Surprisingly normal actually.

Gender: I have decided I don't care and, therefore, I don't feel the need to bother finding out until they're born. I did some reflection and realized I buy Lyra what I want or what she prefers despite her being a girl. And I've listened to some really cool podcasts and read some interesting books about transgender children and realized, it doesn't really matter. Sex and gender are different too and gender is more of a developed trait if that makes sense. So finding out about what kinda gear our kid has is irrelevant except for cleanliness in diaper cleaning methods. I think if I and remembering correctly, a sense of gender develops somewhere around 3, where kids really notice the differences and develop their sense of, "I'm a boy," or "I'm a girl." The longer I'm a mom, the more annoyed I get when someone is shocked that Lyra likes trains or asks her if she wants a purple or pink balloon. Because when I ask, I try to say, what color balloon do you want? She's pretty likely to say blue or green. Because she's 2 and she's learning colors. And today she likes blue. I really want her to grow up seeing a person for their personality and seeing traits like gender and race as irrelevant to any decision about whether she should call them a friend or not.

Lyra stats: Drumroll please, she has begun sleeping through the night!! She now wakes up once around 1 or not all all. She wakes up around 4 to 5 and may or may not go to sleep again, but still, amazing improvement. So if your kid isn't sleeping through the night, have faith. Mine is just starting to, sometimes, at nearly 2. Also she can blow her own nose. I don't have to always use the snot sucker. Those are the milestones that matter.

Movement: Ok. So. I feel like a crazy person but I keep thinking I'm already occasionally feeling something. But my brain keeps saying no way, it's too early. But I don't know what to expect since I had an anterior placenta last time (where placenta is between the baby and the front of my stomach) and I didn't feel Lyra until 19 weeks and within a week could see her movements from the outside. This time I have a posterior placenta so there is nothing in the way. Plus they say you feel it sooner with later children. So I'm confused. Time will tell, I guess!

What I miss: My pants. I am already switching to maternity clothes. I can fit in the regular stuff, but it feels like I just ate thanksgiving dinner every day if I do that. Also beer. And wine. With Lyra I never wanted a drink because I felt so sick. So this tradeoff is only a bit bittersweet.

Best moment this week: this epic road trip  that deserves (and will get) it's own post. Also Lyra started saying "Zoey" (thats my brothers dog) really clearly. I've never heard her say something so crystal clear. In her tiny toddler voice, it is the cutest thing ever. She also got sooooo excited to see my brother, her uncle "teen-tee" (Stinky) which was pretty stinking adorable too.

Looking forward to: Visiting a lot with my family and Travis family in the upcoming weeks.

I mean.....How could I not make this my bump picture?

On The Road Again

Every now and again I start thinking my life is pretty standard and boring. And then suddenly I'm planning a cross country road trip, while pregnant, with my nearly 2 year old. Now, I assume the universe threw this at me because I used the word "never." I will never drive across Canada in the middle of winter with 2 dogs while pregnant again. I assumed it was such a specific "never" scenario that surely I was safe. Plus Travis did have to drive Dinger (the mastiff) across Canada in the winter again. Surely that was close enough to lightning striking twice that if I said "never again" I was still safe from the universe having the last word. Alas, the universe wins again. This time I get to make a trip cross country to pick up Dinger. Once again, pregnant. No Roxi or Travis this time, but plus a nearly 2 year old. Should be easy enough, right? Now let me explain how this became my life.

So if you'll recall my earlier post about our move from Alaska to Nevada, we have a huge dog. In reality he's actually a tiny mastiff. Only 130 or 140 pounds depending on how spoiled he has been before being weighed. That's on the small side for a female mastiff, this is why his original name was Pipsqueak. But in any case, all airlines have put him in the snub nosed breed category (completely ridiculous as he is not a snub nosed breed but whatever, we can't win that arguement) and will not fly him cargo. Except United. The caveat is that they will fly him only to and from certain cities because his kennel is so big it can only fit on specific planes. This is why Travis had to drive him from Alaska to the lower 48 to ship him off to his parents' farm while we did the house buying thing. So now it was time to get him back, since all had settled after the move and miscarriage and whatnot, we booked him a flight to San Francisco. That is a 5 hour drive away. We picked the 4th of July because no one would have to take time off. We would do an overnight trip and have a good mini vacay. It went wrong on the evening of the 3rd, quite literally as we were walking out the door with Roxi and her kennel to leave her with a friend for a couple nights while we went to San Francisco.

Now I have to rant here. I HATE United with a burning passion. On the list of companies I hate, United is #1. Followed by United as #2. Then comes Comcast and #3, Priceline and #4 etc etc. Lost luggage, delayed and cancelled flights....things almost always go wrong with United. I fly them only when I have no choice. My Google news feed sends me nearly daily, "United Airlines messed up again today," stories.

So we have had this trip for Dinger booked for weeks. I have a toddler in one hand, a plate of brownies in the other and as I'm locking the door Travis says, "Hold on, I just got a message from my dad that the cargo drop off in Detroit it closed for the 4th." And did I mention, around this time the cell phone service went out because one of three wildfires around here burned down a cell phone tower. Long story short, after Travis spent a good hour on the phone with United reps who got annoyed with him (they are sooooo lucky they didn't have to chat with me) there was nothing they could do to reschedule the flight. Why were we not notified earlier? Because they had typos in Travis' contact email. We also learned that they would not actually fly him out of Detroit because they had also entered a typo in the kennel dimensions we provided. Sweet. So we went from getting our dog back in 24 hours with minimal fuss, to absolutely no one would fly our dog across the country. No one can take enough time off work to drive him from Michigan to Nevada. So I began making plans for a 5 day (that's only one way) trek to Michigan and back. I figured I would take breaks in Colorado at my family's place and again in Michigan at Travis' family's house. It worked out to be a 3 week trek with 10 days of driving. And I have to leave pronto, like, Monday. Because we want to have some time to settle Dinger in before we go on our vacation to Michigan. The one we have planned in August, the only time we can go before I'm too pregnant. The only time Travis and Lyra will get to see a good portion of family this year. I even thought about working my trip around that but we came up with something better.

After hours of planning and discussion and contacting friends and family, it has turned into a 2 week long vacation to Colorado/roadtrip with my brother. I am actually excited to go now. I mean, I don't think I would do this just for fun if I didn't have to right now, but still. So here's the rundown of the epic journey to come.

It takes 2 days of driving to get to Colorado. I will rot Lyra's brain with TV and bribe her with junk food along the way. I'm totally buying a car dvd player. We  even get to stop and see friends the one night we have on the road. I mean, I wasn't terrified to stay alone in a hotel with Lyra, but the extra security of staying in a friend's house is super awesome. Plus Lyra can meet a new buddy that evening to get some energy out.

Next step, we stay in Colorado for a few days to recover. That brings us to the weekend. I will leave Lyra for one overnight with my parents (my mom just proved she can handle Lyra overnight) while my brother and I drive to Nebraska. Travis' mom happens to have enough time off that she will drive 2 days to bring Dinger to Nebraska and then 2 days back to Michigan. Also, one of my good old school family friends happens to be in Nebraska, perfectly placed to meet for dinner. The kind of friend whose family calls and says, "Hey we are leaving tomorrow to come visit, is that cool?" Seriously that happened once. So par for the course to text this guy and say, "Hey so I'm coming through your town in like a week and half, can we chill?" And then text back an hour later and say, "Oh and my brother and mother and law and psycho dog are coming too. Just fyi."

So then with Dinger in tow, my brother and I will head back to Colorado, taking ridiculous pictures and video along the say. Then I'll spend some time visiting friends and family and keeping Lyra out of cars before driving the 2 days home. I will make a couple weeks of my first trimester fly by, Lyra will only have 4 days of car travel, and I won't have to be gone the better part of a month.  Our only other option was to set Dinger loose, homeward bound style. He'd probably end up in Alaska though.

Oh did I mention my morning sickness sometimes makes me carsick? Wish me luck, guys. Send me all the toddler appropriate audiobook and podcast recommendations.

7 weeks

How preggo I am: 7 weeks 2 days, a week further along than with my miscarriage, progress.

Baby size: Blueberry sized, or comparable to a Brookesia Micra chameleon.

Morning sickness: Oh yeah. It has begun. I was trying to read Lyra a book about sharks when the overwhelming urge to toss my cookies. Super fun to have to go back to book reading immediately after vomiting. And it has happened on 2 separate occasions while reading that book. I made it six more days than I did with Lyra at least. But I may never read Hark! A Shark! again. It is clearly a cursed book.

Food cravings/aversions: Food in general is a bit hit or miss for me now. Bland crackery things are generally ok.

Other symptom: As my uterus has doubled in size, apparantly, my need to pee has grown proportionally.

Weight gain: Still haven't checked. But the bloat is considerably calmer and I look much less pregnant again. I'd include a picture but the blogger app is a piece of @#$&!% and really difficult to work with. I still have never found a good free blog platform that works well on a mobile device.

Sleep: Continuing to work on it, finally cut off night nursing Lyra for good. We were down to just morning sessions but I'm tired of it and it hurts.

Mood: Frankly, I feel quite pissed off lately. It's hard to describe how much constant nasuea can mess with your head and mood. I mean, yes, there is some research that suggests morning sickness is a good sign that a miscarriage is much less likely. But that's not a 100% sure deal and I'm not that selfless. It still is shitty. I have no reason to think it will go away after the first trimester (with Lyra it stuck around well over halfway) but I can hope. I think it's slightly better this time just because I've done it once before and I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Someday I will not be sick every single day, someday food will taste good again, someday the thought of vomiting will not be the primary thought in my head. But also it is worse because I know what is in my future. And I've been feeling sick every day for 2 weeks now already and it is already getting old. Also it's hot out and Lyra is very much in toddler mode, 95% of my day is saying some form of the word "No."

Gender: Nobody knows, my running survey tally is girl: 1, boy: 1.

Lyra stats: Oh my god. So much sass lately. She wants to be so independent and I'm so exhausted from chasing her. Sharing is her biggest challenge these days but she's always so excited to go see friends which is fun to see.

What I miss: Still beer, also enjoying food.

Best moment this week: Probably my winning parent moment of the week. Lyra took off down a hill at the park that she always runs down and I always tell her not too run down and that I always hate chasing her down. So this time I mostly caught up and just gave her a light shove to knock her over and end the chase. I felt kind of like an asshole after I realized I'd impulsively shoved my one year old. Down a hill. In my defense she's nearly two and she thought it was hilarious and cackled hysterically as I carried her back up the hill.

Looking forward to: Hopefully getting more sleep as Lyra adjusts to no night nursing.

6 weeks

How preggo I am: 6 weeks and 5 days! Officially due on the 13th of February ❤

Baby size: 6 mm according to our ultrasound. The size of a chocolate chip, a blueberry, or a ladybug

I no longer look 20 weeks pregnant!

Morning sickness: Yeppppp. No puking yet, just one moment of dry heaving before breakfast as the cat wove around my ankles and Roxi whined for attention and as my toddler attempted to herd us all out of her way so she could shut the bathroom door while shouting, "aye-ughs, aye-ughs!" in my ear. Toddler speak for "Why are my morning eggs not yet cooked, servant?" Obviously.

Food cravings/aversions: Basically we have reached the, "All food sounds disgusting," phase. We try to watch TV at dinner now because it is easier to eat if I am distracted from having to taste it. I do still like sushi and watermelon though.  I had half a watermelon for lunch recently.

Other symptom: The heartburn and bloat have eased up a good deal, thankfully. I look much less pregnant again. I do however have this constant unpleasant taste in my mouth, that's a completely new one. And omg. Nursing is getting way more painful than I anticipated.

Weight gain: Still not a clue.

Sleep: Well Travis was gone this week and the cat chose to have a psychotic breakdown due to his absence.  I had to lock her in her kennel and place her in the guest bathtub, turn on the bathroom fan, close 2 doors, and turn on my personal white noise machine to the bacon sizzles setting to block her out. Now that hes back, she meows 2 or 3 times and settles in. And Lyra decided to get some teeth or something. So 2 nights this week were 2 to 3 hours of sleep nights which was a bit rough.

Mood: Mostly happy and hopeful tempered with a heavy dose of "I'm so fucking tired I have to stay on my feet and clean or I'll fall asleep instead of watching Lyra," and "I'm so happy I feel pregnant and nauseous but I don't want to throw up until I clean the toilets." So my house is clean,  that's nice.

Gender: I have one friend's vote in for boy so far. Any other guesses?? We (OK, I) have dubbed the baby, "Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All." Because Doctor Who.

Lyra stats: Still being Lyra this week.

What I miss: Still beer. And also wine. And my motivation to do anything.

Best moment this week: Getting our ultrasound! I mean, mostly baby was still way blobby but seeing that heartbeat was a big relief. And not seeing twins was a comfort, frankly. Plus the ultrasound tech let me pee before the exam, huge perk when they have told you to come in with a full bladder but you've slightly overdone it. So that was an extra awesome ultrasound experience. Also I have a posterior placenta this time apparently! Exciting because last time it was anterior (between the front of my belly and Lyra) and I didn't get to feel kicks very early on. Hopefully this one I get some earlier ones!

Our little blobby! The little black dot on the left is the brain. The right half of the big blob is the yolk sack, the left half is Stormageddon! 

Looking forward to: Being a little more in touch with how big Stormageddon is and being able to relax a little more.

And of course, our Facebook announcement. 

Week 4/5 ??

How preggo I am: I am somewhere between 4 to 5 weeks, still slightly questionable on the timeline due to not tracking and no period after the miscarriage. I have an ultrasound in 2 weeks and hopefully I can pin down the due date a bit. Sometime been the 10th and 16th of February, a Valentines baby!

Baby size: Somewhere between poppy seed and apple seed sized. Or somewhere between a water bear and a dot snail if we want to be slightly more unique.

Morning sickness: I think I'm starting to sense a hint of nasuea already but no puking, yaaaay! I'm hoping this is a good sign, I had no nasuea with the miscarriage  but toooons with Lyra starting around 6 weeks.

Food cravings/aversions: Horseradish. Specifically cocktail sauce. I was eating that with a spoon in Vegas before I knew I was pregnant.

Other symptom: Heartburn. I had a bit with Lyra in the beggining weeks but not this much. And bloat. I seriously look about 20 weeks pregnant (going off my Lyra scale) right now and it's really uncomfortable. I think it is really noticeable for me because I had bloat with the miscarriage that disappeared for a few weeks before I immediately got pregnant and bloated again. Didn't have this with Lyra if I'm remembering right. Oh, and I'm definitely on the must pee every hour train again.

Weight gain: I didn't track this with Lyra and I think I will only track this when I go to appointments. I struggled a lot with anorexia in the past so I don't keep a scale in the house anymore. But I feel comfortable finding out my weight with this baby. I'm starting out around 130 pounds.

Sleep: Soooo tired. But also I don't get to sleep in anymore. Travis is working on night wake ups with Lyra now, though.

Mood: Mostly happy and trying to enjoy myself but somewhat stressed/worried about these early few weeks.

Gender: I will be attempting to resist the temptation to find out because Travis really wants a surprise. We will see how that one works out. 😂

Lyra stats: MAJOR progress. She falls asleep in her own bed for nap and bedtime as long as one of us sits in the corner. Still working on night wakeups. She is still nursing but we're cutting back slowly since I'm tired of nighttime nursing and starting to get really sore, thanks to pregnancy hormones.

What I miss: Beer.

Best moment this week: Since this is my first post, I'm going to say finding out I am pregnant.

Looking forward to: Getting our first ultrasound and hopefully some peace of mind and a strong baby heartbeat.

My before picture, you really can't tell how bloated I am in a loose shirt. I wanted a cutesy in front of the barn door instagramey picture. I got a toddler and dog photo bomb instead. 

My face when I pulled my shirt tight and saw how bloated I was. Seriously, it is ridiculous. And it is as uncomfortable as it looks. 

No but really, I was 21 weeks and some change on the left with Lyra. What is happening. 

Accidentally on Purpose

I'm writing this a few days after finding out we are pregnant again. I was torn between writing right away or waiting until we get an early ultrasound and see a heartbeat or we miscarry again. But then I was thinking well, we may miscarry after a heartbeat. Really anything can happen at any time so I'm going to do my best to be optimistic or at the very least, enjoy the time I do have. I would write out my feelings if I miscarried again, why shouldn't I write now too? This one feel different. But then again hindsight is 20/20. I had 3 miscarriage dreams the last pregnancy though, one the morning my miscarriage started. I'm also trying not to read into that though because it is on my mind now and I very well may have more of those dreams. And I dreamed Lyra was a boy 3 times when I was pregnant with her, never once dreamed she was a girl, and look how that one turned out.

I hadn't gotten my period yet after the miscarriage so I'm a little fuzzy on how far along I am. You can skip this paragraph if you don't want the numbers breakdown and internal monologue/debate of mine. I started spotting the 29th of April, bleeding the 3rd of May, and finally had the last day of spotting from the miscarriage on the 11th. The 11th was when I was very sure the pregnancy home test was negative as well. I also had blood tests so I know my HcG (the hormone home pregnancy tests look for, that is less than 5 in a non pregnant woman) was 25 on the 9th. From all that I was assuming my new cycle would start around the 12th, meaning conception could occur around the 26th and the earliest I could possibly get a positive (the kind you can barely see and may drive you bonkers squinting at it...aka the kind I got with my last 2 pregnancies) test would be the 3rd of June. Still only 8 days post ovulation for those of you familiar with the baby making crazies. Since we were going to Vegas the 31st, we made the decision to wait to test until after our trip. And I decided I didn't want to drive myself crazy with testing and tracking ovulation because I knew this cycle could be weird. Plus we wanted to enjoy ourselves in Vegas. I didn't want to skip drinking for phantom lines and disappointment. The morning we were set to leave Vegas I caved, tested, and I got a strong positive test on June 3rd. Now they say that the strength of the pregnancy test has nothing to do with how far along you are, but I've noticed a huge difference personally, between the early 3 week days where you can barely tell if you have a line and you might debate a bit, and the quick and strong lines that show up around 4 weeks or so. June 3rd by my figuring I would have only been 3 weeks along which seems real early for a good positive. But who really knows. My midwife said her estimation was that conception was around the 20th or earlier which would put me due almost a week ahead of my figuring. I guess she's thinking 10 days after HcG went to 0? And I guess if you count the day I started my miscarriage as my new cycle date I would have been 4.5 weeks on June 3rd. That one seems the least likely. I don't know. Pregnant right after a miscarriage is confusing but I'm so glad it happened this way. Not having a fairly accurate due date yet is making me a bit stressed but I also can't really count what day pregnant I am and that's forcing me to chill a bit. (Future Miriam edit here. I was pretty darn close with my final estimate I settled on. I guessed valentines day, my ultrasound says the 13th. About as spot on as you can get considering measurement error and having no set cycle date to start with.)

Anyway, we were both excited to see the positive and I wasn't too sad to skip the mimosas that last day. Turns out I think I have been unknowingly living with a dairy intolerance for years. I was off dairy for a while with Lyra nursing but I keep trying to add it back in because cheese and chocolate and butter are basically my 3 favorite foods. And everytime I'm very sorry I made the attempt. I guess I just thought random digestive problems were normal and I was feeling better lately just by forced healthier eating habits from having an allergy baby. Oops. So that sucks. I suspect we can both handle some of the protein up to a certain point. We both handle goats milk just fine (it has the least amount of the milk protein coincidentally 🤔) and she isn't bothered by dairy in breastmilk. I just can't find a safe threshhold for myself, so better to be off it fully and not tempt myself into overindulgence. But I had a good last hoorah with dairy and alcohol before leaving Vegas. So that timing was great.

I keep getting sidetracked so I guess this will be more a general update not just a, "Hey I'm knocked up again but more on purpose and less accidentally this time," post. It's nice to know we appear to be pretty darn fertile people, it just remains to be seen if we can usually make babies who can stick around long enough. We got one though, so that's a good sign. The next one will hopefully be just as stubborn!

Speaking of, Lyra is in full toddler mode now. We have at least 5 meltdowns a day because she wants, "Keem" (diary free ice cream) all the time. She wants to pick out wildly inappropriate clothing and shoes (think fleece pants and sparkly dress shoes for playing on the playground when it is 90 degrees out). And she wants to be like me and wear all my jewelry and do her nails.  She also climbs everything and always has at least one bruise or cut.  She's still obsessed with sharks and now Curious George or "eeeiii eeeiii" because that's the sound monkeys make.  She has started to eat more and nurse less. And her favorite food is still sushi. "Susu" could be an everyday meal at our house. The ladies at the sushi place in town recognize us all. "She came in with your mom the other day and ate 3 things of salmon all by herself!" Yep, thats my kid. Travis has been taking over bedtime and we are just no longer nursing in bed before bed or nap because it takes waaaay to long and everyone needs more sleep. She's even starting out in her own room every night now that we're in our new house. We really wanted that to happen before the next baby. My mom staying with Lyra for 3 nights while we were in Vegas really helped kick-start that process.

Travis is enjoying his new job. (That's basically all the updates you'll get out of him 😂).

I'm in a weird almost zen mood about things. I have moments of intense anxiety but mostly it's just moments. I'm about done peeing on sticks since I feel reassured about the little baby now. I've nicknamed the little fetus Stormageddon for now. Both because we love Doctor Who and because I need a good gender nuetral nickname if we're going to stick to this not finding out all the info we can about this little one. I'm planning on doing some more regular blogging updates about this pregnancy. So hopefully you'll hear from us soon!

Here's Stormageddon! 6 weeks and 3 days, 6 mm long, crazy how tiny they start out. The left half of the big blob is actually the baby (the little black spot is the brain!), the right half is the yolk sack.