Yesterday, while I was trying to get Charlie dressed, he ran away from me, climbed on the dining room table and yelled at us (Alex, Belle and me). This picture was taken after I got his shirt and underwear on, he was buck-naked when this ordeal started.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Welcome to the jungle
Posted by Amy at 7:24 AM 1 comments
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Welcome Spring!
Yesterday, we noticed that the robins were trying to build nests in the eaves of our porch. We were all glued to the back porch watching them work. I couldn't get a great picture through the patio door.
Posted by Amy at 1:12 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Suprise, its Rhinephant!!!
We've been thrown a curve ball, we found out that I am 8 1/2 weeks pregnant. I know you are thinking, you wanted more children, why is this pregnancy such a surprise? I thought telling you our story may help you understand.
(The picture to the left is a picture of an 8 week old fetus, however, it is not our 8 week old fetus) Oh, you may wonder where Rhinephant came from --
Charlie insists that if the baby is a girl, it's name is Rhino, a boy should be named Elephant, so we call the baby Rhinephant.
Here is our story--
I have a condition called hyperprolactinemia, which is caused by a microprolactinoma on my pituitary gland. This is a tiny tumor like growth that causes my pituitary gland to produce an excess amount of the hormone prolactin. Too much prolactin and your body doesn't ovulate, causing infertility.
I took a drug called bromocriptine off and on for 15 years, with no luck in regulating the prolactin levels effectively. In December of 2003 I changed endocrinologists, my new doctor changed my medication to a drug called cabergoline. In May of 2004 I had a miscarriage, while this was hard on us, at least we knew this drug was working.Also in May, our friend Joyce went to Israel and placed a prayer for a baby for us in the Temple Wall in Jerusalem.
Between the new meds and Divine intervention (it wasn't until we started trying for number two that I realized how big God's part was) I became pregnant with Charlie and gave birth to him on March 27, 2005 Easter Sunday.
I nursed Charlie for a year, once he turned a year old, I weaned him and went back on cabergoline, expecting to get pregnant in a few months. However, this time the meds weren't working. I wasn't ovulating like I was suppose to, so we visited with a reproductive endocrinologist. He upped my dosage of cabergoline and put me on Clomid. Three months latter I was pregnant, only to loose the baby several weeks later. After two miscarriages, I wasn't sure I wanted to try again. Since it took us so long to conceive Charlie, we had already planned to adopt. We had just hoped to have two biological kids before adopting one or two children. After weeks of heart wrenching discussion, we decided to give Clomid one more try before adopting. But we did not want to do anything more invasive then that. After two more Clomid cycles with no pregnancy, we did a third cycle that was monitored. That is when you have ultrasounds and blood work done to help pinpoint when you ovulate. At the Feb 14th ultrasound, we were told that Clomid wasn't working. We had been researching adoption agencies and countries. We felt had we clear signs that we were to adopt our next child. After meeting with the doctor on Feb 18th, we were positive that we were not going to go any further with medical treatment. We started the adoption process immediately. We knew we wanted to use Holt International and felt drawn to Thailand as the birth country of our next child. I had stopped taking all of my meds including cabergoline, this should have caused my prolactin level to sky rocket and eliminate any possibility of getting pregnant.
At some point in the next two weeks, we conceived our baby. Even my doctors don't believe the meds had anything to do with the baby and are surprised that it happened.
So here we are, expecting a baby November 24th. Our adoption agencies required that we become inactive until the baby is born. At that point we will reactivate our application and go forward with adopting a third child. This just gives us another year to find the $25,000 we need to adopt. We will be trying several different fund raisers over the next year, so be on the look out for ways you can help.
I am doing well, I am exhausted, my tummy is a little upset and I have horrible headaches. My NP has suggested I try Gatorade, caffeine and Tylenol for the headaches. But if anyone has natural remedies, I would love to hear them!!!
Charlie is sure he is having a baby brother, while Doug is hoping for a little girl. My parents were in Israel the last two weeks, a prayer for this baby and our future children was placed in the Temple Wall.
Posted by Amy at 3:59 PM 2 comments
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Milestones and Memories
This was a very busy weekend for us, Charlie managed to hold up even when he was nap deprived (and so did mama).
Saturday started with a trip across town to celebrate our friends Tina & Mike's sone Isaiah's first birthday. We had lots of fun vivisiting with everyone. Isaiah surely is loved. Charlie played with the other kids and had a great time. He loved the mini-corndogs that Tina served.
Tina, Mike and Isaiah with the birthday cake.
Charlie and Braeden playing.
Posted by Amy at 3:15 PM 0 comments
Friday, April 11, 2008
Chopsticks and Octopus
Last night we went out to dinner at a Sushi and Thai restaurant. This was Charlie's first time eating sushi and using chopsticks. He had a great time with the chopsticks, the waitress had made them child-friendly. Charlie heard Doug ordering octopus sushi, and he asked if he could have some. Charlie ate the whole piece, he liked octopus. For those of you that are not familiar with octopus sushi, the flavor is very mild, but the meat is kind of chewy. Charlie also tried snapper sushi, which was yucky and omelet sushi which he liked. I was very proud of Charlie, I always hope he stays open to trying new foods. In most of these pictures he is chowing down on the wontons from wonton soup.
Posted by Amy at 12:37 PM 1 comments
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Are you happy?
I sent out an email earlier this week to my close friends and family asking
Are you happy?
How do you define happiness?
I was surprised by the thoughtfulness of the answers. Overall, everyone seemed to agree that they were more happy than unhappy. So I have posted a poll to see if everyone else confirms my feeling that overall people are more happy then unhappy.
Here are some of the responses from my friends and family.
Yes, I am happy because God made me and I happen to like myself -- insecurities and faults in all. After all, I am woman!
Instinctively, I would say "Yes, I'm happy". After all, what would people think if I answered this question as "No, I'm not happy"! Yes, I happen to care what other people think about me.
The obvious- where I’d like to have more money and a smaller butt, I am blessed to have wonderful parents who love me, great friends who I can always count on, and an awesome relationship.
I believe that God put me on this earth to help others and I’ve seen the difference that I have made in other peoples lives by living the life that God intended me to live.
When I come home in the evening, my son greets me and is so excited to tell me how his day was and what he did. It's that moment everyday that I realize God has a purpose for my life. I get great pride and happiness from the things that God has allowed me to have and the lifestyle my family lives. That's good enough for me.
So how do I define happiness? Being able to look at all the things in your life and focus on the good things. That is my goal every day and it's becoming easier and easier with each passing day.
Some people get so caught up in what makes them unhappy that they never stop to smell the roses and enjoy the view. Live, make mistakes (everyone does, despite what they tell you.) THAT is the key to happiness.
While you can be happy with your life, it doesn’t mean you are happy as a person.
I don’t have much to not be happy about.
Posted by Amy at 6:58 PM 1 comments
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Zucchini
I have always wanted Charlie to be a good eater. By that I mean someone who likes most vegetables, isn't afraid of cuisine from other countries and is willing to at least try something once. I started this quest from the beginning by making all of his baby food. We exposed to him to lots of different veggies, fruits and flavors. For the most part I have been pretty successful. Broccoli is one of his favorite vegetables, and he will eat Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Cajun, American, and French food (these are all that I can think that we have had him try.) But over the past several months, he has refused to eat zucchini. The only way I could get him to eat zucchini was to purée it and add it to red sauce. But, that wasn't good enough, I want Charlie to like vegetables, not simply get his nutrients from me sneaking veggies in to other foods. I finally remembered how the only way I would eat zucchini as a child was when my grandma fried it. Now, this wasn't fried zucchini like you get on the appetizer menu at some restaurants. The zucchini was sliced in thin circles, dredged in flour and pan fried until crisp. They almost had the consistency of potato chips. Then we would salt then and eat them for a snack.
So I fried up some zucchini and placed it on a plate in the middle of the table, placing a few pieces on Charlie's plate. While Doug and I dived in, we tried to convince Charlie how yummy it was. His first response was "me no like zucchini". After cajoling and scheming, we finally resulted into bribery. "If you eat on piece of zucchini you can get down and play." After some dramatics, where he pretended to eat some, he finally ate one piece. Wow! he liked it, he ate the remaining pieces on his plate and the few scraps Doug and I had left behind. I felt like doing the victory dance!!!
Tonight for dinner I made noodles and chicken, one of his favorite meals. In the broth I added onions and carrots for the veggies. Charlie took one look at the carrots floating in his bowl (once one of his favorite vegetables) and declared "me no like carrots".
AAAGGGHHHH back to battle vegetable, staring carrots.
For Charlie's birthday he received some money from his Aunt Sheryl and Uncle Tom. We went to Target yesterday and I let him pick out any one toy he wanted to buy with his birthday money. After walking down EVERY aisle, he decided on this motorized dragon. It walks, flaps his wings and roars. Here are some pictures.
Charlie asked me to take this picture of him, his dragon & T-rex.
Alex chasing the dragon Roaring like a dragon
Posted by Amy at 1:26 PM 0 comments