I.Love.My.Life

I know it has been awhile since I posted because I have been incredibly busy doing so many things.

As all of you know I started school the first week of August. I have only had students for a week and a day now but I can tell already that I LOVE MY JOB! I honestly don't think I have ever said that before. I was so happy to even find a teaching position but to have found one in a school as awesome as mine, well, I know I am truly blessed.

Why is my school so awesome? Let me count the ways.

1. The staff are all very friendly with one another and get along really well. Sometimes this is hard to find in schools. Teaching is like any other job and people can get caddy or clicky. While there may be SOME of this at my school it definitely is low key and it doesn't seem to create issues like it can at other schools.

2. Our kids give the best hugs. My morning job is bus duty. This is one of my favorite parts of the day. I get to see my kids first thing in the morning and see what kind of day they are having. So many of them (especially the chronic kids) want to give hugs and tell you some kind of story. This is great for building relationships.

3. We do Back Snacks for our kiddos. Because my school is made up of an estimated 70% of children who come from poverty we make sure they ALWAYS EAT. We feed them breakfast AND lunch every single day....even half days. Every Friday we have what we call Back Snacks which means we send them home with enough food to get through the weekend. I had never heard of this before starting my job but I think it is an amazing concept and I am so happy we have something like that to offer our families.

4. We are incredibly structured. This is something some of our kids are lacking at home. Being as structured as we are doesn't only help the students but it helps the teachers too. There are procedures for EVERYTHING so students should always know what is expected of them.

5. My principal didn't freak out when I told him I was PREGNANT! Yep, that's right. I am 13 1/2 weeks along and doing GREAT! We actually never got the chance to have my surgeries this summer because I got pregnant. Because of my history my REI monitored me very closely for the first 10 weeks and now I have been released to a regular OB. I have been on a regular cocktail of meds from the beginning which caused a little sickness and dizziness but nothing I couldn't handle. I am now off one of my meds so I only take a prenatal pill, a DHA supplement and a baby aspirin once a day. Not too bad.

The interesting part is that my due date is February 25th. My nephew's birthday is the 18th, mine is the 21st, my niece's is the 24th and my older sister's is the 27th. That's right, we are all three days apart. Who knows where this baby will fall but there is a good chance it might happen on one of our birthdays!

I have already felt movement from this little one and I have gotten to see him/her three times already. The last time was two weeks ago and I was amazed at how much it already looked like real baby. I was also surprised at how active it was. It moved the entire time we were watching him/her!

When we ask Caiden if he is having a baby sister or brother he almost always answers sister. We will have to wait and see if he is right!

Other things that I have failed to blog about but are important to know:

On August 9th my son was baptised at the Lee's Summit United Methodist Church. We had friends and family in attendance and it was truly an amazing day.

August 18th I officially started my last class in order to get my MAT in December. It is going to be a class with a lot of work but it will be worth it when I see that pay increase. I have worked so hard the last 3 years to get to this point and it is so good to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

My husband turned 30 on August 20th. I had a semi-surprise party for him with the help of many of our close friends. We celebrated this last Saturday and HAD A BLAST! It was so good to see everyone. We got back in touch with some of our good friends that we haven't seen in forever and got to spend quality time with our friends we see once a month....or something like that.

Okay, I will keep you posted on my little bean and I will try my hardest to post more often.

No Posts Lately

I know I have heard many other bloggers talk about how they will come up with great things to blog about and then get to the keyboard and realize their mind is blank. That is me. I haven't been working this summer but somehow I have kept incredibly busy. So busy in fact that when I get the chance to relax that is exactly what I do...and nothing else. I officially start back to school tomorrow and I am so excited...nervous....excited.....you get the idea.

The month of August is an insanely busy month for me and I feel like I have been preparing for it all summer.

To start things off me and a few of my high school friends had a baby shower for my best friend Sarah last weekend. It was so much fun to plan and we all had a great time visiting and catching up with each other. I made my second diaper cake and it was a success! This one I did a little differently but I think it worked anyway. Sarah and her little boy Colt made out like bandits on the gifts- I couldn't believe how much cool stuff they got!

This coming weekend is Caiden's Baptism. We have a room rented out at Harris Park so we can spend some time visiting with family and friends afterward. All Caiden knows is that he is having a party this weekend and he got to pick out the plates, etc. Of course, he picked yellow EVERYTHING. He is obsessed with yellow!

The following weekend is the last weekend before the kids start back at school so I am going to be camped out in my room finishing up things. I went for the first time today to drop things off and get organized and I almost started crying. The teacher who was there before me left EVERYTHING! Not all good stuff either. The drawers were full of junk and trash and the closets are full of boxes with random things in them. There is no rhyme or or reason for how half of the stuff is put together. It is going to take many hours of reorganizing the room until I feel good about being there. I did get my desk put together though so that is one step in the right direction.

The next weekend is my husband's 30th birthday party. The fun part is that it is a semi- surprise party. He thinks we are just going camping with some close friends but what he doesn't know is that I have some surprises up my sleeve. I wanted to do something special for him but I also wanted him to have something to look forward to.

There are a few other things we have going on too but none worth mentioning right now. I will keep my focus on school for now since it is about to consume most of my time and energy.

I hope everyone has a great rest of the summer!

What a great day!

We were lucky enough to go to 2 out of 3 games this weekend at the new stadium. We went Friday night with some friends and had a blast. It was perfect weather to be outside and watching a ballgame. Caiden was even lucky enough to get to meet Slugger! I wish I would have brought my camera but I didn't because I had too much in my purse already- bummer! He was in awe the entire time Slugger was holding him. It was too cute.

Sunday we made our way back to the stadium with Jay's parents for an afternoon game. It was a little warmer this time around but still a very nice day. It happened to be a golden glove day for the first 10,000 kids and this one was signed by Frank White. Caiden is SO proud of his glove. I am so happy we got one...it was close!

Here is Caiden with his golden glove.

This is the boys in front of the Frank White statue.


Caiden hanging out on Poppy's lap.

Our group shot. I found a metal box sitting next to where we were standing so I set the timer on my camera and prayed no one would walk in front of it. It worked!

We weren't lucky enough to see Slugger a second time but we did get a picture with "him".

The boys watching from the outfield.

The view from our seats. Look at that screen!

They have added all kinds of interesting events that go on in between innings. Along with a kiss cam (which we already had) we now have a smile cam, a fan of the game cam, kids cam and a flex cam. When I started shooting this image it was a couple of little boys trying really hard to show us their tickets to the gun show.

Baseball

Today I played the most interesting game of baseball ever. To start off, I was always the batter and Caiden was always the pitcher.... and the catcher. Now you would think that would be fun right, to always get to bat? What I didn't mention was that I was also the one that had to field the balls while Caiden got to run the bases. Hmmm, what kind of baseball has he been watching? That's another interesting fact about this day (and most other days actually). We usually gather in his bed; Me, Caiden, Bunny, George and Slugger and watch "Daddy" play "baseball" on the "TV". Really it is just the 5 of us staring at the black dresser in his room. He will yell "Go Daddy!' and "Hit that ball!" while he cheers. We, of course, cheer right along with him. The kids got a crazy imagination!

These aren't the best pictures because I didn't change any of the settings. I just grabbed my camera and set the timer and ran back to the "field". Sorry! And in case you are wondering, yes we are in our pjs playing in the front yard. Hey, it's summer!

Time at Home

When I first found out I was going to stay home with Caiden this summer I have to admit, I was nervous. We both go a little stir crazy when we are at home too long and without that second income I didn't know what we could do together that wouldn't cost a lot. Turns out, there are so many free or inexpensive things to do together and we haven't even done half of them yet!

We have spent some time in Jefferson City hanging out at my parent's pool with family, gone to various parks around Lee's Summit, a free trip to the zoo, lots of free shows at the library, Independence Center play area on rainy days and a few play dates with friends.

Since I have been the one planning all the events I thought it would be a good idea to let Caiden plan our day last Thursday. From the moment he woke up in the morning I asked him what he wanted to do. We, of course, started with breakfast and then went directly outside to play. He is really in to baseball so we practiced our plays together. After lunch and a long nap we went back outside to play some more before heading to Baskin Robbins for some ice cream. When Daddy got home we spent even more time outside playing before taking a bath and calling it a day.

I have had so much fun spending time and playing with him this summer. I am so excited because now that I am officially a teacher, I can do this EVERY summer. I love you Caiden!

Caiden with his "bat" and ball. Check out those shoes on the wrong feet!

His blue moustache from his raspberry sherbet.

This is what he grabbed when we were leaving for ice cream. His bag is full of action figures and cars.

Practicing that swing!

Lily Turned 1!

Lori and Jason are good friends of mine so when Lori contacted me and asked me to take some pictures of Lily I said YES! I don't usually do this sort of thing but since I am still learning all the functions of my camera I took on the challenge. I am so pleased with many of the shots that I got. Here are some copies that I converted into Black and Whites.

Lily is one of the sweetest little girls I know and it was so easy getting her to smile. I had a great time playing with you girls! Thank you for the opportunity!

Asherman's Syndrome

Ever heard of it? Neither had we!





As I am sure you have already guessed, I have been diagnosed with Asherman's Syndrome. So.....What the heck is Asherman's Syndrome?! The image below kind of shows you.

On the left is what my uterus looks like and on the right is what it should look like.

Basically I had my first D&C (2005) and after my loss about a year ago (2008) I had to get another D&C. Through this process I developed Asherman's Syndrome. Most likely it was caused by excessive scrapping in my uterus. There are only a few ways to develop AS and they all have to do with surgical procedures due to miscarriages, fibroids, cysts, etc.



What happens is scar tissue develops inside the uterus. As you can see in the image on the left, there isn't much room inside there for a baby. This is because the scar tissue grows and starts flattening the uterus like a pancake. When this happens not only is there no room for a fetus to implant but there is no blood supply to keep it alive.



As you know, there is no blood supply where there is scar tissue. This means I was producing healthy babies but they were getting no blood supply to the placenta causing me to miscarry. So this explains why we saw strong heartbeats and what appeared to be healthy babies....they were!



So what's next?

The truth is we aren't for sure. We have no idea how bad the damage is until we get in there and see. For now, this is what our schedule looks like for the next couple of months....



1. Blood work-- I have to get some blood work done to test for Antibodies. This is not related
to AS but the Dr. wants to be certain there is nothing else standing in our way.

2. Sono Hysterogram done-- This is where they inject saline into my uterus so they
can say, "Yes, it is definitely Asherman's Syndrome". The results of this test are
immediate because they are right there on the monitor for us to see.

3. Hysterosalpingogram (HSG)-- This is where they inject dye into my system so they
can see how extensive the damage is. It is rated like Endometriosis and has 4
levels of severity. It can also start in one area and branch out to others like
ovaries and fallopian tubes, etc. Again, immediate results.

4. Laser Laparoscopy-- This is where they go in through my belly button and zap all the scar
tissue with a laser. Cool huh?

If everything goes okay and looks okay.....

5. Wait 2 months-- UGG! I think this part will be the hardest for me. The Dr said it will take this long for my body to heal and be strong enough to take on a new pregnancy.

After that, it's on!