To Three or Not To Three

 

I have been struggling for months now on whether or not to have a third baby. My head says " No no no you must be crazy!" But my body is saying "Bring it on!"  

I know I'm not the only one struggling with this. I went to drinks with some girlfriends last night and the subject ate up much of the conversation. That and sex. We always end up talking about sex. 

I look at my two beautiful kids and think - why would I want to rock the boat and mess this up? They're healthy, funny, smart and they love each other. Also, I can handle them ... sort of (I still can't manage to take them to the mall or the grocery store but that's another story). But I can handle them. One for each hand. It just works. But then something inside of me just thinks that someone is missing. I just feel like there should be one more out there.

I fear that by going forward with this it might make my life absolute chaos. But then I fear that if I don't at least try I may wonder about "what if" for the rest of my life.

I mean look at Angelina, she's doing it. Yeah, she's got like 18 kids and yeah she's got a nanny to go with each one of them, but she seems to make it work. Why couldn't I?

My mom tells me to absolutely not have any more kids. "Why chance it?" she says. What if something went horribly wrong? "Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it" she says. The 13 year old part of me wants to do it just to prove her wrong. Isn't funny how our mother's can still bring that side of us out?

I wish someone would just say "Go for it, it will be great!" And I would and it would be great. 

Anyone out there have 3 kids? How is it? I would love to know. 

Red Wine, How I love Thee

    

So on my quest for better health (and by better health I mean a smaller waist) I have tried to stay off the juice for a while. I did this once before when I was "cleansing" my body of certain pollutants: dairy, caffeine, sugar, gluten, meat. It was hard for the first few days but then abstaining from my daily glass of wine got a lot easier. This time around though, I just can't seem to stay with it. 

There is just something so comforting about that glass of wine at 5:00. After a day of dressing, feeding and negotiating with a 2 and 3 1/2 year old all day, that glass of wine is what gets me through the latter half of my day. I know I don't need the wine. I want the wine. 

So what does this mean? Now before you go saying "well this obviously means your an alcoholic" let me just say that I have my fair share of alcoholics in my life and I am rather certain I couldn't hang with that group. I do the al-anon thing too so don't try and say I'm in denial. I really do know that alcoholism isn't my particular problem.

I just truly cherish that one glass of wine at night. Like it's my little slice of "atta-boy" at the end of the day. And if you're a mom,  a stay-at-home-run- a-small-business-mom, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's good isn't it?

So, is it worth my waist line staying at it's round state? I don't know. But I'll contemplate it over a nice glass of Pinot Noir.

Come One Come All

New products are up on the website. Thanks to John Meyer for being the studliest web guy around.

Thanks John!

Check it out!

New Pics!

Thanks to my fabulous friend Traci French, our photo shoot yesterday went really well. 

Now I'm at the mercy of  my web guy to upload all the new pics to the website. 

In the meantime, here's a sneak peek. Enjoy!

Unbearable Decision

When I started this blog I thought to myself "what am I going to talk about?" Or more importantly "who is going to want to hear about me?" But as I look at my life and my experiences I've realized that I may have something to offer after all. 

Last week, late term abortion doctor, George Tiller, was shot to death while at church in Wichita, Kansas. I did not know much about Dr. Tiller. I knew that he offered women late term abortions. And I knew his death would probably bring the abortion debate front and center once again. This always infuriates me. 

I have realized that I can not sway people who feel vehemently opposed to a woman's right to choose. Nor do I care to argue with them (who seem to be mostly men and shouldn't even be allowed a vote on the subject) because there is no reasoning when it comes to abortion. I do know that my life, and the life of my husband would be completely different if it was not for the right to have an abortion, and a late term abortion at that.

My story starts with that first pregnancy test that came up positive back in May of 2004. We had gotten married the summer before and were pretty surprised how quickly we got pregnant. We told our parents and our friends and like so many young married couples, we were both nervous and excited about our new baby.

Time went on. I started to show. And then in September we went in for our 18 week ultrasound.

How exciting.  Dave took the morning off work. We went into that ultrasound room with great anticipation.  I laid back and got ready to see my first child. 

The pictures looked great. The baby was moving. There were hands and feet and a head. And then silence. The technician didn't say much. We figured she wasn't allowed to because if she was she would have certainly told us how beautiful and perfect our baby looked right?.

She did print off pictures for us to keep ( a good sign) and then told us to wait because the doctor wanted to take look as well.

That seemed normal enough. Remember, this was the first time we had done this. While we waited, and waited ( it took a long time for the doctor to arrive) I remember staring at those pictures that were printed out and saying to Dave, " Look! Look! This is our baby. This is our future. This is who we are going to have to save money for college for."

Then the doctor arrived.

He didn't talk. I remember that so well. He didn't speak to us. He came in, put the gel on my belly and stuck that wand into my abdomen with great force. He concentrated on the back of the head. And as he dug that wand down deeper to get a better look, I started to cry.

As it turned out the back of our baby's skull had not fully closed, leaving a gap and allowing brain tissue to protrude. Technically it's called an encephalocele. And at this point in the process I knew it wasn't good but I had no idea how bad. 

We were told that my OB would want to see us so to go upstairs to her office and wait. Here I was, in the waiting room where I had been dozens of times before on much happier occasions, amongst all these moms-to-be,  crying my eyes out as quietly as I could. I remember thinking that I didn't want to freak anyone out and I also didn't really know what this diagnosis meant for us. I sort of thought it meant that our baby would have to have surgery after birth but that she would be OK. That fantasy lasted until I saw my doctor's face and heard her say "Oh, I am so sorry." 

She told us, that after looking at the films, that our particular baby didn't have much of a chance. If she survived the birth she would need multiple surgeries and would be severely brain damaged. 

She recommended an immediate termination. 

We got a second opinion from a specialist who works with children who are born with encephaloceles. I think we always knew what we were going to do but we wanted one more person to tell us that we were making the right decision. 

A couple of days later, after feeling that baby move inside of me, I went into the hospital where I was supposed to give birth to her and I terminated my pregnancy. 

I still have visions of what it must have been like for her. I am hoping that she was never aware of it. I'm hoping that the drugs they put into my system completely knocked her out as well. This is the scenario my doctor told me and it is the one I chose to believe.

Three days later my milk came in. 

I never once regretted my decision to terminate that pregnancy. I do believe that our baby was not ready for this world. In fact, when I did give birth to my daughter Scout not even a year later, my husband's grandmother wrote Scout a card that simply said " Welcome Back" 

The point in sharing this painful story with you is that I feel lucky that during such an excruciating time in my life, I didn't have the added stress of needing to travel to another state or sneak around to an illegal clinic to have this procedure done. I was not treated like a monster and I have only my own self  and my lost baby to own up to.  And at the end of the day, we are the only two people who should weigh in on this subject. 

Dr. George Tiller did for women what my doctor did for me. He gave women a chance at another life. A chance at another dream. For me that dream was to become a mother. A mother for the second time, and for the rest of my life. I thank him.

30% off Sale!

Just  quick note to let everybody know that we're having a sale at BumpStyle.

For one week only, all of our shirts are marked down more than 30%. 

This doesn't happen very often so take advantage before everything sells out!

Thanks!

BumpStyle Contributing Artist Going to Columbia

Bill Santen, who graciously gave BumpStyle his "Gladys Knight" design for our shirts, has been accepted into Columbia University's School of Visual Arts MFA program.  

Bill is a native of Lexington, KY and is finishing up his degree at the University of Kentucky College of Fine Arts. He is a musician as well as a visual artist and founded the experimental folk/rock group, birddog. 

Bill has exhibited in Lexington, Louisville, Nashville, Detroit, and Philadelphia; and has received numerous awards, including the Transylvania University Guest Artist Award and a Gaines Fellowship.

We wish Bill good luck in New York!

Win a Bike!!!

What if you won? You could you know.

Talking About Tragedy

Last night my 3 1/2 year old was in the room when the news came on about the Air France flight that went down over the Atlantic.  Normally I turn the news on when I'm making dinner and most of the time my daughter is not in the room or comes in later in the broadcast when they're talking about health care stories rather than the war in Iraq. 

I know I should shield her from the news but as a former News Producer, watching the news is more than just a hobby, it's part of who I am. Just so we're clear, it's not just television that we expose her to, she also "reads" the daily paper and regularly scans the New Yorker. 

But when the story about an airplane falling out of the sky came on the television the other night I felt really uncomfortable having her hear about it. I guess because I didn't know what to say about it to make her feel OK about it. To make her feel like this couldn't happen to her. I mean when there's  story about a shooting or the war, I explain that those worlds will not affect her, at least not right now. But an airplane she knows. She's been on one and she likes to travel. So how do I explain to her that yes and airplane fell out of the sky but the next airplane she'll be on won't? 

I read in the paper today that there was an 11 year old boy on that flight flying alone. I can't seem to get that image out of my head. He was alone. No one to comfort him. No one he knew at least. I am so haunted by that. 

I know there are ways to talk to children about tragedy. I usually do talk to Scout about what she sees and if it's has upset her. So far she shows no signs of distress from watching the news. She didn't have any questions about the little she saw about the Air France flight. Although I know these things can take time and it might come up one day while getting her hair cut or going to the park. 

Again, I do shield her away from violent news when it's on. I know I should do more. I guess this recent event has sparked me to be a little more aware of what she sees on TV even if I think she's not paying attention. But for me, my question is,  how do you explain something so unexplainable? When I can't wrap my mind around the extreme tragedy of it all, how can I expect her to? And maybe that's the point. This kind of thing just can't be explained.