Through The Eyes of a Child

The holidays are a magical time when your a child. But to me, even though I am a 27 year old "grown up" no longer shielded by the innocence of childhood, the holidays were most certainly magical. My nephews make it that way. So do my brother and sister.

Seeing the excitement in my nephews eyes on Christmas morning after Santa came, brought back so many memories. VERY early, my brother and I would always get up and sneek a peek while my sister, following the rules, layed in bed and waited until morning.

When you are a child, the most exciting part of Christmas is opening gifts. As an adult, and in my opinion, the most exciting part is being with family and enjoying the time together.

Sometimes I sit back and I just can't believe TIME. I can't believe my brother is married and has three adorable boys. Seems like yesterday his GI Joes were invading my Barbie house, and I was stealing candy out of his desk drawer. I can't believe the sister that was the best friend a little girl could have, has been married for 10 years and is in the heroic process of adopting a beauitful baby from China.

Here's to MANY more magical family filled holidays, looking forward to the hope and promises that 2008 bring us.

Third Times A Charm..

Finding ourselves in familiar territory again is both refreshing and frightening. We are full of hope, but the hesitation of the unknown is hard to shake. Taking "baby steps" each day and focusing on the joy we feel knowing we are given another chance, helps us along.

The past haunts us, it is hard to give in totally, but knowing that there is a little one growing and developing fills us with a feeling that is absolutely indescribable.

We are farther along then we have been, in our 10th week. The progesterone the doctor has prescribed, combined with the fact that the slew of tests results after our last loss came back normal adds to our hope with this one.

Thanks to a find with http://www.bellybeats.com/ we have the luxury of hearing our beautiful little beans heartbeat everyday if we want and we love it!

The second trimester will be welcomed the first week in January with open arms and much excitement. Really this is the best Christmas gift we could ask for, and hope and pray that the third time IS a charm and that this little one is for KEEPS!

As a new year is approaching, looking back, 2007 was a year of struggles, loss and emotional/physical pain. We look ahead to 2008 with promise and hope that our dreams will come true and in July we will hold our little miracle.

I will try to post more often from now on... no matter what the future may hold!

Still Here...

I can hardly believe its been over a month since I wrote! I promise I will sit down and write really soon!

Counting our Blessings...

Today I feel lucky. I feel like even though we have been dealt a few bad hands, we still have an edge on the game. We haven't been through the worst, it's been difficult and painful, but some have greater hardships.

After we lost our first baby, I found a message board on BabyCenter.com. I mainly post on the trying to conceive and loss boards, it is like a daily therapy session. Every woman on those boards can relate to each other, we all know what we need. It is a fantastic support system.

Just the other day, we had a new woman join the board. Her story brought tears to my eyes, and made me go from being devastated with my own experience, to actually appreciating it. After carrying her baby girl for 37 weeks they received horrible news. They had lost their baby.

When the baby arrived, she was bathed, put in a white dress and she was baptised. They held her. They held her knowing she was already gone. I can't imagine that. My heart hurts just thinking about it.

Basically being told, here is your baby. You carried her for months, she is part of both of you. Hold her, look at her. But, you can't have her. She is already gone.

They have lived every day since for their beautiful baby girl in heaven, and have hopes of a healthy baby in their future.

We are lucky. We are SO lucky. Today we are counting our blessings. Blessings that didn't seem much like blessings at first. But now, through this woman's experience I can see that even though we are dealing with a lot of heartache and pain, we are lucky.

It is easy to become self consumed. To think about OUR lives, what WE go through and how unhappy and unfair OUR life is. I think we all need to stop every now and then to look at others. We need the experiences of others, to listen to them and grow.

Yes, there will be days when we all hate life, days when things can't possibly get any worse and we need answers we can't find. But really, why waste time focusing on the bad. When it comes down to it, we are probably luckier then we think.

One Day at a Time..

Picking up the pieces isn't easy. It is an inevitable process that has to start sometime. Just a week after hearing the heartbreaking news about our second baby, we find ourselves at somewhat of a standstill. It's hard to get yourself back to feeling that life is normal again. Having the hospital part behind us helps. I am sore, and constantly reminded of the physical and emotional pain, but I am ready to move forward.

Looking to the future, knowing there is hope that we wont have to experience this pain again, is promising. I am sad for those couples that have gone through more pain then we have. I can't imagine going through this experience enough times to count on two hands. But I do know that as long as there is hope, we will keep trying.

We are lucky to have such a good relationship and marriage, wonderful friends and a loving family to cling to. It really is so comforting when you are supported and loved. Eric is an amazing husband to me in times like this. He is so caring and loving, always wanting a kiss. He is stronger then I will ever be, but sensitive at the same time. I am so glad to be married to such a wonderful man.

I am anxious to be healed, to get the thumbs up from the doctor and to get life back to normal. To get to the gym, loose 10 pounds (being pregnant twice in 7 months, going through 2 surgeries and being on limited activity is anything but helpful to the figure) and to just enjoy the last months of our first year of marriage. We have plans to enjoy each other, enjoy what we have left of being newlyweds and just take one day at a time.

Hopefully one day soon we will find ourselves expecting a little Murray muffin #3, and this time, welcome the cute baby into the world and into our lives. We can't wait for that.

When the only job we had was to have fun...

When you’re a child, you dream of the day that you can be a grown up. You crave responsibility and to do the things that the “big kids” and adults do. It is ironic that once we are here in the big world, we sometimes wish we were back in our carefree childhood days. To be a kid again, when all you have to worry about is being home before dark, washing your hands before you eat and making your bed in the morning.

When the weight of the world gets me down, and problems loom over my head, I would give anything to escape and be a 6 year old again, living back in Wilton on Erdmann Lane. We would play endless games of kick ball and cops and robbers. Summer days/nights were the best. Bedtime was later, there was rarely a schedule and the homemade ice pops were always in the freezer.

I suppose the key is to always remain a child at heart. To keep that carefree feeling of childhood deep inside you, so when life drags you down and chows you for dinner, you can remember those happy days that helped make you who you are.

It is funny, back when I was a kid I definitely had days where I thought life was more than unfair. These days, what seemed unfair back then doesn’t even BEGIN to compare to what is truly unfair to me today.

No one ever thinks they will have problems having a baby. You always dream of it happening and just assume it will be easy. No one ever seems to think “I wonder if I will have problems?” You will get married, you will get pregnant right when you want to, and your baby will be perfect. Life is a fairy tale. I guess that must be true for some people. I wish we were part of that “some people.”

I am just trying to focus on the fact that hopefully this time, we will get answers. We will find out why pregnancy isn’t working for us, and hopefully what we can do to make our baby dreams come true.

We will make it through...

It is crazy how things can change at the blink of an eye. Just as our dreams were seeming to come true, the worst has happened. After seeing a strong heartbeat and growth on Monday, yesterday we found out that we lost our little Murray muffin #2. My back started hurting, it was a weird pain. I thought maybe I just had a pinched nerve, but it seemed much too early for that. Once I was at work I noticed some spotting, so I immediately called the DR. I picked Eric up and we went in for an ultrasound right away. Our fears were confirmed. We had lost our baby... where there once had been a strong heartbeat, now there was none.

I can't believe we are back here again, reliving this old pain that took so long to go away. It has been 5 months since we lost our first little muffin, and only 7 months since we've been married. It is a lot to take in and handle. I felt like once I had gotten pregnant again in May, I really had worked through the first loss. It is really easy to feel discouraged and angry, but we are trying not to. We understand that everything happens for a reason, and for whatever reason we are going through this again. We already know we are strong enough to handle it, but I have to say, this time around the pain seems greater. We really felt that things were going to be OK, that in February our little baby would be here.

It is still surreal, hard to accept, but a reality none the less. The DR will run a whole bunch of tests on our baby and me to find out what is going on. 2 miscarriages in a row is a sign of a problem. I pray that we find out that is going on and are able to correct it so sooner then later, I am pregnant again, with a successful pregnancy and a healthy Murray muffin.

I will continue to post blogs, we are still on our journey to parenthood!

My Favorite Wedding Picture

It is so crazy to me that it has already been 7 months since we got married. Time flies! I also can't believe that it is already 2007! Where does time go! It just manages to get away from all of us! I remember being a kid and sometimes it felt like time was going sooo slow. It was torture waiting for Christmas Eve day to be over with so we could get to Christmas. Now I just wish it would slow down every now and then!

The wedding was a whirlwind, but I wouldn't change a thing. Our wedding was truly everything we hoped it would be (with the exception of the DJ messing up my bridal walk music! How dare he mess with the bride!) Our honeymoon was a dream come true. The best trip I'm sure we will ever take. We had so much fun discovering the island of Maui on our own in our rented jeep.



Hopefully one day we will make it back for another adventure...

But for now, our little muffin is on the way! I go back to the DR on Monday for another ultrasound. She gave us a picture this last Monday... but it's really not very clear. I'm going to try to scan it to see how it will post here, but I will probably wait for a better one. She said next week we should be able to get a good clear one, I hope so! Once the baby gets bigger and there is more to see I will post each picture I get. I'm assuming that after my first trimester I wont be going in to the DR quite as often, so I'm not sure how many ultrasounds I will have after that. Definitely one around 15-18 weeks to find out its flavor! :) Can't wait.

Tomorrow after work we are going to the Orange County Fair. We get in free if we can make it there before 6pm... which we should be able to. It doesn't cost that much to go anyway, but thanks to Eric's badge we get these occasional "perks" and we want to milk it while we can! I'm going to try to remember to take the camera so I can post some pics. I know my sister will want to see! We took them to the swap meet last weekend while they were visiting, I wished the fair was going on, it would have been so fun to go with them!

SO glad tomorrow is Friday!

Our Blog!!

After my sister decided to start a blog about their journey to adopting their cute "China Girl," I decided we needed one too! Most of our family doesn't even know we are pregnant yet, it's still early (9 weeks). We are so excited to tell everyone, just apprehensive given our past experience. So far so good and we are just hoping and praying that everything works out this time and that our baby is healthy. The DR has been seeing me once a week to keep tabs and do ultrasounds. Its amazing just how much our little muffin grows from week to week at these early stages. I really understand why it is called "the miracle of life." Sounds cheesy I know, but its true. Life is truly a miracle. So many things have to just be perfect for the little life to be created and grow.

Our due date is February 10th! A close to Valentines Day baby! Just like Eric's little cousin Julie... her birthday is February 13th if I'm remembering correctly...

Right now we are just trying our best to take it all one day at a time. Its so easy to get ahead of myself... I'm so excited! I did start taking a weekly "belly pic" this last Sunday. I'm going to do it once a week, every Sunday. I'll post the pics up here each week so you can see my tummy grow! Here's the first belly pic:




Well, I guess that's it for the first post... we are planning on telling everyone after we hit 12 weeks... so not too long. It's so hard waiting, but now I can just post a blog almost everyday... then when we do tell everyone, they can catch up on everything!!