Wii would like to play

I'm embarrassed to post this but I am suffering from severe shoulder fatigue. I am absolutely hooked on that darn Guitar Hero 3 and my shoulder is a hurtin. Thank goodness for Motrin. I sure feel like a rock star though. My rocker chick (Judy Nails) is super cool looking with blue hair and a fabulous body. I think I need to go join Curves.

The boys are also loving the Wii and Austin is hooked on the Wii sports. He is doing pretty well with all the games. He is golfing right now and it is quite comical as he only knows to swing really hard. The over the hole, and over the hole, and over the hole his ball flies until finally he gives up at a +8. Once in a while he will amazingly chip one in. Joe and Tommy make quite the tennis combo and Austin does well at that too. Bowling is fun also, especially when you throw the ball backwards and the people watching all spin around and scream. I can see why these things are so popular in nursing homes. Austin just got a ball on the green amazingly and he is all upset because they won't let him change his club from a putter. Well he just blasted it past the hole and off the green so now he is able to change clubs, here we go again, over the hole, and over the hole. I wonder if it sounds as funny as it looks. Time for baseball now I guess.

Tommy just finished his 4th and final day in a row of early hockey. Joe is already back in bed. Tommy came in joking that I will miss his next game because it is at 7:45 next Saturday. Can I just ask what fruitcake makes a schedule with hockey games that early??? Man oh man. Yes, I am lazy and enjoy sleeping in on the weekends! My brother Andrew plays on the high school hockey team and he has 5:30 am practices. That is insane! They are growing boys, how can they be successful in school after going to a 5:30 am practice? I just don't understand!

Wow! Austin just hit a Wii home run. He'll get some serious experience points from that!

I guess I will sign off. Christmas vacation is certainly flying by! I hope everyone has a wonderful time on this long holiday weekend!

Tales of Christmas and other tidbits.

What a wonderful 3 day spread of Christmas did we have. This one was very different from years past but good nonetheless.

The family was totally spoiled this year and we're loving all our presents. Santa brought the family a Wii and Austin is loving it! He is playing baseball right now. It is so nice because most of the games can be handled with one hand and he is doing awesome. He will also use righty a bit to box but usually drops it after a little while. Oh well, a little use is great. We need to kinesio tape it to his hand and see how he does with that.

All is well, I think of Autumn often but really am at peace with it all. Sr. Tereska reminded me again on Christmas morning that she is in heaven and I will be with her again one day. That is so comforting to me. I also have comfort knowing she is not suffering and was just too beautiful for earth. There was/is a reason that God gave her to us even for that short time. I don't know the reason, but I believe everything in life has a purpose.

I guess I will keep this short and just give you a few pictures.

In the hospital before getting started. Joe and I had a laugh over Aunt Noni giving us a new view of the "cookie bucket." Check Joe's blog for the latest Aunt Noni gift story. God love her! The booze cars. LOL. Tommy had the whole family cracking up because he was so excited that the cars had "gas." Whew was that strong, it was gas all right!

Christmas Program - Both boys did great! Austin before his performance.


Tommy the Shephered chumming it up with buddy Zane.

Autumn's service on Friday. The white ribbons say sister, daughter, and granddaughter. My Mom left her a Christmas tree Tuesday morning. It had an angel on the top and was a nice Christmas surprise.


Christmas Morning Madness


Autumn's tiny hands. The prints are smaller than dimes, except for the swelling they were perfectly formed.



I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. It's hard to believe another year has gone by.

Merry Christmas

This is why we didn't send out Christmas cards this year. ;) Well not really we just ran out of time but here are a couple that would not have made the 2007 Papesh Family Christmas card.




Excitement is in the air! Santa comes tonight! All our snow had melted Saturday night after a pelting rain but today we awoke to a fresh layer of snow. Yay, a white Christmas!

I hope everyone has a great holiday. We will busy busy running the roads seeing all the family.

So Merry Christmas from the Papesh's and God's Blessings to you and yours!

He Says it Best!

Don't I always talk about Joe always outdoing me? The bigger the better in everything. I tell him I budget $100 for him on Christmas, he'll spend $150 on me. I put up a blog with pics, he does a slideshow. He finished 7th in his high school class, I finished 18th. He got a full ride scholarship, I got a measly few bucks and am still paying off a huge loan! He cooks better than me! He is much more organized than me! About the only thing I've consistently been better at is ping-pong and video games and you have to go back years to when we've actually played. I'm reaching far here aren't I? So anyways, sorry it took so long to get to this post but I just thought I would link to his story on yesterday. He really said everything so well. Joe's Blog

I guess I will just add that it was a crazy day full of highs and lows. I had a very easy time with the service. I was very calm and unlike Joe, I remember just about everything. It was a beautiful day for December, mid-30's and the sun was out a bit. I wore my Jackie O sunglasses so people couldn't see me cry. The eyes, just give away your pain and I was happy I had them on. Joe and our parents definitely had a harder time than me. It was just perfect and so beautiful. It's hard to fathom that our little girl was in that pink casket and not inside of me where she really belongs.

Mass yesterday was so nice and I have so many wonderful students. I got many many hugs. I heard that they had a rough day yesterday behavior wise. It's the time of year I suppose and I know they feel bad about this too. It's the 2nd time I've screwed up my students lives. I had Austin early. I left a lunch appointment on Oct. 21, 2003 and told them I'd be back in an hour and didn't come back until January. I know that a few them handled it very hard. It's tough having a long term sub when you aren't expecting it. They all knew this scenario could happen. I'm just thankful I'll only miss 3 days and 2008 will be better for them.

At mass I had an old lady hug me and say "I've been there, I lost one at term." She had tears in her eyes and I'm sure she still thinks of that child that should be in their 40/50's. I may ask her about him/her later, I'd like to know about her loss. Sad to think about but maybe with today's medical technology her baby would have survived. I know if Austin had been born 20 or so years earlier he would not have survived.

One thing I've learned is that times in our life are not easy, I knew that before this happened. It's kind of like Joe and I were due for a tragedy. Things in our life had been almost too perfect lately. I get scared thinking about the whole bad things come in 3's. I guess if I search hard enough I can find 2 other bad things to get rid of my 3. I get that nonsense from my Grammy, she always had these nutty ideas like if you drop silverware that means company is coming. Bad for me since my house is always a disaster.

Yesterday was the worst day I had physically. I forget that you use muscles you're not used to in labor and felt worse yesterday than I did during the whole ordeal on Wednesday. I'm feeling better today so I'm thankful for that. I also slept GREAT!

I will try to get some pics on here soon, maybe in the next few days. I have some from the boys program the other night and of course I do want to get a few of Autumn's hands/feet on here and also her little casket and flowers. Now though we have to get ready for the busy day ahead. We're also a tad behind on household items like bills and laundry that I should try to plow through even though I really just want to be on this computer all day. I find myself on here at least every hour I'm home. I'll reread and reread the posts I've written over the past 2 months and am just amazed when I realize we actually made it to this point. I also just gaze and gaze at her pictures. I know eventually I'll get past this, I guess it's just so new that right now it's all I ever think about.

Hope you all enjoy your long weekends! Christmas break is officially here!

The Winter Solstice

Is today, Fr. Bill's homily at mass focused on the winter solstice. It's obvious that the Bible was written by people living in the Northern Hemisphere. Today is the longest night of the year for us Northerners. After today the days lengthen and light enters our darkness. It was a good message to hear on a day where I somewhat feel like I'm walking in the dark. Christmas is 4 days away, Christ be my light.

Autumn Rose had a beautiful sending off and I will detail it all later when I gather my thoughts. Everything was done perfectly and I have no regrets. Right now, the lack of sleep from a restless night is wearing on me. Didn't I say something the other night about never having trouble sleeping? I guess that long nap yesterday really screwed that up.

The day after...

Well today has been tough. We just got back from meeting with the funeral director and cemetery sexton. Again everyone we encounter on this journey has been so wonderful. We will have a small service at the cemetery tomorrow at 10:30. We picked out a sweet little pink casket. It's hard to believe still that we have a daughter. Girls just aren't that common in either family. Joe and I bought our plots and we're on the sunrise end of the cemetery and I will be buried with her someday in the future.

Here is the labor and delivery story I promised.

After getting the news that she had passed we decided it would be better for my psyche to go and induce right away. I could have waited a few days but I think that would have just made everything harder. So we got the boys and ourselves packed, they went to stay with my IL's and we got to the hospital around 7:30 Tuesday night. Just before 9:00 they put the cytotec pill behind my cervix to get things started. They only put in 200 vs. the normal 600 for induction because I had a previous c-section scar they were worried about if I started contracting too strong. They said with that small amount it could take 12 - 18 *edited from months to hours* to get things moving. They figured I would need the cytotec every 4 - 6 hours. Around 2:00 I started contracting, it wasn't anything really strong or painful at all but they lasted a long time and came fairly frequently. So they held off on another dose. They woke me up at 6:30 and said I could eat breakfast and have shower because they figured it would be quite a while yet.

So I did all that jazz and by the time I got out of the shower I was really contracting a lot and it was starting to hurt a little bit. I knew it would probably get a lot worse so figured this was the right time to ask for pain meds. Around 9:00 they came in and checked me and I was dilated to 5cm and the bag of waters was just bulging I guess. I got my shots of Nubain and that just made me feel drunk and I slept off an on until about 9:45. At 10:00 I felt like I was leaking so we got the resident doctor in there and sure enough my water had broke. At this point I was pretty nervous and shaking because I knew we were well on our way. I calmed down and just decided to rest again. I was feeling no pain at all.

Around 10:30 I felt her slide out of me; no pain and no warning that she was coming. So we called the nurse and the doctors got paged and it was a little crazy for just a few minutes. The OB doctor and nurses were just awesome. They put her on a pillow and described what they were seeing and whether we wanted to see her. I had seen some pics online, Joe had also seen a couple. The doctor told us that generally the pictures in our mind are worse than the reality. However, if we were expecting to see a beautiful porcelain doll than we'd be better off not seeing her and keeping that image. We said we were expecting "bad" and so he basically put her in front of Joe and said in so many words "what do think can your wife handle this?" I was already craning over trying to see her, I knew I wanted to if Joe could I could. She looked rough but the picture in my mind was indeed worse than what was in front of me. I had a few people I met online tell me when I was preparing for this that I would not regret seeing and holding her and that no matter what she did look like she would be beautiful to us. They were all so right. I could look at those pictures all day. The nurse took some beautiful ones of her hands and feet. As soon as I get around to scanning them I'm sure will share those. They were perfectly formed. My Mom was up there with us and got to see her too. So I'm glad she was real to more than just Joe and I.

Later that day, the boys came by with my IL's and were wild as all get out. I guess they were excited to see us. My Dad came by too. At 4:30 the nurses coordinated a little prayer service in the room with the hospital chaplain. My Dad decided to stay for it so he got to meet Autumn Rose too. The nurses had her dressed in a little gown that was made from a baby washcloth. She was all wrapped up snug and tight in a blanket and had a bonnet on and was in a basket. She looked beautiful and so dignified. I might share those pictures too depending on how they look in black and white. And that is Autumn's day with us. The hospital gave a beautiful set of momentos they really did a great job I can't say enough good things about the whole staff there! We went home around 6:30, the funeral home picked her up at 5:00. We drove by the funeral home on our way home and just said that's where she is now. Crazy I never thought about her being there when we were in the office this morning, too busy with other thoughts I guess.

The hospital plays a recording of Brahm's lullaby every time a baby is born. I remember hearing that when I was in the hospital after having Austin. He was in Ann Arbor and that depressed me so much hearing that. It was different this time. I must have heard it about 10 times during our entire stay. It didn't bother me so bad, sure it stung a little but I just kept saying happy for that Mom, sad for me. I did hear a few babies crying up there and one Mom screaming every few minutes yesterday. I never cried when that happened, I just kept thinking oh the irony. I would think maybe someday I'll be back in this hospital with a healthy newborn. We aren't even talking about trying, or not trying right now for another baby. I think we will talk about it in the spring. It's hard to think about now. I was scared to death to have another child, and sometimes I wonder if God didn't think I could handle another one or maybe I didn't want her bad enough. I don't know, I'm talking imponderables again and I know I shouldn't that. So I'll stop. :)

So now it's moving on time. It's been a sad day. I'm hoping that after tomorrow's burial service the true healing and moving on begins as it did with Grandma in April. I know that to everyone maybe we've done too much as she was just with me for a short time. I hate the word "fetus" and the poor funeral director was telling us a story about what the Midland hospital does with their "fetuses" and I just about died. She was such a big part of our life even if only for a short time. I'm glad the funeral director called her Autumn and our baby and said we weren't doing anything weird by having her buried as opposed to the mass burial the hospital has once a year with the "fetuses." The selfish part of me wants the world to stop and have everyone acknowledge our "loss" but I know that just isn't going to happen and it's not fair to think that it should happen. Life does go on and thankfully I have the boys and they will force me to go on happily. I don't want to dwell on this but right now it's all I think about it. I know that is ok for today and tomorrow but then it will be time to move on.

Thank you all for following our journey. Yesterday I had a record 186 hits on the blog. I know those numbers will go down and understand that. But for one day Autumn was ultra special and 186 of us thought of her. So for that I thank you. Have a good day and love you all!

Healing

Autumn Rose arrived around 10:30 this morning. Everything about this whole experience has been positive. I had so many fears and anxieties that have now been eased. I am so relieved that it's over and everything was so much easier than expected. We got to hold her and took many pictures. We just said our goodbye's about 10 minutes ago. She was just tiny tiny tiny. She looked very rough but if you could look past the hydrops and the hygroma she had all her features. We are thinking she had Joe's nose and my hands and feet. Again you would be amazed at how small she was. She could fit in the palm of my hand. Joe is doing ok and was an amazing support person through all of this. I couldn't ask for a better husband. He is down eating lunch, I know this has been hard on him.

They are talking about letting me come home tonight. Again I can't believe how easy it was. I'll probably share her birth story soon but for now I'm just going to relax and try to get some sleep. She was due 5 months from today. Thanks again for all the love and prayers. Talk to you soon.

Good morning

Not much to report. I've been cramping up and such since 2:00 so that is good but am not in any excruciating labor pain like I know can happen. They just let me order breakfast and then I get to have a shower and clean up before doing the next pill. I guess it's going to be a while longer, not shocking to me though.

Things seem to be picking up in intensity a little bit so maybe after my shower I'll get some pain meds. No reason to do this with pain that is for sure.

As for sleep when I wasn't being checked on I slept fine. That is one thing I'm lucky with sleep has never been a struggle. Have a great day everyone. We'll keep you posted.

She was only with us for the fall.

It's weird how time works. 3 months ago tonight on another Tuesday, I decided to take an EPT even though I could have a week earlier. I was in denial about being pregnant, we hadn't tried long and with the boys we tried for 9 months both times before being rewarded. I probably spent 100's of dollars on EPT's when we were trying for them and getting BFN's Big Fat Negative's every time until FINALLY getting our BFP. This time I bought 1 test and it was a BFP! It was so crazy! Joe and I were I think about as nervous and excited as we were the first time. But we were also crazy guarded this time. We didn't go share our news to a bunch of people right away. I think we were so scared with Austin's scenario that we either didn't want to jinx it or couldn't believe it was true. Maybe we knew. I don't know.

I hadn't really felt the baby move since Sunday so I was kind of expecting this today. I didn't dread hearing that it was over as I kind of knew. I laid the preemptive out there to the midwife that I hadn't felt movement and thought this could be it. She put the doppler all over and at one point we heard a slow hb and I quickly said that is probably mine. I was right, she kept looking and couldn't find it. So she gave me the u/s on the primitive machine that was in there and I was looking at it on the small monitor and you just knew, the baby lay there so still. I felt one fat tear fall out of my right eye and that was it. She left Joe and I there for a moment and then we went into the big u/s room and another tech confirmed that she was gone. She put the hb measure thingy on there and it was a flat line. Then we went to a different type exam room which I figured was the bad news room because there were a bunch of nature pictures on the wall and not the typical baby pics you see on the other walls. I guess the photos were taken by one of the docs there. So we went over our options and I could have waited to induce but for my sanity we decided to come in tonight. Ah, my Mom just stopped in so I will finish this in a bit.

Continued...Crazy Claudia is still here and her and Joe are shooting the breeze. I got my first dose of the meds almost two hours ago and not too much is happening yet. They think it will take a while 12 - 18 hours, with my previous c-section scar they have to go slower. I'm sure we'll be rocking and rolling by morning. I've got a darn IV and the saline is dripping so fast. I know I'll be up peeing all night. Oh well, I guess I should be up all night for the next year really but we see how that turned out. Ok, no pity party here.

This is actually a good week to have this happen since it had to happen at all. I've got Christmas vacation to recover and Joe is off already next week too. Something's just work out. Not to mention our name. I guess Autumn Rose is kind of poetic as we approach winter.

Well I seriously feel like I am rambling so I guess I will sign off. Thank you all for your love and support.

Well now!

Hello everyone, it's been a crazy week. You regular readers must be shocked to see two posts in two days. This week, I had that one mystery comment left on my blog and now according to my sitemeter I have people visiting from all over the world. Before I would get my typical local visitors and didn't really know who they were because so many of you know about the blog but don't leave comments. It was safe to say that the Illinois visitor was Deb, Indiana was Angie, etc. and that was it for me. In the past 2 days I've had many visitors from all over the US but also one each from Canada, Bolivia, Austria, the UK, and Australia! So if you are visiting, drop me a line. Let me know how you found the page and a little about yourself. I'd love to hear from you.

OH and almost forgot to include the visitor from Hungary! Too cool!

The XO Baby

This will be a boring full of nonsense post, but I noticed my visitor ticker is getting up there so you all must want a post. :)

Joe and I have been together for 15 years, married for 10. We knew early on we wanted to get married and the sooner the better. I was a senior in high school working at a dime store kind of place and Joe was at Chuck E Cheese. Not the best of jobs. January he got his foot in the door at this new internet company Concentric Network. It paid $8/hr and I thought he was rich during our $4.25 min. wage days. I knew from him getting that job we would be able to get married and we did about 18 months later. Joe quickly moved up the ranks there and with a bunch of stock options in a bull market we made big bucks. Every Christmas we get out the Concentric Network ornament and put it on the tree even though he hasn't worked there for a while because after all, "this is the house Concentric built." In 2000, Concentric and Nexlink merged and then soon became known as XO Communications. Darn XO, such crazy days. It just floored me when Joe talked about his former employer and laughed about having an XO baby. If you don't understand what Turner's is, basically all humans have two genes XX for girls, XY for boys. Either a defective egg or sperm, we really don't know kicked out the one gene and so we have an XO baby, that's really what the doctors call it. Just a silly irony I suppose.

That darn Tommy wants on this computer and says to me, "I thought you said you have 6 hours of school work to do this weekend?" Little Beast! I should have said to him you are up awful late for being 6! Mr. Attitude, ah to be 6 and think you are the shizzle! He did have a hockey game tonight and played great!

At school the staff is doing Secret Santa! It's fun and I've gotten a few surprises. My mean students come up to me today and say "we found a secret santa gift for you in the bathroom!" I was so excited and what do they do? They throw a roll of toilet paper at me! Their crazy humor! Gotta love them.

Austin is doing well still weiner shaking! What's a Mom to do? His cuteness lets him get away with murder!

Well I guess I shall go, don't know how much PC time I'll get with my 6 hours of school work. Only 5 more working days until Christmas vacation! YAY!

Amnio Update

Good evening, we got our amnio results back today. The baby does have Turner's Syndrome 45X. The good thing with this diagnosis is that it is highly unlikely to happen again.

Our appointment today went fine. While we were waiting in the exam room for the midwife there was a code blue in the lobby. An elderly woman was slumped over in her car and the husband just wheeled in there thinking it was his best option. So the two midwives and the doctor in the office ran down to help so we waited for quite a while before they came back. That must have been scary not being in an actual hospital setting. Hopefully she is ok. Our baby's hb was 192 with the doppler, very high. We got to have another u/s and the fluid just keeps getting worse and worse. The tech was a wonderful lady who assured me that the baby is warm and cozy and isn't aware of any pain. It eased my mind so much to hear that. My midwife and the tech both talked a little bit about their faith with me and that also helps. I just can't say enough good things about the staff there, they've been great through all 3 pregnancies. The midwife said we're kind of like a married couple, "the practice and us" for better for worse. Joe was joking that they were going to blacklist us as we have such odd situations. Joe always finds a place for humor, but that is a good thing.

So again we wait. Many moments I wish the time would just go by. I need to not wish my days away. Especially as I realize I will be 30 six months from today. Aye Carumba! I know a month from now I will be well on my way to physical and emotional healing. One comment I've heard from a few people is how tough this must be with the holidays here. It's not too bad actually and maybe it being advent is helpful to me; daily I'm reminded of the four themes of hope, peace, joy, and love. This year especially I have hope that I will be with my daughter some day in heaven and she will be perfect. I have peace knowing that she is not suffering. I have joy in my life with the great family I have. I have so many loved ones in my life; so many blessings.

So all is well on the Papesh front. Here is a pic of the boys with Santa. Only 2 weeks until he visits. Tommy is going to pee his pants when he opens his gifts. I thought I had a bunch more pictures to share but none of the hockey ones turned out. I'll try again this Friday night. Have a great rest of the week and thanks again for everyones thoughts and prayers.

Welcome December

My favorite time of the year. I can't believe we've already made it through a week. We've been insanely busy. I know I promised pictures last week and I'm sorry to disappoint. I actually had the memory card out one night to work on it and my laptop crashed on me so I said heck with it. That happens to me a lot, darn technology. For the record I'm on my desktop so no pics tonight either, sorry.

Not much to report, the baby beat goes on. The hb was back up to 175 on Wednesday. My next check is on Tuesday afternoon. I'm pretty sure I'm feeling movement so that is always neat.

The boys are absolutely crazed about Christmas! It can't come fast enough for them, but it sure is coming fast to Joe and I. Today we were out shopping forever and got so much accomplished. Ah, success. If Christmas came tomorrow we'd be wrapping all night but we'd be ready.

On the school front, we are in the full throes of Christmas play fun. Tommy is a shepherd this year and is so excited. He even has lines! I'm sure he'll do great. Austin is singing a couple songs and has been practicing at home. I can't get him to stop saying "We Wish you a HAPPY Christmas", I'm sure he knows it's Merry Christmas. Of course with Mr. Potty Talk I should be glad it's not "We Wish you a Merry Poopy!" He's pretty conscious right now about being good though, he knows Santa is watching.

Well sorry for the lame catch-up. I figured though that Joe has been updating his blog regularly and I have to at least post a quickie. He even has a slide-show going now! Just typical he has to out do me with everything. ;) It's his darn competitive nature I suppose.

I hope you are all enjoying the season and maybe I'll get some pics up this week!