Yes. I am very very tall. Also. This… They are feeling the buds on the new little leaves. They said Wow, they’re soft. I say, Thank you Minnesota, for finally pulling off some spring. We’re reveling in it.
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I posted this news to Twitter and Facebook yesterday, so many of you know, but yesterday brought really really GOOD news! I had another test done yesterday to follow up on the one that was done when we first came in on Monday. That first test had a positive result, proving that I was leaking amniotic fluid (this is how they assumed there was a rupture tear.) I was also having numerous contractions that they immediately starting getting under control with magnesium. Well, friends. Today, the test to check for amniotic fluid was NEGATIVE. Meaning, NOT leaking. Meaning either there was a false positive that first night and I was in preterm labor with no leaking, OR the ol’ uterus was leaking and then it was not. (I think the second option is pretty cool, considering all of the love and thoughts and prayers that were coming our way.) Around this same time, […]
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30 weeks This photo is deceiving, really. I’m wearing a shirt over a shirt and the shirt over the other shirt is disguising where the back of my body begins. When I don’t have a shirt over a shirt, people say… Any day now, huh? Then I say, Any month now, actually! The end of June…heh. Then comes the confused gawking and stuttering, How can that be? Ryan and I have taken to calling the belly The Torpedo. It just shoots right out of my body and my belly button completes its pointed look. I’m a mom, this is what we do. We do things that change our bodies and exhaust us and there is so much torpedo-love involved. (But I will admit I walk all funny around the house saying OUCH a lot while voicing many other complaints.) I guess I’m just weary and waiting, waiting to not be so weary, even […]
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This is a train of thought: I’m a nomad. Or maybe the idea of being one just appeals to me sometimes. It’s like I’ve come with some sort of internal map inside me that needs traveling. So sometimes I just want an RV and my family and miles and miles of road. I want to stop and see friends and meet new people across the country and I want to teach my kids that there’s a great big world out there, you know? We don’t have an RV though and that’s okay, of course. Maybe one day we will. Maybe we’ll be those crazy people that other people whisper about–they are so weird-they just drive around. That would be okay. Today I get to travel a not-so-terribly-long distance to The Big City, where we lived over a year ago now. (I still miss living there, by the way.) I’ll get to see “old” […]
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She’s a transplant, I thought. Taken out of there, the place where she built a life and then placed here, where spring is hard to come by and everything that was once familiar from her childhood now feels foreign. Her stories are here and there and she is both places, even though where she was is emptied of her. Only her mind’s eye can put her back there. She can’t really be back there though, because she just can’t, for so many reasons and besides, new people are in her old home. They came along to fill the cavity that was left when she was pulled out. You have a lot of stories, I told her. She answered that she wishes some of them weren’t true. I’m sure, I said, and I started to think about how I wish some of mine weren’t true. The difference is that most of hers weren’t of […]
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originally uploaded by Heather of the EO {24 weeks} Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
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We love some of the names in this poll.We sort of like some of the names in this poll.We don’t like some of the names in this poll all that much at all. oooooh, tricky…. So really, the names we love will still remain a secret, even though I’m asking you to vote for a name for our baby girl in a poll, just for fun, because I’m curious and because I like you. You don’t have to sign up for anything and it’s all anonymous and stuff. So ready-set-go! One click! Vote! (and thank you!) What’s your favorite? Charlie (or Charley) Elsie Hadley Harper Ruby Stella View ResultsCreate a Blog Poll Oh and if you missed the video yesterday, you may want to watch it. Asher can teach you what happens if you give a chicken a lemon, and who wants to miss that? COMMENTS ARE CLOSED ON THIS POST. (I don’t […]
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I took this picture with an app on my phone, so I realize it’s hard to see, but hopefully you can tell it’s a little acorn hat. Right now it’s sitting up on a vase on our fireplace mantel, waiting to slide over a new little noggin in June. Speaking of the fireplace, sometimes I think we’re going to need to use it forever. We just got almost twenty inches of snow recently and another bunch is expected soon. I tweeted that the snow was starting to feel like a straight jacket. And so is the cold. We had friends over last night and they liked the fireplace. They asked if we had recorded the news show about me and alcoholism and our family. I didn’t know, but Ryan had it saved on our saving thing-a-ma-jig so we watched it with them and my whole body vibrated like I was nervous. I just […]
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21 weeks We are past halfway to meeting her.Pregnancy, for me anyway, is one of those things that goesboth too fast and too slow,mixing itself up to be just the right amount of time. I think back to seeing that faint line on the test, way back in Octoberand it was yesterday and soooo long ago. Before we know it, she’ll be here and we’ll be looking at her likeshe was always hereand that seems really far away,before we know it. It’s just the right amount of fast and slow and thenthere will be this soft and holy HELLO. She kicked right below my belly button right when I typed that. She did. Or maybe it was a hello punch. I’m not sure, of course. But it was just right. Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
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Her profile is so much like her oldest brother’s profile. I wonder if she’ll be more like him, or more like Asher? Or just plain different than all of us? For now all we know is that her profile is a lot like her oldest brother’s profile, a boy who will turn six the week after she is born. Ryan and I walked through aisles yesterday and we talked about six years ago. We carried that registering-for-baby-things-gun that beeps. (Yes, we created a registry for a third baby. We did. For moms and grandmas to know what we need, since we did that thing where we got rid of everything somewhere between colic and hydrocephalus…or maybe that was after…whenever it was it was obviously too soon, but we thought we knew we were done. Stress will do that to you…until time passes…I think I’m rambling like this because registering feels greedy even if […]
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I am here alone in a place with Internet access and food, trying to clean up my inbox and clear my head. But their conversation is turning my limbs light and my stomach in circles. They are men, with gray hair and pot bellies and low grumbling laughs, at the next table. They are reminiscing about the good old days, the “good old days” with women. Heat is rising in my cheeks and my heart is beating faster and everything in me wants to strangle, to rail, to fight, to scream…to get them to stop, to get them to see. Here you sit with all these years to know…and you still don’t know. They are talking so loudly…with so much pride, it sounds like bravado, and I feel sick. :::::Last night I was randomly struck with a thought, right before bed. I called out for Ryan, to come from the other room and […]
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They went back and forth. Asher said their sister was going to be Superman Girl and Miles tried to correct him with, No Asher. It’s SuperGIRL. He’d say, OH! and then say it “wrong” again. Superman Girl. I love eavesdropping. Yeah, we’re all over here just trying to figure this out. The beautiful reality is slowly settling in…There’s a girl cooking in my belly right now and there’s no way I don’t know that because the ultrasound tech kept saying “See that little hamburger bun?!?” over and over and over… (I will never hear “a bun in the oven” quite the same way ever again. Just saying.) Yup, there’s the girl anatomy! WE GET IT! WE GET IT! I mean, we were already so surprised and we just wanted to keep looking at each other saying “WOW” and “WOW” and “NO WAY” and then she just kept saying hamburger bun. Anyway… That is […]
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People have been asking and asking, Do you have a feeling? Do you know what you’re having? No, we’d say. I don’t know…maybe a boy? Since we have two of them? I don’t know? That’s why I bought the green oh-so-neutral guggy (our family’s word for a blankie) for the new baby. Then today we had our ultrasound, and when we got our peek… It felt blurry and surreal, just like that picture… a little peek of PINK??? WOW. We’re so happy and excited and totally and completely surprised.(The expression on my face in that last picture about sums up my current state of shock.)(It’s a very very good kind of shock.) WOW. There are just so many things you can’t know for sure until you know for sure. Now we know for sure, and even though this is all kinds of new to us, it is so good. THE ACORN IS A […]
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I’ll feel a little bump or rumble or slipping and sliding, something low on my belly and then I’ll reach there and wonder, was that you? who are you? maybe it was the buffalo wings… but I think maybe it was you. Before long you’ll be unmistakable. You’ll thud and thunder, roll and push. And I’ll know it’s you and I’ll start to know some things about you, just by the ways that you move in me. ::::: I can say that about me too, one year later.I’ll ask myself, was that you? who are you? Because all these months I’ve only been just a start, just a small thud, slipping and sliding, finding my way to growing my heart and mind and discovering what they were made to know and be.Not just being a bundle of a thousand mysterious things that are only there for the trying to be somebody else. Before […]
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Now. Can you imagine what that belly is going to look like at 30 weeks? 35?I can tell you. It’s going to look full. And it’s probably going to cover two more rows of tiles on the wall. And then I’ll have a baby. We will have a baby. That’s cool. It will be a boy baby or a girl baby, we don’t know yet. But I’ll tell you on February 1st. Word. Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
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One minute he was on the couch and the next minute, my youngest boy had somehow scurried off, his bare little feet making not a sound. (He looks so tall lately.)I said, Where’d Asher go ? He was just right here. And Ryan shrugged and laughed because talking about Asher just naturally makes a person giggle, even grown men. I went through the dining room and looked through the living room. No Asher. Just silence and the dark except for the Christmas tree lights.I said, I bet he just up and went to bed! And he had. There he was, under the covers, turned on his side, his eyes scrunched closed the way they do for the faking of the sleep. It hadn’t been long enough for real sleep. He smiled a little and we said prayers and goodnight and then I tip-toed out even thought I didn’t have to because obviously he […]
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It’s known as the BGE. Or Best Gift Ever. If you got one for your mother-in-law (or any generally hard to buy for person), you’d finally be able to sit back and relax, maybe even pat yourself on the back a little for your unique and useful gift-finding ways. No more gift cards or guesses at jewelry or clothes. Sound good? Okay then… I give you,the Moji Tension Release: I’m telling you about the Moji Tension Release today because I have one and I use it, love it, and want everyone I know to have one. I would say this is the perfect gift for every pregnant lady with a sore and tight back from all that front carrying and that would be true, but that would also be a bit biased and exclusive. The truth is, the Moji Tension Release (or MTR) is not just for we gestating mothers. You know, since […]
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{an EO and O My Family gift guide and giveaway extravaganza, benefiting bead for life} I’m so honored to tell you about today’s giveaway…well, both of them actually. Yes, it’s true. There will be another EPIC giveaway this afternoon! But for now… ~handmade~art~quilts~prints~cards~throw pillows~creative~fabric~multi-media~modern~ Just a few of the words that describe The Artist’s House,a lovely place to feast your eyes on the soul creative,thanks to Angela Flicker,creator and artist. these are a few of my favorite things… this one really needs to be on my wall. It asked. {print} You can follow The Artist’s House on Twitteror you can keep up with what’s new on Facebook. Today, Angela has been generous enough to offer TWO $25 gift certificates to her Etsy shop! Yes, that means TWO lucky winners! To enter to be one of the TWO winners, head on over to Etsy and take a peek and then come back and tell […]
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My addict mind has often told me that it wasn’t that bad, that maybe I don’t even really have a problem. And then something happens like the night with the wine for the cooking of the food. The way I was suddenly crying over that smell, suddenly frozen with fear and regret. Lately these surprise attacks of a clear memory of what it was like come packaged in morning sickness. I’m feeling sick (all through the day) not because I drank too much the night before, but for a much less guilt-inducing reason. The Acorn. My pregnancy. I’m so grateful for the constant nausea since it’s a good sign things are going well, growing and creating, cells and neurons zapping and popping and actual organs beginning to make their shapes. And all at the same time, even while I feel that joy, I’m frequently hit with this intense sense memory complete with every […]
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The Acorn has started to do that thing where if I don’t eat at least once every, oh…ten minutes or so…I want to throw up. Also. Color me exhausted. And hormonal. I even cried over a TV show I wasn’t even feeling all that touched by…I just thought it was a good time for a good cry. (No, I’m not complaining…just updating.) (The Acorn could steal my sight and maybe even one of my legs and I’d still be happy to house he or she.) (Sorry. That was gross.)~~~~~ I have something else to tell you and I can’t even stand it, it’s such good news. You may or may not know that the online magazine formerly known as BlogNosh is now Story Bleed Magazine. It has taken on a more organic, artsy, indie feel with amazing photography and continues with its goal of sharing the best writing on the web. Another beautiful […]
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Hello acorn belly, it’s nice to have you back.Seriously, friends. I’m only five weeks pregnant. In an effort to be honest, I will now tell you that I even cropped off part of my “backside” in an effort to shrink the entirety of…me. 5 weeks! It’s pretty crazy, what a body remembers to do. I really like it. ~~~~~ This post is dedicated to Kristen Howerton because she often says “remember that one time” before saying something that just happened, and it always makes me laugh. Just like her blog, Rage Against the Minivan, often makes me laugh. And this post is also dedicated to her because she has lived a very very long road to motherhood, in so many ways, and thinking about that helps me keep the perspective that I want to have. (Yes, I’m pretty sure you can dedicate posts to people…like the post is a book or movie or […]
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My hCG level went up. It went up. This is hopeful and good and now I’ve hit that feeling you get when you come down from a three day adrenaline rush and all you want to do is sleep for three days. But I’m going to go grocery shopping with my two toot knockers instead because I’m hungry. This is our Acorn… The Acorn doesn’t really have a stem like that, I just drew that in for kicks….but you knew that… Our little seed is smaller than an actual acorn at this point, but in the right place and on his/her own time clock. (I would like he or she to hurry up and get that little heart going so we can have our hopes confirmed, but for that, we’ll have to wait a couple more weeks.) (oooof daaaah) For now, we’re simply choosing to believe that everything is okay. That whole increased […]
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